People blaming doctors wages for hospital costs is equivalent to blaming the presidents salary for the national debt. Insurance companies control everything. Who gets paid, how much, for what services.... Most hospitals have shockingly LOW profit margins, but everyone wants to ignore this fact. Is healthcare broken? I think not. Should it be changed? I think so. But we have to find a way to hold insurance companies accountable to do this.
Perhaps a 80/20 rule. Insurance company have to use 80 money take in on healthcare and 20% on overhead and bonsus.
Thats more than oil companies :D http://ycharts.com/companies/XOM/profit_margin Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk 2
Quality healthcare is going to be expensive. Any good product is. Do you want the system dumbed down so there is a low profit margin? Where do you think the good doctors will go if that happens? Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk 2
I used to get quality healthcare in return for agreeing to defend my country as needed. Then, it was downgraded to a lot more money for the same healthcare, now with this latest change the government must have realized that we weren't completely destitute and jacked the cost way up. I now have no choice but to go to the VA hospital where that part does not cost me anything, but just the wife's medical bills went up to an average of $200 per visit for us. I haven't been to a dentist for over a year because my wife needed 3 crowns and a bridge. It sucks when we have to make decisions based on what we have that month. Maybe after I get my college education we can afford cool stuff like visits to the dentist again.
10% is a pretty good overall profit margin. You guys sure are missing the giant pink elephant in the room
Maybe you can afford that when you inherit a business and make millions... Until then.. you'll have to suffer like the rest of us. This isn't made better by either party.. At least your VA benefits are good. Be thankful for that. I work at a hospital, and have great medical insurance, but dental insurance is a bit of a joke. A couple crowns and a bridge.... be thankful most of it is covered. Being in the medical field I can say that the problem isn't the COST but the unnecessary procedures we perform. People need to learn that dying is a natural part of life, first. Keeping your incredibly sick 97 year old grandfather alive for 6 more months while he's comatose and incapable of communicating is a far worse crime than you can imagine. The worst part is many people think this is justifiable, even normal. The only way to fix the medical costs is to end abusing the system. Doctors and families alike, are to blame. When there is no hope it's time to say there's no hope. Mr. Smith that has end stage lung cancer doesn't need to be intubated and kept in the ICU for 35 days before he dies. Give him some morphine and make him comfortable. This may come as a shock to many, because they can't grasp that life ends. Surely, to hunters, it will register. If you're dying, you're dying.... period. Keeping you alive does nothing but drive up cost (especially when you aren't even awake for the extra time). Death isn't something anyone can "fix", so let's stop trying. Here's a fun tidbit for you all. Remember the "death panel" republican scare word? Do you know what that even was? Most of you won't, so I'll elaborate. It was a counselor that you met with ever 6 months and discussed what YOU wanted. Say you didn't want to be kept alive, etc. This decision would be honored, no one could override it. Currently, if you have a living will, etc, and say that you don't want to be kept alive... your next of kin can come in and say "Keep them alive" and the doctors listen to their wishes, not your's. Sounds obscene right? It's the truth. It doesn't matter what you want, it matters what the people left alive want..... ie.. the people that can sue, want. Many people are left suffering every day because their child thinks it's the right thing. Even though they said they were ready to die. Billions are wasted each year, and doctor's salaries aren't the primary issue. It's hard to see when you're not embedded in it, but if you are, you totally understand. The "death panels" are something I champion. It's about time people are able to make their own decisions about how they die.
10% would be excellent for a hospital, idk about nation wide but locally the hospitals are making less than half that, which is terrible considering the money involved. Doctors should make more than others, I know I want the guy takin care of my life to be well educated, well trained, and well compensated for being both. The administrators and insurance companies and collection agencies and everyone else involved in healthcare who provide nothing towards the actual healthcare side of things are who I would wish to cut first.
I meant 10% for any business is a good bottom line at the end of the year. I know of a lot of companies that shoot for 3%. I think that Doctors earn their money, with all the cost of school and the time involved to become a Doctor and they sacrificed most of their 20's to become a Doctor. I do not begrudge anybody but politicians for making as much money as possible. That's what the American dream started as. Politicians Should not become rich off the American taxpayer, they should come and do their duty for their country then go back to the private sector to make their millions. As it sits right now we pay for all these politicians for the rest of their lives I wish I could get a pension that good for 12 years of service. Theres more to this but family is calling me.
I embedded my responses in your post. I have to elaborate down here for the thread to accept my response.
