Health Care Costs In America

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Deceased patient's family owes $81,000 for a single air-ambulance flight​

Debra Prichard was a retired factory worker who was careful with her money, including what she spent on medical care, said her daughter, Alicia Wieberg. "She was the kind of person who didn't go to the doctor for anything."

That ended last year, when the rural Tennessee resident suffered a devastating stroke and several aneurysms. She twice was rushed from her local hospital to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, 79 miles away, where she was treated by brain specialists. She died October 31 at age 70.

One of Prichard's trips to the Nashville hospital was via helicopter ambulance. Wieberg said she had heard such flights could be pricey, but she didn't realize how extraordinary the charge would be — or how her mother's skimping on Medicare coverage could leave the family on the hook.

Then the bill came.

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Jacobin

How Medical Debt Destroys the Lives of Millions of Americans​

The United States lags behind almost every wealthy country in not having a health care system that is either free at the point of use or affordable. Instead, millions of people are saddled with medical debt that they will never be able to afford to pay back. Even on its own terms, this system is irrational. The revenue raised for private hospitals and debt collectors by issuing patients with bills is a relatively insignificant proportion of income. However, the costs of these debts to patients, who are often summoned to court because of delinquent payments, are life wrecking.

Luke Messac, a doctor and historian of medical treatment, spoke to Astra Taylor for Jacobin’s the Dig podcast about the causes of the United States’ medical debt crisis. At the heart of it is, he argues, not just ruthless profiteering of the private insurance and medical establishment, but the refusal of charity and public hospitals to live up to their legally mandated commitments to patients.

However, the fact that doctors, historically hostile to efforts to create single-payer health care, have joined picket lines in recent years is a welcome sign. The struggle for free health care in the United States must, as Messac argues, rely on a recognition of the hospital as a site for labor organizing and mobilization.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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Denying You Health Care Is Big Business in America | NYT Opinion​

Mar 14, 2024

Should your insurance company be allowed to stop you from getting a treatment — even if your doctor says it’s necessary?

Doctors are often required to get insurance permission before providing medical care. This process is called prior authorization and it can be used by profit-seeking insurance companies to create intentional barriers between patients and the health care they need.

At best, it’s just a minor bureaucratic headache. At worst, people have died.

Prior authorization has been around for decades, but doctors say its use has increased in recent years and now rank it as one of the top issues in health care.

To produce the Opinion Video above, we spoke to more than 50 doctors and patients. They shared horror stories about a seemingly trivial process that inflicts enormous pain, on a daily basis. The video also explains how a process that is supposed to save money actually inflates U.S. health care costs while enriching insurance companies.

Prior authorization has come under intense scrutiny in Congress in the past few years, but bipartisan proposals have repeatedly stalled. Under public pressure, some insurance companies — like United Healthcare and Cigna — have said they would reduce the use of prior authorization. And in January, the Biden administration finalized a plan to put limited guardrails around this practice. But doctors say that these efforts only scratch the surface and should go further.

This issue is ultimately about the role of insurance companies in American health care: Should they have more power than your doctor to decide what’s medically best for you?

8:37
 

The US doesn’t have universal health care — but these states (almost) do​

Universal health care remains an unrealized dream for the United States. But in some parts of the country, the dream has drawn closer to a reality in the 13 years since the Affordable Care Act passed.

Overall, the number of uninsured Americans has fallen from 46.5 million in 2010, the year President Barack Obama signed his signature health care law, to about 26 million today. The US health system still has plenty of flaws — beyond the 8 percent of the population who are uninsured, far higher than in peer countries, many of the people who technically have health insurance still find it difficult to cover their share of their medical bills. Nevertheless, more people enjoy some financial protection against health care expenses than in any previous period in US history.

The country is inching toward universal coverage. If everybody who qualified for either the ACA’s financial assistance or its Medicaid expansion were successfully enrolled in the program, we would get closer still: More than half of the uninsured are technically eligible for government health care aid.

The US doesn’t have universal health care — but these states (almost) do

Ten states have uninsured rates below 5 percent. What are they doing right?
www.vox.com
 

Imagine if the government offered dental care. New federal rule could make that a reality.​

Even when she had a massive infection and grueling pain from a cracked tooth, Nicole Sutton could not get a dentist to provide timely care.

Sutton, a single mother based in Tampa, Florida, could only get herself on a waitlist where she got in line to see one of the few dentists who take Medicaid, the government insurance for low-income families. She visited a hospital emergency room and a federally funded community health center, but those appointments only yielded prescriptions for antibiotics and pain pills. Neither offered to treat her dental crisis.

