How do health care & costs in the US compare with other developed nations?
Kinda looks like there might be room for improvement, wouldn't you say? Note the graph goes 1970-2018. Source: [b]https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy-vs-health-expenditure[/b]
[sep][sep][center]UPDATE[/center][sep][sep] Infant mortality in 2020
Always remember that when people talk about the US having one of the highest per capita GDPs on the planet... this little number right here is a part of it. Not all, but some.
@smileylovesgaming Depends on how big the bills are. Also, here's some food for thought:
[quote]Other findings on payment patterns between 2014 and 2016 include:
* 63% of hospital bills were $500 or less; of those hospital bills, 68% were not paid in full in 2016. * 4% of hospital bills were $3,000 or more; of those hospital bills, 99% were not paid in full in 2016. * 10% of hospital bills were $500 to $1,000; of those bills 85% were not paid in full in 2016.
“There are many reasons why more patients are struggling to make their healthcare payments in full, the most prominent of which are higher deductibles and the increase in patient responsibility from 10% to 30% over the last few years,” said Jonathan Wiik, author of the book “Healthcare Revolution: The Patient is the New Payer” and the principal for healthcare revenue cycle management at TransUnion, in an announcement.[/quote] [b]https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/finance/study-2-3-patients-don-t-pay-their-hospital-bills-full[/b]
@ElwoodBlues bc SW is boring right now, im returning to this, what i probably should of said from the start is im a minimalist, in my perspective unwarranted insurance are only another form of excess, one of many, that are a negative impact on society and the planet.
@checkoutanytime says [quote]insurance is a socialist thing, i dont see as American. We are a Capitalist society, we reap what we sow, we DO NOT BEG FOR HAND OUTS![/quote] DUUUDE!!! Insurance isn't a handout - it's a service people pay for! Ask Donald Trump, he has insurance on all his real estate. Or maybe you think he's a socialist, [b]LOL!!![/b]
@checkoutanytime You are depending on the [i]other guy[/i] to be responsible enough to have insurance; that's not moot.
And my arguments about heart attack are not moot; as I said you could nod off tonight and wake up a week later with a $100,000 medical bill. But you're not gonna get a DNR bracelet, are you? Your kids need you too much.
BTW, malpractice insurance is frequently cited as a driver for our high medical costs. It causes some increases, but by no means all.
Most malpractice suits occur in state courts. States like Texas passed malpractice reforms in the early 2000s, yet their medical costs still match the rest of the nation. See [b]https://www.nber.org/aginghealth/2009no3/w15371.html[/b] The authors found that tort reforms had minimal effect on premiums of fully-insured plans.
Furthermore, according to [b]https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevecohen/2015/03/02/on-tort-reform-its-time-to-declare-victory-and-withdraw/#176c83d163ea[/b] [quote]... A team of five doctors and public health experts found that tort reform measures passed in three states — specifically designed to insulate emergency room doctors from lawsuits — did nothing to reduce the number of expensive tests and procedures those ER doctors prescribed... . . . What they found was that doctors in the tort-reform states – who were virtually immune to malpractice suits – prescribed just as many MRIs and CAT scans as doctors in the control states. Removing the risk of getting sued didn’t change doctor behavior.[/quote] According to [b]http://truecostofhealthcare.org/malpractice/[/b] the total yearly outlays for malpractice come to under $10 billion per year. We spend over $3 trillion per year on healthcare, so actual malpractice costs are less than half a percent of medical expenses. This article also discusses "defensive medicine" (AKA ordering a lot of tests) . The doctor there posts his own 2019 malpractice insurance bill: [quote]That’s right, $4,988.02 for the whole year! (It says $5,087.02 because they want a voluntary $99.00 yearly PAC contribution that they add to the the bill.)
The nephrologist who has an office one floor below me pays about $50 a year more than I pay and she runs a dialysis unit.
Also, a pulmonologist I work with pays $6,000- $7,000 a year, an ophthalmologists less than $7,000, emergency room physicians: $11,000-$12,000 a year, anesthesiologists: $12,000-$14,000 a year, surgeons (including orthopedics) $20,000-$22,000 a year and Ob/Gyn about $30,000- $35,000 (obstetrics always has the highest malpractice premiums).[/quote]
We have huge overhead due to a wide array of insurers, and (years ago) Republicans made it so Medicare couldn't bargain for better prices (which is a *distortion* of the MARKET!), etc.
[quote]Medical bills are reported to be the number-one cause of U.S. bankruptcies. One study has claimed that 62.1% of bankruptcies were caused by medical issues. Another claims that over two million people are adversely affected by their medical expenses. [/quote]
Also [quote]... such as the survey results of people with employer-sponsored insurance by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) / LA Times Survey in 2019. The study found that one in five people surveyed have been contacted by collection agencies, while 9% of those surveyed stated that they had declared personal bankruptcy due to medical expenses.[/quote]
And [quote]In 2011, researchers Tal Gross and Matthew Notowidigbo found that out-of-pocket medical costs influenced 26% of bankruptcies in low-income households.[/quote] Source & links in https://www.thebalance.com/medical-bankruptcy-statistics-4154729
@swirlie Never mind, I'll post it! [quote]Canadians live longer than people in the United States. Specifically, women in Canada live an average of 83 years, compared to 80 in the U.S.; men live more than 78 years on average compared to 75 in the United States.Dec 31, 2013 -- theglobeandmail.com [/quote] Infant mortality, taken from chart at top, expressed as number of infants per 1000 who die before first birthday: US = 5.4; Canada = 4.4; EU = 3.2
Source: [b]https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy-vs-health-expenditure[/b]
