That was actually a serious answer. Surprising.
Anyway, I'm not sure how you define "skyrocketing", but in this study, anyway, the US was by far the most expensive, AND its cost was growing at the fastest rate
Yes, I was very sick when I was younger and I spent a lot of time in and out of hospitals. The difference between the United States and Europe is vast. It does sort of depend on the country, though.
The U.S. is not the most expensive. We spend more on healthcare for many reasons. We don't ration healthcare. We are wealthier (on a PPP adjusted basis the average income of in France is on par with the average income in Louisiana - one of the poorest states in the nation), so we can and do spend more on healthcare and we receive more of it.
They tend to lump all healthcare spending together - including completely volunatary plastic surgery which is much more popular in the United States than in Europe.
The United States also has a massive obesity problem the chronic problems of which cost Americans nearly $300 Billion annually in additional healthcare expenditures. Over 30% of the nation is obese, while only 12% of the French are obese and 10% of the Japanese.
State mandates like those in NY make it impossible for customers to just buy catastrophic insurance. Instead, they are forced to either buy insurance that covers such life saving measures as accupuncture and treatment for life threatening diseases such as acne. It is also illegal to deny insurance or increase the premium of people with pre-existing conditions. So, of course, that creates an incentive to not actually purchase health insurance until you're sick and that means that those who are paying for premiums are paying them for those people as well as themselves. All this means that the cheapest insurance I could get in NY was $1,200 per month while in neighbouring CT I could get insurance that just covered actual medical threats to my health for $427/ month. People in NYC who can't afford the $1,200? Tough. They remain uninsured.
My wife is a doctor. This already happens. If a patient is insured, the doctor charges more, and maximizes the procedures. She works for a clinic, so she can afford to not do this, but it doesn't sit well with her employer. Unfortunately, she's too good to let go.
Yes, I know that happens. Half my family is in the medical profession - mostly surgeons. This is a function of how insurance is regulated and turns doctors into liars. he problem is that this propensity to bill as much as possible will only increase with single payer, raising costs. The only way to combat rising costs will be through rationing - denying care and forcing the government to decide who gets how much verses the doctor. If the patient were forced to pay out of pocket for regular care, he and the doctor would only request that which is medically necessary and insurance could cover the patient if he actually develops a medical condition. This would also force doctors to compete for patients by cutting costs - starting with unnecessary medical tests. BTW, your wife sounds like my kind of person.
here's a common example in many states:
To receive a payment of $150 for a procedure, the doctor must bill insurance $200. The insurance NEVER pays $200 and if the doctor submitted a bill for $150, he would be paid $100.
A patient who doesn't have insurance wants to pay cash. The doctor cannot charge him what he actually receives from the insurance company - $150. He must charge him $200 (the same amount as he bills but never receives from the the insurance company) or risk being hauled in for insurance fraud.
That rule is on the books thanks to government regulation.
Thank you for agreeing with me. You are like the guy who commutes by private limo. At the same time, you acknowledge that it's not so much a system as a mess that's already a stupid version of a crazy half-assed socialism, and it only works for a subset of healthy people who can either afford to opt out of it, as you can, or who are covered by corporations or the government.
Your anti-gov argument is a fallacy of the excluded middle. As are all libertarian arguments in this vein, actually.
No need to thank me. When you're right, you're right. What we have is already a hot socialist mess. You are engaged in magical thinking that leads you to believe that if socialism causes the mess, more socialism will fix it.
I don't think you understand - I didn't opt out of anything. I have health insurance and I am not an employee of a corporation nor covered by government. You're wrong about the ability to obtain insurance if your are not an employee and you're wrong about the healthcare system working for people who are "covered by the government". They are the ones with the worst horror stories.
By the way, another way to cut healthcare costs is to cut your wife's pay. American doctors make a multiple of what European and Canadian doctors make.
