Big Nonprofit Hospitals Expand in Wealthier Areas, Shun Poorer Ones (wsj.com) 216
Many of the nation's largest nonprofit hospital systems, which give aid to poorer communities to earn tax breaks, have been leaving those areas and moving into wealthier ones as they have added and shed hospitals in the last two decades. From a report: As nonprofits, these regional and national giants reap $8.8 billion from tax breaks annually, by one Johns Hopkins University researcher's estimate. Among their obligations, they are expected to provide free medical care to those least able to afford it. Many top nonprofits, however, avoid communities where more people are likely to need that aid, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of nearly 470 transactions. As these systems grew, many were more likely to divest or close hospitals in low-income communities than to add them.
Since 2001, half the hospitals divested by CommonSpirit Health, a large Catholic system based in Chicago, were in communities where the poverty rate was above the medians for state hospital markets, compared with 30% of those it added. At Bon Secours Mercy Health, formed by the 2018 merger of two growing regional nonprofits, about 42% of hospitals it divested were in areas with higher poverty, compared with 27% of hospitals it added. Of hospitals divested or closed by St. Louis-based Ascension, about half were located in higher-poverty areas, compared with 40% of the Catholic system's acquisitions.
At the same time, many top nonprofits were moving more aggressively to add hospitals in more affluent areas. At Mercy, a St. Louis-based hospital nonprofit, 56% of new hospitals were in places with lower poverty rates, compared with 25% of those it shed. About two-thirds of the hospitals it added were in markets where the share of households with incomes of at least $200,000 was above the state median. That compared with 25% of those the system shed. Of hospitals acquired by Florida-based AdventHealth, nearly two-thirds were in low-poverty areas, compared with 40% of those they divested. And 59% had a larger share of higher-income households, compared with 40% of those they exited.
Since 2001, half the hospitals divested by CommonSpirit Health, a large Catholic system based in Chicago, were in communities where the poverty rate was above the medians for state hospital markets, compared with 30% of those it added. At Bon Secours Mercy Health, formed by the 2018 merger of two growing regional nonprofits, about 42% of hospitals it divested were in areas with higher poverty, compared with 27% of hospitals it added. Of hospitals divested or closed by St. Louis-based Ascension, about half were located in higher-poverty areas, compared with 40% of the Catholic system's acquisitions.
At the same time, many top nonprofits were moving more aggressively to add hospitals in more affluent areas. At Mercy, a St. Louis-based hospital nonprofit, 56% of new hospitals were in places with lower poverty rates, compared with 25% of those it shed. About two-thirds of the hospitals it added were in markets where the share of households with incomes of at least $200,000 was above the state median. That compared with 25% of those the system shed. Of hospitals acquired by Florida-based AdventHealth, nearly two-thirds were in low-poverty areas, compared with 40% of those they divested. And 59% had a larger share of higher-income households, compared with 40% of those they exited.
obviously? (Score:5, Insightful)
No shit. 'non profit' and 'for profit' has little bearing on bills getting paid. 'non profit' also being primarily a tax dodge and not an altruistic design for a hospital in America.
As long as health is a product this is what SHOULD be expected. It's a design feature of capitalism. If health is a product, then capitalist outcomes are the obvious and expected result.
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No shit. 'non profit' and 'for profit' has little bearing on bills getting paid. 'non profit' also being primarily a tax dodge and not an altruistic design for a hospital in America.
Another example, Ikea is a non-profit. The company rents the name "Ikea" from a company that is probably owned by the family that founded Ikea.
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Having spent a significant fraction of my career in the non-profit sector, I am in some ways less cynical about it, and in some ways more. There are a lot of sincere people doing real good in the non-profit world, so it's not just a tax dodge; however there is enormous potential for abuse because of lack of accountability. Really it all comes down to whether you have a good board or not. In a for profit the board holds the CEO accountable, and the stockholders elect the board, but in the non-profit world
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certain industries break pattern massively. non-profit hospitals are one. Funneling huge sums of money into for-profit specialty services and funding massive salaries for less-than-critical people like consultants or board members as the standard model. It's pure corruption.
