For decades, health insurance companies have been gouging working Americans. Our system is the most expensive in the world by far, and the profiteers have kept pulling the money out of our pockets by feeding the public lies. If it’s not some New York politician (with the Hollywood blonde look) on the board of directors for a medical group spreading lies about “death panels,” it’s a big pharma corp like Pfizer lying that cost control would stifle innovation.
T.R. Reid breaks down the lies in the big healthcare con. Here’s the truth about cost controls & innovation:
Overseas, strict cost controls actually drive innovation. In the United States, an MRI scan of the neck region costs about $1,500. In Japan, the identical scan costs $98. Under the pressure of cost controls, Japanese researchers found ways to perform the same diagnostic technique for one-fifteenth the American price. (And Japanese labs still make a profit.)
Cost controls drive innovation. When you tell engineers to find a cheaper way to do it, they can find it–in health care as well as in manufacturing refrigerators. But that’s just one example of how the truth is very different from what elites like Chuck Grassley and shady showbiz-types like Glenn Beck repeat over and over on TV. T.R. Reid’s Five Myths About Healthcare Around The World is a must-read article.
johnd says
I stopped reading this completely biased story when I read this peach…
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p>Which is a completely disingenuous statement since in Canada CANCER is considered non-emergency treatment so please state ir correctly that cancer patients in Canada are forced to endure weeks or months of waiting before treatment.
christopher says
Though I’ve also heard this varies greatly throughout the country. One negative among a whole host of positives. I’d still take their system over ours.
johnd says
How many Americans go to Canada for medical care? The only thing I’ve heard in Canada is cheap drugs and that should be addressed by increasing drug costs for everyone else n the world instead of Americans paying more because we can afford it.
joeltpatterson says
But so does America. I know a middle-aged California woman who ripped her ACL and fractured her tibia from a fall, but her insurance made her wait one year to fix it.
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p>Japan does not have waiting lists–so if American car companies can imitate innovations in Japanese cars, why can’t American healthcare follow the Japanese way to avoid waiting lists?
joeltpatterson says
The next paragraph on the article is
johnd says
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p>I guess what I’m saying is they are a totally different society and culture than we are and it’s very difficult to pick and chose. Or put another way… I like bacon… I like chocolate and I like chili pepper but I wouldn’t want a piece of chocolate covered bacon sprinkled with chili pepper.
joeltpatterson says
They, too, eat junk food. They have beer in vending machines over there. They sit in front of video games a lot, too.
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p>There’s not that much lifestyle difference… not enough to justify us paying twice what they pay.
fairdeal says
begins out-patient treatment for cancer that was diagnosed about 2 months ago. her hospital in ohio treats it as a ‘non-emergency’ procedure, as it is a slow moving form of cancer. she is not having to ‘endure’ anything.
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p>so be careful about painting a picture of poor canadiens wailing and rotting as they die of cancer at the bottom of a bureaucratic waiting list. that kind of hyperbole puts money in the pockets of limbaugh, beck, et al. but it does little to inform the situation.
johnd says
I found out on Dec 4th, 2008 that I should have Cardiac Oblation surgery. It wasn’t an emergency but they said they could do it Dec 11th or 19th since my DR. only operated 2 days a week. So in my case (unlike your aunt) I got treatment very quickly. Obviously we both could find thousands of cases where things happen quickly and others where they happen slowly. In Canada, the delays happen almost every time and I just heard Friday that the Canadian system is out of money and will be making severe cuts.
lightiris says
yesterday on Fresh Air. It was an informative and enlightening interview. Check it out.