• Security incident: ISF was recently accessed by intruders. Please change your password, and change it anywhere else you used it. Read more

Split Thread Screening tests in USA v universal healthcare countries

$166 a month for my daughter and I. I have high blood pressure, thyroid issues and am on Lipitor ($30 co-pay), Benicar ($50 co-pay), Levothyrozine ($10 co-pay), and BCP ($10 co-pay) a month. Why the difference in co-pays? Some of them are generics (BCP, throid medicine), Lipitor is brand-name, and Benicar is "special" brand-name (according to my insurance.) Daughter has one prescription, BCP, $10 a month co-pay. So, monthly, I'm out $276. The company pays for the other portion of the insurance, which after looking around, I can't seem to find the exact amount of. It's at least twice as much as I'm paying per month.
 
Last edited:
The Mutha said:
$166 a month for my daughter and I. I have high blood pressure, thyroid issues and am on Lipitor ($30 co-pay), Benicar ($50 co-pay), Levothyrozine ($10 co-pay), and BCP ($10 co-pay) a month. Why the difference in co-pays? Some of them are generics (BCP, throid medicine), Lipitor is brand-name, and Benicar is "special" brand-name (according to my insurance.) Daughter has one prescription, BCP, $10 a month co-pay. So, monthly, I'm out $276. The company pays for the other portion of the insurance, which after looking around, I can't seem to find the exact amount of. It's at least twice as much as I'm paying per month.
Click to expand...

Wow. And you still get stung for $600 on occasion? That's... unconscionable.
 
It's our system to date, unfortunately. If I was uninsured, I probably wouldn't be taking any drugs and not be under a doctor's care because of the expense. I would have to rely on the Doc-in-the-Boxes and the Emergency Rooms for any urgent care issues.

Oh -- I forgot Imitrex for migraines, occasionally. That's another $10 co-pay whenever I run out of pills.

I'm all for some sort of UHC in the US!
 
And we get cross because dental treatment isn't well covered! We don't know we're alive!

Rolfe.
 
I'm on Medicare, via the Kaiser HMO. I've had three angioplasties, co-pays cost me about $250 each. Colonoscopy, every 5 or 10 years, cost me $50 each. Sore elbow, MRI cost me $20. Annual CT scan to track an adrenal incidentaloma, copay $20. Medications, copays about $10/month.

Premiums cost me zero.

But, being a member of "Universal Health Care" costs the government $7,000 per year. Add another $1,000 for my copays (high guesstimate) and you can see that "FREE" health care costs about $8,000 per person, per year. Lets guess that we can shave 20% of that, using the German example of 5% overhead cost vs the 22% claimed for insurance companies. So, "FREE" universal health care costs $6500 per year. I don't know what that works out to in Euros or Pounds. But for most people I don't think it matters whether you pay it in taxes or premiums, it's still paid for by the people.

Most of the peole who wnat insurance have it. 17 million could affod it but don't wnat to spend the money. 11mm are illegals, who don't like to sign up for anything, so fall into the class of 'don't want it'. Leaving about 5% who want and need, but can't afford it. So I think the debate is not about that small minority. It's about the cash flow for the big insurers, and particularly the influx from those 17 million who opt out now.

I'm thinking the power behind the current health care debate is the insurers and medical providers. Think of an extra 46 million premiums to the insurers, and all the hospitals and doctors who don't get paid a nickel for so much care given to indigents.

Personally, I opted out for about 30 years. That's a LOT of money the insurance companies didn't get.
 
casebro said:
I'm on Medicare, via the Kaiser HMO. I've had three angioplasties, co-pays cost me about $250 each. Colonoscopy, every 5 or 10 years, cost me $50 each. Sore elbow, MRI cost me $20. Annual CT scan to track an adrenal incidentaloma, copay $20. Medications, copays about $10/month.

Premiums cost me zero.

But, being a member of "Universal Health Care" costs the government $7,000 per year. Add another $1,000 for my copays (high guesstimate) and you can see that "FREE" health care costs about $8,000 per person, per year. Lets guess that we can shave 20% of that, using the German example of 5% overhead cost vs the 22% claimed for insurance companies. So, "FREE" universal health care costs $6500 per year. I don't know what that works out to in Euros or Pounds. But for most people I don't think it matters whether you pay it in taxes or premiums, it's still paid for by the people.

Most of the peole who wnat insurance have it. 17 million could affod it but don't wnat to spend the money. 11mm are illegals, who don't like to sign up for anything, so fall into the class of 'don't want it'. Leaving about 5% who want and need, but can't afford it. So I think the debate is not about that small minority. It's about the cash flow for the big insurers, and particularly the influx from those 17 million who opt out now.

I'm thinking the power behind the current health care debate is the insurers and medical providers. Think of an extra 46 million premiums to the insurers, and all the hospitals and doctors who don't get paid a nickel for so much care given to indigents.

