No free healthcare needed

Meetings
1

Put an end to medical insurance.

Place a national cap on ALL medical supplies and services
A box of bandaids costs 3 dollars for a hospital, yet they charge 200.00 and 300.00 per bandaid in the ER
Cap all medical services at an hourly rate .
Going to the doctor for a flu should not cost 1200.00 when the patient is in the office for an hour
Doctors, should not be paid a premium so high that the poorest of Americans cannot afford healthcare

Create a policy to hold doctors accountable for unnecessary procedures.
Crate a policy to lower medical costs to an absolute minimum so that even the homeless can afford the same medical care as the wealthy.

Taking your 7 year old child to the ER for a skinned knee should not cost 3700.00.
Total cost should be.

38.00 for nurse time
3.00 for cleaning knee
3.00 for bandaid
7.00 for take home antibiotics

$51.00 should be the total ER bill

In doing this, insurance companies cannot dominate the medical market pushing healthcare costs to a level that the average American cannot afford medical care
In the United States of America, the number 1 cause of death is medical malpractice… and Americans pay these doctors more than any other profession.

Cap all medical procedures at 10 percent of cost, and create an hourly rate for all doctors.

Hospitals all over the country are given very large donations every year, those donations should be more than enough to cover the lavish lifestyles our modern doctors believe they deserve.

Donation’s hospitals receive should be used to pay for new equipment and supplies first, then be used to cover the healthcare of those who cannot afford the services.

This is how we create affordable healthcare in America…
This is how we should treat our fellow brothers and sisters .

End medical insurance,
End greed in the medical field
End pharmaceutical company influence
End healthcare refusal
End the #1 cause of death in America

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Re your example for an ER visit for a skinned knee, let’s assume your labor and materials estimates are correct for purposes of discussion. I have a couple sincere questions for you.

  1. If the $51 only covers the nurse’s time and supplies, where does the hospital in which the ER is located get the revenue to pay the utility bills (electric, water, sewage), support staff wages (e.g., the guy who orders and stocks the bandaids, antiseptic, antibiotics), the administrator who pays all the clinical care and support staff, etc.? A hospital must meet both its direct and indirect costs. Where will the hospital get the revenue to meet all these indirect costs?
  2. If you cap medical procedures at 10% of cost, that means the healthcare business is donating the other 90% to the patient. That is not a viable business model. The other 90% must be paid by someone. Who do you propose should pay the other 90%?
  3. Mandatory hourly rates for all doctors is called wage controls. Experience has shown they work no better than price controls. The US govt actually did engage in wage controls during WWII; it made companies unable to compete for skilled labor.

I’m just pointing out that healthcare economics are a little more complicated than is obvious at first glance. If your proposal can be tweaked to make it feasible, it would certainly be worth exploring.
Kindest regards,

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the insurance company

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Okay, the insurance company pays the other 90%. But, from where do the insurance companies get the $$ to pay the 90%? Ans: they get those $$ from insurance premiums paid by the insured. Ultimately, the consumer pays the costs; this law of economics can no more be repealed than the law of gravity. Now, a free lunch CAN be had by some, but always at the expense of others. For example, the person who uses the ER for treatment of sore throats and minor scrapes may claim inability to pay. Many states’ laws prohibit ERs from turning anyone away on the basis of ability to pay, which is why ERs are flooded with sore throats, minor scrapes, and other owwies. The ERs’ costs must still be paid; in this instance, they are merely shifted from the person who cannot pay or pretends to be unable to pay onto the person who can pay.

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What our healthcare system needs is competition. I think insurance for catastrophic health events is still necessary. But the majority of health care would benefit from competition.

Something else to consider is the cost of becoming a healthcare professional. When you’ve spent half a million dollars earning a doctorate in medicine, you feel the need for an income that will “reimburse” you for those funds spent. Why is a medical degree so expensive? Does it have to be so expensive? Can it be made less expensive?

Maybe we can have doctors of various degrees. A “first line of defense” doctor. The first one you see with a health condition, a low level general practitioner. If your health condition requires more expertise, but no invasive procedures, then you see the next level up doctor. And so on, until you reach the brain surgeon.

I don’t have all the answers. But I do know that healthy competition has a tendency to lower prices.

