[Ibon]

The most common health insurance that ex pats get here in Panama is World Wide Medical. If the treatment is not available in Panama for your health condition this insurance will send you to a country that provides the treatment. This coverage costs my wife and I a total of $ 3,600 a year. I just had gallbladder surgery and it was 100% covered.

Guess what? This insurance is valid everywhere in the world except one country: The USA. The are no plans with this insurance company with coverage in the USA.

Why do you guys think that is? Because of the astronomical prices for health care procedures in the US.

My Gallbladder surgery was laproscopic, the most modern instruments. Cost out of pocket would have been $ 3,000. In the US if you are not insured $ 14,000. If you have insurance $ 10,000.

A couple years ago in Thailand I had a big kidney stone blocking one of my kidneys and it was enlarged. Here is the treatment I had. Emergency room followed by one night stay in the hospital, X-ray, CT scan. Following day shock wave lithotripsy to pulverize the stone with sound waves. THe CT scan and shock wave were both brand new modern Siemens equipment. Total cost out of pocket for all of the above without insurance = $ 1,600. A urologist int he US told me that would have cost me $ 25,0000 in the USA. The CT scan on my bill in Thailand was $ 200. In the US it would be $ 3-4,000. You plug it in, it works for a couple minutes and it gives you a digital read out. No consumibles. A CT scan machine from Siemens costs anywhere between $ 95k and $165K If a hospital in the US does 4 a day at $ 3000 a pop they can pay back the machine in 15 days. Does that sound right?

Guys, think about this a minute.

I sold surgical operating microscopes for 18 years in my business. The same unit that sold in Brazil for $ 36,000 sold in the US for $ 89,000 Why? You tell me

Drug costs in the US at a factor anywhere between 2 and 20 times prices anywhere else in the world.

How can you design any affordable healthcare plan when pricing is so outrageously high in the USA? How can an insurance company offer affordable rates with the price structure in the US of procedures.

To move on. Both of those procedures I had that I mentioned above included lab work. On my recent gallbladder surgery I gave, urine, blood and feces samples in the morning following my initial appointment. Guess when the lab work was completed? in two hours. Try that in any US hospital.

Whether it be government public option or private insurance you can forget about ever having an affordable solution in the US with the price structures as they are.

Do you guys want more examples? Just let me know. I have dozens.

[Pops]

Here is a factoid, the average American spent $9,990 on care last year.
Average.

Boggles almost as much as the average American driving 35 miles a day
Average, every day

https://www.cms.gov/research-statistics ... lights.pdf

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'T')he most common health insurance that ex pats get here in Panama is World Wide Medical. If the treatment is not available in Panama for your health condition this insurance will send you to a country that provides the treatment. This coverage costs my wife and I a total of $ 3,600 a year. I just had gallbladder surgery and it was 100% covered.

Guess what? This insurance is valid everywhere in the world except one country: The USA. The are no plans with this insurance company with coverage in the USA.

Why do you guys think that is? Because of the astronomical prices for health care procedures in the US.

My Gallbladder surgery was laproscopic, the most modern instruments. Cost out of pocket would have been $ 3,000. In the US if you are not insured $ 14,000. If you have insurance $ 10,000.

A couple years ago in Thailand I had a big kidney stone blocking one of my kidneys and it was enlarged. Here is the treatment I had. Emergency room followed by one night stay in the hospital, X-ray, CT scan. Following day shock wave lithotripsy to pulverize the stone with sound waves. THe CT scan and shock wave were both brand new modern Siemens equipment. Total cost out of pocket for all of the above without insurance = $ 1,600. A urologist int he US told me that would have cost me $ 25,0000 in the USA. The CT scan on my bill in Thailand was $ 200. In the US it would be $ 3-4,000. You plug it in, it works for a couple minutes and it gives you a digital read out. No consumibles. A CT scan machine from Siemens costs anywhere between $ 95k and $165K If a hospital in the US does 4 a day at $ 3000 a pop they can pay back the machine in 15 days. Does that sound right?

Guys, think about this a minute.

I sold surgical operating microscopes for 18 years in my business. The same unit that sold in Brazil for $ 36,000 sold in the US for $ 89,000 Why? You tell me

Drug costs in the US at a factor anywhere between 2 and 20 times prices anywhere else in the world.

How can you design any affordable healthcare plan when pricing is so outrageously high in the USA? How can an insurance company offer affordable rates with the price structure in the US of procedures.

To move on. Both of those procedures I had that I mentioned above included lab work. On my recent gallbladder surgery I gave, urine, blood and feces samples in the morning following my initial appointment. Guess when the lab work was completed? in two hours. Try that in any US hospital.

Whether it be government public option or private insurance you can forget about ever having an affordable solution in the US with the price structures as they are.

