What? : The US Healthcare system is a complex and ineffective system that is driving the cost of healthcare in the US to increase at a logarithmic pace, thus making it inaccessible to large portion of the population
So What?: We should be able to understand why the system is complex to start with and how it became like this . By understanding the factors that contributed to the creation of this bad system, we can better come up with solutions to solve the problems that are occurring.
Now What?: There should be application of a complex adaptive time of framework to solve all the inefficiencies in the present US healthcare system. In order to do that, Government and Private sectors have to work together to improve the healthcare status of their citizens. This can be done by enacting regulations and limiting the cost expenditures that are present.
I would agree! The US healthcare system is very inefficient and doesn’t seem to be improving in the short term. Long term there needs to be major changes for the system as a whole to improve. I work in a rural community and there are a lot of people when we inform them of their insurance coverage they are unable to receive healthcare because of the costs. There seems to be a trend that insurance companies are increasing premiums while simultaneously decreasing benefits, such as in and out of network coverage of services, copays, premiums, deductibles and out of pocket maximums.
Yes for sure, i can also discuss this based on my personal experience whilst doing my clinical fellowship training in the US. I was in Portland Oregon in a large university hospital called OHSU and i was baffled by the cost of certain modalities there. For example an MRI of the Lumbosacral spine without contrast would cost 2,500 USD out of pocket without insurance which seemed ridiculously expensive for me. I completed my orthopedic residency in Beirut (Lebanon) and an out of pocket MRI spine would cost 200 to 400$ depending on the hospital or center. Same goes for the cost of spine surgery in the US, you could easily pay 200,000 USD for a one level lumbar fusion (360 degrees) while the same surgery performed in my home country would cost 20,000 USD. I could go on and on about the ridiculousness of the price of healthcare in the US, my oldest daughter was born there also during my training. She was born by normal vaginal delivery and we stayed only for one night after birth. The bill came to approximately 70,000 USD, luckily enough, i was insured through my work and had only to pay 200$ but the way procedures and items are overcharged and prices are inflated is bound to bring the US healthcare system to a total collapse.
Yes. And those figures are typical too. Crazy to think location alone and the cost is 10%. How is insurance structured? Is it sponsored through government and covered by taxes or sponsored by private/public companies? Or both?
So insurance coverage in Lebanon is quite complex and far from ideal. It is an open market but most of the good hospitals and labs are private centers. Government hospitals are a reflection of the corrupt and inept government that we unfortunately possess. 10 to 15% of individuals have private health care insurance that they purchased themselves, 50% have National social security fund coverage which is mediocre at best in the sense that they can’t find a bed to be admitted to in most private hospitals and by the fact that they have to have a copay of at least 10%. The reason NSSF is bad is because the government who is running the fund does not reimburse the hospital or the physicians on time. In fact based on personal experience, i have operated on a lot if patients with NSSF coverage over the course of 5 years there and i have yet no money from the surgeries that i performed! About 30% have ministry of Health coverage (similar to Medicare in the US, where elderly above the age of 65 have free health insurance). Of course MOH coverage is a real sham too since it covers only basic and rudimentary services and it is almost impossible to get those patients admitted to a decent hospital. Of course reimbursements are delayed extensively to hospitals and physicians making it unattractive to take care of those patients. About 20% (rest of the population) have no health insurance at all and pay from out of pocket. Our Healthcare system is also under strain from the massive influx of refugees to my small country. We are a really small country with a surface area of 10,452 Km2 and a population of 4.5 million only. We accepted 1.5 to 2 million syrian refugees since 2011 and had already 1.5 million Palestinian refugees from the previous 15 years civil war. When i get called to the ER to take care of a refugee who got hit by a car accident, i don’t think about coverage but this is undeniably putting a huge strain on our poor economy and is bound to cause repercussions. Most of the foreign aid sent for those refugees is being confiscated and sold in the black market. This is just a summary of how the healthcare system is divided there. sorry for the long post.
That sounds very complex on many different levels. Hopefully over time it’ll improve.
I so agree with you that access to healthcare is something this nation is lacking! So many populations are suffering from chronic, preventative illnesses due to this lack of access to healthcare as well as poor representation by policy and procedure. I come from a very rural area where citizens have been known to suffer from illnesses, sometimes resulting in death, or drive two hours one-way to seek medical care. For populations in poverty, this is not feasible. I believe it comes down to the morality of our healthcare and government system. Reform!
I agree with you Katy completely. I have been offered a lot of jobs in the US after i finished my 2 fellowships there. I have gone and interviewed in underserved areas and i could not believe the sorry state those hospitals where in. The closest decent medical center would be 2 hours away. I attribute this problem to the fact that the US medical healthcare system was geared towards acute care conditions and did not evolve to meet the requirements of an aging population. There is significant increase in the number of elderly people in the US with Chronic medical conditions that necessitate long term care. This is putting a strain on the system there since there are no infrastructure to accommodate those diseases. This would eventually results in driving the cost of healthcare up and would bring the quality of the healthcare offered down.