"Curly Surmudgeon" wrote in message
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On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 13:55:31 -0400, Ed Huntress wrote:


"Curly Surmudgeon" wrote in message
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snip


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.

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.

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.


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.

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.


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.


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.


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'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.

--
Ed Huntress