Lets not get sidetracked into the health insurance debate for it masks
the underlying problem. The fundamental problem is that our health
care
system has been hijacked by corporate powers making healthcare too
expensive.

Nonsense. The main thing that makes it so expensive is that medical
technology marches forward, not backward, and there's always more stuff
to
apply to medical problems -- increasingly expensive stuff.

That is one factor but there are many others such as malpractice
insurance
but the overriding component is that a corporate monopoly has seized
control of the industry at large.

Sure, Curley, malpractice insurance is a factor, and there are many other
factors. It's not a single thing that's done all of it. But if you spend
some time sorting out where the costs are you'll see that most of it boils
down to the fact that doctors can -- and do -- employ more expensive
drugs,
procedures, and so on.

I don't agree. It's all about treating a population and most of the
population is healthy and doesn't require a lot of expensive procedures and
medications. I think some amazing amount of health care dollars are spent on
people in the last five years of their lives and something like the last six
months equals more than what they spent on health care in their entire
lives. So most people are not getting a lot of expensive procedures that
cost an arm and a leg. g



Technology has brought down the costs of some treatments but it's
increased
the cost of many more, and added hundreds, or thousands, of completely new
ones. Couple that with the malpractice insurance mess, which leads to
excessive testing and so on, and all of the technology is simply employed
more. Just amortizing an MRI machine results in incredible costs for an
MRI.
I think my last one was $880, and took maybe 30 minutes of machine time
and
the time of two technicians. It's a multi-million-dollar machine and they
charge shop time on amortization, just like in a machine shop. g In the
old days, they'd just apply an educated guess to what's wrong in that
joint
or brain.

An MRI in Japan costs $98. and the machines in the US are built there. If
you stay in a room over night in Japan with three other people the cost is
$100.

The amount being charged for inexpensive procedures in this country is
outrageous. Just going in an ambulance to the emergency room and being
looked at costs thousands of dollars, which is ludicris. The prices people
have to pay for the ordinary stuff is simply the worst rip off I have even
seen. It would be like having to pay a thousand dollars to have an average
front yard mowed by a kid. They are gouging the **** out of us at every
level.


Meantime, here's another one: I have a nice new insulin pump with feedback
sitting in a box next to me, to be stuck into/onto me tomorrow. It cost
$6,000. 35 years ago I had a 25-cent syringe and a $10/month bottle of
insulin, and that was it, pard'. Pumps didn't exist. Neither did home
blood-glucose monitoring. I just took a stab at it -- literally. g I got
lucky and survived it with my limbs, kidneys, and eyes. Good luck for me.

That' isn't a lot of money. I know of people that have gone to the emergency
room and had 12 stitches taken in a finger and the cost was 12,000. The
whole thing is a joke. On us.


And it marches forward because people will pay for it, as an
alternative
to living in misery or dying.

That substantiates my point. Let me give an example:

My daughter had her first yeast infection. A simple anti-fungal yeast
prescription was all that was required yet the doctor/hospital demanded
a
pregnancy test (she was/is virgin), blood panels, hormone tests, etc.
running the price up to $4,600. Then they wanted to negotiate. Note
that
not a single curative action was taken.

Right, but that's only marginally a "corporate powers" issue. That's
mostly
a "we don't want to be sued" issue. Take it up with the tort reformers. We
can sure use some tort reform.

No thanks. When you consider how much malpractice goes on and how many
people doctors and nurses kill every year taking away the right to sue for
legitimate damages is not in the interest of patients. Last I heard 80,000
people a year are killed in hospitals. You don't take the right to sue away
from those people.


Now, if you want to know what I do when I suspect a doctor/hospital is
just
running up my costs to keep the cash flowing to their own lab, I tell them
"please write a prescription for the test procedure, and I'll check around
to see where I want it done." Then I go look up the procedure and see if I
really want to have it done at all.

Most hospitals, particularly, are in desperate cash-flow situations now.
It's not greed that drives it. It's their survival.


In Argentina no prescription is required, just a visit to a local
pharmacy
with a short discussion to an educated pharmacist and a $7 prescription
which I mailed to her. Cured the infection in 3 days.

So, did she have this infection in the US or in Argentina?


Health Care is essentially unavailable in the US without insurance.
That
is hijacking health care holding Americans hostage.

Actually, that's not the case. Emergency rooms can't refuse you, and many
people use ERs as their primary-care physicians. Then the rest of us pay
for
it.

Yeah, and I hear right wingers bragging about how great our system is. You
call that system great?


There's always a ready market for new drugs and new medical technology.

True, and sometimes the costs are justified. But recognize that a full
60% of new drugs are governmentally subsidized through university
research
then turned over to pharmaceuticals for manufacture and distribution
with
but a bare tithe to the university while Abbott et. al. gains usuary
profits on our own tax dollar.

sigh I'm well aware of how that works. My last job in a medical
communication agency involved a drug on which Sanofi-Aventis had paid
something like $135 million in development costs, and $110 million in
pre-approval marketing costs (which was paying my salary). Then the FDA
decided not to approve the drug. So my company laid half of us off. d8-)

The basic research on that drug was not from a university, however. I know
that a lot of the basic research is done in universities. What you may not
know is that the testing that the pharma companies have to go through
after
some basic-science lab makes a discovery often costs ten times more than
the
basic research.

What you may not know is that after all the money that big pharma has to
invest to come up with new drugs, and it is a lot, they still come out way,
way, way, ahead. Take a look at the balance sheets of the top dozen
pharmaceutical companies. I think you'll find that they are incredibly
profitable. In fact, the have much higher profit margins than the oil
companies do. So don't buy the sad story from pharma about how much they
have to put out to find drugs. In the end they wind up laughing all the way
to the bank.


Generics, Canadian, and other sources are often 90% cheaper.

Of course. Generics just ride on the research, testing, post-marketing
studies and marketing that was done for the original drug. All they have
to
recover is manufacturing costs and quality-control reporting. In Canada,
they have price controls and just refuse to allow the drug companies to
amortize research and development. The Canadians, and the French, and the
Brits, and everyone else knows that they can collect those costs in the
US.

Don't like it? Talk to your congressman. The money has to come from
somewhere, or nobody will have any new drugs.

As long as the creation of new drugs results in billions in profits there
will always be more new ones in the pipeline. I don't see any end to that in
the near future either.


Health care insurance is just another facade by those who have
plundered our economy. Have you tried to get a doctors appointment
without insurance?

Ask Larry.

Non responsive.

Oh, Larry is quite responsive, and he has no insurance. He's the one to
ask.

I guess he's taking the bet that he will not be the one who winds up needing
the expensive health care. Insurance is betting you will be healthy. You are
betting you won't if you pay for insurance. He may wind up the winner. I
think statistically he's got the number in his favor. Of course, it only
takes one biggie to bankrupt him. On the other hand people with insurance go
bankrupt all the time. Maybe he's on to something.


I've had insurance without a break for decades, excepting one gap of a few
months when my COBRA ran out and I was having trouble getting new
insurance.
(My doctors knew it, and took me anyway.) So I don't know what it's like
now.

That means so far your luck is holding. If Obama wins we'll all be winners.
With a Democratic house, senate, and president I think universal health care
will likely be on its way. I hope so. I have to admit I have never
understood why business didn't want it? It will remove one of business'
biggest expenses if we get national health care. I think they are crazy to
oppose it. It would put them on a level playing ground with the rest of the
world. But since most businessmen are republicans it makes sense that they
would be too stupid to know it would be good for them and they woulk oppose
it on principle. You know, like they oppose government intervention in the
markets, unless they are losing a lot of money.

Hawke