Despite Americans paying nearly double that of other nations, the US fares poorly in list of 10 countries
The United States health system ranked dead last in an international comparison of 10 peer nations, according to a new report by the Commonwealth Fund.
In spite of Americans paying nearly double that of other countries, the system performed poorly on health equity, access to care and outcomes.
“I see the human toll of these shortcomings on a daily basis,” said Dr Joseph Betancourt, the president of the Commonwealth Fund, a foundation with a focus on healthcare research and policy.
…
The fund said the US would need to expand insurance coverage and make “meaningful” improvements on the amount of healthcare expenses patients pay themselves; minimize the complexity and variation in insurance plans to improve administrative efficiency; build a viable primary care and public health system; and invest in social wellbeing, rather than thrust problems of social inequity onto the health system.
Some people achieve some sadistic satisfaction from denying poor people health care, even if it cost extra to themselves!?
In USA there is a sentiment that looks like they are trying to exterminate the poor, by letting them suffer and die, instead of trying to build a better more humane society for all.They literally are indeed trying to exterminate the poor.
That’s how I see it, and half the population wants that.
There’s a lot of miserable fucks out there due to a mix of leaded gas fumes, childhood trauma, and religious/political brainwashing.
The concept of “rich” only exists in contrast to “poor”. So you need one for the other
To me, its much more that the rich don’t want to pay for the healthcare of the people who earn all of their money for them, rather than active sadism.
More, devoid of empathy and not really seeing them as fellow humans, deserving of basic rights like not dying of poverty. Especially if it costs them money.
I disagree, when they prevent a system that benefit all including themselves, they are actively acting like sadists who want to see the suffering of those who cannot afford to pay.
Each to their own but, to me, rich people would make far more, personally, with the American system. I 100% get how you came to your conclusion though. I’m not saying sadism wouldn’t make sense or anything.
Eh, but how do we rank if you are flush with disposable income?
Still pretty shitty. I.e. you’re still paying more for worse care unless you’re like, literally in the 1%
The goal has been reached
Not defending the broken US healthcare system but this article is shit when it includes firearm deaths and opioid overdoses into its metrics to grade the overall healthcare system.
Oddly, it seems to be causing deaths. What’re the odds?
You think firearm deaths indicate a poor healthcare system?
Mental health is health, and treatment for these conditions are healthcare.
Those are both mental health issues, as well as the latter being failure of the medical system to limit access. (As well as the unrelated easy access to firearms issue.)
Mental healthcare in the US is terrible by itself, and is under the healthcare umbrella.
Why is that?
Israel can afford universal healthcare. But the United States? Where would we ever find the money for that?
The UK did it immediately after WW2 when our economy was destroyed. We were in much debt, we didn’t finish paying America back until 2006. However, apparently, the country we paid all that money to cant afford it?
You have to admire the brazennes of the lie though.
When we find the military and give weapons to countries like Israel and many others across the world, it raises the stock prices of military contractors and congress gets more personal wealth.
A public option for healthcare would lower stock prices for health care companies and insurance companies which congress is also heavily invested in.
How far down the list of non-peer nations are we?
For a laugh (and cry), you can have a look at which countries are above the US in terms of life expectancy. It includes the likes of Maldives, Costa Rica, Panama and Oman.
Pretty far down
Hold on let me roll for surprise.
It’s helpful to know that if I ever leave the US, I’ll have better healthcare. I don’t even need to spend any time researching that aspect.
No, you actually won’t. I went to Canada, had an accident and had to wait 8 hours in the emergency room to get care because apparently I wasn’t dying
As an American, I had to pay $1000 for this privilege
I meant moving to another country permanently, not traveling, but good to know that the US system can reach out and punish me if I have the audacity to travel out of network. :(
You had to go to Canada for that? I had that same experience right here in the states.
Well, almost. It cost me $1500, and that was after my insurance paid down the majority of the bill.
It was four hours in the US. Trust me, staying in the hospital until 1 am is way different than sitting until the morning in a plastic chair
I have definitely done 8 hours in a US ER waiting room before. If you haven’t, count yourself lucky.
Yes, I believe it. But when I went to urgent care with my ex, they got her in in about an hour.
Overall, my experience with the US system is that it’s on average faster than the Canadian one if you need urgent care.
Its better than Canada’s…
That’s some medical grade bullshit. Please seek medical attention if you can afford it.
I waited less in American hospitals than in Canadian hospitals for care
Literally isn’t.
My wife broke her ankle and insurance denied the entire claim for being “not medically necessary”. The “medical professional” (not doctor) who denied the claim had experience in OBGYN, not orthopedics.
