43.6 million Americans without health insurance coverage

sixes · Oct 11, 2003

This topic came up before. And it got pretty hot as I remember.

I'm from Ontario Canada where everyone is entitled to health coverage

I think it's a shame that this is implemented in the US. Yes it has it's fall backs but what doesn't

hoppermom3 · Oct 11, 2003

I am one of the many in the US without health insurance. Hubby has it through work, but if he carries it on the family, it is $650 PER MONTH. He only makes $12/hr...and we still have to eat too. The kids are covered through a state program, MC+. Right now I am dealing with a particularly painful anal fissure (I think) and of course, not going to the dr for it because I can't afford it. I get all my medications from a pharmacy in Canada for 1/3 of the cost of the US.

kwagner_51 · Oct 17, 2003

I have a question that I would like some discussion on please. No flaming Please.

Why do we pay an INSURANCE company to go to the doctor/hospital/NP?

To me, this is about the silliest thing Americans have done. We have decided that some paper pusher in an office far removed from anything related to medicine, can tell us what we can have done and what they won't pay for! HUH!!!???? Does this make any sense?

If we eliminated the 'middleman- insurance companies' then our medical bills would go DOWN!!

Think about it. The hospital and dr.'s offices have to hire SPECIALISTS to file all the insurance forms, just to make sure they get paid! In my town, the hospital said recently, that they get $0.37 cents on the dollar for treating Medicare patients and 0.47 cents to treat Medicaid patients. That is WRONG!!!

My daughter had ACL surgery on her right knee. The total bill was over $7000.00 including the surgical suite and use of the hospital facilities. Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield paid HALF of the total bill and the dr. and hospital had to accept it as payment in full!!

I asked my ds doctor why they charged so much for the procedure. He said that if they charged what it really costs, then the insurance company wouldn't pay AT ALL!! It seems to me, based on this conversation, that the insurance companies are the ones keeping the cost of healthcare so high.

When my kids were little, I used a taxi service to take them to the dr. I put the car seats in the car, loaded the kids in BY MYSELF and took the car seats out when we got to the office, again BY MYSELF. The total trip from dispatch to delivery took 5 minutes and was about 3 miles [maybe]. I got a copy of the charges sent to Medicaid for that taxi. They charged Medicaid $30.00 PER CHILD for the trip. The taxi co. made $90.00!! I called the State Medicaid office and complained and told them exactly how far it was from my house and that I did all the loading and unloading myself. The State's response was, they can charge whatever they want and we HAVE to pay!! This was in the early 90's.

I think Americans should get rid of the insurance company and deal directly with our healthcare providers. What do you think?

bluesky, BSN, RN · Oct 17, 2003

Universal healhcare coverage is a fundamental human right. Period.

kwagner_51 · Oct 17, 2003

According to the US Constitution, we have the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. No where does it say anything about universal healthcare. Now, we are either going to live by the Supreme law of the land e.g the US Constitution, or we are going to let the insurance companies decide how much we should send on healthcare. I for one would rather choose for my self and my family. And I have have Company paid major medical.

I just wanted to know if anyone thought that the insurance companies were raping Americans. In my opinion, YES they are and we are letting them!

Again this is just my opinion, even if it is backed by the US Constitution. :)

gwenith, BSN, RN · Oct 17, 2003

WE have universal health care and even though it is not perfect it does provide a safety net for all. We have a Pharmacuetical Benefits Scheme - not every drug is underwritten but enough so that it does not break the bank.

What is cripplin us at the moment is not the insurance companies but the litigation. We did not used to be a litigous society and it was rare, almost unknown for a lawsuit to succeed against a doctor. That has chnaged over the last 10 years and now we are nearly as litigous as America. This rise in litigation has caused a couple of major insurance companies to collapse including the medical defence association leaving most of the doctors without insurance. The goverment had to step in but they are demanding that the doctors pay a huge fee. Result Doctors quit en mass!!! What we are seeing here in the money being paid out on claims comes back to the doctors who have to pay huge levies for insurance and they have to pass that cost on to the consumer - you and me. So who is winning out of all of this- not the doctors, not the occasional high pay out client. The ones who are really winning are the lawyers who are bringing trivial case after trivial case and each one is eating into the public purse.

pickledpepperRN · Oct 17, 2003

When I see the MANY large buildings owned by insurance companie$ and the $alarie$ paid to their top executive$ it seems clearly unfair to me.

No one in those buildings prodides ANY patient care!

pickledpepperRN · Oct 17, 2003

What do we get for the $$$ spent?

