US Health care: More Money, Less Health

[sadaist]

Stay on topic. And with the guns we're exporting, and all the drugs imported, from Mexico, of course we're going to have to patch them up!

I'm spot on topic. Just because you don't fancy this piece of the puzzle is no reason to keep it in the dark. We spend 2 1/2 times more per person than any other advanced country...might be attributable to paying for 2 1/2 times the people. Out of the staggering $2.4 trillion annually Americans spend on health care, how much of that is for uninsureds? An estimated 13 million+ illegal immigrants sharing my state and receiving free health care might have something to do with my costs increasing while my level of care decreases. That doesn't even count the number of people who are citizens that do not pay for any coverage.

[sadaist]

Have a tier system, Public health care and private health care.

Have you seen how this system works in our justice system? Compare a public defender to a privately retained attorney. Probably the difference between a slap on the wrist and doing time.

[sadaist]

Heck--if you can't brew it or grow it....Stay away.

Wait until you need the daily trifecta of Cisplatin, Bleomycin & Etoposide....can't home grow those or anything close. Could grow the tree to build your coffin out of though.

But I agree 1,000,000% about freeing up the use of alternative methods.

[Combat Ready]

Wait until you need the daily trifecta of Cisplatin, Bleomycin & Etoposide....can't home grow those or anything close. Could grow the tree to build your coffin out of though.

But I agree 1,000,000% about freeing up the use of alternative methods.

I hear you S--I know you and the family are battling some tough stuff now, and I wish you all the best! You're right, there are legitimate clinical needs for Rx drugs. I don't mean diminish the value to those in need---my dad has been battling cancer for a few years now...I can relate.

I was trying to make the point that Rx drugs are over prescribed and over used.

[Big Train]

[QUOTE=Nickdfresh;1330768]Report: Health care 'value gap' hurts U.S.
Americans spend a lot more than top countries, but aren’t as healthy
The Associated Press
Thurs., March. 12, 2009



Concern about high U.S. costs has existed for years, and business executives — whose companies provide health coverage for workers — have long called for getting costs under control. Now President Barack Obama says the costs have become unsustainable and the system must be overhauled.

It compares statistics on life expectancy, death rates and even cholesterol readings and blood pressures. The health measures are factored together with costs into a 100-point "value" scale. That hasn't been done before, the authors said.

The results are not encouraging.

The United States is 23 points behind five leading economic competitors: Canada, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom and France. The five nations cover all their citizens, and though their systems differ, in each country the government plays a much larger role than in the U.S.


While I'm first in line to say that this system overpays for damn near everything and we SHOULD be having meaningful congressional hearings on it (but with campaign contributions being what they are, unlikely), this study seems a bit flawed to me.

This "health score" would seem to have as much to do with McDonald's as it does the hospital system. If your using blood pressure and cholesterol in your formula, it would seem personal choice and lifestyle shouldn't be held against the health care system itself.

We need to get costs under control, which I personally believe can be done without sacrificing quality or salaries. Simple investigation into the sweetheart deals and profit margins on medicines and medical devices alone should yield interesting answers. This country is rich enough to pay for our own health care without going to Universal health care, which will not eliminate waste, but multiply it.

[sadaist]

I was trying to make the point that Rx drugs are over prescribed and over used.

True that. But I have been hearing stories where needed meds aren't prescribed because the doctors are under so much scrutiny due to abuse. Vicodin, Oxycontin, Valium, Xanax, etc... The people who genuinely would benefit from these sometimes have difficulty getting the amounts they need. So the over prescribing by many hurts the few. Weird, huh?


Oh, and if you are prescribed say 60 Vicodin for a 30-day supply. Twice a day. If you have a couple of particular bad days and take an extra on each of those days you are fucked. Cause now you run out in 27 days and can't get refilled until day 30.

[Nickdfresh]

I'm spot on topic. Just because you don't fancy this piece of the puzzle is no reason to keep it in the dark. We spend 2 1/2 times more per person than any other advanced country...might be attributable to paying for 2 1/2 times the people. Out of the staggering $2.4 trillion annually Americans spend on health care, how much of that is for uninsureds? An estimated 13 million+ illegal immigrants sharing my state and receiving free health care might have something to do with my costs increasing while my level of care decreases. That doesn't even count the number of people who are citizens that do not pay for any coverage.