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What should happen is that the government needs to make sure boards and non-profit management is professional and serves the organization mission, but no attorney general wants to do that kind of work. Who wants a reputation as being tough on charities? But it would be the best thing for charities.
BLM (the non-profit charity) went on for way too long for just this reason.
Re: obviously? (Score:3)
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right. non-profit doesn't mean non-capitalist. Still in the system, still using the capitalist model to select services to offer and price those services and importantly in the context of the OP, pick where to locate.
Even if it were a completely altruistic non-profit business these rules still apply. Nurses are going where they get paid, doctors are going where they get paid. heck, janitors are going where they get paid. The CEO is going where they get paid. Nothing is 'cheaper' just because it's in a
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Let's see how well medical care works when we start mandating reduced pay for doctors and nurses.
Re: obviously? (Score:2)
Doctors also prefer working close to where they live. And guess where they prefer to live?
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It also means that, in the United States, when you stop running your hospital on the basis of healthcare being a product, your hospital goes out of business. Poorer areas have high percentages of payers relying on Medicaid and Medicare. Know what happens to those hospitals? They die.
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while there are things people do to deteriorate their health, abstaining from all that stuff is no where near a guarantee of healthy.
The vast majority of people seeking healthcare under ~45 years old are not there because of those indulgences you speak of.
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So you're saying if those toddlers that get strep throat 3 or 4 times a year would just lay off of the boozing and cigars they wouldn't need a doctor?
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Yessir, eat right and you too will not get hit by a car while waiting at a bus stop.
BTW, "nature" is always trying to kill us. Guess you never heard of "survival of the fittest."
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He's speaking in hyperbole, but he isn't entirely wrong. The repercussions of personal choices do represent the lion's share of medical expenses for people, especially as adults. They also help drive up the cost of medical care for everyone. If we didn't have as much obesity; type 2 diabetes; heart disease; and high blood pressure in this country, the overall cost of providing care would plummet. It would be cheaper to treat the kids with strep (for example).
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You live that healthy life until the drunk driver hits you, or that genetic predisposition to breast cancer you didn't know you had rears its head.
Re: obviously? (Score:5, Insightful)
So you do all that, and then a drunk driver runs you over as you're crossing the road. What vice were you doing that would've prevented this?
Or you're playing football, and someone from the opposing team crashes into you in such a way that bones break. Again, what vice of yours caused this?
You're walking out and about, shopping in a store, or working in the office, or whatever, and someone coughs and you get deathly sick. Again, what could you have done to prevent this?
Lots of stuff happens just because. There are plenty of teenagers who are playing sports, that suddenly end up with a heart attack - despite being highly active people who are not obese or overweight. There are plenty of people just up and have a widowmaker in their 20s while on the basketball court.
Crap happens. The drunk driver crashing into you, for example. Or the texting driver. Or the driver on their cellphone. Kids playing with guns. Hell, adults playing with guns. You stepping on a patch of ice in this winter weather.
Sure, there's a lot you can do to prevent getting sick - after all,there was masking, social distancing, vaccinations, etc., which help you avoid getting sick, and if you do get sick, hopefully keep you out of hospital. The reason for this is so the hospital has resources to handle emergencies that happen just because. A foggy night happens, and causes a massive pileup on the interstate. Your daily mass shooting event.
It happens. You can try to prevent a lot of it (but lots of people seem to oppose masks, or vaccinations, or other thing for oddball reasons), but there is always going to be some that are unavoidable - the ones you cannot protect yourself against because it's just random bad luck. You can obey all the traffic laws, but a distracted driver on their phone can still run the red light and nail you. Nothing you could've done would've predicted that someone would get a text message at that moment, miss the red light, and sail on through.
And there are things that just happen because they do. Cancer, for example. People do get lung cancer even if they never smoked in their lives. Even minor incidents may become serious - a papercut might be an annoyance, but it can get infected. You can catch a cold or flu and wind up in the hospital and die (and people did).
Hell, you could be sitting at home on the couch, and your roof collapses because of all the snow on it.
