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Increasing Health Care Expenditures

What is the LARGEST cause of increasing health care expenditures in the US?

  • Increasing Consumer Demand (rising income and population)

    Votes: 1 3.4%
  • Advancement in Medical Technology

    Votes: 5 17.2%
  • Cost Insulation from Third Party Payers (Employers, Insurance, Government)

    Votes: 16 55.2%
  • Employee Based Health Insurance

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • State Mandated Benefits

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Spending on Prescription Drugs

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Adminstrative Costs (customer service, IT, underwriting)

    Votes: 2 6.9%
  • Rising Prices in the Health Care Sector

    Votes: 4 13.8%
  • Aging Population

    Votes: 1 3.4%
  • Defensive Medicine

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    29

drz-400

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Please answer the poll and provide some reasoning for your answer if you wish. Note: Please select the LARGEST or most prominent cause for the increase of health care expenditure in the US in your opinion.
 
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Cost insulation.
It becomes a standard for people who don't have to pay for hardly anything up front, to get the best of what they can and as much of it as they want.
Medical care facilities and providers, are more than happy to oblige them.
 
In my opinion, I think there's definitely more than one significant reason for high costs, but if I were to list a few of the ones I thought were most responsible, I would go with the following in no particular order:

1) Increasing Consumer Demand (Aging population and rising prices both actually kinda tie into this)
2) Advancements in Medical Technology
3) Employee-based Insurance.

Edit: Upon looking through the list again, I would actually add that a lot, if not most of these factors are actually interrelated.
 
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Cost insulation.
It becomes a standard for people who don't have to pay for hardly anything up front, to get the best of what they can and as much of it as they want.
Medical care facilities and providers, are more than happy to oblige them.

Harry, this topic is making me profoundly sick. How about everybody in the forum chip in...send me a few bucks so that I can go to the doc and tell him that talking about health care make me sick?

Paying cash talks. It reduces the price of care by significant amounts, or so I'm told. Now that would be the perfect world, huh? Maybe I can offer my doc some of my chickens...or go hunt me up a critter or two. Mmmmm, mmmmm. Doc and Ms. Doc could feast out on that. Hey, it use to work.

So I guess my answer to the problem of rising health care cost....just pay cash. Sure you'll have to sell the car and house, but hey, health care will be cheap. Yeah, you might have to sell a couple of the kiddos too, but what the hell?
 
Harry, this topic is making me profoundly sick. How about everybody in the forum chip in...send me a few bucks so that I can go to the doc and tell him that talking about health care make me sick?

Paying cash talks. It reduces the price of care by significant amounts, or so I'm told. Now that would be the perfect world, huh? Maybe I can offer my doc some of my chickens...or go hunt me up a critter or two. Mmmmm, mmmmm. Doc and Ms. Doc could feast out on that. Hey, it use to work.

So I guess my answer to the problem of rising health care cost....just pay cash. Sure you'll have to sell the car and house, but hey, health care will be cheap. Yeah, you might have to sell a couple of the kiddos too, but what the hell?

That's not at all what I said but thanks for missing the entire point.
 
US healthcare cost ~25% more than any other country's healthcare per capita but is currently 34th from the top in healthcare outcomes and is well below most first-world countries in both years of healthy life and years of life.

The reason several second world countries have better healthcare outcomes, more years of total life and years of healthy life is the lack of preventive care and early intervention thanks to the lack of universal healthcare. The reason the US healthcare costs so much while delivering so little is the unregulated health insurance and pharmaceutical industries are grotesquely overcharging the US populous.
 
Given the US system it would be first the cost insulation. People have access to highly advanced medical treatment (costly) and want it. They dont have to pay for the MRI screen so they might as well take it if it is not too troublesome. The doctors dont have an incentive to keep costs down and probably given certain drug companies an incentive to increase costs.

Normal prescription drugs would be an aspect of insulation from costs

The next major aspect in the US would be administrative. Multiple payers means a large amount of paperwork sending bills to various outfights, fighting to get paid for services provided
 
one of the biggest reasons that nobody seems to talk about is how the insurance company chooses to pay its employees but mainly top dogs.

Its also funny when people act like health care has been on the up rise for YEARS and only once the new healthcare goes into effect it will finally "magically" go up


I was reading about one of the blue cross blue shield divisions and the CEO increased his salary like 1000% one year, gave himself a matching salary bonus while laying off employees, increasing customer costs WHILE they were losing money????????

this is an untalked about issue with MANY companies and CEOs the days of just making good money and giving great service / product seem to be over for many CEOs they just milk a company and consumer till theres nothing left and moved on because they get PRAISED for it. Look at that guy he owns a island he must be a great CEO. LOL
 
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You left out my first choice which is frivolous law suits that have caused more tests, defensive medicine, massive raises in the cost of malpractice insurance at every stage of medical treatment, and has driven many OB, GYNs out of the practicing their chosen field of medicine.

