What are the major problems with the healthcare system in America today?

Question

It is very expensive, and the number one cause for personal bankruptcy.

Answer 1

Insurance companies are middlemen between the hospital and or your doctor and you. They od nothing but try to make yo pay the most for the least amount of service so they can take a big cut of the cost as profit.

Also, in this country as opposed to most developed countries and some not so developed counmtries, profit has become our number one motive. Therefore a doctor and/or a hospital might want to help people, but they also wnat to make big money. If you need a heart operation in order to live, they can charge whatever they want thinking you will pay it.

In Europe and Cuba, Venizala and more countries, their thinking is that good health is the job of all citizens to each other. Therefore in England if you need a heart operation, or in Canada you have a serious disease, or in Germany you suffer a bad accident, or in Norway you are going to have a baby, or in Cuba if you're loosing your eyesight, your doctor recommends the proper treatment and you have it and go about your life without the crushing debt.

The insurance companies, who profit from your illness, spend millions trying to convince you that an insurance run capitalistic health care system is in your best interest when it clearly is in their best interest, not yours.

Answer 2

government involvement is the number one problem. States place ridiculous mandates on insurance companies which in turn are forced to jack up premiums on those they insure. Poor people cannot be turned away from an emergency room and EVERY hosptal has to right a certain percentage of their services each year so if you are poor and get seen at a hospital, you go to the billing department and ask for the papers to get your charges waived due to an inability to pay.
Ridiculous costs for doctors malpractice insurance is another thing that is killing us but because Americans are sue happy this will not change. Medicine costs more here because we do all the R and D and with every other country capping prices, it leaves on only us to pay for the research that is saving all those others. Their selfishness is sticking us with the bill.

Answer 3

College for Dr.'s = major loans and huge expense

People that love to sue = high Dr. liability insurance

Major health equipment manufacturers = charge outlandish amounts for equip.

Drug companies charging lots of $$ for drugs all of this ties into one thing = healthcare insurance!!

The insurance companies only pay for a portion of what the Provider, Dr.'s, equipment manuf., & drug companies bill them, then they make each one of the listed people above take a loss on the charges. So really the provider, Dr., etc only take home a protion of what they are billing so what do they do they raise the price to make money.

Viscious circle that we created and cannot stop!!
Don't listen to the above comment the provider does NOT get whatever they bill we have to have a write-off. Take a bill I submitted last week amount $550.27 we received a check for $160.70!! There were X-rays and lab costs in that price and that is what we got and cannot bill the patient a dime!!

Answer 4

Health care providers can charge whatever they want. Insurance companies pay it, and then bump people out of the system who will become expensive patients by charging high premiums. Our doctors make about 2x what other nation's doctors do. Our hospitals think their buildings need to look like the Taj Mahal. The list goes on and on. It probably needs government regulation, which all profit motivated interests are against. It has been a monster left out of control for over 40 years. How will we reign it back in?

Answer 5

And yet our governments spend $850 billion on health care and $460 billion on national defense. There are two major problems with health care:

1) Not enough competition for jobs. There is a severe shortage of health care professionals which means they get higher and higher wages. We need to create more schools for more people to enter this field and create competition for the jobs and prices will level off.

2) The American legal system and unlimited law suits with no cost upon losing. There should be reasonable caps on law suits and a "loser pays" system would stop frivolous law suits from impacting health care services financially.

Sadly the "left" in America thinks more government is the answer. They suggest replacing profit (capitalist companies) with government bureacracy. They haven't learned that bureacracy will cost far more then profit.

Answer 6

Just like the so-called legal idiots you must pay to bail your butt out! If ever there was a bill that should be CAPPED I present the top 2 in the world!!!! Tort-reform will not work cause they get little $$$$.

Answer 7

It's expensive because of the malpractice insurance that the doctors have to carry.

Stop the bullshit lawsuits and costs will come down.

Answer 8

anything is like law of supply and demand. if the supply is big the demand is less the price is low. why not open this healthcare business to every qualified doctors. put cooperative ect. i tell you even quality of service will be better.

Answer 9

you said it- the high cost of care is due to new high tech equipment, new meds that have cost millions to research and develop the cost of malpractice insurance for certain specialties, and giving care to the indigent is recovered by charging the rest of us more. Just to name a few reasons.

Answer 10

It is too socialist. They KNOW they are getting paid, because competition has been taken out of it, capitalist forces have been removed.

Why lower prices when you get paid due to HMOs and similar programs regardless? The individual doesn't matter.

Take out those plans. Make them compete for every person's money. Prices go down.