U.S. still top spender on health care Post #1

http://www.msnbc.com/news/980802.asp?cp1=1

U.S. still top spender on health care

Data also show fewer doctors, few signs of better health

Oct. 16-The United States continues to far outspend other developed nations on health care, according to data released Thursday. Americans' health costs now account for 13.9 percent of gross domestic product, or $4,887 per person. Yet Americans continue to lag in certain key indicators of health.

THAT PER-CAPITA SPENDING more than doubles the average of $2,117 among the 30 member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which released the statistics. The next-highest spender on health is Switzerland, at $3,248 per person or 10.9 percent of its GDP.

By comparison, Germany came in at about $2,800 a year (10.7 percent of GDP) and the United Kingdom, which has a public health system, spent just under $2,000 (7.6 percent) per person for 2001, the most recent date for the comparative data.

"Given how much the United States is spending, are they getting good value for the money?" asks Elizabeth Docteur, principal policy analyst for health at the OECD. "This is clearly a very expensive way to go."

Not only are Americans spending more on health, but the growth in spending is at a faster rate-4.4 percent, versus a 4 percent average for developed nations. While lower than a rapid 5.1 percent annual growth in the 1980s, it's a quickening from the 3.3 percent annual growth in the 1990s. Americans have been outpacing other nations in health expenses since at least 1990.

At the same time, U.S. life expectancy lags other nations: 76.8 years in 2000, versus an average of 77.2 years. Residents in countries such as Japan, Iceland, Sweden and Canada all were living longer. And Americans remained fatter than other countries, though obesity rates are rising in all developed nations. (Twenty-two percent of Britons were considered obese, though just 9 percent in continental Europe were fat.)

FEWER DOCTORS, HIGHER COSTS

U.S. patients also had fewer doctors to see than those in other countries-with 2.7 practicing physicians per 1,000 people, slightly lower than the average of 2.9 among developed nations. Despite fears of a nursing shortage, the United States had as many nurses as other nations: 8.1 per 1,000 people. U.S. patients usually have shorter hospital stays than in other nations, just two days after childbirth and 5.7 days after a heart attack. The shorter stays are a sign of efficiency, though they tend to raise costs.

U.S. hospitals, meantime, have 2.9 beds per 1,000 people-below the average for developed nations.

The primary cause for Americans' spiraling health costs are private health insurance and facilities; public health payments account for just 44 percent of overall spending, compared to 72 percent in other developed nations, the OECD data show. Some 35 percent of U.S. health spending is covered by private insurance, more than any other country studied. And of course, the United States outspends other developed nations on pharmaceuticals, at $605 per person per year.

'PRICES ARE ... CAMOUFLAGED'

According to Princeton University health economist Uwe Reinhardt, those costs come from certain fundamental imbalances in the health care system between providers and patients. "We have a carefully structured health care system where the demand side has almost no power," he says. "The supply side has been unbelievably clever always to make sure that the demand side is weak."

Reinhardt notes the proliferation of insurance companies and health plans force doctors and hospitals to spend heavily on administrative costs that most other nations don't have. In countries such as Canada, the government's buying power as a sole purchaser drives down prices.

By contrast, U.S. providers can negotiate different charges depending on who's paying, which weakens patients' bargaining power. "It is a system where prices are very carefully camouflaged. They don't really exist," Reinhardt says.

The higher U.S. costs do offer some benefits: more technical innovations and intensive levels of acute care, which contribute to excellent outcomes for those who need serious treatment. And the lower numbers of doctors may underscore the efficiencies of a privatized system. But disparities in care levels appear to remain profound among Americans, especially for the uninsured. "There's different ways of rationing care," Docteur says. "The U.S. is one that, in some ways, rations by willingness to pay."

oramar · Oct 18, 2003

http://www.post-gazette.com/localnews/20031017noinsurance1017p1.asp

pickledpepperRN · Oct 20, 2003

What do you think the chances are that the people of the USA are ready for a serious discussion of universal health care now?

http://www.nchc.org/materials/studies/Cost_of_Inaction_Full_Report.pdf

Katnip, RN · Oct 20, 2003

Insurance companies are in business to make money. Period. They have to answer to their shareholders. That's their bottom line.

I'm not sure I fully understand what this has to do with the Constitution, but once upon a time ago, insurance companies really did provide a valuable service. They still do for those who can afford it.

I'm not 100% sure how national coverage works, but my Canadian friends love it. No paperwork. Yes, sometimes you have to wait for an appointment, but for me, I have a 2 month wait for my gyn and a month for a mammogram. And yes, I've heard of very long waits right here in the good ol' USA for bypasses and other important surgeries. Just depends on where you live.

Doctors may not get as rich as they are now, though.