patrick.net

Even an easier solution to bring down the costs: free market

allow doctors from other countries to practice in USA. Many from Europe will be willing to get more than the 30k-40k euros/year than they get. Today is a monopoly of the medical schools/associations. Engineers in apple don't have to go to an American school. They just need to know how to do their job

make public the $$ amount (or at least the max) that a given practice can charge, and force the patient to pay an important part of it.

Shouldn't we start killing doctors, one by one, till they surrender?
We have been doing (with good sense) the same with unions.

APOCALYPSEFUCK is Tony Manero says

Doctors won't allow it.

Exactly. The AMA is one of the biggest bribers of Congress, number 14 on the all time biggest briber list:

http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php?source=patrick.net&order=A

The AMA restricts the supply of doctors to extract more cash from their public milk-cows:

http://patrick.net/?p=1061994#comment-768584

We're just completely screwed until we get publicly funded campaigns and a ban on all private campaign contributions.

In America, we are all free, but some are more free than others.

I'm getting offers to refi that would cut my payments in half it's pretty amazing really

We're just completely screwed until we get publicly funded campaigns and a ban on all private campaign contributions.

You can't fix this without getting the right people in congress though and that is effectively impossible given the way things work now.

The truth is we're pretty much screwed for the next couple of decades while the assholes in charge run this country into the ground.

tts says

The truth is we're pretty much screwed for the next couple of decades while the assholes in charge run this country into the ground.

ayup. Only Bernie Sanders has the balls to take a true Left position to his constituents. But they number ~300,000 LOL.

We probably need to atomize this country's politics. Even though there are many "purple counties", there is a very deep red/blue divide in this country.

Team Red fucked things up pretty bad 1995-2006, so I think a divorce would be better than this battered spouse shit we're dealing with now, as they creep back into power.

PockyClipsNow says

We all know large companies get the best rates since they have bargaining power with 30,000 employees.

This is a few days old...but...

From what I understand (from when I worked for a huge corporation) these guys don't actually buy policies the way you are thinking. Once they are big enough they self-insure and use an insurance "company" to manage the benefits. The amount they charge employees is used to pay other employee's claims. I'm sure they have some insurance backstop in case things go haywire. Perhaps this has changed in the past ten years but that's the way it was when I was in mega-corporate land.

DrPepper says

Unfortunately, with increased health care costs, insurance, etc and no raise for 3 years the reality is most of the $220 per month will go to negating those increases.

Exactyl what I would expect to happen.

EightBall says

From what I understand (from when I worked for a huge corporation) these guys don't actually buy policies the way you are thinking. Once they are big enough they self-insure and use an insurance "company" to manage the benefits. The amount they charge employees is used to pay other employee's claims. I'm sure they have some insurance backstop in case things go haywire. Perhaps this has changed in the past ten years but that's the way it was when I was in mega-corporate land.

It worked that way when I worked for a few small companies as well. I mean like 20 people.

ja says

Even an easier solution to bring down the costs: free market

allow doctors from other countries to practice in USA. Many from Europe will be willing to get more than the 30k-40k euros/year than they get. Today is a monopoly of the medical schools/associations. Engineers in apple don't have to go to an American school. They just need to know how to do their job

make public the $$ amount (or at least the max) that a given practice can charge, and force the patient to pay an important part of it.

I really think eliminating lawsuits, getting doctors to prescribe the most recent generic prescriptions instead of the most recent drug, and denying people without insurance medical care would do more to lower medical costs than simply paying doctors less.

I hate to admit it, but yes I agree, refinancing should help the economy.

The main problem is that interest payments mostly go to some very rich institutions and inviduals and they just don't spend the money. They have mountains of cash already and don't know what to do with it.

The middle class, on the other hand, is very likely to actually spend it soon and cause economic activity.

This is why concentration of wealth also slows down the economy.

That's true, but only to an extent. The reason being that if these same middle class people that have extra money left over from refinancing spend it on imported goods, it really doesn't help the US economy.

zzyzzx says

I really think eliminating lawsuits [...] would do more to lower medical costs than simply paying doctors less.

Yes, but you can be shown to be wrong. See links I've provided above. Lawsuits are a tiny tiny percentage of medical costs already and payouts have stayed roughly stable for many years. You're giving a talking point.