The Pickens Democrats and Appalachian Indivisible healthcare forum drew a surprising crowd of more than 60 people to Chattahoochee Tech considering Thursday was a rainy night during summer vacation. More surprising was the number and depth of the questions. The audience wanted to talk minutiae of national healthcare with the panel of three healthcare speakers and one congressional candidate. Marie Head from Appalachian Indivisible said the turnout shows the topic is universal; it’s an issue that people want to learn about and need to talk about, she said. “I am surprised by the turnout,” she said. “We knew we’d get our members out but we got a lot more.” John Frech, a retired business executive who researches healthcare options and pens …show more content…
He used an example that it would be like two car dealerships on the same road each selling the same model, but one charges twice as much and has no explanation to give customers. There is a misconception, Frech said, that all other countries have socialized medicine or use the same system, but that is far from true. The other countries do have two things in common: they all have universal coverage and they are all less expensive than the U.S. He also cited examples of how the United States has an unbelievably fragmented healthcare system in the country, particularly in terms of cost. For example, he said insurance premiums in the Seattle area have dropped under the ACA while they have gone up in Nashville. Medicaid spends considerably less per capita in Minnesota than Texas with no obvious cause of the discrepancy. Frech cited several keys to the high costs here including marketing by pharmaceutical companies; the incredible number (around 20 percent) of the people who work in the medical field but never come into contact with any patient and the lack of wellness programs and poor lifestyle
for it. The whole town was excited. This was a very big deal, and a lot of people had
Firstly, advances in pharmaceutical is one of the main reasons. Over years, highly development in the pharmaceutical industry have transformed health care into a new form: new management structure and new technology are being used. Many health problems now can be solved by just using prescription drugs. Furthermore, the use of prescription drugs keeps people away from doing surgery and other expenses. However the process of manufacture and development of new drugs require a large amount of money. Drug manufactures spent too much money
Costs have escalated for a host of reasons. Americans’ health needs increased as their for example. Coverage grew to include catastrophic illnesses, not just common ailments. Ma added retiree health benefits. Medical techniques and technology became more sophisticate prescription drugs acquired an expanding role in disease management and illness preventio medical inflation had become a serious business issue; by some yardsticks, costs rose at a f decade than in the 1990s.
What would you say when I told you that if you look at a list of the worlds developed industrialized nations that there is only one developed country in the world that doesn’t have a universal healthcare system. Some of the countries on this list include Japan, Germany, and even Canada. The United States, a global power, our home and the world’s largest economy is the only westernized industrial country without universal healthcare. The amount of people dying due to a lack of medical coverage is at an all-time high, while the U.S also has the most expensive healthcare system in the world for its citizens. According to Toni Johnson, author of the article “Healthcare Costs and U.S Competiveness” “The United States spends an estimated $2 trillion annually on healthcare expenses, more than any other industrialized country. According to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the United States spends two-and-a-half times more than the OECD average, and yet ranks with Turkey and Mexico as the only OECD countries without universal health coverage.” (Johnson) For a country that spends so much it seems strange we do not even offer the best health care in the world. It also seems even stranger that there are over 45 million Americans who are going without health insurance. (Johnson) Universal health care is defined as a basic guarantee of health care to all its
“The Bitter Pill: Why medical bills are killing us” written by Steven Brill delves into the question as to why medical bills are so high. As Brill begins his research he analyzed bills from hospitals, doctors, and drug companies. Additionally, he interviewed doctors, Medicare and insurance administrators, and gathered patient stories across the nation. He found that the United States spent more money on healthcare than any other developed countries, he stated “We may be shocked at the $60 billion price tag for cleaning up after Hurricane Sandy, [however], we spent almost that much last week on healthcare” (Brill 2013). He also noted “yet in every measurable way, the results our healthcare system produces are no better and often worse than the outcomes in those countries” (Brill 2013). From the charts and graphs that Brill provided shows that the sixty percent of personal bankruptcy filings per year are related to medical bills. Life expectancy in the United States is the lowest amongst the countries that spend most on healthcare, our infant mortality rank is fiftieth in the world, and that one pill cost as much as seven pills in other developed countries such as France. Brill found that in many similar cases, like that ones he presented in the article, Medicare would have at least paid for a small portion of the bill. However, those who don’t qualify for Medicaid and don’t have insurance are often asked to pay excessive prices.
Another reason for the rising cost of healthcare is the cost of physician care, according to the American Hospital Association “the cost of physician care, both to insurance and patients, has risen 1.3% during the past year.” Because of this increase doctors are put in a corner, they are already locked into an agreement with the insurance companies and do not have much ‘wiggle’ room to negotiate fees and rates. So because of this the patients and consumers are forced to pay a much larger sum. Since there are higher costs and the insurers will not cover them, they are distributes to the customers through higher deductibles, co-insurance, and
crowd entering the stadium, in fact, the crowd was much more than we anticipated and expected.
crowd entering the stadium, in fact, the crowd was much more than we anticipated and expected.
As well as this most countries that are successful in health have a universal health care program. These nations include Switzerland, Belgium, Qatar and Canada being
Many countries around the world have adopted the idea of having universal healthcare, in fact the United States abides strongly by the single payer while almost other developed countries have universal health care (Fisher, 2012). One of the main reasons countries are
Faith Fitzgerald discusses how an emphasis on healthy lifestyles has led to a so-called “tyranny of health,” pointing out that the transition to a definition that describes health as complete physical, mental, and social well-being has caused people to confuse the ideal definition of health with the standard for health.
After researching the topic on the negative impacts in healthcare, I came across two articles I would like to discuss Unnecessary Medical Services Driving Up Health Care Costs, and Top 10 issues impacting healthcare industry in 2016. In these articles, it explains the unnecessary medical services that are being rendered such as labs tests and antibiotics. Which are considered low cost, but the high demand or these procedures make them very costly. The revenue for health care in the united states cost us trillions of dollars. Which is a great percentage of the gross healthcare product? The healthcare industry medication prices and health insurance premiums are sowing and which makes it difficult to maintain the medication that is needed daily. Individuals like myself are tired of struggling to pay the
To begin with, as people arrived at the gates they were surprised to see such a long line of people wanting to buy a ticket to get inside. As Libra Student said, “I was shocked to see the big line. I thought that was the line for the entrance but then the supervisor told us the line was actually for people who were barely trying to buy their tickets.” In other words, she is saying that there A LOT of people at homecoming.
In the same breadth, Moore fails to talk about how the U.S. market-driven medical innovation has resulted in high survival rates, high patient satisfaction rates, and effective new drug launches in the U.S . All the stories we see are told only from the viewpoint of the victims with no input from the insurers or the doctors. He makes no mention of the U.S. government funded systems like Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP and the VA. All he mentions is about how America spends the most on heathcare (16% of GDP), but ranks low on most of the key indicators of health care and has almost 46 million uninsured.
Factor one is chronic disease, since it is 86% of all healthcare spending and it is expensive to treat. Factor two is healthcare technology. Designed to help lower costs, yet the technology is becoming more expensive and complex. Pricing is another factor because its unregulated and inconsistent. Another contributor is administrative obligations and this is just the costs that come with management of patient records and billing. The last, common factor five is when over-treatment is occurring from physicians and patients such as unnecessary treatments and tests.