EU follies

[tigerwillow1]

And this shows how corrupted is a system in the US.
CT scan is procedure which in Europe costs 200-400Euro.. And most popular drugs costs 10-20 Euro per month (full price)..
In the US, healthcare providers deliberately inflate the prices of their services, only to "secretly" give insurance companies an 80-90% discount, which the policyholders are unaware of.

On this I will agree with you. I look at all the statements and am very aware of it, but agree that most aren't.

Especially as I understands Trump try to limit Medicare availability.

On this you are probably being brainwashed by liberal press false reporting. There is absolutely nothing in the works to limit medicare availability. What's being affected is a totally different program, medicade, which is primarily government funded medical care for low income people (unfortunately including those in the US illegally). The proposed changes are to require able-bodied individuals to do some work to attain eligibility instead of sitting on their butts collecting government assistance. The press reports this as a huge number of people who will be cruelly cut off from medical care and end up dying as a result.

As far as government getting more involved, the last time that happened in a big way was in 2010 when the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. obamacare, went into effect. It moved the US medical system further toward the things that you justifiably criticize. The overall cost of medical care soared, insurance rates more than doubled, people were forced off of their lower cost insurance plans, and a lot of doctors walked away from it all and retired. Our middle aged family doctor was one of them. The insurance companies and big pharma got rich off of this. It led to a huge consolidation of doctors and practices. We used to have a huge number of independent doctors and medical practices. Now with all the added regulations it's close to impossible to have a small practice and most doctors work for large corporations that have big staffs to comply with all of the added government complexities.

With the way the US government is run by outside interests against its own people, more government involvement often ends up making things worse.

 

[sdkid]

...
I resented this cost until a cancer diagnosis last year. Now I'm on the receiving end of what I sometimes think is overly generous medicare. After a flurry of initial tests and visits last year, I'm now on CT and MRI scans, blood tests, and oncologist visits 4 times a year. All at not additional cost. The elephant in the room however is a drug I'm on that's supposedly $16,532 per month, or just a hair under $200k per year. That's where the $2k maximum part D out of pocket comes from. I'm saying "supposedly" on this because it looks to me like a big scam to transfer government money to big pharma. The same drug costs about half in many other countries, and there are reduced rates for people who don't have insurance to cover it.

Accessibility has been very good. The specific diagnosis last year took a lot of individual steps of tests and scans. The availability was close to amazing, with lots of different providers clearing time and jumping through hoops to shorten the process.

My wife was on different chemo and imunotherapy drugs for 5 years. She would go in every 3 weeks and the bill for those drugs and infusion was $30,000 to $80,000 depending on what drugs were used. That was every 3 weeks. She had to stop working, and for about 2 years we had $1,800/month COBRA insurance payments, plus a $6,000 annual deductible that was usually met within the first 2 months. That was almost $28k out of pocket, but it covered $500,000 to $800,000 in medical bills per year.

 

[bigredfish]

And this shows how corrupted is a system in the US.

CT scan is procedure which in Europe costs 200-400Euro (full price).. And for comparsion most popular drugs costs 10-20 Euro per month (full price)..

In the US, healthcare providers deliberately inflate the prices of their services, only to "secretly" give insurance companies an 80-90% discount, which the policyholders are unaware of.

People sees a completely rigged price of $11,000 for a relatively simple CT scan. Or $100,000-$250,000 for emergency treatment (surgery, etc.).

Seeing such prices, they are forced to buy insurance somewhere (with all problems and limitations - like deductables) .

In Europe, the regulators (appropriate institutions appointed by the government or the EU) are so strong that healthcare providers can't pull such stunts.

That's why we have medical services and medications at normal (compared to the US) prices. And no one here is afraid of going bankrupt as a result of some unplanned medical event or accident.




it's good that you have that option.

Especially as I understands Trump try to limit Medicare availability.

You're exactly right. Its a huge scam

Yes Medicare is actually quite good and takes away unexpected costs. At $400 p/mo its relatively cheap and I can see any doctor without mandatory referral from my Primary doc


The Medicaid (State run) thats (in theory) being limited is for
A- illegal aliens
B- people who can work but dont
C- people who are faking disability

But in many ways this could hurt the poor and some with health conditions. I suspect more of the cost will be transferred from the Federal Gov. to the States and we'll see a swing back the other way in 4 years