It wasn’t until she secured a loan from a friend that she could afford to see a specialist and an oral surgeon who extracted her tooth in an emergency procedure. Both demanded cash upfront.

It took months to clear the infection and return to health. The protracted dental episode two years ago exposed Sutton to the lurking disaster millions of Americans face because they don’t have robust dental insurance that guarantees access to oral care. A solution from the federal government may be forthcoming, which could have made a huge difference for Sutton.

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Imagine if the government offered dental care. New federal rule could make that a reality.

Millions of Americans can't afford or get routine dental care. A Biden rule will let states cover adult dental care under the Affordable Care Act.
www.usatoday.com
 

Clarence Thomas, a $267,000 RV, and Why American Health Care Sucks​

Earlier this week, two Democratic senators announced they have requested a criminal investigation into Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas - regarding, in part, a loan for a luxury RV provided by a longtime executive at UnitedHealth Group, one of America's largest health insurers.

Thomas apparently recused himself in at least two cases involving UnitedHealth when the loan was active, according to a Rolling Stone review. Yet, he separately chose to participate in another health insurance case and authored the court's unanimous opinion in 2004. The ruling broadly benefited the industry - shielding employer-sponsored health insurers from damages if they refuse to cover certain services and patients are harmed. Thomas' advice to patients facing such denials? Pull out your checkbook.

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Federal court tosses Chamber of Commerce’s Medicare negotiation challenge​

Afederal district court Thursday threw out the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s lawsuit challenging the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program established through the Inflation Reduction Act, with a judge finding that several plaintiffs in the suit lacked standing.

U.S. District Judge Michael J. Newman for the Southern District of Ohio found that the Chamber’s argument it could sue on behalf of its members through associational standing was incorrect.

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US will still pay at least twice as much after negotiating drug prices​

  • U.S. pays higher drug prices, gets priority access
  • Medicare's negotiated prices most significant for drugs with little competition
  • Goal is to balance affordability and innovation
Sept 3 (Reuters) - The U.S. government's first-ever negotiated prices for prescription drugs are still on average more than double, and in some cases five times, what drugmakers have agreed to in four other high-income countries, a Reuters review has found.

The U.S. Medicare health plan, which covers more than 67 million people, recently unveiled new maximum prices, opens new tab for the first 10 high-cost medicines negotiated under the Biden Administration's Inflation Reduction Act.

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The Hospice Hustle

Half of all Americans now die in hospice care. Easy money and a lack of regulation transformed a crusade to provide death with dignity into an industry rife with fraud and exploitation.
www.propublica.org
 
Interesting article on obesity costs, Ozempic and other weight loss drugs posted here

Vitamins, Supplements, Weight Loss Drugs, Etc,

Why You Should Avoid CALCIUM SUPPLEMENTS After Age 35 | Dr. Mandell Jul 4, 2024 While calcium supplementation can be an effective way to ensure adequate calcium intake, several concerns make obtaining calcium through diet a preferable option for many individuals. One major issue with calcium...
www.pmbug.com
 
Wonder how many Americans face shit like this on a daily basis?

I’m a 72-year-old widow, and a debt collector is harassing me for $42K in unpaid medical bills my husband racked up before he died. I live alone on a fixed income. What can I do?​


Medical debt is a massive problem in the United States, with around 20 million people owing at least some money for healthcare services. Sadly, in many situations, people end up dying with this debt — especially if they had a lengthy illness and racked up large medical bills.

If your spouse or other loved one has died with medical debt and you're facing collections efforts, you need to understand your rights. In most cases, you won't have to pay the bills — although you could lose part of your inheritance depending on the situation. Here's what you need to know.

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Google it, 60% of personal bankruptcy are medical, people get divorced so that the surviving spouse doesn't get stuck with the bills....
 
Rick Scott made his money defrauding Medicare too...his company paid 1.7 billion with a "B".
 

Insurers Collected Billions From Medicare for Veterans Who Cost Them Almost Nothing​

Bruce Kitt is one of the Medicare Advantage industry’s most lucrative customers.

The federal government pays his private Medicare Advantage insurer thousands of dollars a year to cover the cost of doctor visits, hospitalizations and other medical care that the 74-year-old retired aircraft mechanic might need.

But Kitt, an Air Force veteran who served in Thailand during the Vietnam War, gets almost all of his healthcare outside the Medicare system, through the Minneapolis VA Medical Center. The taxpayer-funded Department of Veterans Affairs health system provides low-cost or free care to Kitt and about nine million other qualifying veterans.

Kitt’s Medicare Advantage insurer, an affiliate of CVS Health’s Aetna unit, pays for almost nothing other than a $100 monthly cash-like rebate to Kitt as an incentive to keep him on its rolls. The government paid the insurer at least $6,000 to cover him in 2022, the year he joined the plan.

