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Health Care, Boston and the Luck of the Draw | JONATHAN TURLEY
the United States spends the most per capita on Health Insurance of any industrialized nation. We are at more than 17% of GDP and the next 9 countries that spend the most are around 10 to 12% of GDP, and most of those countries provide government subsidized health care. Yet the United States is 27th worldwide in life expectancy. Think about that this country that so many think is exceptional has the 27th best life expectancy rate in the world, yet spends the most on health care. Why is that? My conclusion is that the difference in expenditure is directly related to rapacious profit and it exists throughout the industry. Our huge hospital conglomerates, our drug companies and especially our health care insurance companies are gouging us for every penny of profit possible, while at the same time providing us with a lesser degree of care. For the Health Insurance companies it is the fact that their cost of providing services run at about 15 to 17%, whereas Medicare and Medicaid are about 3%. That 3% figure reflect the administrative costs in other countries and shows one reason why they spend less of GDP on health care.
The drug companies too gouge us and even Medicare and Medicaid are not allowed to negotiate with them to lower prices. An example of this gouging comes from the antacid medications Nexium and Prilosec. When the patent for Nexium ran out, its manufacturer added some non-palliative solutions to their formula and claimed it was a different drug without proof to back up the effectiveness of the new formulations. Nexium is a costly prescription drug even with a good prescription plan like mine. Non-prescript Prilosec has been shown in tests to be every bit as effective as Prilosec, since they are essentially the same. What happens too I imagine with Nexium, is that via detail people, Physicians are given bonuses of one sort or another for prescribing Nexium. This is of course merely a supposition on my part, but many have pointed out in other instances that this is a typical practice of the drug industry, with the compliance of Doctors who like “free things” after all “what’s the harm” except for off the charts healthcare costs.
Having spent much time in hospitals and seeing the bills paid by insurance it is easy to see that our private hospital consortiums are vastly overcharging for the medications and the services they give to patients. Many claim it is because of the care they must provide to the indigent, but the growth and centralization of the hospital industry belies that. Clearly there is much profit to be made.
This brings me back to the nub of my argument which is that the U.S. should be providing cheap health care to its citizens as a matter of course. This of course will be derided by some here as being socialistic, but tome that argument is nonsensical on at least two grounds. The first being of course that the Constitution is neutral on Socialism and indeed on Capitalism too. The issue is providing for the welfare of the people and in that sense the idea that this always could be done better by private industry is merely a propagandist ruse meant to fool the public. Indeed the first Social Security System in the world was introduced by the uber Right-Wing Otto Von Bismarck in Germany in the 1870’s. He was hardly a socialist, but he understood that providing for the welfare of the people is a proper role for government. In my opinion, once again, good health care should be considered to be a basic service that every citizen should receive.
the United States spends the most per capita on Health Insurance of any industrialized nation. We are at more than 17% of GDP and the next 9 countries that spend the most are around 10 to 12% of GDP, and most of those countries provide government subsidized health care. Yet the United States is 27th worldwide in life expectancy. Think about that this country that so many think is exceptional has the 27th best life expectancy rate in the world, yet spends the most on health care. Why is that? My conclusion is that the difference in expenditure is directly related to rapacious profit and it exists throughout the industry. Our huge hospital conglomerates, our drug companies and especially our health care insurance companies are gouging us for every penny of profit possible, while at the same time providing us with a lesser degree of care. For the Health Insurance companies it is the fact that their cost of providing services run at about 15 to 17%, whereas Medicare and Medicaid are about 3%. That 3% figure reflect the administrative costs in other countries and shows one reason why they spend less of GDP on health care.
The drug companies too gouge us and even Medicare and Medicaid are not allowed to negotiate with them to lower prices. An example of this gouging comes from the antacid medications Nexium and Prilosec. When the patent for Nexium ran out, its manufacturer added some non-palliative solutions to their formula and claimed it was a different drug without proof to back up the effectiveness of the new formulations. Nexium is a costly prescription drug even with a good prescription plan like mine. Non-prescript Prilosec has been shown in tests to be every bit as effective as Prilosec, since they are essentially the same. What happens too I imagine with Nexium, is that via detail people, Physicians are given bonuses of one sort or another for prescribing Nexium. This is of course merely a supposition on my part, but many have pointed out in other instances that this is a typical practice of the drug industry, with the compliance of Doctors who like “free things” after all “what’s the harm” except for off the charts healthcare costs.
Having spent much time in hospitals and seeing the bills paid by insurance it is easy to see that our private hospital consortiums are vastly overcharging for the medications and the services they give to patients. Many claim it is because of the care they must provide to the indigent, but the growth and centralization of the hospital industry belies that. Clearly there is much profit to be made.
This brings me back to the nub of my argument which is that the U.S. should be providing cheap health care to its citizens as a matter of course. This of course will be derided by some here as being socialistic, but tome that argument is nonsensical on at least two grounds. The first being of course that the Constitution is neutral on Socialism and indeed on Capitalism too. The issue is providing for the welfare of the people and in that sense the idea that this always could be done better by private industry is merely a propagandist ruse meant to fool the public. Indeed the first Social Security System in the world was introduced by the uber Right-Wing Otto Von Bismarck in Germany in the 1870’s. He was hardly a socialist, but he understood that providing for the welfare of the people is a proper role for government. In my opinion, once again, good health care should be considered to be a basic service that every citizen should receive.