This needs to be a multiple choice poll because it's not just one thing that has caused the costs of medical treatment

to skyrocket, trust me I know having run up bills you would not believe.
 
US healthcare cost ~25% more than any other country's healthcare per capita but is currently 34th from the top in healthcare outcomes and is well below most first-world countries in both years of healthy life and years of life.

Source? Perhaps it costs less because the provider of health care GOVERNMENT doesn't want to put out that much. We have lower "health care outcomes" in the US due in part to the invasion from third world peoples from Central America. Also I belive that the statistics from some of the higher in the list leave out some outcomes due to political reasons. Also since the US is larger in population and is more diverse there is greater tendency for it to revert to the mean.

The reason several second world countries have better healthcare outcomes, more years of total life and years of healthy life is the lack of preventive care and early intervention thanks to the lack of universal healthcare. The reason the US healthcare costs so much while delivering so little is the unregulated health insurance and pharmaceutical industries are grotesquely overcharging the US populous.

One doesn't need Universal Health Care for Preventative Care (which is a recent development in medicine to start with) some insurance companies are doing this since it affects their bottom line. Insurance companies and Pharmaceutical companies are some of the most regulated businesses in the US. On a State level for the Insurance companies. And Federal level for the Pharmaceutical companies.
 
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That's not at all what I said but thanks for missing the entire point.

Gosh Harry... Did my satirical post rub you the wrong way? It wasn't intended to. My post was obviously on a different track, and which had nothing to do with your point. You hit nail on the head.

Health care happens to be one of the most complex social problems our nation faces - if not "the most" complex problem. Yet, so many people constantly attack the "symptoms" associated with the our problems...and attack a population of people who use and exacerbate the problem rather than examining potential root causes that reach far beyond health care consumers and even providers.

We have a broken health care system that became such because of the corruption and control of a broken government.

As the old saying goes - "the fox is minding the hen house."

I apologize for using your post as a spring board to make a nonsensical comment.
 
US healthcare cost ~25% more than any other country's healthcare per capita but is currently 34th from the top in healthcare outcomes and is well below most first-world countries in both years of healthy life and years of life.

The reason several second world countries have better healthcare outcomes, more years of total life and years of healthy life is the lack of preventive care and early intervention thanks to the lack of universal healthcare. The reason the US healthcare costs so much while delivering so little is the unregulated health insurance and pharmaceutical industries are grotesquely overcharging the US populous.

That is some of it, certainly but there is also an additional cost that is peculiar to America - accountancy. See over here if you go private you get charged a base rate per diem, Yes there are a few itemised costs but a lot of people within the industry are aware of the problem of diminishing returns - in other words if you try to account for EVERYTHING then the cost of that accounting is not worth the saving, But the system in America almost demands itemised accounting
 
Consumer demand immediately strikes me as #1 after Obama took office.
 
Source? .....

One doesn't need Universal Health Care for Preventative Care (which is a recent development in medicine to start with) some insurance companies are doing this since it affects their bottom line.

We have lower "health care outcomes" in the US due in part to the invasion from third world peoples from Central America.

Insurance companies and Pharmaceutical companies are some of the most regulated businesses in the US. On a State level for the Insurance companies. And Federal level for the Pharmaceutical companies.
Source was World Health Organization - because their site uses an app which produces a frame within a page, it is impossible to provide a link directly. Normally I do this when I post such info.

Insurance companies are using preventive healthcare to lower costs, but that does not help those who are uninsured and cannot afford either preventative or early-intervention care.

While a small percentage of healthcare outcomes may be due to immigrant (legal and not) from the south, most of those who are losing years of healthy life and years of life in general are people living in poverty or near poverty who were born and lived in the US their entire lives.

Insurance and Pharmacutical industries have record-keeping regulation, but they are not prevented from overcharging or making exorbitant profit in the US as they are in many countries. An example from my personal experience - earlier this year I had a pulmonary embolism and required an injected-in-the-tummy drug called Lovenox (Enoxaparin) twice per day for three weeks. The hospitalist prescribed the name brand product and my regular doctor prescribed the generic. The name band product cast $105 US per injection from Walgreen Pharmacy and similar from several other US pharmacies. The cost of the generic was $95 per injection. I decided to check the cost outside the US - the cost of that generic drug in Canada was ~$29 US, in England ~$28 and ~$26 in France.
 
Frolicking Dinosaurs said:
The name band product cast $105 US per injection from Walgreen Pharmacy and similar from several other US pharmacies. The cost of the generic was $95 per injection. I decided to check the cost outside the US - the cost of that generic drug in Canada was ~$29 US, in England ~$28 and ~$26 in France.

