Overtreatment of Medicare Patients

[merig00.livejournal.com]

as per mylaptopisevil  request

Comments

[polyanarch.livejournal.com]

Single-payer FTW!

[syndicalist.livejournal.com]

Yeah it's hilarious when the elderly are, um "over treated."

I wish that was a problem.

[xforge.livejournal.com]

Honestly it is, but it's not THE problem or even a really tragic problem. But what's the name of that teensy town in Texas where they spend like, $25,000 a year per person on health care? And it turns out it's a pretty deliberate thing arranged to make obscene profits by overbilling Medicare and insurers? Yeah, that.

[syndicalist.livejournal.com]

America spends twice as much on health care as all other Western nations, who all have universal health care.

Corrupt doctors are one thing, but overall the problem with our system is not that it over treats people. There are corrupt defense industry contractors ($400 for a screwdriver, etc.), but I have seen few arguments for eliminating the Dept of Defense.

[xforge.livejournal.com]

Noooo, don't get me wrong; I'm such a fervent single-payer supporter that those words have the same effect on me as the words "Australian supermodel" do. It's just another thing we need to fix, y'know?

[jessica-leah.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't that be fraudulent on the doctors' or hospital's part?

How is that Medicare's problem?

[xforge.livejournal.com]

No, don't misinterpret. I'm not on the "Medicare is faulty" bandwagon; I'm totally a single-payer fanatic. I just mean it's another of the things we need to fix, and how would that particular thing be fixed? Why, WITH MORE REGULATION, Forge, that's how. = )

[funnygurusdca.livejournal.com]

McAllen Texas - and here's an article about it ...
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01/090601fa_fact_gawande

[dwer.livejournal.com]

it's funny because it doesn't say if it's about medicare, or if it's about doctors and hospitals that defraud the public about how they overbill medicare!

[mylaptopisevil.livejournal.com]

it's funny because it is not based in reality

[merig00.livejournal.com]

That's all you've got?

[mylaptopisevil.livejournal.com]

If the cartoonist doesn't try, I don't see why I should

[edgar-suit.livejournal.com]

Excellent discussion on NPR about this a week or so ago. "Are Doctor's The Problem" I think was the title.

It's a catch-22. If the doctor doesn't run every examination and the patient dies, law suit. If the doctor does run every examination then he's over treated.

[merig00.livejournal.com]

There's also the Medicaid doesn't pay enough so doctors come up with bogus reasons for tests to get more out of Medicaid.

[unnamed525.livejournal.com]

That doesn't make any sense at all. Each test costs money and if what Medicaid pays doesn't cover the cost of any of the tests performed, the doctor isn't getting any more money by having more tests performed. They'd be losing money.

[merig00.livejournal.com]

What i meant is that medicaid pays less then private insurance.

[unnamed525.livejournal.com]

If the private insurance pays at all, which isn't a given.

[xforge.livejournal.com]

Ever.

[jlc20thmaine.livejournal.com]

Private still pays more than medicaid

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

RIiiiight, because doctors are some of our poorest citizens.

[merig00.livejournal.com]

Ok let's see... average salary of an entry level plumber is about $40,000. Average salary of internal medicine doctor after residency about $140,000. Now to oversimplify lets take the salary and divide by number of years that person studied to get to that position.

Plumber: $40,000 / 4 years of HS = $10,000/year
Doctor: $140,000 / 4 years of HS + 4 years for BS + 4 years for MD + 2 years of residency = $14,000/year

This is incredibly simplified. I'm not talking about the cost of education or the examinations or responsibility doctors hold toward patients life.

So I'm wondering why noone has a problem with plumber charging $300 to dig in your shit when you droped Bounty into the toilet and whining about protcologist charging $400 to look at your colon?

[merig00.livejournal.com]

See even better. 10k each. Why is it meaningless. A person makes an investment into his own education - the more you invest for longer therm the bigger is the payout.

As I said this is oversimplification but you probably know the higher your degree the more certificates and diplomas you have the higher will be your pay.

It is the same for plumber and doctors. If a plumber goes through with certifications he'll get paid way more.

Show me a poor doctor living on 14k a year.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

"This is incredibly over>simplified, to the point of being total bullshit."

Fixed that for you.

Re: Show me a poor doctor living on 14k a year.

[merig00.livejournal.com]

should I pat you on the head now?

Depends.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

Should I bend you over now?

Re: Depends.

[merig00.livejournal.com]

aww you are a little person?! Is that a correct PC term? I don't want to offend you.

[jlc20thmaine.livejournal.com]

internal med docs don't make $140k a year. It's less than that, and their residency is longer, plus you forgot about fellowhips, plus they have college and med school loans.

[merig00.livejournal.com]

I wanted to keep it as simple as possible.

[jessica-leah.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Our current system is messed up from all sides. The amount of duplication and wasted time/energy/resources boggles the mind.

[xforge.livejournal.com]

Or would if the human mind could even begin to comprehend the vastness of such a cluster-f.

[funnygurusdca.livejournal.com]

I'm disabled and on Medicare and you obviously don't know the first goddamn thing about Medicare.

What a bullshit cartoon!

[merig00.livejournal.com]

$311,000,000 ($311 million): The amount of additional funding requested last month by the Obama administration simply to combat Medicare fraud. Medicare fraud is estimated at $60 billion annually.

[donolectic.livejournal.com]

I don't understand your point. Maybe you're commending Obama for fighting private business and individuals illegally defrauding the government after years of neglect by the previous administration?

Do you believe that fraud doesn't exist in the private sector?

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

I guess this is a problem, but I think people getting no health care at all is a bigger problem.

This problem isn't solved by making insurance companies overrule doctors.

Imagine if your wife had cancer and the insurance company denied an exploratory test. How would you feel?

[star-white.livejournal.com]

Imagine if your wife had cancer and the insurance company denied an exploratory test. How would you feel?

Id feel like I feel right now when I want a doctor's opinion about something I am experiencing with great discomfort but have no health care, alone.

[merig00.livejournal.com]

The problem is solved by making insurance affordable but also in check with rules of the market.

The problem with the reform the way I see it is that there are about 16 different suggestions how to reform the healthcare and we are talking only about one of them. And half of the democrats I talk to are whining that single payer system is not on the table.

If Obama had his cute town hall meeting and explained why his program is better then others without OMG WE HAVE TO ACT NOW OR ELSE maybe there would be less discourse.

[merig00.livejournal.com]

you are saying that like this country doesn't have even one non-profit organization that helps people in need.

[merig00.livejournal.com]

So what's your point again?