Topic: Drugs in the USA

[JeffSTL]

^It is estimated that 45,000 people die in this country per year because they can't afford health care.

[JeffSTL]

70Cb750, it seems you blame our government for all the problems in our health care. The main problem is the billions in profits that are siphoned out of the system by insurance companies and hospitals. If you want to blame the government you should blame them for doing next to nothing to protect us or our economy from the crippling effects this drain has. We as tax payers already pay for the worst case scenarios. The elderly, people with uninsurable conditions, the poor. The most expensive cases. The least profitable for the insurance companies. The rest of the population, the insurables if you will, are relatively healthy. So we basically spend billions subsidizing these giant corporations. This is the least effective, least efficient and most expensive "health care" in the world.

[demon78]

AS a quick thought if one of you guys picks up the fancy new virus's floating around you could infect a bunch of citizens causing a major meltdown in productivity so you should be immunized to prevent loss of profit who should pay for that if not the country that's what "homeland security" should be doing. After all sick citizens are not money making citizens and are contributing to a less than competitive  county.  Loss of profit.
Bill the demon.

[kmb69]

The incoming health care is so good that senators want to be exempt from it. How about that for elitism?

There is not "incoming health care." Just some laws dealing with health care that don't change much. The soaring medical costs started before "obamacare" and will continue after.

Are you kidding me? Already 20,000 plus pages and 100's of specific regulations still being written? A 60 page Obamacare application form that only after $%it hit the fan they were able to reduce to 12 pages maybe?

70CB750 is exactly right. If it is so good for all of us, why does Congress and the President want to be exempted?? In fact, members of Congress were citing "HIGH COSTS" and "UNAFFORDABLE", as a reason for also exempting their Aids not 2 weeks ago.

Not that big of deal for me as I probably don't have that many years left. I truly fear what my kids, grandkids, and future generations will be faced with. Big government is only a poor solution for those unwilling to accept personal responsibility IMO. Personally, I don't want a nanny state stamping out my freedom to decide for me. The government is already so big they are literally funneling trillions of our tax dollars down unaccountable black holes. It's not just the greedy, private sector profiteers stealing our money. They can all get the f&*k out of my life.

Some Winston Churchill quotes:

“The price of greatness is responsibility.”
“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”
“We can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the other possibilities.”
“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.”
“Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains.”

Call me a whacko, I'm OK with that.

[Bob Wessner]

CMS is very wasteful, I know I work with them

We did as well. I have to chuckle every time they tout CMS's low admin costs. What they don't mention are the admin. costs borne by the "processors" of Medicare claims. CMS houses membership info and benefit info, but they contract out the actual claims processing to others. And it is a LOT of claims.

[Xnavylfr]

There was just a news report about the cost of MAJOR OPERATIONS compared at different Hospitals in my area. I had a TOTAL KNEE joint replaced April 2012 the cost was around 40K at the hospital I went to, if I had chosen to drive 45 miles and had been working with an ORTHO DR. there I would have saved more than half the cost BUT the catch with this deal, I'm RETIRED MILITARY , medical coverage for LIFE. My Military MED ins. pays 80% of the agreed cost, the AGREED COST was 10K for the OP. and with the MILITARY INS. the MAX I had to pay was 2K.. Some people thought it to be CRAZY to JOIN when I did in 69 , so they are now Canadians. Since I retired from the military in 89 I receive 16,200$ a year and that adds up to be almost 400K in 24 years and 21 of those years I worked earning over 4K a month.  You may ask , ? Was it worth it to spend 20 years in the MILITARY, I'd have to say a BIG YES.. Show me another Blue collar job that you can walk away from with that kind of retirement plan,and I plan to MAKE them pay me for at least another 20, so that calculates to almost 1,000,000$ for 20 years of my life. Would I do it again , YOU DAMN RIGHT!!!!

Xnavylfr(CHUCK)

[demon78]

Chuck good for you,, my problem if I had stayed in for 25 I would have hit the alcoholic vegetable stage on my next hitch, nd I joined in 57 the RCAF at the time had a really screwed up technical advancement system I would have spent another at the very least 6 years before I would have been able to write for my corporals hooks and then been retired before a chance at sargeant's( love the airforce you're expected to be able to carve a new prop out of a spruce tree with a pen knife, a file and a axe but not to be promoted to sargeant) and to spend the rest of my pensioned life on the streets was not an appealing option, this must be where my life long dislike of all politicians comes from. The other thing was the difference in the way Americans treat their service people and the way the Canadian politicals treated theirs, you got a reasonable pension (I had had a buddy that spent 25 in retired as a flight sargeant same as a staff sargeant and didn't get enough to retire on ) but I wouldn't have made enough to pay a mortgage.
Bill the demon.

