Medical Healthcare System

[earthfriendly]

The megoliath health insurance industry in USA becomes an added cost and bureacracy to the individual. Dis-empowering them and taking away ownership. Do we really need such a middleman? T'is another example of "nannying" by the SG govt.



http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/20 ... 70fc0e5ac9

[taxico]

watching the press conference now... trump's "repealing and replacing" obamacare...

[earthfriendly]

The can do attitudes of AmeriCANs.

http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/ ... -practice/

[earthfriendly]

Proposing a mandatory healthcare savings account for American citizens that covers major illnesses, akin to the SG model
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/18/opin ... .html?_r=0

[earthfriendly]

Due to the pecking order nature of human societies, there will always be that one major player (the one with power and authority) that dominates and dictates our lives. In USA, it is the businesses and special interest groups. In SG, it is The Almighty govt. Which one will have the interest of the entire nation at heart? Giving complete power to govt in the name of cost effectiveness, is it a necessary evil? I dunno !

Singapore is unusually secretive about how its pharmaceutical decisions are made — Britain’s much-criticized National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, which makes decisions about which drugs will qualify for public funds, is far more transparent. A previous health minister of Singapore says the opacity is to prevent “intense lobbying by pharmaceutical companies” — what they want are pharmaceutical companies selling all drugs at low prices in the hopes of getting onto the standard list. That’s how Singapore uses their subsidies to lower prices not just for the subsidized but for everyone.

Compare all this with America, where Medicare is prohibited, by law, from negotiating down the price of pharmaceuticals, even for its own enrollees!

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/ ... -explained

[earthfriendly]

The Singaporean system is possible because the government keeps costs so low.

Please keep it that way, eh. Cause I like having plenty of $$$$$ in my savings .

it’s very challenging to design high-performing, clean systems that we could smoothly transition to from here, given how many hospitals and doctors and employers and even patients are dependent on the money flowing through system we have, and would viciously fight efforts to upend it.

And not forgetting the middlemen i.e. the health insurance companies. Aetna, Anthem, Blue Cross .......the agents, brokers, staffing to process the claims, those that navigate thru the myriad cycles of co-pay, co-insurance, deductibles and patients portions. Ooops, I am getting a headache and need my pill now . Just remember this, it all comes out of our pockets. And that money does not go towards paying for direct healthcare expenses.

[earthfriendly]

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/08/forget-t ... e=Facebook

[earthfriendly]

AI may alleviate the problem but ultimately the process needs to be trimmed and simplified lah, to keep the cost down.

"Since a neonatal intensive care unit stay often results in medical bills with over 5,000 line items, using a human employee to find all the overcharges in that bill would be very expensive for a company and they would likely miss errors reviewing every single line by hand." ..... so unnecessary

https://www.thestreet.com/story/1413163 ... -jobs.html

[earthfriendly]

World domination of the consumer pharmaceutical market?

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/16/amazon-s ... icals.html

It is expensive to develope new drugs / medical devices / procedures . If consumer pressure results in profit margin that is too low for these companies to undertake the risk of R & D, we may end up with less of it. So, be very careful of what we wish for.

And I am not saying that there is no ongoing gouging by the big pharma, either .