Medicaid is run by the state, its regulated by the state. So it'll vary based on the state.
Health Care Thread
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Vaclav
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Varies by state, as Zitar kind of hit on.
In Florida it's ludicrous - not even holdings based, and something like earning less than $12k per year or else you're on a lotto system (although it does have a pretty high max income for Medicaid, it's like 40k people on the list for 500 slots a year or something silly like that...). In MD, holding limit was $2k - it didn't consider "simple" cars as an asset for that $2k though.
Vaclav
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And? Something that kills you doesn't bankrupt you (well, I guess it TECHNICALLY could - but it's moot - dead people don't declare bankruptcy) - its the survivable ones that are actually relevant to an affordability discussion.
Absolutely. Now get rid of all the for-profit aspects of healthcare administration.
Big Phoenix
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Lol you think those people who died from cancer due to smoking just randomly died one day? You think the people who died from diabetes had no problems up until they finally died? Its like my dad, guy has diabetes and doesnt take care of his body. I can only imagine how much the VA has spent on him with 3 skin graphs(1 which included a month+ long stay in a hospital) and the other stuff theyve had to do with him. Person may of be dead but the cost of treating them for god knows how long up until the day they died in still around.
Were am I defending our shitty healthcare system? Just pointing out that going full socialism/single payer isnt going to do a damn thing about cost. Retards are still going to get sick and go to the doctor.
I work for one of the big 3 health insurers and this is the direction they're all going. If you get a yearly physical and are a non-smoker who isn't obese and has proper blood sugar they give you a card with x amount of money on it that can be used for medical expenses. It's essentially -$400, or how much ever the discount is, off you deductible.
Tolan
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Wtf. You are essentially a science denier if you think a single-payer system would not lower costs and save the US upwards of $1T per year. How many more superior examples of socialized health insurance do we need on this planet before you're convinced?
Big Phoenix
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Lol wtf save 1 trillion dollars? We spend 1 trillion on administrative overhead here?
Tolan
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US GDP is $18T per year. Our healthcare system costs 18% of our GDP. That's $3.24T per year. Canada, which has a very comparable GDP per capita, spends about 10% of its GDP on health care. If we could save 8% (18%-10%) of our GDP by having the superior Canadian healthcare system, it would be a $1.4T savings per year.
In the simplest terms: "We're doing it wrong."
Big Phoenix
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Vaclav
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Some did, you're assuming most of them lingered on being treated forever.
Tip #1: Skin GRAFTS (capitalized since you can't even spell the word apparently) are cheap as shit, I've had plenty as part of my two dozen surgeries in my life so far. They've usually been cheaper than the stay (which was generally short at that)/
Tip #2: Lots of people just die.
Heart disease nearly 20% of people die of their first heart attack. And close to 40% with heart disease don't do anything more than treatment with incredibly inexpensive medications. Even stents, the most common procedure for heart disease is quite inexpensive as surgeries go.
Cancer often goes undetected until death by stubborn people, and about 20% of cases of death by cancer are only found out post-mortem. And plenty are found far enough along where most people OPT OUT OF GETTING TREATMENT because of insane cost for low chance of success. Not to mention some types NO MATTER WHEN THEY'RE CAUGHT ARE A DEATH SENTENCE - pancreatic cancer for example. You get pancreatic cancer as a diagnosis, you don't waste your time with medicine - you live your last days to the fullest you can until you keel over dead.
Lower Respiratory are all cheap as shit to treat - although long term repair of lung damage is basically impossible (last I saw something on it, we'll probably be implanting new cloned lungs in people before we're able to "heal" a lung) - and don't effect people longterm generally outside ephysema. (Which is becoming a smaller and smaller portion of the lower respiratory stats every year between less smokers and stuff like asbestos not being used anymore)
Accidents obviously didn't have any lengthy treatment because you know, unexpected surprises...
Strokes again kill a large portion, and often for those that aren't killed - really aren't that costly to treat in many cases - blood thinners and clot busting meds are relatively inexpensive. In rare cases a stroke can be incredibly costly but those also tend to not be the ones that are survived.
Alzheimers - Ok, that's an expensive and lingering one in basically every case.