[Goofaroo]

My wife went to her doctor recently to talk to him about sleep apnea.  He referred her to a place that does "sleep studies".

Basically, they put her in a bed, hooked her to a monitor, had her sleep for seven hours, and sent her home. Then someone looked at the report from the monitor and told her that she had apnea.

We paid just over $600 out of pocket and the insurance company was billed another $5,800.

So apparently, under our current healthcare system, it costs $6,400 to put someone in a bed for seven hours.  For comparison, a friend of mine's son is looking into college and has found that two full semesters at the University of Oklahoma will cost about $7,400.

If we had any sense at all, we would all be in front of our nation's capitol with pitchforks and torches demanding that our healthcare system get fixed immediately.  Obama is trying, but special interest groups have got the republicans right where they want them.

Unfortunately, Americans are sheep.  All it takes is for the pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturers to dump several million dollars into Mitt Romney's campaign and he goes from setting up a successful single payer system in Massachusetts to condemning "Obamacare" and convincing the sheep that it is "socialism".

[Bob Wessner]

Mind the forum rules regarding politics. In a word, NO politics.

[kmb69]

Sorry Bob. This cr@p just winds me up. Right, Left, Middle, they're all trying to rip us off. I don't like neither side. Is that politics? Ok, I can breathe again.

Oh, forgot, this is a bike forum. You gotta love it!

[Retro Rocket]

For those of you that equate your freedom to your problematic health care, you are contributing to the problem, i suggest you start looking at other Western countries and realize that , with the highest incarceration rates in the world , almost always ranked below 20th in education and having policy governed by big business {amongst plenty of other things} you are being controlled, not free. Every body that contributes to any society productively should be able to have good medical care at a reasonable cost, blame the people for a lack of independent thinking, believing the crap being shoved down your throats by your government is running you into the ground.

Albeit an extreme case here's an example of the kind of financial tomfoolery that dogs healthcare delivery in the U.S.

 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/business/bayonne-medical-center-has-highest-us-billing-rates.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130518

I lived in a system of government managed healthcare and it almost killed me!   I did stupid things in my life and what not and my closest call was due to doctor's negligance in government operated health care.

So, whats that prove, there are plenty of screw ups in the private sector as well so thats just scare mongering and not particularly accurate at all . In Aus, the best doctors and surgeons work in both private and public , i had the director and deputy director of transplant surgery {world renowned surgeons} do my op and everything has been beyond good, almost perfect, my test results stabilized within 6 weeks and have been the same for 14 years. Hospitals are no different to anywhere else, where you have people working with people you will have stuff ups or over sights.   You have gone some way into proving my point, put more money into public health and , in the USA at least, you would have a better system.

Here's something for you to ponder while debating this subject, this should piss most of you off...

Of 17 high-income countries studied by the National Institutes of Health in 2013, the United States was at or near the bottom in infant mortality, heart and lung disease, sexually transmitted infections, adolescent pregnancies, injuries, homicides, and rates of disability. Together, such issues place the U.S. at the bottom of the list for life expectancy. On average, a U.S. male can be expected to live almost four fewer years than those in the top-ranked country.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the United States spent more on health care per capita ($7,146), and more on health care as percentage of its GDP (15.2%), than any other nation in 2008. The Commonwealth Fund ranked the United States last in the quality of health care among similar countries, and notes U.S. care costs the most.
The U.S. Census Bureau reported that 49.9 million residents, 16.3% of the population, were uninsured in 2010 (up from 49.0 million residents, 16.1% of the population, in 2009). A 2004 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report said: "The United States is among the few industrialized nations in the world that does not guarantee access to health care for its population." A 2004 OECD report said: "With the exception of Mexico, Turkey, and the United States, all OECD countries had achieved universal or near-universal (at least 98.4% insured) coverage of their populations by 1990." A 2010 report observed that lack of health insurance causes roughly 48,000 unnecessary deaths every year in the United States.[2] In 2007, 62.1% of filers for bankruptcies claimed high medical expenses. A 2013 study found that about 25% of all senior citizens declare bankruptcy due to medical expenses, and 43% are forced to mortgage or sell their primary residence.