There are very few activities one can do where one will totally avoid any problems that can lead to needing medical care for any reason. Even "safe" activities might have dangers that have claimed a life somewhere at some time.
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You stepping on a patch of ice in this winter weather.
This one hits close to home. We had black ice on our front path last week. We thought, screw it, no need to get rid of it. Then our neighbour called to cancel our ice-skating trip to say he's going to spend the weekend in hospital because his SEVENTEEN YEAR OLD son had a broken hip from slipping on the way to the car. An injury most commonly seen in pensioners.
Shit happens, that's why healthcare exists.
And yes we salted our own driveway after hearing that.
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OK, Mr. Pedantic - "health isn't a product" but HealthCARE most certainly is.
Re: obviously? (Score:2)
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Nah nature is trying to kill us 24/7. It's why we put so many barriers like clothing and houses between us and nature.
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What 501(c) are you talking about? Be specific.
The so-called "money problem in politics" is really an issue mainly on one side of the political spectrum - not exclusively by any means - when the democrats out-spend their Republican rivals 2:1, 3:1 or even more, it's hard to think Republican money alone is what's polluting politics.
Take a look at Democrat v Republican spending in any high-profile national campaign and you'll see what I mean. How much was spent to re-elect Warnock in GA? Hillary spent a billi
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Right, people should have the freedom of choice whether they want to eat or to have that operation.
Re:obviously? (Score:5, Interesting)
As long as health is a product this is what SHOULD be expected. It's a design feature of capitalism. If health is a product, then capitalist outcomes are the obvious and expected result.
Actually, most "non-profit charities" are VERY profitable for the people running them. Check out the salaries.
So why not end all charitable deductions? Why should other people's tax dollars pay for your pet church/mosque/synagogue/whatever?
Also, there are plenty of countries that have universal health care plans because health care should not be "just a product."
So when you write:
This is more FUD posted by pearl clutching Ms. Mash. Yay! Let's have a Soviet healthcare system. Yay!
... you're the one posting the fud.
Re:obviously? (Score:5, Insightful)
A few simple truths:
People fall into a few major categories when it come to healthcare coverage in the US - private (employer subsidized), self-funded, government subsidized, government run, and uninsured.
Private (employer subsidized) generally reimburses healthcare providers to actually cover the cost of providing healthcare services.
Self-funded means opting out of so-called Obamacare plans for any myriad of reasons, and these policies are typically limited with regard to what they cover and what providers they work with. These are temporary coverage plans, which can not typically be renewed after two years. These plans are not considered Obamacare compliant, and are, honestly, shit policies and the reimbursements to healthcare providers typically do not cover the cost of providing healthcare services.
Government subsidized policies (so-called Obamacare) can have very low premiums, but also have massive you-won't-believe-me-when-I-tell-you deductibles and co-pays, are only accepted at certain providers, and their reimbursements also rarely, if ever cover the cost of providing healthcare services.
Government (Medicare/Medicaid) coverage is accepted widely, but it also suffers from low reimbursement rates.
The uninsured are the people that are asked to pay the highest rate, in an attempt to not only cover the cost of the patients actual care, but also the so-called charity care, people that need care but have no means to pay for it.
So, building a hospital in an area where the majority of patients are on anything other than employer-subsidized healthcare coverage is a money-losing exercise. NO government insurance plan/program pays enough to cover the services their members need. And let's not forget that President Obama CUT funding for so-called charitable care in Obamacare - the democrats argued that fewer would be unemployed, so less funding was needed, the reality is they needed the money to help pay for the subsidies they offered (they also took over federal student loans because they needed that money also).
Non-profit churches accept donations to help cover up reimbursed treatments/procedures... But building a new hospital/care center where the income doesn't cover the expenses is simply not a viable option.
Yeah it sucks, yeah we wish it were different, but until doctors, nurses, administrators, custodial, maintenance, and food service employees in the facility will accept pay cuts for the privilege of serving an underserved community, it is what it is. You can try and underpay the staff, but they'll soon leave for better opportunities, and good luck getting the government to stop funding all the pointless things it currently funds and instead properly fund government-involved healthcare plans.
