exactly!!!

The "mandate" is the problem. :2 cents:

Theirs had a mandate also and Newt praised it saying personal responsibility.

http://www.npr.org/2012/03/31/149767...-mandate-first

:thumbsup in statistical comparison, canadian healthcare helps more people for less money

since the us always likes doing bigger and better, we're interested to see what else you boys can come up with :thumbsup

Well, it it is on the Internet it must be true . . . not sure how that changed the relevance of my comment though.

you said the mandate was the problem. what you meant to say 'a mandate from a black man is the problem'

single payerrrrrr

Why is cost or cost increases even an issue?

BOTH sides should be saying that since we already pay more per person than any other country. Since we are the smartest country, lead the world in technology, etc, bla bla bla ?.. Then coming up with a top level health plan for everyone should be easy. After all WE ARE ALREADY SPENDING MORE THAN EVERY OTHER COUNTRY!!!

I've concluded we're idiots for having idiots represent us and neither party gives a fuck.


.

Sure. I live in Morris Park in the Bronx. Morris Park is known for 2 things: having a big Italian-American community (had the Columbus Day Parade yesterday with Chaz Palminteri as Grand Marshal) and having Montefiori Hospital and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Every Saturday morning, they have free medical consultations, from 8am - 12 noon, for uninsured Bronx residents. The consultation is free, but you have to pay for tests, etc. in cash at cost. They said I needed an MRI of my knee, and refered me to Third Avenue Radiology and Imaging in the South Bronx. Got the MRI and paid cash, $50 which I'm guessing is their actual cost.

So, if MRIs (depending of course which type) really cost $50 - what is a fair price to charge? $500 (10x the amount) doesn't seem fair to me. Of course this is a business and you need to turn a profit. So is 3x fair? Like the way they mark up a bottle of wine in an upscale NYC restaurant?

To me therein lies the root of the problem. The medical arts should be considered a service first, not a business. But it's been that way for too long in the US and will be hard to change.

Maybe medicine should take a page from sports - instead of paying $500 million for the naming rights of a stadium, like AT&T did in Dallas, they could back research for breast cancer and the treatment would be called the AT&T cure for breast cancer.

For such an "advanced" country the US is the world's laughingstock when it comes to medical coverage (and a lot if other things lately).

If that chart is based on total population versus total cost then,
considering the number of Americans that have no health coverage at all; the per capita rate for American is way higher than that chart.

We have millions upon millions who get little or no medical treatment and their zero cost is
averaged in and weighed against countries where everyone is treated.

That chart is per capita not per insured. Which brings up my original point, as a nation we are already spending way more per person and as a percent of our economy than other countries. SOOOOO, wake up politicians, do something!

These prices don't make any sense. It takes usually about 1 minute to write a report on knee xray for a junior radiologist. Senior consultant radiologist will write a knee MRI report in 15 minutes. Also MRI machine cost probably 10 times more than XRAY machine. There is just no way these two exams could cost the same.

The problem is the healthcare companies get a huge chunk of that money.

So maybe I overpaid on the xray if true cost of an MRI is $50. They were done months apart in different locations (but both in the Bronx).