I suspect you are not the real dcmediagirl. I’ll be checking the server’s record to try to find out. You sound more like an Obot, attacking for no good reason other than to dish dirt. If you are the real dcmediagirl, shame on you.

In either event, this is a petty and rude comment to make to a spouse of a writer for the blog.

The question is how best to fix it, and there are no convincing answers. Common sense would dictate that we first find out the reasons for the rise in costs and address them. Republicans claim that it is the rising cost of malpractice insurance. Hospitals claim that it is treating the uninsured in emergency rooms. Drug companies claim that it is the cost of drug research, thanks to the stringent FDA regulations. I am not sure what exactly the insurance companies claim. Bottom line is that the people are paying the price.

How profound. Thanks for your fascinating insight Mr. pm317. This posting sounds like the answer to an SAT essay question. Yawn. When you have a solution make sure to wake me.

Massachusetts has been a very big success of getting more people insurance, now they just have to work on the cost cutting part of this. However, the Massachusetts solution has now set up a system, or rather pressures, were there will be much more incentives to get costs down.

The private sector has done such a poor job that it is now time for the government to step in and propose a new direction.

1. higher prices for the same health care goods and services than are paid in other countries for the same goods and services;

Many countries mandate how much can be charged for different services. There is a cap. This hugely keeps costs under control. In the U.S. it is a free-for-all and is in no way a competitive market. The AMA keeps consumers from seeing price list for service and any kind of quality of survey of doctors and hospitals. U.S. consumers generally blindly buy healthcare services. A public option will provide a lot of opportunity for competition, as the govt plan will act like that of other countries and cap the price for services. This will like for the system to become more competitively price wise.

2. significantly higher administrative overhead costs than are incurred in other countries with simpler health-insurance systems;

In the U.S. it is an accounting nightmare because of all the for-profit bureaucratic HMOs and insurance companies. They like to keep it confusing. It works to their advantage. A government run system in many countries is a heck of a lot simplier.

although a lot of this technology is invented in foreign countries like from companies like Siemens and Philips. Despite all the technology, healthcare statistics in the U.S. are often worse than alot of other countries.

4. higher treatment costs triggered by our uniquely American tort laws, which in the context of medicine can lead to “defensive medicine” — that is, the application of tests and procedures mainly as a defense against possible malpractice litigation, rather than as a clinical imperative.

This probably needs to be reformed. A better balance needs to be found. This will likely be tackled later after the base reform process is started.

5. It is a for-profit business. You have to add in the big profit margin at HMOs, pharma, health systems, etc.

Laws regarding generics, effective lobbying in the U.S. and frankly a big money making industry where it pays to have as many people sick as the dollars go up add a big profit margin to the costs. Since most systems are run by government they are generally not-for-profit, although many countries operate both a public and private system.

There are other factors:
> American may be less healthy
> Americans are heavy consumers of medical services
> Demand access to advertised drugs
> Demand more choice of providers
> Number of physicians has grown 28% faster than the overall population in the past 10 years. As the supply of physicians increases, so does the number of services people receive from physicians
> Nursing shortage nationwide causes hospitals to compete for nurses with higher salaries
> high number of uninsured. Uninsured tend to use emergency rooms for medical care, which is higher in cost than a typical office visit.
> Some physicians order much more lab work than others, doubling and tripling the cost of their visits. They are gaming the system. Physician referrals to labs, imaging centers and ASC’s that they have an ownership interest.
> An estimated 50 million unnecessary prescriptions each year for antibiotics and other drugs. Thank the drug industry for creating demand where they was no problem.

etc. etc. etc.

It is a money making industry that has gotten out of control.

“Doctor’s compensations are also problematic: We overpay here by $58 billion. In other nations, specialists make 4 times the average salary. In America, they make 6.6 times the mean. Meanwhile, the overall profits of the system add on another $75 billion in costs. Another $147 billion in increased spending, much of it a consequence of the fee-for-service system, wherein doctors are paid based on how many procedures they recommend and carry out. Doctors with equity in facilities where they can co-refer cases conduct between two and eight times more tests than those without equity interests. Just another way the profit incentive helps us out.”