Oh, final note - Obamacare guaranteed private insurance companies would never lose money - there's a pool of money to insure they maintain an appropriate profit margin. There's a similar fund for hospitals/providers to compensate them for losses as well, but it's massively under-funded and no one apparently wants to fix it.
Bitch and moan, wail and scream all you want, but understand, it is the private insurance companies that actually pay healthcare providers what it costs to provide their services - without private insurers the US healthcare system would be infinitely worse. (It's true NHS and Canada's healthcare systems don't give patients bills, but both have huge issues with waiting times for services and at least Canada has a huge doctor shortage.)
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Re:Both true and false. (Score:4, Informative)
Hospitals now have to take and treat indigent.
Now? Ronald Reagan was the one who mandated hospitals [salon.com] treat the indigent. Go blame him.
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So you think treating the indigent is a bad idea?
The healthcare system has changed since Reagan - government subsidies have been cut to the point hospitals loose money on charity care, thank you Obamacare, and Obamacare also created this cluster-truck of a public healthcare system that lavishes money on insurers, forces people to sign up for coverage, then fails to pay the hospital sufficient funds to cover provided services. Then, for good measure, the government cut the money available to cover hospital/p
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So, do not blame ACA for the current situation. It helped.
HOWEVER, it never address the millions of illegals that have been let in to america and are flooding our social benefits systems, esp medicine (it was already precarious). Then add in covid and well, we now have a total cluster fuck in the medical community.
What is worse is that the idiots that run
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1) reagan DID push that. No biggie. I support that.
2) however, what you did not mention was the rest of the story, in particular how things have worked and are failing NOW.
3) Hospitals have to take who ever enters their doors. So, what happens is that ambulances will NOT take a patient to a for-profit UNLESS they have insurance OR unless they are injured badly and that hospital is a specialty for it. Otherw
Interesting tidbit (Score:5, Interesting)
Of the hospital systems named in the blurb, the vast majority are Christian/Catholic-based. These same hospitals are abandoning the poor.
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For most people, being a member of a mainstream religion is not about being a good person. It is about _pretending_ to be a good person. Essentially a form of virtue signalling and just as dishonest.
cover costs (Score:2)
Being in an area where billable customers exist makes it more likely to be able to pay bills to keep the hospital open.
In our area, there are now a LOT of small clinics for major hospitals, specializing in different things, and NOT requiring people to "check in" to get help. They exist closer to the low-income areas the larger hospital isn't in.
There is daily rescue squad traffic transferring people between these lower-cost facilities and the bigger hospitals, though, but that wouldn't be covered in an arti
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The fact that they don't do that is just further proof that healthcare shouldn't be a for-profit industry. But if you say that everybody freaks out because they think you're not going to pay doctors and nurses on what you really mean is you're not going to pay CEOs to do nothing but
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If you remove the requirement to provide healthcare to poor communities like you are suggesting
They didn't say that, nor is it related to the idea of healthcare decisions driven by profit modes which also.
Profit as a concept is not a requirement for an industry to operate, nor are models of insurance like multi-payer/public option/single payer necessarily banning the practice of turning a profit on health services (is that even possible?)
Instead of non-emergencies being addressed at the clinics and urgent cares the hospitals provide, where they belong, you are demanding all those people travel to the main hospitals ER.
No they didn't and again, unrelated to the point.
Is the argument against a healthcare system that operates like the other 95% of the developed world so devoid of sub
Another reason why we need Medicare For All (Score:5, Informative)
There is absolutely no reason why anybody in the richest nation on Earth should be without healthcare or go hungry.
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There is absolutely no reason why anybody in the richest nation on Earth should be without healthcare or go hungry.
There absolutely is. People like the Koch family might have an insignificant reduction in their net wealth. Isn't that good enough reason for you?
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There aren't enough Koch families to fund this. We've run the numbers here in the past. Take all the billionaires, rich CEOs, etc, line them up and shake them down. And you've got maybe 5% more revenue to distribute around.
But before the shakedown, watch nearly 100% of them move their wealth producing operations off shore. You know. The ones you count on to hand you a paycheck.
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There are two problems with US healthcare, but they are linked.
