Economy How do we lower medical costs? Any ideas?

[chardog]

It boils down to one simple question that definitely doesn't have a simple answer. How do we institute universal healthcare that doesn't actually suck.

It can suck and be ok. I got off of one private plan to another because of the soaring costs (which sucks), it’s taking my family 3 months and counting to see our primary physician (which sucks).

Sucky healthcare already exists.

 

[chardog]

America gets taxed more for Medicare than citizens of countries like Australia and Canada yet receive nothing in return. America is a socialist country without the benefits. But reading this thread they seem to take pride in it.

This is due to various factors and doesn’t have to be this way. It covers a very expensive block of people.

 

[jefferz]

Med education most likely should be for free. Very good students might get also stipends...
This will provide a lot of interestents and then ...you will have free hands in unis and colleges etc easily to sort out and drop out not enough good for said programm. Easy peasy. So outcome will be very high dropouts % and at least more sorted " material " will get paper.

Do you know who will pay off your medical student loans?
The military.

 

[Andy Capp]

Require medical price transparency would help. I belong to a non profit Christian health sharing program. The Christian program covers my health care needs but works differently from traditional health insurance. A big difference is that as a member I am required to shop around, when possible, and choose low cost health care services. It is amazing at how large price differences can be between hospitals. As a result members of the non profit Christian health sharing program shopping around for best health care pricing, my health care coverage costs are about half the price of what others pay for health insurance. At least it is about half the price of people I know who I asked what they were paying for health insurance.

I believe this is something that soon to be President Trump is planning to address.

From last week I read this ~

How Trump can double down on price transparency for patients​

MSN

When he returns to office, President-elect Trump has the opportunity to fix the broken American health care system by doubling down on his first-term agenda of delivering price transparency for patients.

Instead of protecting American patients, the Biden administration rescinded or failed to fully implement the very basic requirements that patients should know the cost of their treatment before they get it.


By finally removing the veil between medical services and prices, Trump can empower patients to shop for the right care at the right price, avoid overcharges, and give employers and unions a better idea of the costs in advance so that they can optimally design health benefits. ....

Re: the first sentence, I'm not claiming there's anything amiss with your particular organization, but many of them have turned out to be scams and there are no regulations or consumer protections to prevent it.

How would you verify if it is being run properly?

 

[SandisLL]

Do you know who will pay off your medical student loans?
The military.

How? I'm really interested to see this...
Countries where public funding is used to provide education are using all tax collected, with exception social tax ....to fund education.
Military uses taxpayers money and damn a lot of taxpayers money.
Ofc countries economic might earn a lot and provide a lot of well paid jobs IF they are able to sell weapons for EXPORT....ofc...

 

[jefferz]

How? I'm really interested to see this...
Countries where public funding is used to provide education are using all tax collected, with exception social tax ....to fund education.
Military uses taxpayers money and damn a lot of taxpayers money.
Ofc countries economic might earn a lot and provide a lot of well paid jobs IF they are able to sell weapons for EXPORT....ofc...

Armed Forces Health Professions Scholarship Program

 

[ColemanwastheGOAT]

In Trudeau's Canada we're just killing the old and sick now. 50k killed since MAID got legalized.

Much cheaper than treating them.

 

[Beechwood]

Re: the first sentence, I'm not claiming there's anything amiss with your particular organization, but many of them have turned out to be scams and there are no regulations or consumer protections to prevent it.

How would you verify if it is being run properly?

Good question. That was a concern when I looked to join the Christian Health Sharing plan that I did. A couple items that had me making the jump from traditional insurance to the Christian sharing plan was, at the time I kept losing my health insurance. Prices for health insurance also continued to rise substantially each year. The particular Christian Health Sharing plan I joined had been approved by the government to quality as being covered as having health coverage. At that time one was penalized by the government if you didn't have health care coverage. And lastly I found financial groups recommended the Christian group I joined. i remember Dave Ramsey was one that said the Christian Health sharing group I joined had a good reputation. I can add that my experience with the Christian group has been great. I've had no problems with them.

 

[Witchhunt]

In Trudeau's Canada we're just killing the old and sick now. 50k killed since MAID got legalized.

Much cheaper than treating them.

Assisted suicide, FTW.. it’s great for climate change, too.

 

[cooks1]

Our healthcare costs are through the roof. The medical industry charges an arm and a leg for everything. How did it come to this and more importantly, what are some ideas to make healthcare much more affordable?

Affordable but also make it so that there's no increase in waiting list like in Canada and other countries

Are we just that short on doctors and nurses?

How about we make it so that our health insurance covers and promotes going overseas for medical treatment?

It's important to note that the 'waiting list' in America is far longer and far worse than just about any country with a NHS like Canada or the UK. The list just looks different. It's not an actual list like Canada or the UK, but it's waiting all the same and it's far worse than either place. And I have lived for extended periods in all 3 places.

In Canada or the UK, for certain surgeries or services, there may indeed be a 'waiting list'. Whereas in the US, the 'wait' comes in the form of people choosing to delay (or even not have) the surgery or get treatment themselves for financial reasons.

A guy in our neighborhood ended up addicted to pain killers last year because he was trying to delay surgery for a severe hernia until the beginning of 2024. The reason? He had a very high deductible plan (in the 10's of thousands) and his wife was 4 month pregnant. So he knew they were going to have to pay the fully monty in 2024 due to that. But they had barely chipped into the deductible in 2023. He figured he could save 15K or so if he could endure 4 months of excruciating pain. This makes absolutely no sense at all.

He made it to 2024 and got his surgery. Then spent most of 2024 fighting his addiction. It was not until Halloween last year that he was anything resembling the man I knew. I give him a lot of credit for fighting through that, and I give his wife a lot of credit for sticking by him. But the whole thing happened because of our nonsensical system.

 

[jk7707]

Remove profit as motive.

 

[cincymma79]

Our healthcare costs are through the roof. The medical industry charges an arm and a leg for everything. How did it come to this and more importantly, what are some ideas to make healthcare much more affordable?

Affordable but also make it so that there's no increase in waiting list like in Canada and other countries

Are we just that short on doctors and nurses?

How about we make it so that our health insurance covers and promotes going overseas for medical treatment?

We are critically short. We already import barely functional immigrant nurses. I’ve seen some great ones come over too so not all shitty and to be fair language is a huge barrier that once addressed seems to resolve a lot of it. Just wait until the boomers have all retired from healthcare. That’s an enormous block of people