Comments about ‘'Devastating statistics' — U.S. spent $2.4 trillion on health care in 2008, report says’

This is unreal, to get control and stop the waste all the feds have to do is shut off the funds. Health care is not a federal requirement or welfare program. The majority of these funds are going to illegal aliens and to cut them off would make a huge impact on savings and spending. These trillions would have been better spent if the major cities would build their own welfare clinics instead of giving it away. Health care reform should start and cutting off federal and state funding. It would save Medicare, Medicaid, and the SSA, all programs intended and designed as supplements to retirement, not a federal health welfare system. Health care is the responsibilty of individuals, not government. Reform should be in legislation controlling costs, not spending or in give aways.

How convenient that it is not noted that illegal aliens are just killing our health care system financially. This is just one more burden that us legal taxpayers have to inherit because our local politicians will not enforce the law. Unbelievable!

Since illegal immigrants are not eligible for Medicaid, they do not contribute to the growth of Medicaid expenses. They might add to health care expenses through emergency room care, but that is an entirely different piece of the puzzle.

Here's how you determine how much health care is really needed--you make everybody pay for their own health care expenses. The total expenditure would drop dramatically. When somebody else is paying for it (health insurance, Medicaid, etc), there is no restraint, and you use the system to the max.

In addition to the huge illegal alien free ride burden, health insurance and Medicaid also underwrite all the bad lifesyltes (gays, smoking, drinking, illegal drugs, over eating, etc). If everybody paid their own way, our national health bill would drop precipitously. Isn't it time we put some common sense back into this issue?

"Opposite of good"? Who writes this stuff?

have been trained to call for the government to take over this industry (along with all others), the reason for high healthcare costs is due mostly to insurance.

If we were to go with catostrophic coverage (rather than total or majority coverage) only, we would introduce the laws of supply and demand to the healthcare market, which in turn would push prices lower as competition is reintroduced.

Clearly, our giving "free" medical care to non-paying illegals has hurt, just like providing them inadequately or unsecured loans contributed to our current banking and housing crisis.

But the correct answer is never the government.

The health care system in the US has been totally corrupted, just like the failing financial system/economy. Of course costs are out of control. The drug industry, the insurance industry, the medical products industry, and the MD industry have a stranglehold on the system and are not going to let go. Disaster will be the result. Just look at the financial system.

When you pay doctors hundreds of thousands each, HMO execs even more, RNP's 100k + and drug companies a small fortune, you cannot control medical costs. Tell me why any doctor needs 500,000 dollars a year. That is outright gouging and abuse. As long as that goes on, the health system has no chance.

Illegals ARE eligible for Medicaid

where the money is going. Doctors aren't really getting rich. Hospitals supposedly struggle to stay in the black...

SO WHERE IS THE $$$ GOING?????

Someone is getting filthy dirty rich off of medical services....and they shouldn't be.

For those of you who have been well trained to always say bigger government is not the answer, I would challenge you to look around. As this article notes, healthcare spending is 20% of GDP in the USA. Guess what, it's 8% in England and 6% in France. Those countries have the same aging and obesity problems we do, but they have socialized medicine. But their medical care is much worse because they have to wait in line, right? Wrong, their mortality rates for almost all ailments are lower than ours. Cuba has better medical outcome rates than we do. Yes, there are waiting lists in these countries, but if you have the money you can jump the line.

There are a number of reasons why medicine is so expensive in the USA. First, our doctors make roughly 5 times the median income, while in England they make 1.5 times the median income. Second, our drugs are very expensive due to the profit margins drug makers demand in the USA (they accept lower profits in England). Third is the ridiculous costs of malpractice lawsuits. Fourth is the inefficiency and corruption of our private insurance system.

Continuation:

Family medical coverage in the USA costs the average employer $9,400 per year. The employee pays another $4,100. This cost that is a huge impediment to hiring. In an uncertain economy, why is any employer going to take the risk of hiring someone who they may have to COBRA if the economy worsens and the employee has to be laid off three months later?

The USA competes for jobs with a lot of countries. China, India and Mexico are the political hot button countries, but the real international competitors for the kind of jobs America can and should attract are England, Canada, Australia & Scandinavea. The countries all have socialized medicine. If a financial services, media or technology firm makes a hire in one of these countries, there is no $9,400 bill on top of the employee's wages. Our private system leaves us at a HUGE COMPETITIVE DISADVANTAGE.

Including federal and local, government is about 30% of GDP in the USA. That is much lower than our competitors, who are in the 40-50% range. But their 40-50% INCLUDES medicine. If you add our 20% medicine to 30% government we are the least efficient.