100% going to win the appeal because like, we have x-rays of the shattered bones in her leg, but seriously wtf. People seriously believe this is the ideal medical system?
Cigna doctors spend an average of 1.2 seconds per case. Their whole system is to deny everything right off the bat, and then they only have to potentially pay out for patients who have the resources to appeal.
Oh, I read this John Grisham book.
When I was in the insurance industry, for a company who administered various policies from Aetna, BCBS, Cigna, United and Medicare, that was the SOP. Deny anything that took more than a few seconds of brain power, put clients through endless rounds of appeals. The medical director was amoral AF too, because well, the insurance company exists for profit, and bonuses are dependent on paying out as little as possible. It got pretty bad, too, enough that my immediate supervisor started signing off a bunch of approvals, circumventing the medical director, where any shred of plausibility was available.
Now, there is automated software. HIPAA has it’s pros and cons.
It’s honestly infuriating that these companies are essentially diagnosing and treating patients without doctor-patient relationship (required by federal law). And like LITERALLY determining and dictating treatment. That’s illegal if ANYONE else does it. Even if your own medical provider doesn’t see you per new condition, that can be considered a violation of that law. And these insurance guys have never seen us in real life.
I also think that it’s a really strangely allowed violation of HIPPA. Why should everyone at the insurance company, or ANYONE at an insurance company, have the right to my medical information? Why are they able to communicate with my doctor’s office? I absolutely hate the privacy aspect of insurance so much.
I’m on appeal #3 right now with my insurance for something they told me would be 100% covered. I’m getting my doctor in on it to do a peer to peer. He sounded so fed up with everything he was like “it’s probably some retired pediatrician who doesn’t know anything about what you need” when talking about who he’d need to talk with. If this one doesn’t work then I’m on to the “threaten to sue” stage which I’m not excited about. The whole thing is a mess and the process and money that’s gone into it would have easily bankrupted or put me homeless at most previous times in my life
I’m not a lawyer, but a piece of legal advice I’ve seen repeated many times is “Never threaten to sue. Just sue.”
As soon as you threaten to sue, you’ll never be able to talk to anybody except the legal team, and they’ll do nothing to help your case.
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Oh yeah? We still have more guns.
/s
“Yeah, but Socialism and Communism!!!”
I mean I can hope, but it seems unlikely
But the US system ranks first in wealth extraction from people to billionaires, so it’s working as intended.
Yay for capitalism!
Turns out a profit motive is not the best system for everything in the world. Who would have guessed?
It would probably be fine if everyone agreed to play by the rules, but they dont, and the US is terrible at enforcing them (or specifically, chooses not too, and doesnt impose new laws to stop loopholing)
But the administrative bullshit, and the other potential problems are exactly why other countries went for universal healthcare 🤷♂️
I think it’s more of a problem with over regulation. The U.S. healthcare system suffers from a lack of market freedom. While some may argue for more government intervention or even a single-payer system, many of the inefficiencies could be resolved by removing excessive regulation and encouraging more competition. A true free-market approach, with more choices and price transparency, could lower costs and improve care quality—something over-regulation has failed to achieve.
A capitalistic system will maximize for one thing and one thing only: Profit.
If anything else improves, such as service, cost, or wait times, it will only by as a byproduct of increasing profit. If there are easier, faster, or cheaper ways of increasing profit (such as cutting staff and having
customerspatients wait longer) then those will be done instead. The FDA exists because otherwise capitalistic companies will put customers health and lives in danger because it is more profitable to do so and pay out potential lawsuits than it is to make sure safety regulations are in place in the first place.The only way to maximize something other the profit, such as customer service, is through regulation. That is why monopolies are illegal: if a customer doesn’t have a choice you can charge them as much as you want, and take as long as you want, and perform as poorly as you want, and they still have to use your service because they have no other choice. When a
customerpatient needs to go to the hospital they don’t have the luxury of “shopping around”, they have a medical emergency and need help now. So without regulation a profit motivated hospital can charge whatever they want, especially considering nobody discusses prices before doing life saving operations.“lack of market freedom” is not the reason 1 Tylenol pill at a hospital costs you $15.
“Excessive regulation” is not the reason patients are charged $40 for crying.
“Lack of competition” is not the reason asking for an itemized bill will save you money. “It’s estimated that about 60 percent of medical bills that are issued have errors” (I can’t think of any other industry that would consider that acceptable.)What specific regulations would you remove from hospitals, and how would the absence of those regulations directly help
customerspatients?The US is last place in the linked article while having the most profit driven hospital system of the countries compared. Making it even more profit driven is not going to improve the thing
customerspatients need improved.
