Brokers, medical billing staff, and other middlemen serve no purpose other than increasing cost (in order for an inefficient, openly colluding private cabal to invest premiums, deny claims, and collect profit) because everybody needs access to medical treatment.
On the other side my child's healthcare is amazing and all free. We get instant access to great services.
The point is, the entire thing is broken nearly everywhere you look. I don’t know what a better alternative is, but we sure need one.
So you millage may vary.
US, and he's insured, and it's supposedly a pretty-good hospital.
I've been to the same ER within months of that, and it was empty and I was back in a room (well, cubby) within 15 minutes, with something just barely severe enough to merit an ER visit. Quick. Fucking expensive (think it was almost $3k by the time they were done sending bills, for 5 stitches and an x-ray—and that's with insurance), but quick.
It was mostly just timing and luck.
> My father's cancer treatment was not covered so the last year of his life cost him everything.
Sucks that it happens to anyone, but the final year(s) of healthcare finding a way to soak up every cent, before the end, is basically the norm here in the US. Everyone's retirement savings is just money the healthcare industry's lettings us hold temporarily.
It’s not whether the cost is socialised or not that decides how long the wait will be.
It also doesn’t help that the private system is incentivised to undermine the ‘free’ system at every turn.
If care is free, aren’t you more likely to go than if you had to pay even a minimal cost?
By competing on ... what? Can't be price (because "free" wins). The only other option is competing on quality.
Your statement doesn't sound correct.
It's hard to compare apples to oranges but with high doctors per capita, low wait times for speciality services, long lived citizens and a far lower percentage of GDP spent on health, I wonder if there are any serious holes to poke in Italy's system when compared to the U.S. or if they simply just beat us on every metric.
https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org//sites/242e3c8c-en/1/3/2/index...
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.MED.PHYS.ZS?location...
$1500 on my HSA plan, which btw right now is returning 4.6% in a money market. How awesome is that?
Great deal. Worst pain ever.
The same dynamics play out with pension schemes. Declining birth rates play havoc with proposals that rely on a large, young employed base who's work supports a small, retired set of pensioners.
My own perspective is that healthcare is extremely limited on the provider side. Professional organizations have been limiting the supply of doctors / doctor equivalents for decades. Not to minimize the work a family medicine or general practitioner puts in, but many important health services/early interventiona can be safely and reliably provided by a nurse practitioner or physicians assistant (what a horrible name) on a much larger and affordable scale then exists today.
It's a perverted cross between escrow and welfare in which the population basically pays their own way in the long run plus supports all the people who make their living by being "administrative overhead" along the way.
There is enough (potential) money and incentive here that almost any system will be perverted eventually.
NHS is not known for speedy treatment, for instance.
It’s about ongoing oversight and a willingness and ability to cut through bullshit to fix things. That’s in short supply here and everywhere else.
The stories (first hand from relatives who use it) of blatant profiteering and abuse of the system in Medicare is mind boggling.
From what I understand (I am not a UK citizen, but me mum's mum spoke Scouse. My mother, on the other hand, spoke The Queen's English), everyone loves to hate on the NHS, but no politician in their right mind will touch it. It's a "third rail."
Most of Medicare is administered by middlemen and private companies.
