Regrettably it is worse than this: modern medicine DOES NOT WORK. All smoke & mirrors.
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$25,000+ a year for healthcare
- Thread starter S2007S
- Start date
Why, are "hedonic adjustments are complete bullsh*t"? Because you said so? The complete absence of facts and reasoned discussion on this thread is just appalling.You sound like you believe in hedonic adjustments. I bet you that after your hedonic adjustments you could make healthcare costs look like they are deflating! Unfortunately for you, hedonic adjustments are complete bullsh*t.
Let's talk about hedonic adjustments. Let's say 1975 you could buy a new car for $5,000 that had an average life of 50,000 miles, with the body rusting out in less than 5 years anywhere salt is used in the winter. Let's say today you could buy a car for $15,000 that has an average life of 200,000 miles and 15 years before the body starts to rust. Are you really going to say the price of a car has "inflated" by $10,000? Or would someone in 1975 happily paid $10,000 for a 200,000 mile car, it just wasn't available, so the price has only "inflated" $5,000? Or let's put this another way with shorter time frames. You're given the option to buy a brand new 2016 Camry or a 1991 mint condition Camry with no miles on it that was kept in sealed clean room the entire time and has had all time sensitive items like belts replaced, for the same price. The vast majority of us pick the 2016 Camry (or no Camry, but that ruins the discussion!), it's clear to us that the two aren't equivalent and therefore shouldn't be priced the same.
If "hedonic adjustments are complete bullsh*t" then you'd advocate that the 1975 car is exactly the same as the current car or the 91 Camry is the same as the 2016, which may not be "bullsh*t" but certainly isn't rational.
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Fair point, although anecdotally when I'm in the U.K, for example, I read and hear a lot about NHS costs going up disproportionately because of things like MRIs when you previously got an ice pack and a pair of crutches. I don't live there so that could just be general complaining on account of the weather being so bad all the time. I think you're right that U.S. costs have gone up disproportionately though. Apparently because we're providing care for people who are really sick, which apparently is a bad thing.Disagree with your analysis. We get the "latest and greatest" in Japan, Hong Kong, Germany, etc, all at a fraction of the cost of what one would pay in the US. The screening technology, tests, quality of surgery is a good (and often way better than the quality of health care and average American receives). So, comparably, US health care costs have disproportionately increased relative to the increase in the quality of the services, rendered.
Also in other G7 countries (let's exclude city states like Singapore or HK for a moment) the health care coverage is much broader across society than in the US, so another of the common arguments, that health care in the US is expensive because a limited pot has to feed a lot, is invalidated as well.
If you look at the charged cost of services rendered at hospitals and care clinics you find your answer. It is ridiculously inflated prices charged for such services.
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Why? The complete absence of facts and reasoned discussion on this thread is just appalling. Let's talk about hedonic adjustments. Let's say 1975 you could buy a new car for $5,000 that had an average life of 50,000 miles, with the body rusting out in less than 5 years anywhere salt is used in the winter. Let's say today you could buy a car for $15,000 that has an average life of 200,000 miles and 15 years before the body starts to rust. Are you really going to say the price of a car has "inflated" by $10,000? Or would someone in 1975 happily paid $10,000 for a 200,000 mile car, it just wasn't available, so the price has only "inflated" $5,000?
If "hedonic adjustments are complete bullsh*t" then you'd advocate that the 1975 car is exactly the same as the current car, which may not be bullsh*t but certainly isn't rational.
See, I knew you believe in hedonic adjustments. In my opinion, hedonic adjustments are just a useful way for governments or individuals to mask inflation. Your argument does not convince me that these adjustments are in anyway useful.
Again, let's deal in facts here, not your opinions. What was wrong with my arguments. You disagree, and think a 91 Camry is worth just as much as the 2016 version? You have some reasoning behind your unshakable beliefs, or you just hold them on faith?See, I knew you believe in hedonic adjustments. In my opinion, hedonic adjustments are just a useful way for governments or individuals to mask inflation. Your argument does not convince me that these adjustments are in anyway useful.
re: Japanese health system
Like other service industries in Japan, there are cumbersome rules, too many small players and few incentives to improve. Doctors are too few—one-third less than the rich-world average, relative to the population—because of state quotas. Shortages of doctors are severe in rural areas and in certain specialities, such as surgery, paediatrics and obstetrics. The latter two shortages are blamed on the country's low birth rate, but practitioners say that they really arise because income is partly determined by numbers of tests and drugs prescribed, and there are fewer of these for children and pregnant women. Doctors are worked to the bone for relatively low pay (around $125,000 a year at mid-career). One doctor in his 30s says he works more than 100 hours a week. “How can I find time to do research? Write an article? Check back on patients?” he asks. On the positive side, patients can nearly always see a doctor within a day. But they must often wait hours for a three-minute consultation. Complicated cases get too little attention. The Japanese are only a quarter as likely as the Americans or French to suffer a heart attack, but twice as likely to die if they do. Some doctors see as many as 100 patients a day. Because their salaries are low, they tend to overprescribe tests and drugs. (Clinics often own their own pharmacies.) They also earn money, hotel-like, by keeping patients in bed. Simple surgery that in the West would involve no overnight stay, such as a hernia operation, entails a five-day hospital stay in Japan. Emergency care is often poor. In lesser cities it is not uncommon for ambulances to cruise the streets calling a succession of emergency rooms to find one that can cram in a patient. In a few cases people have died because of this. One reason for a shortage of emergency care is an abundance of small clinics instead of big hospitals. Doctors prefer them because they can work less and earn more. The system is slow to adopt cutting-edge (and therefore costly) treatments. New drugs are approved faster in Indonesia or Turkey, according to the OECD. Few data are collected on how patients respond to treatments. As the Lancet says, prices are heavily regulated but quality is not. This will make it hard for Japan to make medical tourism a pillar of future economic growth, as the government plans. The Japanese are justly proud of their health-care system. People get good basic care and are never bankrupted by medical bills. But kaihoken cannot take all the credit for the longevity of a people who eat less and stay trimmer than the citizens of any other rich country. And without deep cost-cutting and reform, the system will struggle to cope with the coming incredible shrinking of Japan.