Personally, I opted out for about 30 years. That's a LOT of money the insurance companies didn't get.
Click to expand...
Oliver posted this link in the other thread. Overall Americans pay 2.5 times as much for similar care. Basically the Uk provides a all inclusive free service for a lower cost per head than US citizens pay for medicare. You are being ripped off but.....that is the American way.
 
Lothian said:
Oliver posted this link in the other thread. Overall Americans pay 2.5 times as much for similar care. Basically the Uk provides a all inclusive free service for a lower cost per head than US citizens pay for medicare. You are being ripped off but.....that is the American way.
Click to expand...

Medicare is higher cost, but it is for the older, and disabled, so would be inherently higher cost.

But even so, using your 2.5 figure, the "free" actually costs $3200 per year. And doesn't seem to include "free" screening tests, like colonoscopies?

ETA: Anybody got actual per capita spending numbers? I think they would be pertinant to this thread, which seems to be asking about what we get for the money. And the per capita ought to be corrected for cost of living too.Perhaps the percentage of GDP, divided by population? No need to convert to dollars or sheckels? Just a "health care expenditures per capita as a percent of per capita production?" I believe that America is the most efficient economy in the world, we ought to spend more per capita on any/everything. Is it a fallacy that "Americans spend lots more to get lots less?"
 
Last edited:
Here's a factoid or two:

Per capita health care cost, U.S. $6100, GB $2,560.

"The United States spends 16.5 percent of our GDP on health care costs, while the average among European nations is only 8.6 percent."

"Per capita GDP is 33% higher in America, 48,000 to 36,000." That leaves us with 12,000 more dollars per capita, of which 3600 is spent on higher costing health care. And we still have $8,400 each to spend on tacky Chinese consumer goods. We win the "tacky Chinese consumer goods" race! ;)

eta: Per capita income: U.S. $37,500, GB, 27,650

Anyway, we spend more on health care because we can afford to. The big question, in this thread especially, is do we get better care? Does it matter whether the care is paid for via taxes, or via premiums?
 
Last edited:
They're not, by any of the normal metrics. Health outcome statistics suggest if anything the USA is slightly poorer than the universal healthcare countries.

And I don't think they can afford it either. I posted in another thread why I thought it was damaging the US economy. Despite numerous links back, begging for a discussion, I was ignored.

Rolfe.
 
casebro said:
eta: Per capita income: U.S. $37,500, GB, 27,650

Anyway, we spend more on health care because we can afford to. The big question, in this thread especially, is do we get better care? Does it matter whether the care is paid for via taxes, or via premiums?
Click to expand...

Nope:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7174372.stm

We're not, on average, wealthier than those in the UK. (and really, a lot of our "average" is skewed by the 1% super-mega-wealthies at the top end, so the average person might be significantly less wealthy.)

But on this:

The big question, in this thread especially, is do we get better care?
Click to expand...
I agree.
 
Rolfe said:
They're not, by any of the normal metrics. Health outcome statistics suggest if anything the USA is slightly poorer than the universal healthcare countries.

And I don't think they can afford it either. I posted in another thread why I thought it was damaging the US economy. Despite numerous links back, begging for a discussion, I was ignored.

Rolfe.
Click to expand...

If "able to afford it" includes never buying anything new, not being able to save for retirement, kid's college, etc, then sure. The average "we" can afford it just fine.

The average income is about $38,000 a year, and the average family pays about $17,000 a year for healthcare. NOT including taxes going to medicare.
http://www.milliman.com/expertise/healthcare/products-tools/mmi/pdfs/milliman-medical-index-2009.pdf
(figure 1)

Real affordable.
 
Here's that post from the other thread about the knock-on economic effects of the way healthcare is funded in the USA. See if anyone wants to debate it this time.

I sometimes wonder if this constant pressure to push more and more money towards healthcare provision is damaging the US economy in more ways than the obvious.

The obvious is of course the effect on business competitiveness. Providing healthcare coverage for employees and their families is a significant drain on businesses, and this is acknowledged. When General Motors is spending more on employee health coverage than on steel, I submit you have a problem.

However, General Motors may be disadvantaged in another way. Look what I've just ordered. [.... snip glossy pic of showroom car, which is the wrong colour anyway ....]

It's costing me £22,500. Which I can take from my savings. I'm thrilled to bits. I'm like a kid waiting for Christmas.

However, that money could also be the cost of a hip replacement. Or a course of chemotherapy. Or a heart bypass. If I wasn't confident that I'd get these items if I needed them, would I shell out on the car? And given what I hear about US insurance companies' eagerness to find loopholes to deny coverage to clients who have developed big-ticket healthcare needs, it's possible that as a US citizen I wouldn't be all that confident.