6 
 I understand the frustration of those who cannot afford medical.  Health care providers are businesses, as you explained, and it is unfortunate that so many do not understand this.  Yes, pricing of supplies is unbelievable, but ultimately just a technique to spread the cost of operation.  Maybe the provider should list the supplies at actual cost, and the remaining bill as cost of business.  Consumers may learn by that.
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I agree with you about the need for competition, and no, healthcare need not be as expensive as it is in the US. Third party payers (insurers, fed govt (Medicare, Medicaid)) add exorbitantly expensive layers of bureaucracy that are ultimately paid for by the public. We need to get rid of that.

Re that low level general practitioner… ahem… he spent eleven years of school or professional training post high-school to get to that lowly position. I spent the same eleven years post high-school to become a board eligible prev med physician. Eligible means you are able to sit for another exam, and upon passing, become board certified. A physician adds another four years to those eleven years to become a neurosurgeon. Lowly and exalted positions in medicine are not so much differences in education as differences in public perception and level of technology employed.

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Great questions, let me start by saying this, hospitals currently charge around 1500 percent markup on Any and all supplies needed and used.
I work in HVAC, and if I upcharge more than 40 percent I am taken to court for price gouging because it is considered taking advantage of folks who are in a position of need.
At 40 percent, it is already enough to cover all my costs and allow for a comfortable profit as well
Many HVAC companies actually do upcharge far more than 40 percent and simply show the extra money going to this and that to avoid repercussion.
Even so, it is wrong to do that.
Unless you are a doctor, hospital or any medical employee…
See, folks in most cases can go with AC in the summer time so they can afford to decline those up charges, but in winter time, it’s more imperative that they pay for those up charges repairs to have heat in their homes.

Then on the medical side, you have folks who will not survive without certain procedures and or medication, but insurance won’t cover those things, and hospitals and doctors have their hands tied for fear of losing a dollar
If medical insurance actually paid for everything you need, considering you’ve paid into that insurance for years, then we wouldn’t have any issues, but insurance can pick and choose leaving folks not only out 400 to 800 a month in premium payments, but also without the procedure or medications they need

My wife had her gull bladder removed, and not only did her insurance not cover the procedure, but the procedure did not fix the issue she was having.
So not only did we get stuck with a huge bill, but she also still have the same issues as before, and now with no gallbladder, she has new issues as well .
I added up the cost of her insurance from the time she first had issues, until the day she had her procedure, we paid 675 a month for insurance, over 5 years that was over 40k, the procedure cost 22,900. Which we paid out of pocket…
So we paid the insurance company over 40k and still had to pay 22k out of pocket on top of that, her insurance paid for 3 days in the hospital and her medication after…what purpose did the insurance serve? Literally insurance is a scam and should be abolished,
If you pay into insurance then that insurance should cover any and all medical applications or you should be refunded the full amount paid into it
Which no insurance will do, leaving only the logical conclusion that insurance needs to be abolished.
Hospitals are… In their most basic form… a business… if they were there to actually help folks, then their goal would be to help no matter what . And sure they call themselves non profits, but show me one that doesn’t have huge profits…

. Now I am a firm believer that everyone should be paid fairly for the work they do… as an HVAC technician, my salary is capped… why? Because if it were not, my salary would soon surpass my employers ability to pay me and pull a profit my from work.
My employer cannot keep raising the prices to the customer every time I get a raise because before long, no one would be able to afford to have their systems serviced.
Same should be in the medical field. Because today, 75 percent of Americans cannot afford a medical emergency.

What about the folks in fast food? If they got a raise every year, and worked 15 years for that company no one would be able to afford to eat there, so that company caps the pay
Same with every other profession, except the medical field… Who at this point have become so grossly out of control that the average American cannot afford to be cared for, leaving the taxpayers on the hook for (not for profit) hospitals who’s pricing leaves folks unable to pay.

Another example… SpongeBob bandaid… Box of 15 costs 4 dollars, but 1 bandaid exactly the same cost over 400 dollars at the emergency room, not to mention the other 800 to 1500 dollars staff fee, emergency room fee and other fees…
I’m not anti hospital, I am simply pro people.

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