I find it interesting that the Legislative health care task force, after years of study, recommended execmpting insurance from mandated benefits. This year they introduced a bill to do that. However,on the other hand twice as many bills were introduced to add mandated benefits to health care insurance policies in offered in the state of utah: 1 mandateing that all insurance policies cover autism care, and the other forcing everybody who buys health insurance to pay premiums for prothetic limbs.

Until the right hand and left hand get together, there will be no solution to health care costs!

I must admit though, that I am generally impressed with the above comments as to the cause's and solutions to our health care crisis.

I fear that the State of Utah may be too late, and that Obamba is going to trump our efforts and make us all worse off-beginning with heatlh care rationing and outlawing private care meaning that you go to prison if you try and purchase health care that is not covered by the government.

for the high cost of health care in the U.S.

1) Litigation fears drive up costs dramatically as physicians are in a sense obligated to order multiple tests that are of questionable necessity in order to "rule out" the unlikely but possible causes of symptoms. This factor, in itself, probably increases costs two-fold (from my experience as a physician).

2) The expectation that we can receive top-of-the-line care, immediately, and for free or cheap. This expectation is completely unreasonable and the system cannot continue. It is on the brink of failure. The resources available are not infinite.

One other comment: most illegal immigrants that are treated in emergency departments are self pay and pay their bills; the vast majority of Medicaid recipients are not illegal immigrants.

Where does the money go?

1. Lawyers and their clients. We have had no significant tort reform, and lawsuits and settlements abound despite doctors' best efforts.

2. Malpractice insurance, see #1 above. I know that doctors often refuse to relocate to certain states simply because malpractice would take a ridiculous amount of their earnings.

3. Middle management. Kind of like lawyers, they are leeches on the system that add no value to treatment care, but they create a bureaucracy and then become "invaluable" because they help manage it.

I am a surgeon with peoples lives in my hands daily. I have unparalleled risk everyday in treating patients and executing procedures in their behalf. My neighbors are "business" guys/gals and work far less than I do with virtually little comparable risk, and they all make more than me. They work in entertainment, development, and service/financial industry. I can easily work twice the time and I have easily 4X the preparation as them. I think they should make what ever they can. This is America.

If I can perform 500 operations a year on people who need the treatment and decide to have the treatment, then why should I not make 500,000 per year? Income should be based on productivity and outcome. If not, you lose a huge chunk of incentive. I know doctors who work based upon set salary and they see as little people as possible because their salary is the same no matter what. Now how would that impact health care if we cut back to as little surgery as possible for a set salary. Talk about adverse impact on health care! Can't change human nature.

Output influences income: appeals to human nature.

You have to realize that the medical industry is also indirectly and directly funding the insurance industry, trial attorney industry, medical equipment/supply industry. The doctors aren't the problem. If you strip this down to the basics of the people involved you have the patient and the doctor which are the essense of the interaction. But when you add beaurocrats, regulatory agencies, insurance (federal being the absolute worst insurance), and attorneys then you will see the costs increase tremendously.

Because of our healthcare, patients can have incredible time/outcome expectations. I think a move to nationalized medicine will have a 30 year extremely negative outcome while we wait for a new generation with vastly different expectations to adjust to socialized medicine. You will see brilliant minds go elsewhere for professions because the reward for the sacrifice will be unreasonable for the majority of practitioners.

In the end, when people go to the Utah Jazz games or buy their favorite music CD's or have their plasma screen TV and then think that healthcare should be free then you have a problem. We will spend far beyond what is reasonable for our homes and yet expect free health...... big problem!

What he said!

The current mode of operation in the health care industry is clearly unsustainable. If the industry will not reform itself (and I personally believe that it lacks the desire and the power to overcome the cartels that control the industry) then the only other means is the government. This does not mean that the health care industry has to be nationalized, however it must be regulated. For example the government could end discriminatory fees where there are multiple fees for the same procedure depending on whether your in a preferential group because of insurance, etc. Requirements for full disclosure of costs up front is another regulation that the government could enforce. This would enable routine care to be done without having to involve the insurance companies. That way the free market could be reintroduced to health care and it could make only having catastrophic care insurance viable. Originally health insurance was only supposed to be a concern in catastrophic situations. Now that the cartels are in place in the industry all costs are getting out of control.

It seems to me there's waaaaay too much pork in health care--too many people and organizations between physician and patient, including bloated insurance companies and government paperwork-generating regulations. Physicians, nurses, and others themselves are worth every penny they make.

Get rid of the pork, and routine health care might actually be affordable without insurance.