Healthcare

Is it a right?

Absolutely not. Is it a right to take care of your body?

Responsibility.

Not trying to derail your thread .but I call it wealth care Doctors ,insurance companies and pharmacies get wealthy And that is their right to get rich off of your medical problerms

I’m curious, how much debt did you accumulate to learn how to do what you do? Sleepless nights studying?

It's not a right, it's a racquet. Or racket. Give me all your money, plus some, or you will die.
Yes, edjumication is expensive but they can pay it off in a couple years, or some facilities will pay student loans off for a Dr if they will come work at their facility.

Sounds like some of you are for salary caps on workers.

How do you feel about caps on price/acre?

Houses?

I don't think doctors earn an excessive amount of money given the level of their education, responsibility, training, and hard work they put in.

Health care is certainly not a right.

The problem with our health care system is that the consumer is completely isolated from the cost and benefit decision making. We need to bring free market forces to bear on the health care industry.

Because they don’t ask or pay attention to it.

Good thread

There is no right to healthcare.

When you start out $550k into debt you’ve got to have something to get you back out of the hole. The last earnings report I saw on our system was 7 million in “charity” care given out to people that already view it as a right (that’s in one fiscal year). Employees pay nearly another mortgage for family health insurance. The system is broken and really went out of control with entitlement during the ACA tenure.

absolutely not a right

It's not a right. It is a racket though. It's not doctors. It's the administrators. The system is broke. If you're in for an extended stay, ask for your bill and a breakdown of the costs and look it over. When you need a box of Kleenex and they charge you double for what it is in the store, imagine how much they raise the price on everything else. Notice how hospitals are always building? They need your money.

If health care is a right, then a doctor could conceivably be forced to practice without compensation.

It's about right to access vs right of provision. Access to healthcare is a right, but having it provided to you is not a right. Nobody should be prevented from seeing the doctor if they have the means to pay, and as far as I know, anybody in America who wants to see a doctor and can pay is free to do so. Along the same lines, access to a gun is a right, having one provided to you free of charge is not a right. Freedom of the press is a right, that doesn't mean you will be provided with a building, paper, ink, and a printing press.

Nope. Part of a socialist platform that sounds really good to the uninitiated.

Health care is a service provided by highly trained and well paid professionals. If health care was a "human right" as Bernie says, then we should be providing it to all the humans on earth, even those in destitute countries where parents can't afford to feed their children. They also are humans after all and what right do we have to deny them the best care we can afford.

In a nutshell this is how I feel.

It would be nice if healthcare was a right and everyone had free access to great healthcare but it's not possible. The only way to make it free is to take money from the people to pay for it - which makes it not free. The "right" to free healthcare is just a shell game to trick people out of their votes.

The other question - Do doctors make too much money? There is only one thing that determines a person's income. That is how difficult it is to enter their particular job. The more barriers to entry, the higher the pay. Becoming a medical doctor has a lot of barriers. Every one of us that is complaining about their salary made a choice not to do that job because we thought it was going to be too hard.

There are two problems with the health care industry --- the lawyers, and the insurance companies. Get rid of those and after a few years it would sort itself out.

I think the conversation about whether health care is a right and the conversation about the cost of health care are two separate conversations. Even if you could get open heart surgery for $1.99, that doesn't mean you have a right to force someone else to pay the $1.99 if you can't afford it.

Part of the issue in the USA and probably other nations is do we encourage or fund proper or better health care preventative programs, measures etc.? Preventative health care is much lower cost than the specialty areas of higher medicine and that is one reason doctor candidates choose specialties so they can gain higher incomes and revenues. We will always need specialty medicine but are we cutting better preventative care to fund dealing with reactionary or treatment medicine? Typically many feel that preventative medicine is more apt to be a more socialistic form of medicine and maybe it is, I don't know if that is true or not. More preventative medicine would most certainly attract more users and patients and those cost need to be covered by someone, or in some way.

Bryce

A lot of preventive care is good lifestyle choices that cost no more than and likely less than poor lifestyle choices.

What people stick in their mouth and how much, whether they choose to walk or ride has a lot to do with the amount of money people pay for.healthcare over their lifetime.

I, personally, feel that they earn a disproportionate wage compared to all of the support staff that they hide behind!

No doubt it is cheaper to go to a Shaman than a doctor for healthcare.

Do nurses and such carry malpractice insurance?

Hobbie, to answer your question yes nurses can carry malpractice. Most healthcare systems have some form of malpractice coverage over the employees as well. That being said when there’s litigation will they go after the person making 45-50k a year or 200k?

I work hard but I can't afford to go to the Dr. Lab work alone is over $1000 here. Yet Medicaid patients pay nothing for care. I refuse to pay $500/month for insurance. Then there's still deductible, copay, and 20% up to 10,000 even if you to have insurance. Forget it.

I'm in the same boat. I have group insurance here at work. But the deductibles and co-payments are so high that if I ever have a claim, My savings account is going to be completely wiped out anyway. So, there's really not much point in having the insurance.

I have a knee joint that is killing me and preventing me from hiking, running, and doing most lower body weight lifting. I really want to get it fixed. But I know from personal experience that if I got see an orthopedist, before he can/will give me any treatment I will have to go get an MRI ($4,000) and then go to physical therapy for three months - ($3,000). Then when all my money is gone, they will see if they can give me some treatment. Last time I had a problem with my shoulder, I went through that process, lost thousands in tests, lost wages, and useless and ineffective physical therapy. After they bled me dry, the doctor gave me a shot of cortisone that probably cost him $4 and my shoulder has been fine ever since.

I think it's waggler who says it's cheaper to fly to Indonesia or someplace in Asia where you can get better care at lower cost than if you go to a doctor here in the US.