Article Source: msnbc.com
from:msnbc.comSick Americans more likely to be in medical debt
Seeded on Wed Nov 9, 2011 10:05 AM EST (msnbc.com)
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The lawsuit mentality of USA has driven medical costs through the roof over the past 50 years. Add into this that accountants are given far too much power over how a company operates, and the graft so common in America these days - of course medical costs are insane. America is the country of greed, not of health or caring.
The USA is the ONLY country in the world that allows TV advertisements for prescription drugs.
Think about that for a second, with the article in mind
Phil -
Don't need to think about it at all. It's a travesty. You want to increase the cost of health care, just call up your doc every time you see a new prescription med on the TV to ask if it's:"right for you"
btw: the report shows that the US has the highest percentage of chronic suffers taking 4 or more prescription meds
Lawsuits are not driving up the cost of healthcare.
Texas proved this.
It is GREED. Outright GREED. Pure and simple.
We need to go to a system of all-encompassing universal coverage for every citizen.
We need to get the "for-profit" healthcare insurance companies OUT of our healthcare !!
They are stripping off 40-50% of every healthcare dollar !!
.
why do you say "texas proved this"??
How much worse off would texas be WITHOUT litigation reform?
I'd like to see your source on the 40-50% number. While I think insurance companies are part of the problem, I personally think they are less of a problem than the lawyers
Wow, Hold on there, I live in Texas, & I was given TB by a hospital ( they told me I had it) in Texas they refused to pay for treatment. No lawyer would touch it as quote " there is not enough in it for us"
1) How do you know you were given TB "by the hospital"? Unless you were exposed by gross negligence, sorry, but that's part of the risk of being hospitalized that you agree to when admitted
2) What are your damages (people with normal immune systems rarely convert to active respiratory TB)
I call bs and you are obviously trying to cash in. Sorry--try working
Studies on the obvious are a waste of both time and money.
I couldn't agree with you more. How shocked can you really be that a person who uses a service more than the average person would be more likely in debt as a result of using that service more? Next we will find out that researchers have determined that on a clear sunny day without a cloud in the sky, the color of the sky is a shade of blue.
If you read the article then you wouldn't say that. The study was comparing Americans with chronic health problems to those in other countries with similar health conditions.
Actually, most of the western world would be shocked. We are the only country in that group to treat the sick as cash cows. The more civilized nations among us have made healthcare a RIGHT, not a business. In the US everything has a price, everything.
I love how you use the word "uses". Like a person with a heart condition has any choice as to whether they "use" a Doctor or a hospital in order to keep living. Like a cancer patient is "just window shopping" when they seek treatment like they were buying a car.
Healthcare is not a casual "use" or "choice" for those that are dying. Putting money between human beings and health may be the single most inhumane thing we do as a nation right now.
The full report shows that US has the highest percentage of people reporting two or more chronic health conditions (it doesn't say what those conditons are). Conicidence that we have the highest cost to treat chronic conditions? I think not. Maybe if we just started ignoring the ones that are just annoying, the cost to for those receiving the care would go down.
Yeah, lets just ignore the sick, that's the answer. Are you serious? You want to take an inhumane system and make it even more crass?
Why all the hate and angst for the sick? They aren't sick just to annoy you ya know.
The article is spot on. Many people don't go to the Doctor, or don't get prescriptions filled as they just can't afford it. Our chronically sick don't just have their illness to live with. They also live with the costs that threaten to bankrupt them.
See, that word, "care", it means exactly that. And, as your comment shows quite clearly, many of us just don't care about the sick and what they endure.
We are officially pronouncing "In God we trust", but the sick be damned if they are out of cash.
Jim - Did you read the full report? Maybe one of the reasons other countries have lower costs to treat chronic health issues is because their socialist systems are treating fewer issues per person.
The article was about patient debt. There is no patient debt in a country that has single payer socialized medicine Brian.
And consider this, maybe, just maybe, the reason there is more chronic conditions in the US is BECAUSE of a system that encourages people to not seek medical care for as long as possible because of cost, thereby escalating the illness.
They also do not buy prescriptions they can't afford and therefore stay sicker. And, it goes without saying, a system built on greed and product will pad the bill just like any other business.
When the bottom line is profit, you get what we have. More customers. When the emphasis is on care and prevention, you end up with less PATIENTS.
Definitely a 'DUH' article. This study was financed?
Jim -
Or maybe it's because we have a system that encourages people to seek medical care for conditions that don't really require or benefit from medical care. Look at the chart for "blood pressure under control". It's a small thing but kind of telling.
For the record, I'm in favor of socialized medicine in the French model. I don't think the insurance provider subsidy which is the AHC bill was the way to go.
