Thread: How to make healthcare in USA cheaper?

Is the question about how to make health care cheaper, or how to make health care insurance cheaper?

If you want to make health care cheaper, how about this:

Go to med school, create your own pharmaceutical/ medical device company, and then give all of your services and products away for free!

Whoo hoo!

Originally Posted by honedright

Is the question about how to make health care cheaper, or how to make health care insurance cheaper?

If you want to make health care cheaper, how about this:

Go to med school, create your own pharmaceutical/ medical device company, and then give all of your services and products away for free!

Whoo hoo!

That would be great until a large corporation pays millions of $$ for well respected doctors to do "studies" showing that their products/services are better than yours. Then they might spend more money on advertising telling the public to tell their doctors that they need the expensive new-hightech products/services. Then nobody would want the free stuff, because it would be seen as second rate. That's what happens now with drugs and devices that work very well but don't have the profit potential anymore.

I don't think anyone is saying providers of service shouldn't be paid, but the services aren't always needed and those that are could be provided for a lot less overall if the system were made more efficient.

Jordan

Originally Posted by jnich67

That would be great until a large corporation pays millions of $$ for well respected doctors to do "studies" showing that their products/services are better than yours. Then they might spend more money on advertising telling the public to tell their doctors that they need the expensive new-hightech products/services. Then nobody would want the free stuff, because it would be seen as second rate. That's what happens now with drugs and devices that work very well but don't have the profit potential anymore.

I don't think anyone is saying providers of service shouldn't be paid, but the services aren't always needed and those that are could be provided for a lot less overall if the system were made more efficient.

Jordan

This sort of goes in hand with another thread about sheep and advertising. You either believe what you are told, or you believe what you experience for yourself.

It's all very simple. Don't get sick and if you do rely in a self help book or some witch doctor somewhere.

Originally Posted by honedright

Is the question about how to make health care cheaper, or how to make health care insurance cheaper?

It's about health care being cheaper. The overhead due to private insurance plans is supposed to be something around 17%.

Originally Posted by honedright

If you want to make health care cheaper, how about this:

Go to med school, create your own pharmaceutical/ medical device company, and then give all of your services and products away for free!

Whoo hoo!

You surely recognize that US is not a free-market anarchy, so this is not the only option. I wish you'd provide something constructive instead of useless exaggerations.
Nobody is forcing you to troll threads here, so I suggest you use your freedom in a different way or you will loose it.

The only way that I can see making it cheaper would be:

1) to put the duty of paying for services back into the hands of the patient. Insurance companies have a vested interest in raising prices since the higher they go the more we are going to "NEED" insurance. Patients that pay out of pocket, even if that money came from an insurance policy originally, have a vested interest in keeping prices down, since that will make your premiums smaller. The cheapest healthcare would come in a system where there are only two mouths to feed, the doctor(his fee) and the patient(by keeping money in their pockets so they can still afford food), the more mouths involved the higher the cost will be.

2) to convince up and coming generations that the reason to become a doctor is not to get rich but to help people, the money should be secondary, IMO. That will be hard to do as long as aspiring doctors have to become 300,000 dollars, or more, in debt for their education.

3) to get rid of the FDA, since it doesnt do the job it was instituted to do and that is to keep consumers safe. How many drugs have recently been released only to find that they kill people. The way it is set up, the pharmicutical companies make new drugs only because the patent is running out on the old drug, not that it is any better or safer. We the people should be in charge of what drugs we choose, not some panel of ex CEO's of the same companies they are now in charge of policing 1000s of miles away.

4) convince the populace that and ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. IMO most problems can be solved by watching your diet far easier and cheaper than popping pills.

5) get the federal government out of the healthcare buisiness, if you want your state government to provide healthcare to every one within your state, pay for it yourself instead of pulling the rest of the nation down with you. The federal government was never meant to be our nannies.

6) to teach the populace the difference between want and need.

A couple of points that contribute a large amount to the cost of health care. The overhead for doctors has risen a lot recently (relitive term)

The med mal insurance for doctors is extremely high, I've heard this is especially true for OBGYN's, and some specialitys

College cost have gone up a LOT even since I first went compared to when I went back 7 years later. The amount of student loan dept that most people are in finishing an grad or especially a doctorate progam is extremely high.

I"m not saying that these or the only reasons, but if I was a gambling man I would bet they are the largest factors.