How come the US Healthcare system is on the brink of internal collapse?

Question

When we have a trillion dollars to spend destroying Iraq?

Answer 1

Because this was a conscious choice made by the U.S. government. The U.S. is the only advanced nation that does not have a national health insurance; this allows the U.S. to spend on defense about as much as the rest of the world combined.

Answer 2

1. mainly due to political and HMO pressures to keep costs low, due to the fact that if costs go up, people/gov't claim bloody murder.
2. The U.S. has one of the cheapest Healthcare systems. per patient treatment. The only difference is that under socialized medicine, people pay through taxes and get mediocre Healthcare. in the U.S. we pay through insurance and get relatively good healthcare.
3. Illegal immigrants are clogging up ERs across america without paying for the service.
4. People are choosing to buy other items instead of healthcare like cars, radios, sneakers. Then they claim the country doesn't care for them when they get sick. They do not claim personal responsibility.

Answer 3

There are three important reasons why health care in the US health costs much more than any other developed economy.

Though this is not widely recognized, the US government heavily subsidizes the purchase of health insurance. When your employer provides you with health insurance, he can deduct that cost as a business expense just like the wages he pays you. However, you, the employee, do not have to pay taxes on this form of compensation. If the company provided you with a company car for personal use, you would have to pay taxes on this just like your wages. Thus there is a big tax break when you receive health insurance paid for by your employer. As a result, many people have overly generous health insurance coverage because it is tax free.

Second, when a high percentage of people have insurance to pay for their health care, no one has an incentive to reduce the costs of health care or to shop around to find cheaper health care. The employee does not care because his generous health insurance pays regardless of what it costs. Obviously, the doctors do not care since they are paid by the insurance company.

Insurance companies have tried to limit the cost of medical care that they will pay for but without much success. For example, they set limits on prices that they will cover for certain procedures or require a co-pay or deductible on the the part of the patient.

Third, advances in medical technology means that some life saving techniques are very costly. When insurance companies are required to pay for these costly procedures received by just a small percentage of the population, the cost of insurance for everyone goes up. As just one example, the technology for caring for premature infants has advance substantially. But it is very expensive, often hundreds of thousands of dollars. In the past, these babies would have simply died because the technology did not exist to save them. Now that it exists, the cost must be born by everyone who buys health insurance.

At some point, when the cost of some medical procedures become even more expensive, we may have to say that insurance will not cover these treatments. If you can not afford to pay for them, tough luck.