I have to admit that upon reading the headline, my immediate reaction was also a resounding "duh." But, when I actually read the article, I learned that it did indeed offer useful information about the extremely high cost of healthcare in the US relative to other high-income, "first world" nations. The lesson - just like you can't judge a book by its cover, you can't judge an article by its headline.
Yes, there is that. When illness is treated as business, profits will be increased any way possible. And dying people are the best customers. The usually don't say no to a treatment or question the "professionals".
I completely agree Brian.
Very true PDK. MSNBC is notorious for being sly with their wording of headlines. It is yet another indicator of how our media tries to manipulate us. I point to MSNBC here, but they all do it.
They don't seem to get that many of us see the corporate agenda now and that they are losing credibility.
Calling it healthcare is a misnomer..
So sick people spend more money on medical care than healthy people? That's some crack reporting right there.
Sigh. None of you joksters actually read the article did you?
It is not comparing sick people in the US to healthy people in the US. It is comparing our system to all other western nations. See, WE are the only nation left in the western block that sticks a bill under a patients nose for seeking "care".
We are the only nation in that group that forces the sick to avoid treatment due to debt. We are the only nation that willingly bankrupts the sick.
And in that context, it is disgraceful and has little to do with actual "care".
Yes, lol, who could have guessed? Maybe tomorrow they will bring us another breakthrough study like "The rich have more money than the poor" or "Some politicians are actually corrupt".
Or, some people just can't read or comprehend what they just read.
Sick Americans more likely to be in medical debt. Dang that flys in the face of all logic, I'd think the healthy people would be more likely to be in medical debt. Seriously, how is this news at all. Of course sick people are more likely to seek frequent medical care and thus rack up higher bills. It doesn't take a genius to figure this out. Its like stating that people with spinal cord injuries are more likely to purchase wheelchairs, or diabetics are more likely to use insulin. Tell us something we don't already know.
Lawsuit mentality? Or is it 30 to 40% operating costs for Insurance Industry. Those fleets of corporate jets, extremely high salaries for the upper echelon, and various other benefits for the super class has to be funded from somewhere.
Hospital worker's wages have declined. Basic product costs, with the exception of pharmaceuticals, have also declined. Yet, Insurance Industry continues its premium increases.
And sick people have more bills? I would assume that.
Pharmaceutical companys are part and parcil of the problem. If they werrent then why do people go to Canada to get their meds??
bob
@bob: Big Pharma and Big Insurance are the same guys.
This just in; "Healthy Americans are less likely to be in medical debt". Really?
More reason to have a national healthcare system. This should have been the core of the Obama, healthcare reform act. Unfortunately, that chance was lost through compromise and politics.
Obviously many people just read the headline. It was a study comparing Americans to people of other high income countries with chronic health problems. Americans have more debt than people in these other countries.
This makes perfect sense. In America if someone gets a sniffle the doctor orders MRI's, CT scans, several rounds of drugs then follows that up with more of the same to combat all the side effects from the first round of care. Until people start to realize that our system is a sickness care model and not a health care model prices will continue to escalate. The whole health insurance debate is about how to continue to pay for a system that is broken as opposed to fixing the broken system.
Hmmm..aren't some of these countries (i.e. Norway) socialist? Once again, this study points out that capitalism is a failed system and something else is needed (not necessarily condoning Socialism per se, but it does seems that this system can work if implemented properly, at least where medical care is concerned).
Read the article, then read the full report, then come back and tell me why the US has the highest percentage of 2 or more chronic conditions and 4 or more prescription medications for all of these nations reporting and why that wasn't reported along with the other information.
Study: People who work with sharp objects more likely to have cuts than those who do not.
Study: Eskimos tend to have more cold-related injuries than those along the equator.
Study: Cats typically have more kittens than dogs.
Study: People who don't actually read are much more likely to type erroneous crap that has nothing to do with the subject at hand.
A study of the obvious (if you are sick, you incurr medical expenses), to push the socialist agenda. In socialist countries everyone has a lower standard of living. And why not just go with the communist system of government? In communist Russia, the street sweepers made just about the same salary as the doctors. The result was somewhat clean streets, and very bad medical care - wards of people fending for themselves, dirty needles, shortage of medicines. In Sweden, right now, it costs the equivalant of $375 to get an asprin in the emergency room, or get heart surgery. Sounds great, until you find out the waiting time to get the heart surgery, or if you need the asprin, for that matter. We own a company, and offer the employees health insurance if they pay half the cost. Most of them prefer to forego the health insurance so they have more beer money. What we need is to stop the welfare state we are becoming, and get back to good American values.
Did someone actually pay money to come up with this? This flys in the face of common sense. Everyone knows only healthy people have medical debt.
Who woulda thunk it?
Ya think?
Thjat is why we needed Health care Reform as a start on fixing the problem. I would vote for a Canadian or European still haelth service.
lol, uh, duh?