It's back-handed socialized medicine. Hospitals cannot turn anyone away so the money has to come from somewhere and this is how they do it. Oddly enough this is what keeps the whole system from collapsing.
This "shadow" socialized system fills me with anger simply because we can't seem to deal with it in a mature and constructive way.
As long as Americans can't stomach the idea of turning away people who cannot pay for emergency care to die we have socialized medicine. I don't understand why we can't, as a society, have a "grown up" conversation about this fact.
Why not just have proper socialized medicine, such as in Canada?
Instead of this perverse system of "shadow" socialized medicine, fraud, and over-billing, why not just make it come out of everyone's taxes? That way everyone pays a very modest amount in tax and no one has to be financially ruined by flukes of nature.
Also kills a huge amount of overhead in the billing departments, collection agencies, insurance companies, etc.
I have lived in the US for 27+ years and I think Americans tend to be very generous, a lot of people donate their time and money to charities, churches, etc.
They just don't want to give their money to a bunch of bureaucrats, who spend it mostly on themselves, and seem to multiply like rabbits.
The funny thing is, the money is still going to a bunch of bureaucrats who multiply like rabbits -- it's just that they work for the insurance companies rather than the government. They're needed because of the ongoing arms race between providers and insurance companies, of which the overbilling described by this article is a major part.
In fact, a single payer system would sharply reduce the number of jobs for health care administrators -- to the point that I've seen a blog post somewhere pointing out that these people would need income support and retraining. The economies of several small cities depend heavily on these jobs.
So they pay for profit insurance companies owned by Wall Street investment firms. I don't understand why American's find that more palatable. The "government doesn't work" mentality is self-feeding. If you want government to work, you make it work. The alternative is just defeatist.
You won't find many conversatives in other countries who want to give up their socialized medical system.
I've lived in the US for 40 years. I'd estimate that less than 5% of all the people I've ever known ever donate time. A substantially higher number donate money to the millionaire operators of charities and "ministries".
Americans aren't generous. Americans are preoccupied with moving money. The more it moves, the faster it accumulates to the top of the economic pyramid.
I think that basically, the "bureaucrats" of the government become the "employees" of the companies, and are somehow not counted as bureaucrats, even though they form a private, less efficient bureaucracy that has more trouble providing basic services for a decent price (like home nursing).
It will be nice to have socialized medicine, but please, not as in Canada. Their system is not good. I would prefer Medicare expansion to all, or a VA-like system while medicare and medicaids are phased out. This will happen eventually, but alas not soon.
I'm a Canadian, what's wrong with our system from your perspective?
(No system is perfect; there is always room for improvement and trade offs)
Just two weeks ago, my wife had an emergency appendectomy. She went to the free clinic first thing Sunday morning as she had terrible pains all night. They immediately referred to the local hospital. She had the ultrasound in the afternoon and Surgery at 3:00pm. She's been off work (more or less) for 2 week recovering. The only thing we paid for is parking.
This[1] redditor in the US has the same surgery and it cost $55,000 dollars, which insurance covered a lot of but still left him with an $11,000 bill. That's just one simple surgery and that's not a small amount of money.
>> I'm a Canadian, what's wrong with our system from your perspective?
longer wait times for non-emergency treatment and (most of the time) not being able to pay cash and get the procedure done without the wait.
personally know ppl in Canada (Toronto, so not some little town in the boonies) who had to wait few months to get an MRI.
on the US side - takes 2 weeks or so to get the insurance company's approval (they do this dance with a mandatory x-ray and electromyogram appointment before approving) or $500 or so gets you in like tomorrow.
the kicker of course is they will charge the insurance company $3k.
that said - the current US system needs a major overhaul, no doubt.
both Obamacare and the not-there-yet "Trumpcare" are lipstick on a pig solutions though.
Yeah, waiting a few months to get an MRI if your condition isn't serious isn't uncommon. Diagnostics like that tend to be the longest wait times -- actually getting surgery after a diagnosis is pretty quick.
On the other hand, my experience with the US is that the service is great. They'll even send you for unnecessary tests just because. And it's all pretty fast. But then you have so many people who get nothing at all. And then many of those who do get something are totally bankrupt.
There is no system that can give anyone health care and not have a triage system. So you might have to give up some comfort so your neighbors can live.
sure, it's a balancing act.
another downside to mention - wait times in walk in clinics in Canada during the flu/cold season are pretty extreme - it's free so ppl just go if they suspect anything is wrong.
I remember reading in the news they were considering charging a nominal fee, like $5 to cut down on these types of visits. On the US side you'd pay around $50 for one of those visits (unless you go to your doc) - wait time is like 10 min.
I actually wouldn't mind something similar to a Canadian system - if they can manage that without tax increases :) - plus a private "network" someone who can afford paying for a private insurance (or using straight up cash) can use.
I really want to see actual studies on this. We Americans LOVE to throw this in the face of the countries with single-payer, yet we conveniently gloss over the fact that many Americans PUT OFF health care procedures because they can't afford them. I've done it and I know many, many others that have as well. Oh, this is going to be 1500$ out of pocket and doesn't need to be done today? Great let's schedule it for 2 months out.
Additionally, Americans also have wait times for non-emergency procedures. Colon cancer runs heavily in my family and so all of the older members get regular colonoscopies. I have several anecdotes of family members having to wait 6 months before they can get it and get theirs done.
AMERICANS ARE NOT ANY BETTER WHEN IT COMES TO WAIT TIMES. However, the onus is typically not on the provider, it's on the patient. So we describe the situation differently even though it's the same outcome, the patient has to wait for treatment.
On the other hand, if your condition is serious, it can be _very_ fast. My daughter had an MRI done about 2 hours after the doctor ordered it (this was after a concussion so we were worried about possible brain damage. Don't worry, she's fine, it was just a scare).
Not OP, but my biggest problem with your perspective is that it is almost pure single-payer, meaning that there's usually no choice in areas where government is involved, even if you're able and willing to pay for something better or faster.
In comparison, e.g. most European countries use a combined two-tier approach, where the role of the government is to ensure universal basic coverage and affordability of that coverage, but not to replace private insurance entirely.
Well, we usually refer to the UK NHS as "free" but we all know that it means "free at the point of delivery" we know it gets funded from our taxes and therefore all taxpayers pay.
As someone who just had a few days in an NHS hospital I'm pretty much delighted with the experience. When was money mentioned? Not once, not once.
I'm not stating an opinion about this fact, I'm simply stating it. (Personally, I think Americans ought to have socialized medicine.)
The "conservatives" who bellyached that the ACA created "socialized medicine" willfully ignored (or were ignorant of) the fact that the mandate to treat emergency patients regardless of ability to pay "socialized" medicine when it was passed (by "conservative" stalwart Ronald Regan) in the EMTALA[1] in 1986.
