One of the biggest reasons medicine costs so much in the United States is precisely because we don't have a universal system to negotiate lower prices, and the many disparate insurance companies actually drive prices up.

Insurance company X goes to provider and says "I want a 50% discount because I sent you 10k patients last year". Provider says "I can't afford that, but I can charge uninsured people more, that way you are technically getting a discount". And prices go up for everybody who isn't insured on the basis that they aren't part of a pool with a large amount of negotiating power.

Meanwhile Canada has a huge portion of the population demanding lower prices.

There's also the knowledge that charging super high prices benefits everybody. If you sell your insulin at a 50% discount and get into a cost war with another provider you both lose because dropping that price by half isn't going to net you twice as many customers, so it does no good to undercut your competition. You will just both end up with less money.





So yeah, there's a lot of factors at play, but a lot of it simply comes down to how our system is set up. Patients are separated from costs by their insurance companies, and insurance companies don't have the leverage to lower cost because the customer base is split among several disparate and competing groups.

if true, that would already be illegal under price gouging laws. theres no need to create a wasteful ineffecient government healthcare system, simply enforce the law.

Theres a million and a half ways to skirt any price gouging law, and enfircement isnt easy, cheap, or popular in the first place.

bs. they can only skirt it because they arent good about enforrcing it. which may not be easy or cheap, but i would bet would be cheaper in the long run than over paying for drugs. it would certainly be popular with everyone other than drug companies. which is like, just about everyone...

Why don’t you go to a hospital for treatment and then use your exact argument on whoever you think will listen and get back to us. Let us know when you get your bill lowered in court under price gouging laws.

did i not just say that theres a lack of enforcement?

Also gets down to the fact that large companies can donate to candidates which makes enforcement really unpopular, and lawsuits tend to take years. Add in that you would be suing probably every single hospital in the entire united states and it's basically untenable as a solution.

There's a lot of things that "would just be solved by enforcing the laws", but we don't live in such a rosey world.

You don't believe in $8 asprine at hospitals?




Utilization reviewer right here I get a staggering amount of medical bills written off as charity though and I'll sign any document getting any person any services they need short of long-term disability.

People don't interact with me unless they are in very bad shape though. Normal people get RNs to run their care episode. I only get the hardest cases.




That would be hilarious to try to enforce. They would have to hire 50000 more government employees in addition to all of the ones up our ass already.

Would make aspirins more lol.




The for profit insurance providers are going to be the ones running the medicare for all programs. You have anthem medicare Humana medicare aetna medicare just like you do now. All of these manage to medicare's are practically inferior to original government medicare, the red white and blue card. Fed government doesn't make millionaires like Aetna, Humana, and anthem, etc, out of extra administration costs.

Medicare for all scares me.

I would rather have plans like the cheapest available on healthcare.gov site with just the basics available to everybody for minimal cost, means tested and given to the poorest, as a basic availability, with actual specialist treatment being parts of plans you have to pay for.

You get into a wreck and need to go to hospital you get fixed...drink until your brain gets pickled while never working? On your own. Right now a person in the second category would end up being in a nursing home on Medicaid being Frankenstein'd alive for as long as possible...vent...dialysis...etc, being kept alive for as long as technology allows, at the cost of 300-400 dollars a day to the federal govt supported via taxation. People in this category would die earlier, in their homes, if not kept artificially alive, which is what I plan to do instead of malingering on this planet longer than I should. But I couldn't do what the derelict would be able to do because since I don't qualify for Medicaid I don't have the option of going into long term care unless I can afford the 300-400 a day. You can't give your stuff away because people like me will get into all of your business and do forensic accounting for up to 7 years back to make sure you are sneaking any money to your kids. If someone manages your money they need receipts and if they count your food it better be in a separate fridge if you live together.

Then again I meet people all the time and me and the doc just wonder how the fuck they're still alive. Seniors living with no running water electricity covered in piss and shit and blood sugars in the several hundreds eating rotten food....on the ground what can you do with that except send em to the expensive nursing home?

And the boomers are coming? And they're becoming demented, and they're armed to the teeth. They all drive and they are all packing heat lol.

This post was edited by Skinned on Oct 4 2019 04:01pm

That’s exactly why M4A is the only solution. Regulatory capture ensures noncompliance. So you get rid of the fuckers who are in control: the for profit “health” providers.

He does, but he thinks the best solution is to enforce price gouging laws instead of overhauling the system.

IMO when the system gets so bad you would be taking individual action against every hospital in the country it's time to just rework the whole system.