Disgraceful....

[Bob Wessner]

Disgraceful....

But sadly, true. 

[BobbyR]

My Brother stopped practicing medicine after a 30 year career. He simply had enough. He is an expert in Hospital Management and now works for a Consulting company to help Hospitals cope with all the paperwork to get Health claims and Medicare claims paid. He still must keep a License to do what he does.

Hospitals are literally going broke. The smaller Community Hospitals are going under at an alarming rate. These are the Hospitals the majority of Americans depend on for serious but non ultra specialized care. When they go under people need to travel further and further for care and access to emergency rooms.

The larger Institutions are slowly breaking down. They look better on the outside than their books would show. I live in the NYC area. On TV, Hospitals like Sloan Kettering, Columbia Presbyterian, NYU and some of the more specialized Hospitals are pitching for patients. These are places that were iconic, like the top Hospitals in other large Cities, this is where people went for cutting edge surgery and treatments. They are running into problems, serious problems. They charge amzing amounts of money, because they need to charge it to stay afloat.

Now back on point. Each year Congress does a vote at the end of December,very quietly. What the vote does is delay a provision for 12 months that would cut Medicare payments to providers when drug prices increase. So, big pharma raises their prices, the Doctors and Hospitals have to take up the slack.

One Drug Company has a new Cancer drug that is so expensive, India refused to grant them a patent over what they called unbridled greed over the public good.

Folks, it's time you tell your Politicians that the game is over.       


 

[70CB750]

rr, you dont get it, but thts not entirely your fault. You would have to experience it to understand.

[Retro Rocket]

One Drug Company has a new Cancer drug that is so expensive, India refused to grant them a patent over what they called unbridled greed over the public good.

I saw that recently Bobby, the US drug company {Novartis} took the Indians to court but the Indians won, as they should have. Some US drug companies are now trying {and succeeding} to patient certain genes to lock others out of doing research and developing better treatments. This "all for money at all costs mentality" should be smashed head on before it in itself becomes a cancer on the heart of the world....

[Retro Rocket]

rr, you dont get it, but thts not entirely your fault. You would have to experience it to understand.

Oh i get it my friend , i get it completely......, like you said, maybe you should come here and experience it in my country to see the alternative, not perfect but far better....

[Terry in Australia]

Wow. I started reading about Michel's insomnia, and read thru three pages of complaints about the US' health system. As Mick has mentioned, we have a taxpayer funded (and welfare recipient abused) health system here in Oz, that "sort of" works.

Generally speaking, if you have a life threatening illness like Mick had, regardless of how much money you haven't got, you won't be turned away. Of course, if you've got private health cover, you'll go to the front of the line and you won't suffer the symptoms for as long as your uninsured co-sufferer.

A classic example was my mate jeff, the proprieter of Ace Motorcycles. He and his son Adam were working on a bike, and Jeff managed to shear off the top of his thumb (from the knuckle forward) betwixt the chain and rear sprocket.

Adam drove Jeff over to the Austin Hospital, where they repaired it as best as they could. (the top part of the thumb was mashed, so they couldn't stick it back on) Anyway, they kept him over night, and discharged him next day.

When it came to settling up, he had the choice of using his "Workcover" insurance, (which would automatically incur a WHS audit of his business, so that got the arse very quickly) his private health insurance (which would have required him to pay a $2000.00 "Excess") or claiming it on Medicare (our famous "Free" system) which he did, and it cost him nothing, and they threw in some antibiotics too. As Mick said, the system isn't perfect, by a long shot............. 

Good thing is, drugs are cheap here. Pensioners in regional city here in Oz are getting prescribed Oxy-Contin which they only pay a couple of bucks per bottle, then sell to the drug addicts for heaps, so they can maintain their poker machine addiction. I guess it all evens out in the long run.

Michel, I'm only good for a couple of hours sleep per night, due to back pain. (ex-paratrooper) Like Chuck, I can get some drugs to knock myself out at the governments expense due to my injuries being accepted by the DVA, but I worry about the side effects, so instead, I take a couple of "over the counter" (not prescribed) "Panadeine Extra" and a couple "Codral For Flu" tablets each night, and the combination of pain relief and antihistamines causing drowsiness allows me to sleep for a couple of hours, change position, sleep for a couple of hours, change position again, and so on.