“I don’t think I’ve used my Medicare in years,” said Kitt, who lives in Eden Prairie, Minn. When he needed some eye tests, the VA, not his Medicare Advantage plan, paid for him to go to an outside clinic. “I’m pretty happy with the VA,” he said. “I look at the Medicare plan as a backup.”

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https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/ins...S&cvid=e290a8d1b7454ed6a02923cc6414d37e&ei=14
 

How the US healthcare system currently works and how we got here | Peter Attia and Saum Sutaria​

Dec 3, 2024

This clip is from episode # 327 - Choices, costs, and challenges in US healthcare: insurance, drug pricing, & potential reforms with Saum Sutaria, M.D.In this clip, they discuss:
  • How the US healthcare system allocates its $4 trillion annual expenditure across consumers, employers, and government.
  • The historical roots of employer-sponsored insurance, tax incentives, and the dominance of private insurers.
  • A breakdown of healthcare spending: ⅓ on hospitals, ⅓ on physicians/clinics, and ⅓ on drugs and devices, highlighting administrative costs and systemic inefficiencies.
  • And more
13:38

Watch the full episode: • 327 - Choices, costs, and challenges ...
 

When profits kill: The deadly cost of treating healthcare as a business | Opinion​

The recent assassination of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare — the health insurance company with, reportedly, the highest rate of claims rejections (and thus dead, wounded, and furious customers and their relations) — gives us a perfect window to understand the stupidity and danger of the Musk/Trump/Ramaswamy strategy of “cutting government” to “make it more efficient, run it like a corporation.”

Consider health care, which in almost every other developed country in the world is legally part of the commons — the infrastructure of the nation, like our roads, public schools, parks, police, military, libraries, and fire departments — owned by the people collectively and run for the sole purpose of meeting a basic human need.

More:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/com...S&cvid=e993aa56d04249a7977f705c79b6b1a5&ei=14
 

It's Time to Break Up Big Medicine

UnitedHealth Group is not an insurer, it's a platform. And it's in the crosshairs as Elizabeth Warren and Josh Hawley propose breaking it apart, severing its pharmacy arm from the rest of the business
www.thebignewsletter.com
 
As I've been saying for years. it's time to do away with the insurance companies. It's a huge scam. People have been so dumbed down that they actually think it is better to pay a middleman to pay their Dr's bills.
Originally this scam was sold as the insurance companies would have the leverage to negotiate the cost of healthcare down for everyone. that quickly turned into we are just going to take your bill and tack on 30% for our premiums. When that model failed because younger people took the risk of going without insurance then the mandatory insurance scam was born. Thanks Obama. Now we have the highest insurance premiums in the world along with the highest cost of medical care. Another huge government failure for the people but huge win for the corporations. Big Pharma and insurance companies getting fat on the profits from the little people. Just look at the insurance company stocks from when Obama made it mandatory. In many cases the prices are up 10 fold. Not bad for an industry that shouldn't even exist.

The answer is not more government. End the insurance companies once and for all. If people want it let them buy it but few will once the cost of medical care becomes affordable. I can only use myself as an example. Insurance costs if I wanted it would be around 9k a year. 60 yr old smoker not in very good shape. My medical costs of a heart attack, stents inserted and medication for the last 3 years is less than 1/2 a years premiums by paying out of pocket. Well, right at 1/2 a years premium. So I could have spent 27k on insurance to pay for 4500 worth of expenses in the last 3 years.
To be fair VA does cover a lot of stuff for me now that I found out about it. Especially the drugs. But for an annual cat scan on my lungs that would cost over 900 a year, the VA pays 137. Thats a pretty serious discount, even billing a government agency.

growing up in Ct, insurance is big business. Many family members made a living there. Average person doing entry level work is 50k plus and a supervisor in charge of 8-10 people was earning 200k plus. Plus bonuses, pensions and whatever other perks they get. it truly is a giant money sucking machine from your pockets to their profits. It as bad as the income tax scam TBH.
 

I've used the VA for about 25 years now. Don't use it for everything but where I do use it, I've saved a ton of money over the private sector.

Agree with you on the insurance companies. Certainly not out to help people.

Shame we never went to a single payer system. The entire developed world provides some kind of health care plan for its citizens except us. Our elected shepherds don't give jack shit about the people they beg to elect them to office. Once in, they give gazillions to military / defense contractors, foreign nations who hate us, and anyone they think will benefit their pocketbooks. And its f you to the citizens.

_________________________

Best wishes for a healthy new year.
 
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