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ClassIsInSession -> RE: Stoopid Fucking Teabaggerette Doesn't Know Taxpayers Subsidize Her Healthcare.... (9/1/2011 3:56:13 PM)
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I happen to like Juliette Lewis.... that aside..
Health care is such a vastly complex issue, obviously this woman was demonstrating her utter ignorance on the topic regarding her own health care, but I think the current cost of health care comes from a variety of factors, first, we are paying for health care to a radical degree for people who aren't even legal residents.
Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with legal immigration, but this is the equivalent of having a party and getting so many people crashing it that you run the kegs dry and the people already invited don't even get a cup.
Secondly, the cost of college tuition for medical school (or any other major for that matter) in the U.S. is astronomical and unjust, when you consider it is cheaper to go to Princeton than it is to go to many lesser known universities in the U.S.. Having huge student loans to pay off, Doctors have to charge a lot to justify the intense study they go through...I started that course in my mid-twenties and decided I didn't want to lose that much of my life just to do it.
Then to pile even more on the Doctors, they have malpractice insurance which is a nice hefty extraction from their pay, plus they have to file as a subchapter S corporation, which excludes them from many tax breaks a C-Corporation enjoys and taxes them like employees rather than as businesses.
Finally, they have HMO/PPO and Medicare/Medicaid compliance issue that dramatically reduce what they can charge, and yet cost them a huge amount in regulatory/compliance costs.
And, having to go to a PCP before going to a specialist increases your costs because now you have to go to at least 2 Doctors for one problem, and you have to get prescriptions for many drugs that really don't need it. In Italy, you can buy many of the medications we need a prescription for directly from the pharmacist.
Adding all of these layers of government red tape raises our costs up dramatically, and this is why the problems exist. Go to a vast array of other countries and pay out of pocket for medical treatment and it becomes apparent that the government IS the problem here.
Direct experience for me is I haven't had health insurance now for over 7 years. During that course of time I got MRSA staph in my face and wound up in the Doctor's office first and the ER later that evening. I paid everything out of pocket and it was about $6k. 7 years worth of health insurance premiums would have cost me considerably more.
BUT, a little over a year ago I had what I suspected may be a resurgence of MRSA and I went to the ER. I told them what I suspected I had, told them what medication I needed to clear it up, spent a total of 17 minutes in the ER, in which time I had 3 different Doctors walk in, joke with me about it, shine a flashlight in my eye and give me the prescription I asked for (an antibiotic). They sent me a bill for over $3k. And I had gone to a PCP several days before who refused to give me the proper medication for it. Ultimately I resolved the problem, but $3k for 17 minutes, a signature and a flashlight shined in my eye is insane. If we had medications available at the pharmacy without a prescription I could have resolved the problem for about $12.
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