1. It's too expensive. The US already spends a higher proportion of GDP than other countries.
2. Far too many people don't have coverage.
You may be correct that a few billionaires cannot fund healthcare for all (my comment was an exaggeration), but, if we converted the insurance premiums to taxes, there would be plenty of money to fund a government healthcare scheme for all.
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If we first implement the cost controls that every other 1st world country has, we immediately cut the bill in half.
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A worthy endeavor. Let me know how that turns out.
Seriously, there are some fundamental problems with lobbyists powers over Congress that you'll have to solve first.
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Part B is the standard 80/20 most of us grew up with. Yes, there are advantage plans that can help pay expenses not covered. I see that as a good thing.
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Who is going to pay the premiums? The government takes 3+% of your lifetime w2 earnings
You answered your own question. Everybody pays, everybody gets, that's kindof the whole concept about a single payer system or most public programs. Social Security is effectively the same concept. You can even say that about the military as a concept.
Also as far I am aware the actual bill and program doesn't have the "Part A, Part B" system the current Medicare does.
I am not even a huge fan of the M4A bill (i don't think it's feasible in the US to effectivelyt outlaw private insurers and other nations
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Spoken by someone completely clueless. Medicare for All! Who is going to pay the premiums?
Everyone. Why is this even a question? In every other advanced nation on the planet healthcare premiums are socialised for the benefit of society.
But the only thing America socialises is bailouts for wallstreet and car companies.
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So let's make the plans the FEHB offers employees standard for everyone. Easy.
Also there is no option for people with jobs to buy into Medicare, just like if I earn over $X dollars in ym job I do not qualify for Medicare, that's part of the law as written. If there was a public Medicare buy in option maybe more Federal Employees would actually make that choice.
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"Medicare" is exactly the reason these hospitals are being divested.
The American Hospital Association (AHA) estimated that Medicaid payments to hospitals amounted to 90 percent of the costs of patient care in 2013, while Medicare paid 88 percent of costs; by contrast, hospitals received considerable overpayment from private insurers, amounting to 144 percent of costs.
-- Understanding Medicaid Hospital Payments [kff.org]
The only way you can take patients where you only receive a partial reimbursement for treating them is if you have a sufficient proportion of privately insured and patients with high-margin (i.e. elective) procedures to cover the difference. Hospitals in poorer areas that accept the government's terms are becoming insolvent. Other hospitals are simply refusing to take medicare/medicaid patients [kevinmd.com] in
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Of course, with all of the Hollywood accounting going on, it's a bit confusing. Medicare pays 88% of the stupid crazy costs the hospital claims. Kinda like they bill aspirin at $8 each and call that the cost. Then they bill Medicare and get paid $0.10 instead . Then the hospital screams that they're being underpaid and it's so unfair!. Meanwhile they actually paid $0.02 for the aspirin.
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Are you talking about the wealthy executives of fast food companies who sweat over their desks daily figuring out how to sell more grease laden foods?
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Sure but how to regulate people lifestyles, especially in America in all places? The answer is you can't and shouldn't so it's a non-point. Best we can do about things like that are excise taxes on unhealthy items (worked for cigarettes, why not sugar?) and public advocacy and education (remember when republicans freaked when Michele Obama tried to make school lunches healthier?)
The answer is you can't and this argument is a red-herring fallacy often used as an emotional counter with no real basis to oppos
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In the US without insurance, the cost typically ranges from $31,000 to $45,000
The average price of hip replacement (privately) in Germany is $16600
On average, total private hip replacement surgery in the UK costs around £12,500
Most other developed nations are able to provide the same care for less money.
Did you ever think that part of why the obesity rate in lower in those countries is due in part to them having established universal healthcare and overall more public institutions that can focus on li
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Have you seen the alcohol consumption in the U.K.?
If you want people to be healthier, shorten work hours so people aren't too dead tired after work to do anything but veg out. That's how it works in Europe.
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Hahahaha, no. You are fucked in the head. As soon as you compare what that income actually buys it is the other way round. Also remember that "medical bankruptcy" is not a thing in the EU.
turns out (Score:2)
...It's not cheap to provide low cost or free health care.
