Why US Healthcare Costs are High

[RWebb]

Why Does Health Care Cost so Much in America? Ask Harvard's David Cutler | The Business Desk with Paul Solman | PBS NewsHour | PBS

[Scott R]

Paul Solman: Why does health care cost so much in America?

David Cutler: Let me give you three reasons why. The first one is because the administrative costs of running our health care system are astronomical. About one quarter of health care cost is associated with administration, which is far higher than in any other country.

Excellent, we just increased this tenfold.

[JJ 911SC]

I don't like your attitude… I'm suing

[Gogar]

Administrative costs are high! We need the Government to help bring them down, by adding another layer of Administrative costs!

[Cajundaddy]

More on this... An 8 minute vid that breaks the problem down quite well:
Why Are American Health Care Costs So High? - YouTube

[RWebb]

Originally Posted by Gogar

Administrative costs are high! We need the Government to help bring them down, by adding another layer of Administrative costs!

Government run plans are 1/2 to 1/3 the admin. costs of US plans - read the article.

[Don Ro]

Originally Posted by RWebb

health care costs are going to go down for most people

.

[RWebb]

that is correct - most people; not everyone

surely you are aware of the fraction of a fraction who are getting all the news right now???

[Baz]

I always thought health care had to cost a lot in order to support the insurance industry.

[Gogar]

Originally Posted by RWebb

Government run plans are 1/2 to 1/3 the admin. costs of US plans - read the article.

Oh I read it. Can you cut and paste for me the "1/2 to 1/3' part?

[93nav]

This is from 2010, but still a good analysis I think. Basically, there is no one thing that causes the USA to spend more per person than other developed countries.

What makes the US health care system so expensive – Introduction | The Incidental Economist

[Hydrocket]

Interesting facts. I know Ontario has fewer hospital that do heart surgery. There were ~6600 surgeries in Ontario last year. Divided by the 11 centers, that works out to about 12 surgeries per hospital per week, which doesn't seem like an extraordinary number. I also looked at the statistical death rate from heart disease per 100,000 compared to PA. PA has a rate of heart disease death ~20% higher than Ontario...which is comparable to national statistics.

Per the latest factbook numbers, Canada's life expectancy ranks 13th worldwide. The USA ranks 51st. Clearly something isn't working.

[Scott R]

Originally Posted by Hydrocket

Interesting facts. I know Ontario has fewer hospital that do heart surgery. There were ~6600 surgeries in Ontario last year. Divided by the 11 centers, that works out to about 12 surgeries per hospital per week, which doesn't seem like an extraordinary number. I also looked at the statistical death rate from heart disease per 100,000 compared to PA. PA has a rate of heart disease death ~20% higher than Ontario...which is comparable to national statistics.

Per the latest factbook numbers, Canada's life expectancy ranks 13th worldwide. The USA ranks 51st. Clearly something isn't working.

Massive quantities of taco bell are to blame.

[Chocaholic]

No, massive quantities of lawyers are to blame. No one wants to point to our limitless malpractice settlements and the resulting cost of malpractice insurance and overuse of diagnostics as defensive medicine. The US is unique in that regard, yet no one seems to think it's worthy of consideration as a reason our healthcare system is also the most costly.

[wdfifteen]

There are a lot of reasons. Blaming any one cause is myopic.
One of the causes is that the free market system doesn't work when the buyer isn't paying. Here is a great example of manipulation of the consumer and insurance companies by drug companies - just one example of how one player in the game is running the cost up:
Drug Coupons Hide True Costs From Consumers : NPR

[livi]

Originally Posted by Chocaholic

No, massive quantities of lawyers are to blame. No one wants to point to our limitless malpractice settlements and the resulting cost of malpractice insurance and overuse of diagnostics as defensive medicine. The US is unique in that regard, yet no one seems to think it's worthy of consideration as a reason our health care system is also the most costly.

This is also perhaps the one reason that strikes us in Scandinavia as the most alien and strange. I would not want to work in a system that constantly keep me nervous of malpractice suits and hence unavoidably pushes me to put kids through a variety of more or less painful and terrifying diagnostic procedures in order to cover my back, instead of trusting my clinical judgment.

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by Scott R

Massive quantities of taco bell are to blame.

Just saw on the local news that it takes the average school age child 90 seconds longer to run a mile than 30 years ago....hmm

Originally Posted by Chocaholic

No, massive quantities of lawyers are to blame.....

I'd be curious as to how many 5+ million dollar settlements are paid out EACH year verses the number of insurance executives pulling in more than that....hmm

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

There are a lot of reasons. Blaming any one cause is myopic.
One of the causes is that the free market system doesn't work when the buyer isn't paying.....

Bingo....I'm no dummy, and I can't make "heads nor tails" out of a bill for a simple visit to the dermatologist...so I just sign it ('cause BCBS is paying the tab).
Can't imagine what a day's worth of testing at Duke would look like....it can exceed what most make in one year. I firmly believe that many tests are performed, not out of fear of liability from lawsuits (though some are), but simply because it's "easier" and profitable. Years ago after a knee surgery (insurance covered everthing) the rehab cost more than the surgery itself. The VAST majority of my 3x a week rehab visits were simply me going to the "gym" (rehab facility) to work out...$150 per workout (....and a group of surgeons owned the facility). Lot's of waste, needless procedures & tests, "some" lawsuits, insurance overhead (premiums/salaries)....the list is long from my perspective.

[cairns]

I'd be curious as to how many 5+ million dollar settlements are paid out EACH year verses the number of insurance executives pulling in more than that....hmm

Enough to give $44 million to the presidential campaign last year. Of course their spending on congressional candidates and lobbying makes that look miniscule. No single group, not one, gives more money to our politicians than lawyers. What do you think they're getting for that?

Doctors run tens of millions in unneeded tests and analyses every year to protect themselves from lawsuits. Most have been forced to band together in order to afford malpractice insurance. A single practitioneer is about as rare as a diving board in a community pool. I presume you know why there are no more diving boards in this country.

Insurance companies don't need to worry though. Obama is proposing to bail them out with taxpayer money if the young and healthy don't sign up (and, obviously, they will not). That industry donated a lot of money to him too. In fact, that industry wrote the "Affordable" health care act.

No other country in the world has a tort system like ours. And that's a big reason why their healthcare costs less. Not the only reason, of course, but certainly a big one. The ACA protects everyone's interests except one- the patient.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by cairns

Doctors run tens of millions in unneeded tests and analyses every year to protect themselves from lawsuits. Most have been forced to band together in order to afford malpractice insurance.

Where is the data for this? If it was really such an expensive problem doctors, with the AMA, could establish a "best practices" handbook and follow it. It would be a lot cheaper than expensive malpractice insurance and they would only have to worry about lawsuits if they strayed from the handbook. If it were really such a problem the insurance industry would be pushing them to do it.

Originally Posted by cairns

A single practitioneer is about as rare as a diving board in a community pool. I presume you know why there are no more diving boards in this country.

We have two diving boards at our community pool.

[onewhippedpuppy]

We have more lawyers per captia and more lawyers total than any other nation in the world. We have more lawyers than we have firefighters, police, doctors, or military. 2/3 of the legislative branch are lawyers, which pretty much sums it up.

More Lawyers than Doctors; More Lawyers than Soldiers - Hartford History | Examiner.com

I strongly suspect if you charted health care costs vs the population of lawyers in the United States that you would see an interesting correlation. People used to be able to pay cash for health care because it didn't have the massive burden of administrative overhead and malpractice insurance. Health care tort reform would make many of today's issues go away except for one minor thing - this country is run by lawyers. Fox in the henhouse........