To the first response: I said the benefits are good, not the care. About the insulin, and the wrong chart, that **** happens in the private sector too, you better believe that. Second: That's more inline with what most people get. The way you said it, it came across that those procedures drained your dental insurance, and did nothing to say how much was covered. My insurance is about the same when it comes to dental procedures. They cover the cleaning, and a little on major stuff, most of it (for most people) come back to the patient Third: This has little to do with what I said. The part that it does address is the medical "waste", but I assure you that the $40,000 exploratory surgery performed on the person that has little to no affect on their outcome is far more wasteful. The hospital charged you $6 for the pill because of all the costs associated in delivering said pill (ie: pharmacist, nurse, pyxis, delivery, cost of pill). This isn't a defense of it, just a simple explanation. The biggest problem is people don't want to hear "your mother is dying", etc. No one wants to hear it, and because of that most doctors beat around the bush. Also, it's bad for the pocket book to just let people die. Now, like in any business, there are good doctors and bad doctors (not only in practice, but at heart too). If we curtailed the amount of waste in the medical field, medicine would be cheaper. On a side note, I personally think the idea of medical "insurance" is flawed. Insurance is supposed to be a group of people contributing money to a pool on the off-chance that someone has an accident, etc. Most people do not have accidents, so people generally pay into the pool without cashing out. With health, it's a flawed idea because everyone gets sick, everyone will have to use it. Therefore, everyone pays in, and everyone cashes out. This is the fundamental reason our healthcare system should be single payer, and everyone should pay into it. No one should get bent out of shape about it either, because everyone will use it, everyone will see benefit. Medical insurance was a flawed idea to start with, and it simply continues to get worse.
Do you see confiscatory tax rates as a form of salary cap? An if so at what rate do you believe that taxation begins to limit or prevent accrued compensation?
100% Not what I am looking for sir John. I am looking for where the government states a doctor can only make x amount. I am 100% against it, I would like to see where this has been written into law.
With Obama care paying the doctors wages I don't see how a cap in pay will not be instated, the governmental control over our health care system is no more than the abolishment of the free market system in which supply and demand control cost and insure the availability of service to those whom need it. Any one believing that political interference in any private sector for profit entity is a good thing needs to look no further than the fiscal debacle that we call "social security".
They're reducing the payout by medicare and freezing that rate for a few years. To John, the problem you don't see is that every hospital gets a different amount for the same procedure. The rates also change if you're paying with insurance, with medicare, or out of pocket. There's also the HUGE issue of people going to the ER that don't have insurance. People without insurance still receive care, and then they're "billed". How many of those do you think actually pay? People have blinders on when it comes to healthcare. They have the "I have insurance, so what do I care?" mentality. What people fail to realize is the non-payment of those people are just another contributor of high healthcare costs. The only solution to the healthcare industry is a single-payer system. People like to say things like "They can't get services in Canada", or "Everyone comes here for healthcare". This is a fallacy. All one has to do is look at the health of each nation... we're way down on the list. Most research is done in the UK, then makes its way here. Most procedures are the same. Here's another thing that no one seems to think about... In Europe, doctors are paid bonuses to make their patients healthier. Ie, if their patient loses weight, or quits smoking, they get a check. Doctors in America are paid to keep people sick. Sounds taboo, but think about it. If your patient is healthy and doesn't need to see you every 4 weeks, or doesn't need lab work done every 6, you don't get paid as much. Now, this is a general statement, and isn't supposed to cover every healthcare provider. Obviously there are medical providers out there that want to make people healthy. For others, the incentive isn't there. Doctors come here from other nations to make money, not to heal people. Still, we have a dim life expectancy. Here's how much some countries spend: Notice that places like United Kingdom actually have more doctors per person than we do..... http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/jun/30/healthcare-spending-world-country Here's where each country ranks in health: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_ove_hea_per-health-overall-performance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy To me, this is pretty sad. Funny to see how government run programs spend less, but have healthier people. It kinda puts a knife in the old argument "we get better healthcare in the US". Better, not even close. We get more elective procedures (ie, procedures you don't necessarily need), but overall we're way behind for as much as we spend. The same thing could be said for the education system. It's broken and needs to be fixed as well. Teachers unions, tenure, no child left behind, etc.
Sorry but eliminating all competition from the market is NOT the answer. A single payer system would kill many of the few good aspects left in our healthcare. We need to leave the fee for service plan and develop a new system....which is an aspect of obamacare I actually support. Putting more emphasis on keeping people OUT of hospitals not in them. You have to blend these models carefully though, because eliminating fee for service completely penalizes doctors for stuff out of their hand like patien compliance. Many many many patients are lazy and non compliant and at no fault of the doctors, repeatedly end up back in the hospital. Many new plans throw the burden of responsibility for repeat visitors on the doctor by paying less. Don't start on research. We regulate it WAAAAY more than other countries which is why many companies choose to do it elsewhere with less restrictions.
Don't try to tell me that American health care doesn't measure up world wide. We have the best hospitals in the world. Yes it is expensive and has flaws and some things need to be fixed but the healthcare itself is top notch. Case in point http://hospitals.webometrics.info/en/North_america/United States of America Here are the top 100 in the world http://hospitals.webometrics.info/en/World