[Pops]

Man, this is sad.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')ebbie Mills is a 53-year-old furniture store owner in Bell County, an area of the state right on the Tennessee border. Earlier this year, doctors discovered that her husband has non-alcoholic cirrhosis. He now needs a transplant if he’s going to survive. Mills and her husband keep a bag packed, waiting for the doctors to call with news that a liver is available.

This all means that Mills really, really needs her health insurance. And she’s very grateful for the Affordable Care Act, because she couldn’t afford insurance before it was passed.

And yet she voted for Donald Trump. Until we spoke, she said she hadn’t taken Trump’s repeal threats seriously. As we talked, she started to process what his election might mean for her family’s future.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', '[')url=http://www.vox.com/2016/12/13/13901874/obamacare-trump-voter-health-insurance-repeal]Man, this is sad.[/url]
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')ebbie Mills is a 53-year-old furniture store owner in Bell County, an area of the state right on the Tennessee border. Earlier this year, doctors discovered that her husband has non-alcoholic cirrhosis. He now needs a transplant if he’s going to survive. Mills and her husband keep a bag packed, waiting for the doctors to call with news that a liver is available.

This all means that Mills really, really needs her health insurance. And she’s very grateful for the Affordable Care Act, because she couldn’t afford insurance before it was passed.

And yet she voted for Donald Trump. Until we spoke, she said she hadn’t taken Trump’s repeal threats seriously. As we talked, she started to process what his election might mean for her family’s future.

[Newfie]

I Posted two petitions this week. One to Nancy Pelosi to delay inauguration until the report is done. The other to electors to change their vote.

NPR canvassed electors in PA. NONE were planning or even considering changing their vote. Even though the one guy they interviewed said he was getting about 5,000 phone calls a day. Obviously he doesn't answer but did once by accident. He said he asked the caller a question....

"Why do you think I will change my vote? Why do you think Trump picked me? Man I'm hard core, no way I'm changing my vote!"

[Plantagenet]

D Congresscritters open to replacing Obamacare

democrats-open-to-replacing-obamacare-

While the Ds in Congress probably won't join the Rs in voting to replace Ocare, many are open to new bi-partisan legislation to replace it.

Cheers!

[dinopello]

[Cog]

Its going to be great.

[Tanada]

If you want European style national health care then you have to have European level taxes to pay for it.

Who is going to vote for that and then run for reelection?

[Cog]

Or if you want European style health-care, you could move to Europe.

[yellowcanoe]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', 'I')f you want European style national health care then you have to have European level taxes to pay for it.

Who is going to vote for that and then run for reelection?

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('yellowcanoe', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', 'I')f you want European style national health care then you have to have European level taxes to pay for it.

Who is going to vote for that and then run for reelection?

[Cog]

California likes doing social justice experiments, let them do it first.

[vtsnowedin]

How do you do that without confiscating the hospitals and drug companies and making the doctors and nurses indentured servants?

[yellowcanoe]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vtsnowedin', 'H')ow do you do that without confiscating the hospitals and drug companies and making the doctors and nurses indentured servants?

[vtsnowedin]

It certainly will be a difficult transition to whatever they go to next. One first step would be regulating drug prices at the government level as individuals when sick have no bargaining power at all. I would go so far as stripping patent rights from anyone price gouging and shorten the time patents stay in effect and eliminate the practice of patent extensions.
No drug regimen should ever cost more then twenty percent of the patients income.

[rockdoc123]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')'d also point out that introducing a publicly funded system in Canada also had the affect of increasing costs. Health care workers were not particularily well paid when hospitals were run as charities. Once governments started to fund the system, health care workers unionized and have been able to greatly increase their salaries. Still, it is a far cheaper system than what you have in the US, but not cheap in comparison to European countries.

[yellowcanoe]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rockdoc123', 'I')t seems to me that the best solution is something like a two tiered system where those who can afford it pay to get surgeries done quicker or perhaps get immediate access to a physician. This takes some of the stress off of the fully covered public system so that those who can't afford it have less wait times.

[Plantagenet]

A Federal Judge in Texas has just ruled that the ACA aka Obamacare is unconstitutional

federal-judge-texas-strikes-strikes-down-affordable-care-act

In a landmark case in 2012, the SCOTUS accepted the obama administration's argument that Obamacare is a tax, and hence is constitutionally valid.

But in 2017 Trump and the Rs ended the tax penalty on those people who don't sign up for O-care, meaning that it no longer is a tax.

Now a federal judge has said if Obamacare doesn't include taxes, then O-care is unconstitutional because it violates the interstate commerce of the US constitution.

-------------------------------------------------------------

This will be appealed to the current SCOTUS. It will be interesting to see what they say this time, now the tax rationale that they used to preserve it in 2012 no longer exists.

CHEERS!