Tag: healthcare

Guest Post by Dr. Joseph Mercola

Americans pay twice as much for healthcare yet get the worst care of any developed Western nation because the industry’s conglomerate of monopolies results in higher costs while discouraging innovation and efficiency optimization.

Story at a glance:

• Americans pay twice as much for their healthcare yet get the worst care of any developed Western nation. And, while other countries guarantee treatment regardless of income, treatment in the U.S. depends on whether you can afford costly health insurance, or have a job that provides it.
• Nearly 70% of Americans support a Medicare for all scheme over the current health insurance system and making healthcare affordable was the second-highest priority of Americans in a 2022 poll. Medicaid will terminate benefits for an estimated 15 million Americans once the public health emergency ends.
• One of the reasons why U.S. healthcare is so exorbitantly expensive is because it’s a conglomerate of monopolies. This results in higher costs while discouraging innovation and efficiency optimization.
• Strategies that could lower costs and improve care include leveraging economies of scale, offering hospital services seven days a week, and providing at-home healthcare services.
• Another thing that could go a long way toward improving medical outcomes and lowering patient costs is banning drug ads, especially in electronic health record (EHR) systems and patient portals, as such ads drive up costs and result in poor prescribing decisions that put patients at risk.

As noted by The Hill’s anchor Briahna Joy Gray in the video below, Americans pay twice as much for their healthcare yet get the worst care of any developed Western nation.

And, while other countries guarantee treatment regardless of income, treatment in the U.S. depends on whether you can afford costly health insurance, or have a job that provides it.

Continue reading “Why Americans Pay Twice as Much for Healthcare Yet Get Worse Care”

Guest Post by Simon Black

Around 2:30am a few days ago when I was deep asleep, my significant other suddenly shook me awake and asked me to take her to the emergency room.

She told me she was having trouble breathing and her heart was racing, so we immediately hopped in the car and raced to a nearby urgent care clinic.

Fortunately it all turned out fine. But it was my first experience seeing the Puerto Rico medical system up close and personal.

My verdict? Meh.

Frankly it was better than I thought it would be. I had pretty low expectations given the fact that this place has trouble even keeping the lights on most of the time. (But then again, so does California…)

Continue reading “While I was sitting in the ER, I thought of these three other countries with great healthcare”

Guest Post by Scott Adams

Congress just proved something that we all suspected: They are the wrong tool for fixing health care. The topic is too complicated, the politics are too corrosive, and the money interests are too strong. That’s why citizens will step in and fill the gap with their own proposals. I expect to see a number of citizen-created health care proposals emerge soon. To that end, I thought I would get the ball rolling by framing the problem in this short 4-minute video. This is how any large business would approach the problem of spiraling healthcare costs. Here is the graphic from the video clip:

The advantage American citizens have in 2017, that we never had before, is a populist president who can sell the bejeezus out of a health care plan if someone could come up with one that makes sense. But for that to happen, Congress first had to do a hard faceplant in the asphalt, to show the country they are not the right tool for the job. That phase is complete. Time for the next phase.

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Guest Post by Jim Kunstler

Think of the ObamaCare reform debate now playing in the US Senate as the final gurglings of polity that knows it is whirling around the drain. They’re pretending to attempt to fix a racket that comprises one-eighth of the American economy. Yikes! How did that happen? At the beginning of the 20^th century it was one-quarter of one percent (.25 percent) of the economy.

The standard explanation is that, first, Medicare jacked up overall healthcare activity in the 1960s, hauling in a customer-base of old folks who previously received no special treatment and were, generally, less well than non-old folk. Secondarily, technological innovation opened up so many new methods of disease control for everybody, young and old, that we’re able to treat more sickness in more complicated ways — and that drove costs up way further.

Continue reading “Rain Dance”