Funny.
Serious question (Score:5, Insightful)
Given - Health care resources are finite. If not finite, why and proof please
Question - What is the "best" (fairest, most efficient, etc. ) way to allocate resources to healthcare? Bonus question - Who decides?
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First we have to define"best" as a metric. I would say a good way is outcomes for cost, at which the US is not the best but not the worst but middling. We get decent outcomes but pay by far the most, far more than other nations with more equitable, accessible and overall cheaper systems.
A healthy society is a productive and happy one and that benefits everyone in it, even the healthiest amongst us. If we believe that than the system of care that is the best gives the best care to the most people.
The quest
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Question - What is the "best"
Death panels [wikipedia.org].
We could start with legalizing assisted suicide. And extending the definition of an approved provider to include Fentanyl dealers. Also, outlaw the administration of Naloxone for people who have not made an explicit request for revival (Medic Alert bracelet, etc.)
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The elephant in the room is that we have private death panels now. What else would you call it if an insurance company refuses to pay?
The politicians don't want to call those 'death panels' because they invented the term to discredit universal health care and know that the only thing worse than a public government death panel is a secret corporate death panel where bonuses are paid for saving money.
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You missed that many of the things that make people not perfectly healthy are things modern medicine can't do a damned thing about. Since one of those eventually kills you, costs are finite.
Non-profit bus service (Score:2)
Re: Non-profit bus service (Score:2)
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Hospitals are build where the doctors are (Score:3, Interesting)
Doctors go to where Hospitals are build (Score:2)
Nonprofit hospitals are a scam (Score:2)
"Nonprofit" in that profit is made in a separate entity from the "hospital"-- a real-estate entity that the hospital pays rent to and various other machinations so the "owners" still benefit. Plenty of profit in nonprofit...
Re: Nonprofit hospitals are a scam (Score:2)
Good one Sherlock! (Score:2)
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Why should greedy insurance companies, hospitals and pharma profit off of the hard work and misfortune of others?
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Obama guaranteed to cover insurance company losses when Obamacare rolled out. You can blame the insurance companies for accepting the protection, but why doesn't anyone blame Obama for instituting the guarantee in the first place?
Re: Greed permeates the US "health" system (Score:2)
So, the usual corps getting rich off of others work.
Re: Greed permeates the US "health" system (Score:2)
Re: Greed permeates the US "health" system (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Greed permeates the US "health" system (Score:2)
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My neighbor's health has -zero- impact on my financial condition. If they get some horrible disease and all die and sell their house to someone else going bankrupt paying their medical bills, that does not come out of my bank account and the house will sell for market rate.
In fact if the new buyers aren't sick and have the money and time and energy to keep their house/yard nice and do upgrades then my value could rise.
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So you don't have health insurance?
Re: Greed permeates the US "health" system (Score:2)
Re: Greed permeates the US "health" system (Score:2)
Re: Greed permeates the US "health" system (Score:5, Insightful)
Why should that be given away for free? Or paid for by others?
No country, anywhere, "gives healthcare away for free". They simply adopt a different model of who should pay for it and how they do. The NHS still pays staff and doctors and all that and no one is talking about that style system in the US, it's mostly a shift from private insurers to more a public payment system. No doctor is made to "give away" services, they still get paid.
Food is not given.
Look at how much subsidy the US agricultural industry receives and tell me that with a stright face. It's not direct but the government absulutely pays nad encourages mass production (and thats usually good!).
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Nobody is forcing you to work in the healthcare industry. If a doctor doesn't want to treat patients because they feel they "don't deserve it" they are free to not be a doctor. Who is proposing doctors, nurses etc just work for free?
This is just a different version of "taxation is theft" which is just a silly goose of a concept.
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It took a lot of time and effort in every developed country out there, so why should U.S. healthcare cost double or more what it costs everywhere else in the 1st world?And in exchange, the quality is ranked 26th.
