Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills are Killing Us

[Freesia]

My Dad and I were just discussing this. The problems don't lie within the various schools of thought, they lie within the fact that the wrong people always gain power. We should be appointing people who do not want to run things, not electing people who want to. The only time I ever saw anything like this actually work was when I worked for the USGS (United States Geological Survey). It was kind of funny, because we were all just a bunch of scientists who wanted to do our research. No one wanted administrative duties, so they had this program where they were trying to make administrative jobs more appealing to people who wanted nothing to do with running things, and basically saying "look, we know you don't want to, but someone has to. It's not as bad as you think.".

I once worked at a receptionist for an ecological sciences centre. It had such an awesome work atmosphere, well for me anyway.

Most receptionist jobs you have to awkwardly greet all the staff and put on your best Sociable personality.

There, there was just a whole bunch of absent minded scientists walking around who didnt feel the need for formal niceties, and in the breakroom there were science magazines and newspapers everywhere and discussion about global warming and all sorts of other ecological issues.

 

[ledboots]

(Year-old article.)
"The U.S. spent about $7,000 per capita in 2008 on health care. Peer countries, like Japan and the U.K., spend about half that amount and achieve equally good results, as measured, for example, by life expectancy at birth.

It shows that the gap is about $3,500 per person in the U.S. ($1.1 trillion for the 305 million U.S. residents).

The sources of difference:
1. U.S. spending annual on physicians per capita is about five times higher than peer countries: $1,600 versus $310 in a sample of peer countries, a difference of $1,290 per capita or $390 billion nationally, 37% of the health care spending gap. These conclusions come from an analysis co-authored by Miriam Laugesen of the Columbia University School of Public Health and Sherry Gleid, an Assistant Secretary in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (source)**. "~snip~
"Laugesen and Gleid conclude (in very circumspect language, which I have translated here to plain English) that the physician spending gap exists because mainly because CMMS*, which sets U.S. Medicare and Medicaid rates, pays much more for specialist services relative to primary care services than government authorities in peer countries; private insurers have done a poor job of negotiating rates with specialists; ...." the rest is here; http://www.forbes.com/sites/toddhixon/2012/03/01/why-are-u-s-health-care-costs-so-high/

Edited because I quoted too much of the article.

 

[Envy]

Not everyone in the world is greedy and corruptible.

And I don't know if I'm one of those.

A bit distressing.