What is your opinion of the United States health care system?

Question

Is it "broken"? Is it perfectly fine? What can we do to help those who are uninsured?

Answer 1

It depends on how you mean. If you can afford to pay for your own care, the US system is the best in the world. Rich people come here from all over the world for health care. If you are a corporation providing health care or pharmaceuticals this is the best system because it's the most profitable. In the US we consider profit the highest of all values.

However if you're a middle-class healthcare consumer, you wouldn't like this system. Those of us who have health insurance pay 70% more for it today than when GW Bush came to office, and it was considered a crisis -then-. A growing number of Americans can't get access to health care at all.

I am self-employed in my own little one-man business, but I can't buy insurance for myself, it would cost between $1500 and $2000 a month--and that's if I never get sick. I use my wife's insurance, and if she lost her job I'd have to go get a job myself.

The solution most Americans want is a 'Canadian style single-payer' plan. This means that hospitals and clinics and doctors remain private and the govt. handles the insurance, and everyone is insured, included in the same big pool. If we just expanded Medicare to include everyone we'd save tens of billions of dollars a year in the US. Medicare has a 1% overhead while private insurance has 20-30%.

But all the major candidates get money from the healthcare and pharma industries, so the plans they come up with are mostly bullshit. Most include the govt. buying insurance for -some- uninsured at the going market prices, which include big profits for the existing insurance companies. The only candidate so far who's proposed a Canadian-style plan is Dennis Kucinich.

Answer 2

WHAT United States Health Care System?

Answer 3

It is beyond broken all that it is about in this country is MONEY. It's not about the people no matter what anyone says. One guy says your never denied treatment but you will have to pay and that is just the point most people cannot afford the bills and go into debt way over their heads and sometimes have to declare bankruptcy. We should have a health care system like Canada and England we can work through the flaws in theirs and make it better. But it will never happen because the only people that can change that are the goverment leaders who are rich anyway so they don't really see the major problems that all the middle and low class people do.

Answer 4

I have very strong opinions on this subject. The healthcare system in the United States is beyond broken, it is shattered. My thinking may seem crazy to some, but I have a huge problem with the co-payments. First of all, if I have to pay a premium all year long, then my co-pay should be minimal or nothing at all. Every year, I get a notice that says that my healthcare insurance is going up. It has gotten to the point that it is a major bill for my family.

The particular insurance that I have charges me extra to see my OB. I am currently pregnant. I have to pay specialist pay to see my OB. Then I have to pay to see my primary care physician. Then I have to pay a seperate co pay when I go in to deliver then pay for that OB also. All the while, I am paying for an ever rising premium.

I feel that there should not be a specialist cost for an OB. There is too many loopholes and too many policies and premiums. They need to put all in one. Vision, Dental, Health, and prescriptions. Instead of paying four or five premiums there should be one.

The reason that so many people are uninsured is because it is too expensive. Some people have to make a choice whether to pay their rent or to have health insurance. That is not a choice that should be made.

Free Health Care would be too much of an economic burden. If we could start with the healthcare providers, the price that they charge is crazy. They charged us $40.00 for two generic tylenol when our son had a fever. That is ridiculous especially when you can get a bottle of 100 for less than $5.00. The government needs to step in and say how much that they can actually charge for certain services. This would bring insurance costs down and more people could afford it.

Answer 5

I think it stinks.

Here's how it played out for me:
--I was a regular guy. Job. Insurance. Good health.
--Got an injury. Internal damage needing reconstruction. Spent 3 months in the hospital.
--Back at work the insurance payments started getting higher and higher becasue I was making so many claims (near 500k at that point)
--Work changed insurance plans to offset higher payments. Results in less coverage and more out of pocket.
--Switched to wife's insurance. Repeat.
--Can't afford to keep up with hospital bills because insurance copay is now 2k per month. (which is a hell of a lot less than the hospital bills would be but I can't pay either way. plus, it's hard as heck to keep a job when you have to go to the hospital 2 days every month on "sick leave")
--Lost all savings. Downsized house to keep paying.

Insurance system is flawed at the core.
It's impossible to want to help someone and at the same time want to profit. The best help for someone is to get the 'best care' possible and the best profit is to pay for 'no care'. It's a seesaw that will always be a problem.

Answer 6

It's not a system, it is a confusing, inconsistent jumble of systems. However, I do not have any particularly clever ideas for improving it. I know people say there ought to be a "one payer system," meaning the federal government. But any time you have the feds do something, they maximize the inefficiency and the costs, biting good citizens in the butt with taxes. I would like to see a simple way that non-profits could provide insurance for people who don't have it, so that those of us who don't have insurance aren't paying double or triple what the insurance companies pay. It's a scam: the hospital bills a huge amount because that's the amount they actually get from a government agency covering someone who qualifies. The insurance companies make bargains on the basis of "quantity discounts." And the people who really get shafted are those (like myself) who do not have insurance but do not qualify for government coverage.

There really needs to be a better way.

Answer 7

It's horrible.

Too expensive. a couple of years ago, after working at a job for 12 years I was layed off and lost my insurance. the job market was non-existant in the military town I was in, so I could only find a full time job making $9 an hour. No company insurance. I have paid taxes or 20 years and when I got so sick I couldn't even stand up straight ( and STILL working) I could not get help from the state because I don't have children. I needed surgery very badly.
Had I had children, the state would have GIVEN me and my kids insurance, money for food, and a program to reduce my rent per my income.
I don't have children, so I don't matter??

Answer 8

CANADA pays for all health care for citizens.

CUBA pays for all health care for all citizens.

IRAQ paid for all health care for all citizens...while SADDAM HUSSEIN was in power.

USA is the most wealthy country, but USA doesn't give a crap.

This system is disabled. We need to use the same examples as other countries.
OR
The U.S. could issue yearly credits to each citizen like a gift certificate for a certain amount ($10,000 - $100,000). It can be transferred to the next relative or friend if that first person doesn't use it within a year. All paid for by the Fed Govn't.
This prevent Hospitals & Doctors from ripping off the Govnt.
.
.
.
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Answer 9

The U.S. HealthCare system is infected by the evil of money. Don't get me wrong; the science of health is the best in the world---no matter where you are! (French women heal me just as well as Brazilian women.)

But the money 'marks' those who can be healed quickly as "better" than those without the marks. THAT is the "Mark of the Beast," the fact that you 'should' be worth the same as everyone else, but do not have the certificates to prove it ... The Beast being our government---which is a single-mouthed devourer being fed by the people's 'falsely-won fealty' ('they' tell us that we actually have a choice as to who is worthy to lead us, but THAT IS A LIE!).

Payment for healthcare ought to be 'service when healed' and not 'money when dying.'

Answer 10

Our (USA) health system is the pits. Mine and my husbands credit is ruined because of our medical bills, (mainly because of my medical bills). I need more surgery on my back and can't get it done, because of the medical bills that we owe. We don't qualify for any sort of charity help, so we are basically screwed. Granted I have health coverage through my job, but it is expensive and it takes up 70% of my paycheck.
The only solution that I see, that will work, is the Canadian way.
And THEY say we are one of the most advanced countries in the world?