Diabetes - Not a slam dunk expensive every time, but can be expensive reasonably often. (Although do note, many parts of diabetic treatment aren't covered by many insurances - I hear stories all the time from the in-laws switching plans again in order to get a new meter this year, since the other plan doesn't cover meters at all - but then this other plan covers supplies better - ad nauseum... so while it might be expensive it's largely in supplies and such that STOP if you don't pay your part - many diabetic things seem hard to fink out of paying for because of that... you can't just walk into the ER and ask for diabetic supplies)
Flu and Pneumonia - No lingering treatment really, and the treatment when it works is cheap.
Nephritis - Not too familiar, reads like kidney failure? That can be INSANELY expensive to treat if it is though.
Suicide - Obviously no real pre-treatment besides perhaps counseling/psychiatric - which is cheap as far as medicine goes.
There's some that absolutely end up costing a bunch, but it's all the small ones - all the big killers are quite often either sudden and/or cheap to treat frequently. And sometimes things are cheaper than you might think - as was demonstrated with thinking skin grafts are expensive.
One of my corrective surgeries on my hands would cost around $8k in 1978-1982, about $6k of that was the actual digital orthopaedic correction, $1.5k for the ER room + hospital room for my brief stay (1-2 full days generally), $200-300 in medicine given to aid with recovery (I remember amoxicillin - it's not listed on the bills though), and around $200 for the skin graft. It was actually the cheapest line on the itemized bills when I was going over them. [Which I did when Laura and I started talking about kids - I decided to nudge my parents for how much my surgeries costed since it's a 50/50 chance I'd pass the condition on]
If you're not familiar skin grafts are generally taken from the patients OWN BODY (which obviously costs nothing) whenever possible. I'm not sure why they do it that way, besides simplicity and cost - but I'd imagine there's a zero chance of rejection using your own versus using someone else's if the skin is like other organs.
Tolan
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Let's see your mathematical hypothesis for not saving any money by switching to single payer. Start with broad costs data from real world examples, like I did. In my cost comparison, I could substitute at least a dozen other major countries in Canada's place and we're still paying around $1T/yr too much. Are you going to show some intellectual reasoning for your claim that single payer "won't do anything for costs" or are you just going to continue to "lol, retards will still get sick and need care, lol"?
Big Phoenix
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Right, so it must be the pursuit of profits. Fucking evil insurance companies and their god damn profits. Treating heart attacks is cheap its the god damn profit motive!
I want to know why you think these people just die. You realize people get into say a car accident, get horribly mangled live for a few days or weeks and then die right? You think people who die from diabetes die as soon as they learn of their condition? No. They end up like my uncle who died from it. Slowly swirling drain, having toes then foot amputated then finally dying.
You realize according the numbers you posted equate to a 43% reduction in healthcare cost. I would assume there would be reduction in overhead and administrative costs but a 43% reduction?
World isnt that complicated, most would have you believe that though.
Vaclav
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I " think that" because statistically speaking about 40% of people die suddenly overall. Period.
One traumatic event that may or may not have gotten a chance at fixing the problem. A cost between $0 and around $25000 that goes on the books. (although often not unpaid since the Fed has some protection against such)
Quoting mortality rates and saying "look, they've gotta be expensive" is bad science. Not to mention as I stated some of those are often cheap to treat.
You know what some of the most expensive people to track would be? The ones that have many of those but receive enough treatment to NOT DIE from them an instead die from natural age.
You know what would be the stat to find? Days/weeks/months of treatment by condition - as well as approximate costs. You'd see quite quickly how insanek kidney failure is for example.
One traumatic event that may or may not have gotten a chance at fixing the problem. A cost between $0 and around $25000 that goes on the books. (although often not unpaid since the Fed has some protection against such)
Quoting mortality rates and saying "look, they've gotta be expensive" is bad science. Not to mention as I stated some of those are often cheap to treat.
You know what some of the most expensive people to track would be? The ones that have many of those but receive enough treatment to NOT DIE from them an instead die from natural age.
You know what would be the stat to find? Days/weeks/months of treatment by condition - as well as approximate costs. You'd see quite quickly how insanek kidney failure is for example.