The pharmacist tells me not to take any more than 8 of each per day, but I rarely take more than two of each per day, at bed time. The cost is quite reasonable too, because I can't buy more than a 24 pack of Panadeine extra at one time, (by law) I buy a 24 pack of each drug per week, at a total cost of around 20 bucks. Cheers, Terry.    

[kmb69]

............. Every body that contributes to any society productively should be able to have good medical care at a reasonable cost...........

RR, I agree with this point and that is part of my frustration. And I agree that every society SHOULD provide for those that are truly indigent or are unable to provide for themselves or family. But that's not what's happening here.

One of our big problems is the government has made it too easy for folks to live pretty damn good without working. The U6, which is the number of people that "can" but "won't" and includes those that "will" but "can't" find a job, has doubled since the year 2000 to 44,000,000 out of a total 314,000,000 population. 22,000,000 are on direct unemployment benefits and the balance on other government assistance. My company has been trying to hire 12-15 employees for over 2 years in the $24-$26 per hour range with time and a half overtime over 40 hours and a benefit package including a Cadillac insurance plan that provides a total compensation worth over $40 an hour. We get essentially NO applications. Advertised in local and national papers. Soliciting employment agencies and using monster.com. No applicants except for recent college graduates with 0 experience that want to start as Vice President with opportunity for advancement.

One BS example: Many that work, including me, are subjected to random drug testing. It would be "discriminatory" to randomly test those on government assistance. I have to be drug free to work but those reaping the rewards of mine and others' efforts don't. What's wrong with this picture?

I like many are paying the bills, including health care, for those that ARE ABLE to work but WON'T work. It's too damn easy to not work.

That's disgraceful.

[Terry in Australia]

Yep, that is disgraceful mate, and don't worry, Oz has it's fair share of bludgers here who wouldn't work in an iron lung. We've also got a government who thinks it's perfectly OK for me to pay more and more taxes to make them more comfortable while I'm at work paying for them, but that's about to change, and not before time..........

[JeffSTL]

I'm amazed that some people are more offended by a poor person mooching pennies out of the system but it is perfectly cool for rich people to suck billions out of it.

[JeffSTL]

BobbyR, the hospitals here are doing just fine.

[kmb69]

I'm amazed that some people are more offended by a poor person mooching pennies out of the system but it is perfectly cool for rich people to suck billions out of it.

Totally wrong interpretation. It's not the poor and it's not the pennies.

It's the Boston Bombers, only one of the four becoming a citizen, collected over $100,000 in government assistance not to mention college tuition, dormatory housing, and flights back and forth to their homeland from which they came here having been granted asylum. Obviously they really appreciated it and demonstrated their gratitude. Probably built their wares with your tax dollars. We got lots of similar folks, hopefully not terrorists, in the country collecting big bucks.

The rich gaming the system should go straight to jail without passing GO. Our government greases the skids for us to get ripped off by the not so poor and rich alike. The freaking government has NO MONEY, not one thin dime, that wasn't confiscated from the citizens - poor, middle class, and rich alike. Not to mention the borrowed debt to which every newborn today owes over $50,000. Welcome to our world.

However, the top 5% paid over 59% of the income tax, the next 45% paid 38%, and the bottom 50% paid less than 3% in income taxes. The top 50% already choke up 97% of the load!

What's fair?

[Terry in Australia]

That aint.............. 

[w1sa]

However, the top 5% paid over 59% of the income tax, the next 45% paid 38%, and the bottom 50% paid less than 3% in income taxes. The top 50% already choke up 97% of the load!

What's fair?

[/quote]

That's very interesting.......where do you obtain these 'facts'...?

[kmb69]

http://www.ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html
http://www.heritage.org/federalbudget/top10-percent-income-earners
http://www.american.com/archive/2007/november-december-magazine-contents/guess-who-really-pays-the-taxes

Google "US Income Tax Distribution". Literally 100's of links including the US gov and IRS sites.

If you have little or no skin in the game what difference does it make to you? Or so you think.
Guess who half the folks are voting to raise taxes on?

Quote:
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage.

Bob, This is really about Economics - not Politics. I hope.