Health Care in the U.S. [split topic]

[Transborderwife 4,666]

1 minute ago, FloridaMinsk said:

 

Society suffers because we have mentally unstable people who are irrational out around us.  These are the same people hurting society.  

Yes I agree.  Some can be helped and some cannot.  A teenager who refuses to listen to their parents or go to school needs proper medical care and treatment, one that sits in their basement plotting to slaughtered classmates needs much more.

[FloridaMinsk 88]

33 minutes ago, Transborderwife said:

Actually I favor a system where those who are privileged take time to give back to those in need who cannot afford it or those who feel compelled to care for others.  Not every doctor is greedy just as some lawyers choose to be PD's

 

You are right.  Which is the reason why we  do not need gov mandated healthcare.  

 

 

[FloridaMinsk 88]

33 minutes ago, Transborderwife said:

Yes I agree.  Some can be helped and some cannot.  A teenager who refuses to listen to their parents or go to school needs proper medical care and treatment, one that sits in their basement plotting to slaughtered classmates needs much more.

 

It's nice to find points we agree.  

[NikLR 13,227]

Doctors have an oath.   https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath They give up the right to not help people regardless of pay when they become a doctor.  They enslave themselves to society.  They are generally paid quite well for that as well.  Ive never heard doctors in Canada complain about their salaries! Majority don't expect nor require  goods and services, including medical care, for free either.  

[Transborderwife 4,666]

38 minutes ago, NikLR said:

Doctors have an oath.   https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath They give up the right to not help people regardless of pay when they become a doctor.  They enslave themselves to society.  They are generally paid quite well for that as well.  Ive never heard doctors in Canada complain about their salaries! Majority don't expect nor require  goods and services, including medical care, for free either.  

An ex of mine is an obgyn in Orillia, a fairly small place and donates spare time to the ER when they're short on doctors.  His wife is a doctor as well and she used to do a lot of ER stuff, he kinda picked up her slack so to speak when she became a stay at home mom.  He never asked for nor wanted compensation.  He sees it as his gift to the community.  He also performs house calls as needed.

 

my daughters peid down here does the same and she's a Medicaid doctor.  

[FloridaMinsk 88]

56 minutes ago, NikLR said:

Doctors have an oath.   https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath They give up the right to not help people regardless of pay when they become a doctor.  They enslave themselves to society.  They are generally paid quite well for that as well.  Ive never heard doctors in Canada complain about their salaries! Majority don't expect nor require  goods and services, including medical care, for free either.  

 

you can't force a doctor to do a cancer treatment for free because of an oath.    The finances just don't fit.  

[FloridaMinsk 88]

1 hour ago, Transborderwife said:

An ex of mine is an obgyn in Orillia, a fairly small place and donates spare time to the ER when they're short on doctors.  His wife is a doctor as well and she used to do a lot of ER stuff, he kinda picked up her slack so to speak when she became a stay at home mom.  He never asked for nor wanted compensation.  He sees it as his gift to the community.  He also performs house calls as needed.

 

my daughters peid down here does the same and she's a Medicaid doctor.  

 

We lost the house calls when medical insurance became attached to your employment.   If we make some changes and add some freedom to our choices then we can pay for concierge care and extra perks by our general physicians 

[Transborderwife 4,666]

7 hours ago, FloridaMinsk said:

 

We lost the house calls when medical insurance became attached to your employment.   If we make some changes and add some freedom to our choices then we can pay for concierge care and extra perks by our general physicians 

We still have it with my daughter and she's on Medicaid.  My fathers' hip surgeon did as well.

[yuna628 9,676]

14 hours ago, NikLR said:

Doctors have an oath.   https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath They give up the right to not help people regardless of pay when they become a doctor.  They enslave themselves to society.  They are generally paid quite well for that as well.  Ive never heard doctors in Canada complain about their salaries! Majority don't expect nor require  goods and services, including medical care, for free either.  

As an example, I became quite ill last month. Well, everyone in the whole house did, but I got it the worst. Started having trouble breathing and swallowing so my husband took me to urgent care. The doctor who saw me was quite concerned and I ended up being there for a couple of hours. I knew I probably needed an antibiotic, but he was the sort of doctor to be very cautious and wanted to run some tests to make sure exactly what it was I had. I got into a bit of a debate with him about Mono and whether or not you could catch it again, because I felt him running that test was unnecessary - in the end I humoured him. They ended up running - strep, flu, mono, and a CBC/bacteria count - which proved I was negative for everything he thought and it was just a nasty infection. Sent home with a $2 Z-pack, something to help me breathe, and ordered to rest. Now, insurance required I pay out $60 copay, which is fine because insurance covers the rest.. but I just opened up my EOB last night and was floored at how much the doctor charged and how little he actually made. Granted he was overly thorough and cautious and there were a lot of tests run so the charged the insurance about $400. Guess how much he actually received? $75! That's it. No money even went to the nice man who they had to call in to patiently get blood out (I'm a hard stick). I pay nearly $700 a month for that insurance... and I feel as if I just ripped the doctor and entire staff off while at the same time being robbed by my insurance company.