The problem with that is that they piggy-back on American R&D required to put these drugs to market. They are able to sell with minimal profit and no need to recoup billions in value-added cost needed to get from idea to store shelf.

This is why I wanted America to just stop researching drugs. Leave it to other countries. Then we can take what they have and sell it dirt-cheap because of a lack of need in recouping those costs.
 
Its increases in prices in the healthcare industry...Ripoffs and scams and overcharges and the biggest cost is insurance company greed.
 
The problem with that is that they piggy-back on American R&D required to put these drugs to market. They are able to sell with minimal profit and no need to recoup billions in value-added cost needed to get from idea to store shelf.

This is why I wanted America to just stop researching drugs. Leave it to other countries. Then we can take what they have and sell it dirt-cheap because of a lack of need in recouping those costs.
This assumes that most new drugs are developed by US manufacturers - something that was once true, but increasingly is no longer the case. US consumers pay way more for drugs developed elsewhere because in order to sell them in the US, they must be distributed by a Big Pharm company instead of the manufacturer. US lawmakers get huge contributions from Big Pharm to keep this requirement in place.
 
That would be a situation where I'm against it. If you go through a history of posts, one thing you'll learn about me is that while I tend to have vitriol about many government agencies, the lion's share of it goes to the FDA. They're the worst of the worst. If they were dismantled and the USDA was given loose-leaf spheres of control, I wouldn't shed a tear.

If anything is in desperate need of reform, it's this.
 
An essential service with inelastic demand is being delivered largely by for-profit companies. Not a surprise that the result is skyrocketing prices.
 
That does bring up a dilemma for sure. Oil/energy companies, pharmaceuticals, etc. could be a losing proposition because of legalized gouging.

Oligarchial collusion does put a damper on competition.
 
Here is an example of fraud as a reason healthcare cost are so high in the US:
Hill-Rom settles Medicare fraud lawsuit - BusinessWeek
Hill-Rom Holdings Inc., a medical-equipment company in Indiana, agreed Tuesday to pay nearly $42 million to settle a government lawsuit that alleged Medicare fraud.

The government had accused the company of knowingly submitting false claims to Medicare from 1999 to 2007 for bed support surfaces meant to treat pressure ulcers and bedsores. According to the charges, Hill-Rom asked "numerous and repeated" times for payment from Medicare for patients who no longer qualified for it, including patients who had died or were no longer using the equipment.

According to the charges, Hill-Rom would automatically bill Medicare for "long periods of time," "without making any reasonable effort to determine if the patients for whom it submitted the claims continued to meet Medicare conditions for payment."
 
Gosh Harry... Did my satirical post rub you the wrong way? It wasn't intended to. My post was obviously on a different track, and which had nothing to do with your point. You hit nail on the head.

Health care happens to be one of the most complex social problems our nation faces - if not "the most" complex problem. Yet, so many people constantly attack the "symptoms" associated with the our problems...and attack a population of people who use and exacerbate the problem rather than examining potential root causes that reach far beyond health care consumers and even providers.

We have a broken health care system that became such because of the corruption and control of a broken government.

As the old saying goes - "the fox is minding the hen house."

I apologize for using your post as a spring board to make a nonsensical comment.

You were jumping to conclusions about what I meant, assuming that I believed that people should only pay cash for health services.
Instead, you could of asked me to clarify, but you didn't do that.

Next time, when you try to mock someones position, try to know what you're talking about.
 
The correct answers to the poll question, at the most basic level, are:

Rising Prices in the Health Care Sector
Aging Population

However, "rising prices" is pretty vague and doesn't actually address the root cause. So a better question is what is causing those rising prices in the health care sector. For this question, the best answer is:

Cost Insulation from Third Party Payers (Employers, Insurance, Government)

The US has the worst health care system of any developed country in the world. It's the worst of all possible worlds: No incentive for anyone to cut their costs, and no regulation to limit costs. We should be dissuading employers from providing health insurance, encouraging people to move to high-deductible plans, and subsidizing health insurance for those who can't afford it.
 
The correct answers to the poll question, at the most basic level, are:



However, "rising prices" is pretty vague and doesn't actually address the root cause. So a better question is what is causing those rising prices in the health care sector. For this question, the best answer is:



The US has the worst health care system of any developed country in the world. It's the worst of all possible worlds: No incentive for anyone to cut their costs, and no regulation to limit costs. We should be dissuading employers from providing health insurance, encouraging people to move to high-deductible plans, and subsidizing health insurance for those who can't afford it.

While I disagree on the "worst" part, I'd say it was more problematic.
Otherwise good post.
 
People use insurance (which was intended for large medical costs) for things they should be paying out of pocket for, and don't care nor ask what the cost is since insurance is paying.

Lasik however, which is not covered, has a competitive price that keeps going down. If people used insurance properly and shopped around, providers couldn't raise prices so easily that people get use to them.
 
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