“The report finds that we overpay for prescription drugs by $66 billion. If you compare brand name drugs in the US and Canada, the same drug will cost you a full 60% more here. If you restrict that to the top selling drugs, you find we pay 230% more than anyone else. For generics, the difference evaporates. So on average, we overpay by 60-70% for pharmaceuticals, largely because we don’t bargain down the costs just like every other country.”

I suggest you read this famous McKinsey study:

http://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/rp/healthcare/accounting_cost_healthcare.asp

Also see:

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=04&year=2009&base_name=why_american_health_care_costs

Regardless of the propaganda you hear, the Canadian system is a decent one and no one in Canada lists Medical Bills as the reason for her bankruptcy!!

Just ask American lawyer Diane Tucker, a 59-year-old who lives now permanently in Vancouver, Canada because….of health care.

You must read Nicholas Kristof’s OpEd in the N.Y. Times “THIS TIME WE WON’T SCARE”.

There is nothing unpatriotic or shameful in the Canadian Healthcare system (since l965) that has provided decent care to ALL Canadians.
Just try to see what they’ll do if a Canadian politician stupidly acts to mess around with any aspect of this trusty “socialist?” workhorse. Canadians would lynch him/her!!

It is a shame that 50 millions are uninsured and medical bills account for 62% of bankruptcies–and U.S. is No. 37 on the health hit parade of nations, one below COSTA RICA but, mercifully, just above SLOVANIA!

Obama is a certified clown, we all know that, but if he had the guts and conviction of Hillary Clinton, this mess would have been fixed by now…

But “stupidity” allows him to overlook fact that Police investigate possible break-ins and ask for identity of person breaking in to make sure that he lives there–One third of DOMESTIC ABUSE murders are committed by husbands on restraining orders who break in to murder their “women”!

So Obummer rather than look at the facts when they are in decides to act like a Chicago Community Organizer and blame one of the parties….cause he is a “buddy”!

Harvard Legal Ethics this man never attended or flunk his lectures.

But didn’t he have a SCOLDING MOTHER to tell him to think before he opens his mouth?

no wonder healthcare is going down the tubes….

Obummer – Bush III
Obambi – Carter II

Fact #10: Social Security is an extremely efficient program, with administrative costs equaling only 0.6 percent of retirement and survivors benefits.

Administrative costs account for only 0.6 percent of total Social Security retirement and survivors benefit payments.[14] According to the most optimistic estimates, even private accounts plans with very limited choices and services would have administrative costs more than ten times as high. The Office of the Chief Actuary of the Social Security Administration generally assumes that with private accounts that offer limited choices and services, administrative costs would ultimately consume about 0.3 percent of account assets each year. At that rate, administrative expenses would ultimately eat up about 7 percent of a worker’s retirement benefit, more than ten times as much as the administrative costs under the current Social Security system.[15]

Hillary and Bill Clinton as you point out, foretold the bankruptcy facing the healthcare crisis.

After picking their bones, the vultures are at it again. We allow this to happen because there is no national concerted large movement of voters that can demonstrate,vote, and harm those politically
responsible for avoiding their duty to legislate responsibly for healthcare. We the people have not organized sufficiently to force the hands of the cowardly Democrats and obstructive GOP’ers.

We could do it. But so far we remain snookered by division and ignorance. Also add laziness.

It really can happen if we make it happen and decide how to find a fair way to make it possible. Even if imperfect, a change towards affordable care would be a revolutionary beginning -just as Medicare was.

Yes, a pie chart would be a good visual once you know how to apportion what to what. That campaign money from the healthcare industry is what motivated Blue Dogs as well as GOP’ers who want to see Medicare die, do the bidding of those who bought them. Pharma and HMO’s who run america have made the profit motive is so enormous it has corrupted Baucus and the Blue Dogs along with the flaccid GOP.

There is nothing more dangerous than a party without a center. Republicans have one purpose. To obstruct,deny,spin, and prevent any healthcare from occuring. Power is the only lever left and it’s in the healthcare industry where GOP can pull some clout.

Pity the Dems as the Blues get their campaigns paid for by the Healthcares. Baucus got over a million from the health giants for his campaign. So go the rest.

We are living in a time of ineptitude,greed and corruption, and watch the great cruelty imposed by corporate greed on our right to quality health care.

We could do it. Congress doesn’t want it. So where are the baby boomers who will have no affordable insurance? Where’s the million man/woman march in Washington DEMANDING congress to move it’s butt