Quote:
Originally Posted by billyb
You must have never been to Cuba before if you really believe that. Cuba has one of the worst health care systems in the world. One of the problems why health care is so expensive her is because of to many lawsuits that drive up the cost.
We need tort reform here big time, we also need to curb excessive payouts for example, an asprin for $25.00 is a joke!. I will tell you this though, that every major leader who is in need of skilled medical care for surgery comes here.
They don't go to Cuba or Canada or even the UK, why is that?. It is because we have the best hospitals and doctors plain and simple. We as I said need to curb a lot of these high cost, but as I said we have to take care of tort reform.
Just ask any doctor what they have to pay a month just for their insurance, it will scare you. This also is a reason for the high cost of health care. If you need a major operation, i can guarantee you that you will want to have that done here in the US  |
I'm afraid you've been taken in by the hype. Malpractice lawsuits that range over the $1 Million mark are few and far between. Doctors pay way more than they should have to in order to get malpractice insurance. The insurance companies play the fear card and they know that they have the physicians over a barrel.
Tort reform is not the answer. A certain political party would have you think that trial lawyers everywhere are to blame for YOUR high medical costs. That's a bunch of bull. Medical malpractice isn't committed by lawyers. It's committed by doctors. A lawyer is there to represent you when you have been injured by someone who has taken an oath to "do no harm."
Healthcare costs are so astronomical because the health insurance companies will pay high prices for common procedures. How much does it cost to neuter your dog? How much does it cost to have a vasectomy? What happens is you have a vicious circle wherein the docs submit claims for higher and higher prices for each particular part of a procedure and the insurance companies keep paying.
Who ends up paying the price for all this? YOU! The consumer.
There is a solution that is being tried here in Oklahoma. I was the legislative advocate for a new type of clinic system that charges $20 per month per head of household. That money goes to the clinic company. When a patient visits the clinic, everything he or she receives is charged at cost. The company's overhead is paid for by that $20. So, doc visits are $10, blood work is $5 (instead of the $80 to $150 charged regularly), sleep studies are $500, MRIs are $400. What's happened is the patient is actually doing business with the doctor and not some thieving insurance company. This is a solution. And it's working. It's a free market solution that is not socialistic. And the funny part is, the $20 paid by the person to the company? That's the same exact amount the state pays a doc monthly for each MedicAid patient that is assigned to that doc. So quite frankly, it could get a lot of people off Medicaid.
Sorry so long, but this is a subject about which I am very passionate.
SG