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Lessons of a $618,616 Death
theodp writes "Two years after her husband's death, Amanda Bennett examines the costs and complex questions of keeping one man alive. The bills for his seven-year battle with cancer totaled $618,616, almost two-thirds of which was for his final 24 months. No one can say for sure if the treatments helped extend his life, and she's left with a question she still can't answer: When is it time to quit?"
It's time to quit when the patient says it's time, and it's not the business of the spouse, the church, or the government to decide otherwise.
Jealously hoarding mod points since 2007.
The studies I have seen put American and European survival rates at about the same level, with normally a slight advantage to the Americans, although critics point out that reporting differences (for example, in Great Britain anyone diagnosed with cancer is included in the survival figures, while in America deaths that may not be related are not counted, plus many American hospitals publish only estimated survival percentages rather than actual counts), differing access to treatment (if you don't go to the hospital you won't get counted, which could stack the deck against socialised healthcare) and uncontrolled variables (incidence of cancers is lower across much of Europe, possibly because of differences in the health care systems) make comparisons contrived at best.
A friend of mine who read the Obama bill said they DEFINITELY had tiered levels of coverage by age - older people won't get the same level of care.
That is true under the current system as well. As you get over age 80 a lot of procedures become unavailable because they just don't make sense and your insurance won't pay for them.
Ever notice that all the "fixes" proposed in Washington revolve around getting more people into this failed economic model and accommodating the costs? No one asks why a scan costs some $3000 or why a drugs costs $750 per dose.
It's time to just re-tool the whole thing from the ground up, focusing on having prices that reflect the actual costs or services. A probably not so far fetched example, a one million dollar MRI machine. Amortized over 5 years, 8 scans a day, that comes out to about $68. Add on the technician's fees and misc. for power and space in the hospital and your scans should not cost more than a couple hundred dollars sans the radiologist's fees to read them.
Health care reform should be 100% about bringing transparency and predictability to the costs. Only then can you look at how to cover more people.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Actually, from what I've been able to glean, the uninsured pay much more.
Here is the problem - you don't get the bill until AFTER services are rendered. For kicks, go ahead and ask your doctor what a procedure he is recommending will cost. He'll look at you like you're an alien.
So, you get a bill. The problem is that now you've already incurred the service, so you can't decide to shop around. You can try to barter, but bartering after the sale is not very effective. You're relying purely on the hospital's generosity. However, if the hospital really were generous, why would they be mailing you a bill for $100k knowing that most insurance companies would only give them $20k?
Most likely you'll talk that $100k bill down to $30k and then talk to your friends about how nice the hospital was to you. What you don't realize is that they give a better deal to every insurance company on the planet. Nobody pays sticker price.
If I were running US healthcare one of the first laws I'd pass was that hospitals would need to publicize a full price list, and that EVERYBODY pays the same price. Since the hospital doesn't want to be dropped from every insurance plan in the country they'll publish a fair price, and then there is no penalty for not having insurance, or for having an insurance company without a lot of patients in the local area. Note, I am under no illusions that this would fix US healthcare entirely - it is a huge mess that needs MANY changes. This would just be one of the first I'd pass, since it saves money regardless of whether taxpayers or private insurers are paying for care.
The real problem with the American healthcare system is that the cost of treatment often has to be met by the family of the sick patient.
Should people be made to face the choice of continuing treatment or costing their families future. Should your wife be forced into living in a trailer park as your widow your children forced to withdraw from college in order to maintain your life for a few more years?
Essentially it becomes a choice of suicide or putting the people you love most through intense hardship, probably worse than that since suicide would invalidate any life insurance so you need to bare the pain of cancer for as long as your body holds out.
I'm lucky I live in a country where most of my medical needs are taken care of some options will be limited due to cost and the benefit they provide. However I will get treatment and my family will be ok.
Health care is the number one reason for not wanting to live in the usa.
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