Greedy America and Healthcare

[Vidal]

Healthcare in America is based on greed. This means some people in the healthcare field are getting rich while tens of millions of Americans are thrown into poverty and bankruptcy due to their excessive healthcare costs.

In America, over 35,000 people die each year because they can't afford health insurance.

In America, the average family spends $10,000 per year on health insurance premiums with another $8,000 per year in deductibles.

Most plans now also require co-insurance payments, which require that, even once you meet your deductible, you continue paying some percentage (usually 20%) of all costs.

In America, many people who HAVE health insurance still go bankrupt and slide into poverty due to the greed-based pricing of health services.

The fortunate few who are getting rich off of other people's misery are laughing all the way to the bank. Doctors and corporations have one primary goal: make as much money as possible.

This situation will continue so long as Americans continue to allow the greedy, selfish people to control our healthcare system.

America is the ONLY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD where healthcare is driven by profits and greed instead of focusing on health and taking care of people.

We need only look to other countries for examples of what we can do to fix our broken healthcare system that is bankrupting millions of people and eventually our entire country.

[YOHABLO]

1. Well you have surgeons that are multi millionaires. They're not going to give $$$ that up

[Vidal]

2. Right

I know you are right so we have to make changes even though doctors will do everything they can to stop the changes from happening.

[Merlot]

3. Surgeons, really? That's the problem?

Surgeons have a skill and provide a service. They can save a life.

Health care executives are parasites. And insurance companies are giving doctors less compensation, more billing headaches, and in general trying to degrade the profession.

[Vidal]

4. Doctors ARE part of the problem

Going back to 1947, when the AMA killed universal healthcare in the U.S.

The AMA has always restricted entry into the field, and has worked hard to inflate doctor incomes.

Look at other countries and you'll see this also.

Doctors do not want to change a system that inflates their incomes no matter how many people die due to lack of healthcare.

[MichMary]

6. I'm actually kind of glad the AMA restricts entry

I really like knowing when I walk into a doc's office that he is among the best and brightest.

Do YOU think they should admit everyone?

[Lurks Often]

5. You forgot medical schools profiting as well

Getting a MD from the University of Connecticut costs a minimum of $67, 319 for 4 years and goes up from there and while UCONN is a decent school, it isn't one of the prestigious medical schools: https://health.uconn.edu/student-services/financial-aid/tuition-and-fees/

I rather doubt the medical schools and their instructors are going to lower tuition and take pay cuts willingly.

[tblue37]

8. My daughter went to Georgetown med school. She graduated with $212,000 in debt--all

from med school, because she had a full scholarship for her undergraduate degree.

Since she did two different residencies, by the time she could start paying down her med school debt it had ballooned to $300,000.

Other countries subsidize training for needed professionals like doctors. We force ours to hang overwhelming debt around their necks at the start of their professional life, so they can't afford to buy a house or have kids if they want to pay down that debt.

These professionals therefore really need to make enough money to pay off their debt. At 36, my daughter finally felt she had paid off enough to buy a house with her fiance, but she still owes well over $100,000 on her med school debt, and now she is also carrying a mortgage. She wants kids, but she is working so much to earn enough to finish paying off that debt that she fears she won't be able to spend enough time with her kid if she has one.

And she fears that even if she has one, she won't be able to have another, though she wants two, because she is getting past prime pregnancy age and also because pregnancy, especially at her age, might force her to work less and thus earn less, and she has debt to pay down.

[MichMary]

7. Doctors' primary goal is to make

as much $$$ as possible? Really?

Do you have any idea what they give up to get where they're at? I had a Harvard-trained surgeon who remarked that he hadn't seen some of the major sights in Boston, because he was "always" at the hospital. Yeah, he was one of those $multi-million/year guys, but he earned every penny of it.