 

There are a lot of great doctors in the US, but they surely do not become a doctor because of the pay. And I see that all the time. When my mom had cancer and needed surgery - everything cost somewhere around 30-50 grand. Medicare was great to her, but I don't think the doctors saw much in the way of a payout. They care about saving lives and helping people.

[NikLR 13,227]

My urgent care visit was similar.  $750 was charged to my insurance.  They "disallowed" all but $150.  There was a second visit of $475 and again, disallowed for all but $150.  I ended up paying the $300 from my HSA because of my deductible.  Perhaps if the health care was socialized, they would have received more and had more than 2 people in during the hour or so I was there because people wouldn't have been scared of the cost of seeing a doctor when sick or hurt.  I don't mind going to the Dr, but down here I wait to go, knowing that I have to pay out of pocket for 3k.  I have an HSA to pay for those expenses, but I know a lot of people don't.  Your doctor was at least thorough and I felt urgent care was for me as well.  However, I felt that my yearly visit was than thorough.  None of the blood or urine checks I'm used to receiving for thyroid and glucose.  Just the check ya over and done.  It makes me wonder if they've had to cut things out because otherwise they couldn't turn any profit or even potentially just pull even from preventative care visits?

[N-o-l-a 7,167]

1 hour ago, yuna628 said:

 

There are a lot of great doctors in the US, but they surely do not become a doctor because of the pay. And I see that all the time. When my mom had cancer and needed surgery - everything cost somewhere around 30-50 grand. Medicare was great to her, but I don't think the doctors saw much in the way of a payout. They care about saving lives and helping people.

 

I saw what got paid out on some of my father's medicare bills for his cancer treatment, life flight, and hospitalizations....  It was hundreds of thousands of dollars, which honestly was excessive for what he got.  It didn't even include surgery!  I think they paid a good portion of each requested bill, but there were some that they didn't cover or only covered a part of that I suppose were out of network or something like that.  

 

I don't want to get too cold hearted here, but it was obvious from his initial diagnosis that his cancer was going to be terminal and on average he'd have about 3 months, so I kind of feel like at least some of that money could have been better directed elsewhere.

Edited February 12, 2017 by N-o-l-a

[FloridaMinsk 88]

The only way to escape political blame for healthcare success or failure is to go to single payer.    No one pays a political price when the Veterans get terrible healthcare.   Single payer would just be extending VA care to everyone.   

 

As far as doctors not doing it for the money.    They charge what they charge to be able to pay off high student loan debt.   If they can't charge what they need then people will stop fronting the money to become doctors.  

 

In the end I hope politicians pay the political price to keep our healthcare in the free market.   

Edited February 12, 2017 by FloridaMinsk

[yuna628 9,676]

38 minutes ago, FloridaMinsk said:

The only way to escape political blame for healthcare success or failure is to go to single payer.    No one pays a political price when the Veterans get terrible healthcare.   Single payer would just be extending VA care to everyone.   

 

As far as doctors not doing it for the money.    They charge what they charge to be able to pay off high student loan debt.   If they can't charge what they need then people will stop fronting the money to become doctors.  

 

In the end I hope politicians pay the political price to keep our healthcare in the free market.   

This is absolutely false. My sister works for some of the best doctors in their particular field on the east coast. They got into the profession to help save the lives of others, advancing the best practices in the field, and even go so far as helping anyone they can when fighting an insurance company when they try to override the patient's best interests. They have done charity work in other countries for free, and if a world leader needs treatment for something in their line of medicine - it is them they will seek out. They don't charge prices to be able to pay off student loan debt. They charge what they charge because that is the cost, and they too have overhead which requires them to pay their employees salaries. Sometimes the doctor makes absolutely nothing to be able to just make his employee's payroll for the month. The insurance companies pay them pittance, and Medicare pays them even less. The average person coming into an office with insurance will never know the full cost of what the doctor has charged and how little they actually will receive from that insurance company they are shelling out thousands of dollars to each year. If a doctor is charging high prices to merely pay off his debts, chances are it's a doctor that doesn't accept insurance and wants pay out of pocket.

[NikLR 13,227]

Single payer is a horrible idea.  Do you know where all of your tax dollars go? Do you know what they pay for? Would it be so horrible if that money went to health care instead of a senator's expense bill or salary? 

[FloridaMinsk 88]

1 hour ago, NikLR said:

Single payer is a horrible idea.  Do you know where all of your tax dollars go? Do you know what they pay for? Would it be so horrible if that money went to health care instead of a senator's expense bill or salary? 

 

Agreed.  I was only mentioning  it as the way with the least political backlash.   

 

It's a horrible idea.