Health Care is a Mess... But Why?

________________
You probably know a couple who both work full time to support their children, but even with their dual incomes, they’re finding it more and more difficult to afford health insurance. Everyday incidents like sports injuries, asthma, and blood pressure, combined with their anxiety over rising premiums, are turning their American dream into sleepless nights. Why can’t people catch a break? It wasn’t always this way!

________________
Written by Seamus Coughlin & Sean Malone
Animated by Seamus Coughlin

Special thanks to Michael Cannon.
________________
LINKS:

[DeadRepublic]

One of the worst problems is that the medical care is completely opaque price wise. You don't know how much you're paying until you get the bill. Free markets require pricing transparency so that the consumer can "vote" with their money. If it's cheaper elsewhere they can go elsewhere. You don't have that at all in the US health care "system".

[nolanfaught]

"Won't Obamacare solve the problem?"
Lady, the act was like 900 pages long, not even Obama knows what problems Obamacare creates or solves!

[Bradman]

It's scary there's a cap of doctors allow to graduate each year.

[Hearty]

So let me get this straight. . .government. . . is the problem.

Mind blown

[NiaLin]

Having done billing I can say our complex, bloated medical billing “system” is also a huge, costly burden. Not to mention bloated hospital administrations & unions.

[Astronut]

"The most terrifying sentence is: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help'" Ronald Regan

[christianlibertarian]

A bit too oversimplified. Doctors are less than 8% of total health care costs AND their rate of pay has not kept up with inflation. It is the rest of medical care costs that have increased.

[BladeOfLight]

Something happened around the 1970s or 1980s where the government also started forcing insurance companies to cover routine care. That certainly made the problem much, much worse, but I never hear anyone talk about it.

[SycrosD]

“If we get the government out...”

That solves so many problems.

[jessejive]

I am going to school for physical therapy and then my intro class we learned that when Obama care was an acted the regulations and paperwork or so difficult a lot of the mom-and-pop physical therapy clinics Had to merge with much bigger clinics because they couldn’t handle the burden and the paperwork. That means less competition so that means fewer options at higher prices we also learned that when Medicaid and Medicare happened that created a shortage of doctors and increased prices because now people were going to the doctor for things they weren’t normally going for. .

[dfwai]

I actually do appreciate a video that intelligently picks apart the problems of a system rather than bashing it because "IT's ObAMa"

[benjaminr]

I love that the first three medical stands just continue to look mad at the fourth one.

[BladeOfLight]

One of the major problems with how we argue about healthcare is that this is only the tip of the iceberg. The government is entangled in everything, but we never talk wholesale about how in control they are of every detail of medical care.

[dthebala]

One problem: TVs, phones, refrigerators, etc. are all elastic goods in a somewhat competitive market. Healthcare is inelastic and an oligopolistic market. Prices aren't necessarily driven down as they are with other goods.

[SociallyTriggered]

In Canada we have universal healthcare every year 63, 000 people die waiting for medical treatment compared to 45, 000 who die because they can't afford healthcare. So Canada with 1/9th the population has 50% more preventable deaths if there was just better access.

[Shoxic]

"But in the UK..."
We have awful, ineffective and slow healthcare that costs us an absurd amount in taxes, in 100 days the NHS spends Russia's yearly military budget.

[VerumAdPotentia]

I had to have an expensive surgery. Because I saved up for it and paid in cash, in advance, I got a H-U-G-E discount, because my surgeon didn't have to employ all the staff he usually did to get paid by insurance or the Government!

[adisturbedpistachio]

Heavily reduce the amount of regulations imposed on healthcare services, and increase incentives to compete. Doing so will naturally drive prices down and quality upwards. Why haven't we done this yet?

[zant]

I've seen people say "Almost every other country has free public healthcare !!" and, coming from France, I can tell you that it's barely viable. We've been in debt for the last 20 years because we spend more on social programs than what we can put in. This debt is projected to be reimbursed by *2033*. And even then, we still need insurance for other related care. I have a shitty vision and need glasses, like my father. Eye care is not covered by social security for us, so we have to pay another insurance on top of the higher taxes we have to provide for all the other programs. Sure, being able to get surgery if needed without having to worry about going into debt is nice, but that's also the case for most of the US. The problems you have with your healthcare could easily be solved with less government intervention. Abolish the quota of doctor per year, it's also a problem here and is totally nonsensical.

[grimtygranule]

US: Human lives are important.
Also US: Healthcare will put you into poverty and possibly prison.