I understand that insurances covers part of the cost. However, the total cost (before coverage) is still much higher in America. Why?
Is the supply chain different? Are doctors and staff paid better in America?
In: 188
Health care doesn’t really cost all that much. I had a kidney transplant. 10K all up. hospital stay, harvest, install, after care… the whole deal.
now… if that was paid for by an insurance company? “300K easy” why? there is this whole scam where insurance companies get charged more by hospitals to that they can show the insured that they are getting a “great deal” it’s all smoke and mirrors.
Is it more than other countries? I can’t say 100% because other countries have different tax situations that cover things like socialized medicine. Where in America, you get to choose if you want to pay for healthcare or not. It’s a freedom that the US has.
Drugs. different story. the FDA has such a stranglehold on the the drug companies that the companies are forced to charge more for drugs because of all the regulatory hoops they have to jump through. for instance.. Tadalafil (generic Cialis) 5mg, 90day supply in the US – $3000 same thing in Canada or Mexico? $33 or less. I think the insurance companies may have a hand in this too, but I’m not sure how.
Doctors. Due to the litigious nature of the current American culture, doctors have to pay a lot of money to malpractice insurance. So, they need to cover that cost. so $60-$80 to see the doctor has become standard. Insurance companies? they get charged hundreds – again to pretend like they are saving the insured money. The US citizens caused this all themselves.
After the second world war, USA and Great Britain came to a conclusion that in order to help it’s citizens and promote a boost in population, a form of standardized health care was required since (in the UK at least)most people didn’t even have access to full medical care, it wasn’t standardized and getting sick from what is considered minor illnesses/injuries today could have been fatal 100 years ago. They both had the idea that so long as people were working and paying their taxes a fair system could be introduced to cover the cost of health care.
In UK they created a new type of tax known as the “national insurance” which automatically gets deducted from your pay, this goes towards the cost of medicine, health care and your state pension. The USA decided that they wouldn’t directly tax the employee, but they would make it mandatory for employers to provide a form of health insurance for their employees, so if you had a job, in theory, you wouldn’t need to pay for health care or medicine.
Down the line, lots of people in the USA decided it was better for them financially to be self employed and simply not get cover for themselves, or if they were business owners to save money by getting restricted policies for their employees because they weren’t penalized for not providing full medical cover. Medical providers also saw an exploit with the insurance policies where they could charge inflated amounts for medicine and treatment because the insurance would have to cover it, which led to a lot of insurers refusing to pay out if a person had pre-existing risk factors or illnesses.
Combining tight insurance company rules and regulations for it’s clients, hospitals and drug companies gouging their prices, people finding themselves in a position where they haven’t got any insurance whatsoever, they’re in a position now where suffering a medical emergency could be a financial disaster.
In the UK you can experience USA style pharmacy costs by getting non NHS doctors to prescribe you medicine – some will be surprisingly low and some will be eye wateringly high.
There are many complicated reasons as other answers have covered. But to provide a simple answer to the simplest part of your question: do doctors make more money in America?
Yes. LOTS AND LOTS more money.
Doctors here make a minimum of 100k, and many of them make several hundred thousand per year. I know someone who got an offer for 500k and another for 650k/year.
That isn’t unusual. You can check the salaries of doctors at public hospitals and those affiliated with public universities. Many states are legally required to publish their salaries. At each hospital there are dozens of doctors making 500-750k/year. Private hospitals don’t have to disclose this information but I can’t imagine that Stanford, Penn, Mayo, Cleveland Clinic, etc are paying their people less. They are likely paying more
Of course these salaries are at the best hospitals in the country in very expensive cities. Doctors in rural hospitals make less, but the gap is likely smaller than you imagine and for some specialties rural hospitals actually pay more. My friend who had offers for 500k and 650k was recruited by a hospital in Montana who said they would start negotiations at 700k. They have a hard time recruiting specialists to work in the boonies, so they try to attract them with eye watering salaries.
The system is crazy. It is most definitely not set up to provide good care at low prices.
Because the quality in the USA is much much higher.
Having free health care but a 6 months line to the doctor is technically free but practically no service.
In the USA you pay but you have good return
One reason is the high cost of medical technology and research. Developing new drugs, medical devices, and procedures is expensive, and those costs are passed on to patients. Similarly, the high cost of medical education and training. Doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals spend a ton of time in school, which is expensive. As a result, they need to charge higher fees to cover their costs.
The administrative costs of healthcare are also very high. The American healthcare system requires a lot of paperwork and bureaucracy to keep it running. All of this administrative work adds to the total cost.
Last but not least, the profit motive is a very significant driver of healthcare costs in America. At the end of the day, healthcare here is a business, and many companies in the healthcare industry are motivated by profit. This usually leads to higher costs for patients, as companies seek to maximize their profits.
These factors are made worse by the fact that Americans have to take on much more of this cost relative to citizens of other countries like Canada or the UK where the government helps pay.
Because America is run by Profit Motive/Capitalism first and foremost. There is no solid “system” per say, just a mess of lobbied/compromised shit for the best interests of corporate outcomes, not it’s citizens health care.
Because the USA doesn’t have a healthcare system, it has a profit extraction system that as a byproduct of that profit extraction process provides a mediocre amount of healthcare to some of its victims.
The horrible thing about all this is that some of the high costs and lack of guaranteed coverage are done ON PURPOSE AND IS EASILY AVOIDED, but it’s not, making people hate those in power.
Answer: corruption and greed. The American health insurance system has lobbied for years taking more and more right away from people and ensuring people always stay sick and injured. The Healthcare professionals are the same and medicine is the same as much of the rest of the world, but hospital administrators are just members of a cabal to make as much profit as possible and actively disrupt everything sensible because sensible doesn’t make money. It’s actually rooted in southern ‘Christian’ teachings where only God can heal and giving your money to the state instead of the church makes God angry. Thanks to that, we have no Healthcare, no welfare, and no protections beyond the free education of our youth and becoming a profit-basis for the shitty hospital administrator at the end of our life as the insurance companies rake the federal coffers over the coals because fuck you. As others have mentioned, it’s not a system, it’s a marketplace with no rules
Read the article ‘How American Healthcare Killed my Father.’ amazingly detailed answer.
[Link from the Atlantic](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/09/how-american-health-care-killed-my-father/307617/)
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