Medicine should have been fixed like this...

[billc]

This is how the medical system could actually have been fixed...instead of wrecking it by having the feds take it over...

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/11/competitive-medicine-works.php

Some years ago, a British filmmaker was visiting us, and we started talking about health care. He acknowledged that the National Health Service is pretty bad, but said that he favors socialized medicine because health care is so important. That’s right, I responded, and because health care is so important, it is vital that we use our best system on it. Our best system is free enterprise. The worst system ever devised is socialism, and it should never be used; or if used, only for things that are utterly trivial.

blems with American health care is that we aren’t using our best system to provide it. Third parties pay the overwhelming majority of medical bills, so competition is inefficient at best. Yet whenever free enterprise manages to come into play, the result is better care at a remarkably lower cost. As in this instance, from Oklahoma City:

Three years ago, Dr. Keith Smith, co-founder and managing partner of the Surgery Center of Oklahoma, took an initiative that would only be considered radical in the health care industry: He posted online a list of prices for 112 common surgical procedures. …

[Dr. Jason Sigmon], an ear, nose, and throat surgeon, regularly performs procedures at both the Surgery Center and at Oklahoma City’s Integris Baptist Medical Center, which is the epitome of a traditional hospital. It’s run by a not-for-profit called Integris Health, which is the largest health care provider in Oklahoma serving over 700,000 patients a year.


Sigmon says he can perform twice as many surgeries in a single day at the Surgery Center than at Integris. At the latter institution, he spends half his time waiting around while the staff struggles with the basic logistics of moving patients from preoperative care into the operating room. When the patient arrives, Sigmon will sometimes wait even longer for the equipment he needs.


Except for the clerical staff, every employee at the Surgery Center is directly involved in patient care. For example, both human resources and building maintenance are the responsibility of the head nurse. “One reason our prices are so low,” says Smith, “is that we don’t have administrators running around in their four or five thousand dollar suits.”

Reason obtained a bill for a procedure that Dr. Sigmon performed at Integris in October 2010 called a “complex bilateral sinus procedure,” which helps patients with chronic nasal infections. The bill, which is strictly for the hospital itself and doesn’t include Sigmon’s or the anesthesiologist’s fees, totaled $33,505. When Sigmon performs the same procedure at the Surgery Center, the all-inclusive price is $5,885.


We all know that competition works. Industries like automobiles and electronics crank out better and better products at lower and lower prices. The same could be true in health care. Public policy should focus, not on further socializing an already sclerotic industry, but on freeing and enabling competition among health care providers for the patient’s dollar.

 

[WC_lun]

Sorry Bill, won't work. When you are ill as hell and need something done ASAP, you don't have the luxary of shopping around, even if everyone listed thier prices. There are hospitals that do offer prices on procedures, but they aren't any cheaper than elsewhere, because the services not included tend to be more expensive, like drugs, physician consultations, meals, etc. Also, many towns and rural areas in the US rely on just one hospital. No competition to drive down prices. Many hospitals do not offer every service needed, so that also reduces competition. I could keep going with problems with your cut and pasted hypothesis, but you get the drift. It won't work.

The problem stems in great part that the medical industry has grown in a capitalist society with very little oversite. It has become its own worst enemy and no one really wants to try to take on the beast to correct the things that need correcting, because it is too big. Obamacare is in essence an attempt to make hospitals do the heavy lifting themselves, using insurance agencies as the stick to prod them to do so. There is no real proof this will work and that is my major isue with it. We really should have just expanded Medicare. By the way, Medicare IS a socialist program which not only has great popularity with most in the US, but it also is more effecient than the private insurace companies.

 

[Flying Crane]

we could begin by getting rid of the blood sucking insurance companies, put those thugs out of business and remove them and their profits from the picture altogether.

not everything should be done for profits. Medicine is one of those things for which accessibility must outweigh any thoughts of profits. That doesn't mean people in the medical practices don't deserve to earn a good living. But the corporate profits, particularly the insurance profits, are a disgrace and should be criminalized.

 

[Flying Crane]

funny thing is, US medicine is run on a capitalist system and it's gotten us into this broken system. So how in the hell does anyone justify the notion that, medicine needs to be run on a capitalist system, and that will fix the problem? That's insane.

Anyone wanna put out a fire with a gallon of gasoline?

stupid.