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Bass 
Group: Members
Posts: 1535
Joined: Sep. 2006
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Posted on: Feb. 21 2013, 9:12 am |
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From the article Why Medical Bills Are Killing US :
In hundreds of small and midsize cities across the country — from Stamford, Conn., to Marlton, N.J., to Oklahoma City — the American health care market has transformed tax-exempt “nonprofit” hospitals into the towns’ most profitable businesses and largest employers, often presided over by the regions’ most richly compensated executives. And in our largest cities, the system offers lavish paychecks even to midlevel hospital managers, like the 14 administrators at New York City’s Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center who are paid over $500,000 a year, including six who make over $1 million.
According to one of a series of exhaustive studies done by the McKinsey & Co. consulting firm, we spend more on health care than the next 10 biggest spenders combined: Japan, Germany, France, China, the U.K., Italy, Canada, Brazil, Spain and Australia. We may be shocked at the $60 billion price tag for cleaning up after Hurricane Sandy. We spent almost that much last week on health care. We spend more every year on artificial knees and hips than what Hollywood collects at the box office. We spend two or three times that much on durable medical devices like canes and wheelchairs, in part because a heavily lobbied Congress forces Medicare to pay 25% to 75% more for this equipment than it would cost at Walmart.
Although it is officially a nonprofit unit of the University of Texas, MD Anderson has revenue that exceeds the cost of the world-class care it provides by so much that its operating profit for the fiscal year 2010, the most recent annual report it filed with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, was $531 million. That’s a profit margin of 26% on revenue of $2.05 billion, an astounding result for such a service-intensive enterprise.
The president of MD Anderson is paid like someone running a prosperous business. Ronald DePinho’s total compensation last year was $1,845,000.
The health care industry seems to have the will and the means to keep it that way. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the pharmaceutical and health-care-product industries, combined with organizations representing doctors, hospitals, nursing homes, health services and HMOs, have spent $5.36 billion since 1998 on lobbying in Washington. That dwarfs the $1.53 billion spent by the defense and aerospace industries and the $1.3 billion spent by oil and gas interests over the same period. That’s right: the health-care-industrial complex spends more than three times what the military-industrial complex spends in Washington.
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GoBlueHiker
Obsessive Island Hopper...
Group: Members
Posts: 14069
Joined: Jul. 2006
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Posted on: Feb. 21 2013, 12:34 pm |
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Good gravy.
Thanks for the post. Informative.
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Wealth needs more. Happiness needs less. Simplify.
www.RainForestTreks.com
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| Post Number: 3
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hbfa
Group: Members
Posts: 7076
Joined: Feb. 2002
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Posted on: Feb. 21 2013, 12:47 pm |
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And remember, it's the industry that is enjoying these profits that keeps telling us how horrid universal healthcare would be.
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| Post Number: 4
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buzzards
Group: Members
Posts: 1751
Joined: Apr. 2005
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Posted on: Feb. 21 2013, 1:42 pm |
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I don't think that going to all governmental health care is the answer, but having had a front row seat at both the operating and financial aspects of our health care system, I can assure you that health care in the US of A is both excellent and obscenely expensive.
I shudder to think the fix I would be in if I had not had very good insurance these last several years. Even with good insurance, I have one BK largely attributable to medical bills under my belt. Not fun.
OTOH, I can legitimately claim to only be alive on two occasions due to living in this country. Once from having a procedure that at the time was only available here, and once from having quick access to a routine diagnostic procedure that due to the fact that it was not considered an emergency, I would have had to wait for months to get in other countries. By then, the tumor that started all my present ills would have certainly metastasized, and I would not have survived 2008.
When so many people are making so much money, a solution becomes elusive, because no one wants to give up their share of the pie, however unsustainable that pie is.
I could go on, but have ranted at length on this subject before....
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Now shall I walk or shall I ride?
Ride, said pleasure,
Walk, Joy replied,
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| Post Number: 5
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double cabin
Group: Members
Posts: 15434
Joined: Nov. 2005
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Posted on: Feb. 21 2013, 1:46 pm |
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Yeah, Orrin Hatch doesn't want to mess with a 1/5 or the eoconmy, even if it kills us.
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We have nothing to fear but an industry of fear...and man skirts.
http://www.facebook.com/media/albums/?id=129511480442251
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| Post Number: 6
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Survival Skills 101 • Eat Better
