Without access to health care? Funny. Last time I checked if you go to the hospital and you can’t pay, they bill you. You make it sound like they’re turning people away at the door or something.
Sure they do. You just don’t like them so you’d rather pretend they don’t matter. Psst. You’re not fooling anyone.
Sounds like a bogus number.
[quote]Yet, thanks to the federal program’s low reimbursement rates, stringent rules and grueling paperwork process, many doctors are refusing to accept Medicare’s payment for services. Case in point: In 2000, nearly 80% of the Texas Medical Association’s doctors were taking new Medicare patients. By 2012, that number dropped to less than 60%.
Why are more and more doctors turning down Medicare? The answer is simple: Medicare typically pays doctors only 80% of what private health insurance pays. While a gap always existed, many physicians feel that in the past several years, Medicare reimbursements haven’t kept pace with inflation (especially the costs of running a medical practice), while the rules and regulations keep getting more onerous, as do penalties for not complying with them. [/quote]
Between the private insurance companies and the Federal government, doctors are being driven out of the business because they are spending more time doing paperwork than what they entered their field to do: treat patients.
Waiting until things are dire…
Which is the most expensive way to run a system.
Don’t you see the problem with how this is done.
Sure. I also don’t believe government is the answer for fixing it.
Ban advertising tomorrow and I bet the costs fail to come down.
We have a market system, but it is a very inefficient one because health care is an inelastic demand that is being treated like an elastic one.
You’re free to think that. Meanwhile the same drug sold both here and in Germany goes for $40 a bottle here and $6 a bottle in Germany. Why? Because the price in Germany doesn’t include the advertising costs.
Also unlike here, groups in Germany are allowed to negotiate with doctors and medical groups on pricing. Medicare isn’t. Also unlike here, patients know ahead of time what treatments are going to cost because those prices are negotiated ACROSS THE BOARD.
Here, it’s hit or miss depending on what insurance you have and what doctor you’re seeing and whether or not you get a discount etc. It’s like shopping with a blindfold on.
I would go with the ability of the State to negotiate costs before I would go with advertising as being the major push in prices.
This reminds me of how much it amused me that the President campaigned on having Medicare/Medicaid negotiate drug prices right up until two hot seconds after he took the oath of office and dropped that completely.
It even with the hit and miss in Germany, there is a much better level of care overall there than here. It shows statistically across the board.
And they pay less.
So what are they doing right and what are we doing wrong?
Well for one their government is actually serving the public interest instead of their own.
There is that.
I will grant you that one.
And who is it that allows advertising to be included in the price here? Government. Why? Look no further than medical and insurance lobbying.
But then not allowing advertising is an overreach by the government on private interests.
It is a double edged sword to blame Government just because something isn’t banned.
Nonsense. They’re already allowed to take the cost as a tax deduction. It’s double dipping.
Same reason Corporations here don’t really pay taxes. They pass it on to their consumers.
One can always twist the argument around no matter what.
The government is going to be involved no matter what.
Also… drug prices were out of control before the latest tax bill.
You think this wasn’t going on before the latest tax bill? 
As I said. Fine lets do it. But government workers must have the same plan. Why should they get a better plan? Anything else would be immoral. Good luck convincing them.
A tax bill “that would prohibit pharmaceutical companies from taking a tax write-off on their direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs in any form—including radio, TV, online, print, billboards, or direct mail.”
"McCaskill said ending the ability of drug makers to deduct marketing costs as a standard business expense would also help lower the cost of prescription drugs. “A good first step would be to stop subsidizing their ads for drugs that must be prescribed by a doctor,” she said. “Too many drug companies are spending more on sales and marketing than on research and development.”
Of course they are. It’s where the real money is being made.
Government should also be on social security and be paid minimum wage. If they were those two “issues” would be solved practically overnight.
