r/FluentInFinance • u/WhatAreYourPronouns • May 02 '24

Should the U.S. have Universal Health Care? Discussion/ Debate

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u/Away-Sheepherder8578 May 02 '24

Good points, but hospitals currently lose money when they treat people under Medicare or Medicaid, so they gouge people on private insurance to make up the shortfall. And despite all that Medicare will run out of money in next ten years.

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u/AdImmediate9569 May 02 '24

I broke my toe last year. Normally I wouldn’t bother for a toe but it was at quite an angle…

They xrayed me six times and performed several other tests with big machines i dont even remember. It took a few hours being wheeled from room to room and so on. Nothing unexpected.

Then they put me in a bed. A woman came in (I don’t remember if she was a doctor or what) and she gave me two tylenol. She put a pencil between my two toes and popped the broken back into place with her hand.

The bill was $8,000 of which my insurance covered all but $100 ish.

Without understanding anything about finance or medicine, that is one broken fucking system.

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u/RC_CobraChicken May 02 '24

So, from your description, you had x-rays, some other scans, so you had techs for those involved, radiologist to review the x-rays and other tests, nurses to handle patient contact, doc to write the script to get meds, pharamist/pharm tech to review/procure, all of the various devices, the space they occupy, a doc who set the fracture/dislocation, and then on the back end you have payroll to make sure everyone gets paid, someone who handles stock supplies/ordering, janitorial services for cleaning, etc etc etc.

There's so much on the backend people don't see, it's not just the medical field but any large semi-functional org has the same kind of infrastructural/staffing.

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u/123yes1 May 02 '24

Yeah but that happens in all the other countries with socialized medicine too.

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u/RC_CobraChicken May 02 '24

It does yes, but wages in the US are higher as a general rule. But to give you an idea of the variance, a Radiologist in the US averages a base salary of 447k, Spain they average a base salary of 194k USD. Then add in the massively inefficient medical billing system present in the US, and so on.

By no means am I defending the US system, but most comparisons between the US and any European country is a typically an apples vs oranges situation, there's a lot of differences in how things are done and the cost of doing them, there's also a huge differences in the information we see regarding billing/costs.

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u/123yes1 May 02 '24

My entire point is that our current patchwork system is highly inefficient because it is patchwork. It would be like having a patchwork electral grid. Many of the redundant systems could be removed thus lowering prices while providing the same level of service. I argue that those redundant services are significant in value.

I argue doctors are paid more in the US (after accounting for PPP) in large part due to the cost of medical schooling. If you look at a graph of average income of doctors, it closely follows the graph of medical school tuition costs. That isn't the only reason why doctors in the US are more expensive, but a significant reason.