This isn't about illegal aliens, which there are less and less of, as anybody has the right to emergency treatment. It's about 48 million uninsured despite spending the most on health care and the drain this puts on small businesses since they cannot always cover their workers or must invest substantial assets into doing so....

So what's your alternative? A Mexican kid comes into an LA emergency room with a nail stuck in his forehead - just let him die then?

[Guitar Shark]

Somehow, we need to remove (or at least control) the profit motive from the healthcare system.

[FORD]

Exactly. Health care should be about preventing illness when at all possible, and failing that, the best treatment and/or cure options possible. It should not be about making money.

[Seshmeister]

Wait until you need the daily trifecta of Cisplatin, Bleomycin & Etoposide....can't home grow those or anything close. Could grow the tree to build your coffin out of though.

But I agree 1,000,000% about freeing up the use of alternative methods.

Sorry to hear that hope it all works out.

[sadaist]

Exactly. Health care should be about preventing illness when at all possible, and failing that, the best treatment and/or cure options possible. It should not be about making money.

Isn't it extremely expensive to research & develop new drugs? The manufacturers seem to make way too much profit, but I know such things like no generic makers can compete for X amount of years is supposed to be so they can recoup r & d costs.

[Big Train]

Exactly. Health care should be about preventing illness when at all possible, and failing that, the best treatment and/or cure options possible. It should not be about making money.

The flip side of that is precisely because there is a profit motive, billions are poured into drug remedies. The middle balance point of risk and reward, I'm not sure any of us can point it out exactly.

My middle for this argument is that we are doing all of this wastefully. I, although not a popular conservative argument, believe we should be investing most of our budget into mapping the human genome and stem cells. All of our understanding is based on trial and error. Mapping and stem cells will allow us to look at problems more intelligently and come to solutions quicker. I'm all for that from a humanitarian POV (believe it or not, I'm not into human suffering) and for capitalistic reasons. We should do things the smartest way possible. The ethical side arguments are trumped, to me, by the ethical main arguments.

[Redballjets88]

When I was like 5 or 6, they had me on Ritalin for a little while. And this is the early 70's, before big pharma was anywhere near this big. Knowing what that shit did to my metabolism, I could never do that to a kid. Let alone something more fucked up like anti-depressants or whatever.

5 or 6 years old is horrible to do to a kid. When I was 12 or 13 I was on adderall I couldn't stand the stuff. I'm a tall lanky guy and weighed about 115 pounds then and dropped to 105 in a few months because I was never hungry on that shit. Although I made all A's throughout that school year I refused to keep using it. The A.D.D. medication is nuts, I felt like a zombie all day long, like walking around in a haze for 6 to 8 hours a day.

[Redballjets88]

This isn't about illegal aliens, which there are less and less of, as anybody has the right to emergency treatment. It's about 48 million uninsured despite spending the most on health care and the drain this puts on small businesses since they cannot always cover their workers or must invest substantial assets into doing so....

So what's your alternative? A Mexican kid comes into an LA emergency room with a nail stuck in his forehead - just let him die then?

I agree 100% about the illegals. There may be 13 million illegals but a large amount of them do have some sort of medical coverage. At the hotel I worked at everyone had insurance, legal or not. They paid co-pays etc.

When it comes to illegals I'm liberal as hell. I have never met an illegal that I didn't like or that was anything other than a hard worker.

[Redballjets88]

The FDA really needs to rethink what they put out on the market for people to use. Shit like oxycotin, vicadin, and other pain medications are horrible for people to be taking, especially when there are other alternatives for pain relief. Not saying that people don't need something to help the pain, just how about something that isn't as addictive as heroin?

People are getting hooked on doctor prescribed medications left and right nowadays, and the big companies are profiting from it non-stop it is so overlooked because the people on these pills still feel the pain, but it is no longer from the injury but from the addiction. They need to get some sort of handle on this before the U.S. looks like it did at the turn of the century (1899-1900 turn of century) when people were hooked on laudanum and morphine for illnesses that didn't need that kind of medicine.