But even if I had great insurance coverage, and no worries about whether any future healthcare needs would be met, would I still be buying the car? Maybe, but maybe not. On average, British citizens pay out about half the amount US citizens do to maintain their healthcare coverage. We pay a little less in tax to fund the entire NHS than US taxpayers do just to fund Medicare and Medicaid. And then that's us done. We can access the NHS, so we benefit from our tax payments, and we don't have to pay out all over again into an insurance policy. If I'd been religiously maintaining a high-coverage health plan for the past 20 years, would I have accumulated sufficient savings to be able to boost the economy of Lower Saxony?

It's all very well declaring that people should "choose" to allocate most or all of their disposable income to health insurance, but this does have its own problems. First, that it's a miserable life if you can't buy the odd luxury because the insurance company is swallowing all your spare cash. And second, that it disadvantages the other businesses where you might otherwise have spent that money.

There's a lot of fuss being made about the downside to the health insurance industry of making healthcare spending more efficient in the USA. Well, it seems to me to be inevitable. If the country as a whole is spending twice what it needs to, then when measures are introduced to improve consumer value for money, the people who are currently trousering the surplus cash are going to feel the pinch. However, that surplus cash might actually stimulate the economy better if it were available to other sectors of the market. Like General Motors.

Hey, Henry Ford invented the motor car! Better not let him market it, because the effect on the harness-makers would be catastrophic!

Rolfe
 
volatile said:
Wow. Just - wow. That is literally jaw-droppingly horrendous. It beggars belief that anyone can be against reform or even pro-market-solution if this is the type of treatment even someone with an insurance policy gets.

I cannot believe that if what you say is true that anyone would have the temerity to say the Canadian or British systems treat their patients worse than the American system. I cannot believe that anyone can, with a straight face, defend the system you describe. And yet it seems there are plenty who will.

Wow.
Click to expand...


No the amazing thing is how many americans think that they are massively lucky to have the american medical system.
 
brodski said:
You're kidding, right?
This can't be true, can it?
Click to expand...

Fits perfectly with my experiences on an ambulance. If we filled out the forms wrong the insurance company wouldn't pay and so we would bill the patient. To make matters worse you had to be very careful how you described certain things as insurance companies looked for certain words not the overall condition of the patient to deny payment.

I can see why supporters of the status quo need to lie about conditions under various UHC systems, because they'd have to make out that doctors on the NHS were actively killing people in order to make it worse than the current lottery which US health care seems to be.
Click to expand...

Yep a lottery were if you win you go bankrupt.
 
Rolfe said:
However, that money could also be the cost of a hip replacement. Or a course of chemotherapy. Or a heart bypass. If I wasn't confident that I'd get these items if I needed them, would I shell out on the car? And given what I hear about US insurance companies' eagerness to find loopholes to deny coverage to clients who have developed big-ticket healthcare needs, it's possible that as a US citizen I wouldn't be all that confident.
Click to expand...

Look it you get hit that hard, it is likely you will have to declare bankruptcy anyway, so why not enjoy the money before it vanishes in a sea of red ink?
 
ponderingturtle said:
No the amazing thing is how many americans think that they are massively lucky to have the american medical system.
Click to expand...


I have an American friend who has Systemic Lupus. The carry-on there has been over the years as to how she funded her ongoing treatment would fill a short novel, especially when she wanted to change jobs. Even though she did have good insurance through her job, she still had to cough up a fair bit of money for the drugs she needed. There was also an issue with sick leave - as in, not getting any. She had to cancel a holiday to Europe, when we were all looking forward to seeing her, because she had a flare-up and needed to use her holiday entitlement (something derisory like two weeks I think) to be ill in.

But each time I have seen her, she has gone on and on about how lucky she is to live in the USA. Because she wouldn't have been able to get the treatment she was on anywhere else.

At first I thought she must be getting something new and experimental, that had been developed in the USA and wasn't licensed in other countries yet. Maybe she was on a clinical trial. But gradually I realised she was getting good, up-to-date, standard care. She kept saying she wouldn't get this in Canada, and never having been to Canada I couldn't contradict her. But she would have got it in Britain, free, and she would have had legally-guaranteed sick leave as well as her holiday entitlement (which would probably have been about five weeks).

By the time I realised the true situation, I also realised I had to say nothing. The unshakable belief that she was getting great treatment that these poor benighted souls who weren't American were being denied seemed to be part of what kept her going. I couldn't take that away from her.

I mean, to realise that not only would she have got the same treatment in Britain, but she wouldn't have had to pay a penny, she wouldn't have had to hide her condition from her employer, she would have had time off to recover, and she would have had enough holiday on top of that to go on a foreign trip - her illusions would have been shattered.

Rolfe.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

ISF - Join now!

Every member here is approved by hand. No bots, no spam, just people who care about evidence and honest debate.

Membership is free!

Create your free account

Back
Top Bottom