"The U.S. healthcare system wastes between $505 billion and $850 billion every year"

So this is interesting:

I thought capitalism and the private sector were supposed to eliminate waste and inefficiency?

And the costs get passed right along to the insurance companies and taxpayers. Suddenly a trillion doesn't seem like so much if it isn't 80% wasted like the current system. On the other hand: Private industry wasting billions......................will the guv do any better? wait,what!

Since when does Medicare/Medicaid have anything to do with the private sector? The current health care system is so overrun with bureaucracy, you could hardly call it a private system.

...and a public option is not going to fix any of these:

So less regulation is going to solve this?

('cuz that didn't work so well for the financial sector, did it?)

On a semi related note:

BBC NEWS | Americas | FBI 'cracks $50m healthcare scam'

Medicare Fraud: A $60 Billion Crime - 60 Minutes - CBS News


Hopefully Obamas 200 million towards medicare for fighting fraud helps and doesn't itself go to waste.

This is sort of related, but last night I saw someone willing to trade free tattoo work for Healthcare from a doctor of some sort. That made me kind of sad.

PS Obama was here in Norfolk yesterday.

I'm with Jok3r. I've seen some of these offices and you won't fix most of those human errors, including fraud on any level. Some of these employees and patients are simply insane.

When I worked in medicine it was pretty common knowledge that we exploited Medicare and Medicaid. We would charge those patients more for procedures, charge them for more items, items they didn't even use or need, etc. Private insurance companies we couldn't fuck with because unlike the feds they effectively minded their business. Ironically I see all of the information you posted above as a pretty strong case for keeping the federal government less involved, not more.

If insurance companies can't afford to pay medical costs, where's that leave you and I?
interesting read: Medical Loss Ratio

Right because now we have a bunch of companies that should have failed, but instead, we the tax payer supported them, because "they were too big to fail". I can start pulling articles if you want, and you'll start pulling articles, but it isn't likely to change to anyone's viewpoint on the situation, but here is some food for thought:
Campaign For Liberty — Fun Health Regulation Fact

I disagree with your conclusion, since from Reagan onwards, all agencies were tasked with the job of "deregulation through lack of enforcement." The case is actually about lack of government involvement. Blaming Government agencies as being unmindful, is kind of like blaming a horse for not siring children for you after you've had him gelded, and extrapolating that horses just don't have the sex drive to propagate the species.

The reason for thee bureaucratic nightmare of modern health care, is simply because of all the paperwork involved in having a different set of papers to do with each different insurance company, with different checkboxes for different plans, and no uniformity at all. You need an army of clerks just to know which papers go where for what procedure, at a typical hospital. You have to pay for that army of clerks, the office space to hold all this paper, and the equipment to process all these papers.

Oh, and Jok3r, your manual is probably much more focused in nature than the total scope of all the regulations on the entire medical industry, from drugs to insurance to medical equipment to building codes for hospitals to licensing of doctors and nurses and emts to handling of records... and the list goes on way past that.

What have we learned in 2,064 years?


"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled,
public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be
tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should
be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to
work, instead of living on public assistance."

- Cicero - 55 BC

So, evidently nothing.

It's far easier to "hide in plain sight" when there's a shit ton of clutter.



And it's a similar thing in these regulatory agencies. http://academics.smcvt.edu/cbauer-ramazani/BU113/fed_agencies.htm Not to mention all the sub agencies and quasi-agencies:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_federal_agencies#Quasi-federal_agencies

I guess we need them to save us from ourselves.

The issue is that we are using private insurers to approve these Medicare claims, they have no incentive to prevent fraud.
Like goofus said, this isn't a case of less giverment needed but a case for more government, specifically more government to protect itself from fraud.

If you don't give a business all the tools it needs to be efficient then inefficiency is what you will get.
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At this point I think we all know where everybody stands on this issue, not sure why we keep rehashing it. Something like 80% of the US population has health insurance, and less than 50% pay federal taxes. When I saw that figure in the media a few weeks ago I thought to myself "So what's the problem?" If you're not paying taxes, contributing to society, why in the fuck would you expect health insurance? Seems to me like we're already insuring more people than we should. Having health insurance isn't in the Bill of Rights, after all.

Well I would think intelligent people are able to change their opinions based on the facts. I know it's a stretch, but I can hope...

For example, you find me a nation where totally unregulated health care (or any industry for that matter) provides for 100% of the population, and maybe I'll sing a different tune

My Mom is living pretty damn close to the poverty level, when I was a kid we were literally at the poverty level, and somehow she has managed to have health insurance her whole life. That's my personal experience, take it for what it's worth. But we were poor (and sick) and didn't need the federal government to take care of our health care expenses. My Dad had a freakin' heart attack during one period and we still managed to pay all our bills and live.

And here comes the snide remark. People have a different opinion than yours and the insinuation is they aren't intelligent.

What we all differ on isn't so much the facts, as it's the interpretation of what those facts mean, based on our personal experiences.

For clarification, what did you mean by "(and sick)"? Were there chronic conditions like diabetes or rheumatoid arthritis, or was it just constant bouts of normal illnesses, allergies, and the like? Also, what sort of insurance was she able to get, and what did it cover, and did she get assistance to pay for it?

Heart attack, cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, lupus, plus quite a few trauma related ER visits, etc.

And here comes the misunderstanding and defensive remark.

What I am saying is that it is WORTH it to keep having these types of discussions. You are saying why bother.

If people were never exposed to or open to new ideas or new facts, we would all still think the earth was flat. People can draw whatever they want from the facts, but if they never know the facts in the first place, their opinion doesn't mean much.

Msp I'd live to see what percentage of your moms pay went to health care and compare it to what people are paying now.

Without looking at the numbers I can almost guarantee you she paid a lot less or at the very least she had more coverage for the same amount of money.
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I just wanted to give msp's statement a little more clarification:

FactCheck.org: Do 40 percent of Americans pay no taxes?
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I've got no fucks left to give...

Now that very well could be, very likely in fact.

The system as it is now is very unforgiving of misfortune.

As an ideal it's fine to believe that you get what you work for in life. You can achieve anything if you work hard. Money, success etc. But the flip side is that you believe those at the bottom of society deserve to be there.

As an ideal that is fine. It's an ideal I believe in myself. But what it doesn't take into account is randomness, accidents and the like. Public health care allows for these things the way the current system doesn't. Sure there are non contributers who will enjoy the system while adding nothing, but there are also those people and families who are saved from becoming broke and made unable to contribute because of what you might call bad luck. Sudden misfortune is a reality and you cannot dismiss it or say that it was deserved.

A health care system with a little more room for unluckiness is just what the doctor ordered.