Healthcare Education and Q&A Thread

[JoeRedskin]

Originally Posted by Schneed10

I see what you're getting at, certain races and ethnicities deal with varying levels of incidences of different diseases. But all modern nations have to be ready to treat any illness, no matter how prevalent in their society. I don't think certain nations experience a lower level of cost than we do because of this, I think they experience it because their system is set up to encourage a lower level of utilization of healthcare services.

Sorry, can you explain walk me through what you mean by the bolded statement?

Saden asserts we can learn something from these systems in revamping the US healthcare system. In your opinion, is that a reasonable assertion?

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by JoeRedskin

Sorry, can you explain walk me through what you mean by the bolded statement?

This post may help. Essentially the influx of covered patients causes a logjam with wait times, and eventually a lot of people decide going to the doctor isn't worth it (unless it's a serious issue). The longer the wait time for appointments, the more you have people deciding that going to the doctor isn't worth it.

http://www.thewarpath.net/parking-lo...tml#post566223

Originally Posted by JoeRedskin

Saden asserts we can learn something from these systems in revamping the US healthcare system. In your opinion, is that a reasonable assertion?

Yes there are things they do which would be intelligent moves for us to adopt:

1) Other nations don't allow malpractice awards like the US does. Consequently their physicians don't have to pay $50,000 - $100,000 a year in malpractice premiums like ours do, so their lower physician salaries afford them a nice standard of living.

2) I think one source of major excess expense in the US is our overabundance of the best technology. When you have a government-run healthcare system, the government decides how to allocate expensive technologies in hospitals all throughout the country. They decide how many Gamma Knife machines the country needs, and where to put them. However, American hospitals are in business competing with one another, so they tend to go after the latest technology to remain competitive and attract physicians to direct their patients there. This results in a technology "arms race", and lots of technologies get underutilized. Then of course, naturally hospitals put pressure on physicians to make more use of the equipment, and you end up with expensive procedures and treatments in lieu of tried & true methods that may be much cheaper.

If the government could find a way to allocate the technology and equipment without oversaturating, but without jamming appointment times out for weeks and weeks, then I think we'd be in great shape.