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A new government study says President Obama’s health care law will have negligible effects on total national health spending in the next 10 years, neither slowing nor fueling the explosive growth of medical costs.
About 32.5 million people will gain coverage, and health spending will grow slightly faster than projected under prior law — at an annual rate of 6.3 percent, rather than 6.1 percent, the report said.
FACT CHECK: Obama's tone shifts on health care
Sep 10, 4:10 PM (ET)
By ERICA WERNER and CALVIN WOODWARD
(AP) President Barack Obama is reflected in the mirror as he answers questions during a news conference...
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WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama told voters repeatedly during the health care debate that the overhaul legislation would bring down fast-rising health care costs and save them money. Now, he's hemming and hawing on that.
Obama offered some caveats when asked in his news conference Friday about the apparent discrepancy between what he promised and what's actually happening so far. On several other topics, too, his rhetoric fell short of a full accounting.
I'm just wondering why a heart transplant costs almost a million dollars in this country.
Tort reform would help slow the rise in medical costs. I know pooliticians claim it would make like to no differnce but that is B.S.
Talk with anyone who has been in the insurance business for the last 25 years and you'll learn the truth. Politicians are obligated to trial lawyers.
25 years ago I had major medical and spent 53 days in U.C.S.F. Hospital at a cost of about $82,000. Today that would cost about $500,000 if I had an HMO to cover it.
Also look at what law suits have done to the cost of Malpractice Insurance it is out of sight, and has made finding an Obstetrician in some places very hard or even impossible.
I'm just wondering why a heart transplant costs almost a million dollars in this country.
If we just got rid of hospitals in this country, or forced them to provide their services at much less than their costs, the average heart transplant would only be about $200k.
Here's a nice breakdown of what is associated with that cost:
Transplant Living: Organ Donation and Transplantation Information for Patients
And before you say it, hospitals have, on average, very low profit margins with many not making any profit at all.
Average profit margins are around 6%, minimum acceptable standard is usually at 8% for businesses as a rule. For insurance companies to be "gouging" they would have to have profit margins larger than they are currently that did not line up with the value of the service provided, if anything insurance is "cheap" compared to the payouts for services artificially regulated to inflated values.Well what do you expect when this policy is basically forcing people to go to the very insurance companies that have been gouging them for years?
I'm just wondering why a heart transplant costs almost a million dollars in this country.
According to Transplant Living, the average total cost of a single heart transplant in 2007 was $658,800. This figure includes the cost of obtaining a donor heart, at an average of nearly $90,000, about $23,000 in evaluation fees, $40,000 for doctor's fees, $383,000 in hospital costs, $93,000 in post-operative care, and over $29,000 for immunosuppressive prescription medications.
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