http://www.economist.com/node/21528660
Like other service industries in Japan, there are cumbersome rules, too many small players and few incentives to improve. Doctors are too few—one-third less than the rich-world average, relative to the population—because of state quotas. Shortages of doctors are severe in rural areas and in certain specialities, such as surgery, paediatrics and obstetrics. The latter two shortages are blamed on the country's low birth rate, but practitioners say that they really arise because income is partly determined by numbers of tests and drugs prescribed, and there are fewer of these for children and pregnant women. Doctors are worked to the bone for relatively low pay (around $125,000 a year at mid-career). One doctor in his 30s says he works more than 100 hours a week. “How can I find time to do research? Write an article? Check back on patients?” he asks. On the positive side, patients can nearly always see a doctor within a day. But they must often wait hours for a three-minute consultation. Complicated cases get too little attention. The Japanese are only a quarter as likely as the Americans or French to suffer a heart attack, but twice as likely to die if they do. Some doctors see as many as 100 patients a day. Because their salaries are low, they tend to overprescribe tests and drugs. (Clinics often own their own pharmacies.) They also earn money, hotel-like, by keeping patients in bed. Simple surgery that in the West would involve no overnight stay, such as a hernia operation, entails a five-day hospital stay in Japan. Emergency care is often poor. In lesser cities it is not uncommon for ambulances to cruise the streets calling a succession of emergency rooms to find one that can cram in a patient. In a few cases people have died because of this. One reason for a shortage of emergency care is an abundance of small clinics instead of big hospitals. Doctors prefer them because they can work less and earn more. The system is slow to adopt cutting-edge (and therefore costly) treatments. New drugs are approved faster in Indonesia or Turkey, according to the OECD. Few data are collected on how patients respond to treatments. As the Lancet says, prices are heavily regulated but quality is not. This will make it hard for Japan to make medical tourism a pillar of future economic growth, as the government plans. The Japanese are justly proud of their health-care system. People get good basic care and are never bankrupted by medical bills. But kaihoken cannot take all the credit for the longevity of a people who eat less and stay trimmer than the citizens of any other rich country. And without deep cost-cutting and reform, the system will struggle to cope with the coming incredible shrinking of Japan.
http://www.economist.com/node/21528660
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Again, let's deal in facts here, not your opinions. What was wrong with my arguments. You disagree, and think a 91 Camry is worth just as much as the 2016 version? You have some reasoning behind your unshakable beliefs, or you just hold them on faith?
This pretty much sums up how idiotic hedonic adjustments are:
https://priceillusion.wordpress.com...umer-price-index-hedonic-quality-adjustments/
Presuming you read the article, let's talk about it. They specifically use an example of a $250 27" CRT TV vs a $1250 42" plasma HDTV and your neighbor who thinks the 400% increase in price between the two represents inflation. The article goes on to claim the neighbor is right. Which is crazy, given that if we wanted to go back to making crappy $250 CRT TVs we certainly could and the one is not in any way equivalent to the other. And if fact there are plenty of $250 CRT TVs around, the neighbor just doesn't want one of those. The neighbor is complaining that he can't get the latest and greatest at the same price as the crappy item it replaced, which may be a valid complaint but it's not inflation in the same way a pound of flour or a gallon of gas going up the same amount in price.This pretty much sums up how idiotic hedonic adjustments are:
https://priceillusion.wordpress.com...umer-price-index-hedonic-quality-adjustments/
So again, I ask you. Is the '91 Camry worth the same as a 2016 or we'll expand to asking is a 27" CRT TV worth the same as a 42" plasma? If you think so, I've got a '91 Camry and a CRT TV to sell you!
I'm a fundamentalist, a big picture guy... In studying our modern medicine it has occurred to me that arguably they do more harm than good. Historically they always did more harm than good but we are dazzled by the trappings of science into thinking they are really about health. The typical doctor doesn't know much at all about health! They are technicians that speak Latin and sell poison for Big Pharma. Read the stories about the oldest people on earth: typically they live where there is no healthcare! One was quoted as saying that her advice for living long was to "stay away from the doctors"! As long as I can find a cheap way out of having to pay insurance companies on command of the government that's what I'll do. If they make it a progressive tax and it gets expensive for me I'll gtfo of this moronic "socialist" shithole..