How Does the U.S. Healthcare System Compare? (Score:3)
"In 2021, the United States spent an estimated $12,318 per person on healthcare -- the highest healthcare costs per capita across the OECD countries. For comparison, Germany was the second highest-spending country with about $7,383 in healthcare costs per capita, while the average for wealthy OECD countries, excluding the United States, was only $5,829 per person."
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And the US has poorer health outcomes.
US Life expectancy is dropping at a record rate:
With rare exceptions, life expectancy has been on the rise in the US: it was 47 years in 1900, 68 years in 1950, and by 2019 it had risen to nearly 79 years. But it fell to 77 in 2020 and dropped further, to just over 76, in 2021. That’s the largest decrease over a two-year span since the 1920s.
Gotta hand it to the red states, "owning the libs" by dying earlier.
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But since you cherry-picked cancer rates in the UK vs the US, here's the broader picture on survival rates, as of July of this year [www.gov.uk]:
The life expectancy of a female born in England in 2022 is currently projected to be 83 years, an increase of 21 years in life expectancy since the birth of the Queen.
So, 76 years for the US, 83 years for the UK.
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Did I say anything about "for free"? No, I did not. Compare the US healthcare cost with what is, say, available in Canada or Europe and you find the US has massively inflated cost at no better results.
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I've had to use healthcare in Canada and Europe. Europe was ok. Different than I'm used to but any confusion and misunderstanding was on my part being foreign.
Canada, not so much. Don't get sick in Canada.
Re: Greed permeates the US "health" system (Score:2)
Re: Greed permeates the US "health" system (Score:2)
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The thing with medicine is that it took a lot of time and effort and resources to build our current medical system. A lot. Lives dedicated to service and research. Why should that be given away for free?
I keep asking the same question about people stealing movies, or music, or software, but all I get are excuses about how it's not costing the artist's anything. Obviously the same applies here.
Re: Greed permeates the US "health" system (Score:2)
Re: Greed permeates the US "health" system (Score:2)
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Re: Doctors don't work for free (Score:2)
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And another thing is that there is a staffing shortage in the healthcare industry.
If a hospital is located in a poor area. then the staff (Doctors, nurses, techs etc) have further to travel to get to work, meaning they will be less likely to want to work there.
If you have to work a 12 hr shift then having to travel another 2 hrs to get home afterward is tough.
Re: Doctors don't work for free (Score:5, Interesting)
The wife used to work at one of those hospitals. Now she works at one that caters to the middle of the market. Her commute is the same. The difference is that when you're poor, you tend to have more things wrong with you at the same time, making it just plain more time-consuming and difficult for a physician to work on your case when you do seek medical attention. This drives overwork...burnout...staff shortages...all of it.
And it ain't gonna change unless you take away doctors' ability to choose their own place of employment through voluntary agreements: poor people don't just bring in lower revenues, they're harder to deal with in medical contexts, on average, and while some leftie/religious/whatever dogooder types seek that out, other physicians work hard enough as it is to deal with other people's nonmedical issues that project into the medical dimension.
For obvious reasons this sort of thing isn't spoken of directly. The euphemisms you need if you wanted to actually research the sensible data on the subject are "social determinants of health" among others. And I'd be willing to bet this sort of thing exists in any country where people are free to succeed as well as free to fail.
Re: (Score:2)
The difference is that when you're poor, you tend to have more things wrong with you at the same time, making it just plain more time-consuming and difficult for a physician to work on your case when you do seek medical attention.
If they had accessible and affordable healthcare, that would no longer be true.
Re: (Score:2)
Hospitals bill a HELL of a lot more for Doctor and Nurse labor than the doctors and nurses ever see. Ask them why a unit of saline costs $100 and they'll tell you it's labor costs. Well, they pait the Nurse who hooked it up MAYBE a whole $7 for the time it took. The saline itself should cost less than $5 but actually costs $20. The $100-27 is profit.
Re: Free healthcare (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The only solution is socialism and free government run healthcare so I can quit my job and sit on my ass all day and play video games.
Yep, just like they do in Finland, Canada, Norway, and every other country that is not run by a warlord. The entire rest of the industrialized world sits on its ass all day and plays video games.
At least now I know why latency is so bad on most of the multiplayer servers.
Get jobs ya commies!