[lit-ideas] Re: Guess where the USA ranks in terms of health care

Most places in the world, if you don't have health insurance, you will be ripped off. Ghana, Switzerland, Bolivia ... you will be ripped off. That's not a special American situation.
Trivially true, I suppose. In Switzerland, you would have 'basic' health insurance, and the 'basic' insurance there's compared to the top insurance in the US and Germany. Insurers can compete only on price of policy, cannot cherrypick patients. In Ghana, you'd have access to the country's health service (but variably, by location). In Bolivia, the basic health insurance system is would-be universal one, but apparently has not reached all in rural areas. Etc...
In fact, almost everywhere except the US, you'd have access to a universal health system of 
some kind.

(I do though agree that the problem's 'multifactorial'.)
Many things impact cost in the US. Take provider greed. Many doctors TREAT YOUR INSURANCE RATHER THAN YOUR ILLNESS. In other words, these doctors evaluate what your insurance covers and schedule treatments according to that insurance. This will continue with or without universal health care and continue to exponentially inflate costs.
No it will not continue with or without universal healthcare, as witness British doctors in private practice (almost all of whom of course work also for the NHS and most of whom will only take a patient on referral from their, usually NHS, GP): they do not (IMO/IME) do ops an insurance policy would pay for when they would not do that op on the NHS. Nor do they 'screw' people without insurance who consult them privately. 

dodging thunderstorms in Wales

Judy
----- Original Message ----- From: "Eric Yost" <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx> 
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2008 8:30 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Guess where the USA ranks in terms of health care
Based on informed professional opinions I've heard, lack of health care insurance, taken all by itself, is NOT the major problem in US health care. Instead, it's part of a complex of interacting problems.
Most places in the world, if you don't have health insurance, you will be ripped off. Ghana, Switzerland, Bolivia ... you will be ripped off. That's not a special American situation.
For example, in the US, if you have Medicare, you will be billed at Medicare rates. If you have Aetna, you will be billed at Aetna rates. If you have no insurance ... you will be billed at ripoff rates.
The problem is COST itself. Greed. Greed at hospital and doctor level. Lawsuits and laws proliferating largely unnecessary procedures. Bureaucracy. If the medical profession in the US can control its costs, health insurance itself will be much lower.
Many things impact cost in the US. Take provider greed. Many doctors TREAT YOUR INSURANCE RATHER THAN YOUR ILLNESS. In other words, these doctors evaluate what your insurance covers and schedule treatments according to that insurance. This will continue with or without universal health care and continue to exponentially inflate costs.
So while John's cited article/political petition is correct that lack of insurance leads to ripoff, the phenomena is part of a larger group of problems that universal health care will not address by itself. 

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