Almost 100 Million People a Year 'Forced To Choose Between Food and Healthcare' (theguardian.com)

Almost 100 million people are pushed into extreme poverty each year because of debts accrued through healthcare expenses. From a report: A report, published by the World Health Organization and the World Bank this week, found the poorest and most vulnerable people are routinely forced to choose between healthcare and other necessities for their household, including food and education, subsisting on $1.90 a day. Researchers found that more than 122 million people around the world are forced to live on $3.10 a day, the benchmark for "moderate poverty," due to healthcare expenditure. Since 2000, this number has increased by 1.5% a year. A total of 800 million people spend more than 10% of their household budgets on "out-of-pocket" health expenses, defined as costs not covered by insurance. Almost 180 million people spend a quarter or more, a population increasing at a rate of almost 5% per year, with women among those worst affected.

Comments

Don't be mistaken

[damn_registrars]

The reason health care is so costly in the US can be found at the top of the insurance companies. Many of the top execs of these companies - including the ones that are listed as "non-profit" or "not-for-profit" take in guaranteed annual bonuses that exceed the lifetime earnings of most Americans. The "Affordable Care Act" just gave these greedy capitalists the keys to the kingdom as well, in guaranteeing them customers for the rest of time.

People dropping out of the insurance market and having no coverage won't solve this problem. The solution is to finally have our country behave like a modern industrialized nation and have a single-payer system. It's too bad nobody was willing to propose such a sensible thing.

Re:Don't be mistaken

[mridoni]

Single-payer would bankrupt the country. There will never be enough of anything to satisfy demand completely.

Well, I just can't understand how most of Europe and Canada do it without actually going bankrupt.

Re:Don't be mistaken

[dcw3]

Bullshit. Single payer removes a middleman that is of no value added, and in fact raises the total cost of healthcare.
And, for whatever it's worth, I'm saying this as a fiscal conservative.

Re:Don't be mistaken

[damn_registrars]

Single-payer would bankrupt the country.

Just because the GOP says that, doesn't make it true. The rest of the industrialized world uses some form of single-payer and their nations aren't going broke. We use a market-based system with essentially no floor and we are going broke. We are the only industrialized nation where it is even possible to go bankrupt due to medical debt.

The solution is to relax regulations, not increase them

Single payer does relax regulations. The biggest barriers to health care right now come from the insurance industry, not the government.

Remove the artificial limits placed on the number of doctors by the AMA

You really need to look in to what you're saying. Several problems exist with that statement.

First of all, we have alternative paths to practicing medicine. Ever hear of a Nurse Practitioner? They are able to practice medicine on their own now in several states. Ever hear of a Physician's Assistant? They are taking patients independently for routine cases in many states as well. Ever hear of a Doctor of Osteopathic medicine? They can also see patients on their own. We also have pharmacists who can do more patient care than before in many situations - they are doing a lot more now than just handing out prescriptions and selling Sudafed.

Do you really want someone practicing medicine who has less qualifications than that?

Cap malpractice payouts through tort reform.

Malpractice payouts are a trivial expense compared to what goes to the top of the insurance industry. In fact most doctors pay vastly more in malpractice insurance than they will ever pay in malpractice settlements. The reason why so few doctors go in to Obstetrics (for example) isn't because they are actually concerned about the possibility of committing malpractice, but because the insurance industry requires them to carry absurd terms for their malpractice insurance. Sure, the lawyers are getting a big cut but it is dwarfed again by what the insurance company execs get - and the insurance execs get it regardless of their own performance while the lawyers have to prove a case in court to get the big paycheck.

In other words the bulk of your argument reads like an ad for the insurance industry.

Re:Don't be mistaken

[ranton]

It's not how much they draw compared to each person, it's how much they draw in total. It is, in fact, obscene.

Considering this thread was started with the statement: "The reason health care is so costly in the US can be found at the top of the insurance companies.", the only thing that matters is how much they draw compared to each person. For the purposes of this discussion that is. Whether or not their pay is obscene has no bearing on whether or not it is the reason health care is so costly in the US, which is the contention which was being refuted by the post you replied to.

Based on the figures I found here the top 10 highest paid insurance CEO's made $159 million in 2014. That is about $1.30 per household. I don't think health care costs are so high just because of an extra ten cents per month we all pay extra to pay these CEO's.

If I use Amtrust Financial Services (home of the highest paid CEO above) as a model, the entire C-level suite including the CEO made 261% of the CEO's pay. So I'll estimate that the C-level suite at the 10 companies above were paid $415 million in 2014, which is about a quarter per household per month.

If you factor in every C-level executive in every insurance company in the US, I doubt you would come to more than a couple dollars per household per month. That is not why insurance is so expensive. I would still agree that private insurance companies are the number one reason why health care is so expensive in the US but it has far more to do with the stockholders who demand return on investment (gasp, the horror) than it does with obscene CEO pay.