Medical Cost

[ultrarunner]

I don't have a problem with employers offering a healthcare plan. It is a benefit to all employees. My issue is with the for profit hospitals. Affordable healthcare starts when people aren't making money off of others health needs. We will never stop the outrageous prescription prices, too many are lining their pockets by keeping them high.

Pharmaceuticals should not be linked with hospitals…

They are very distinct in my opinion.

Maybe one solution is to not patronize for profit hospitals?

Most counties have county hospitals and some counties have several county hospitals as mine does.

County hospitals are happy to accept insured and cash pay patients.

It is said if you are a gunshot victim the most experienced emergency rooms for gunshots is county.

Also, mental health hospitals are often mostly goverment.

I like having options and researching ahead of time is time well spent.

Often the for profit buyers throw a lifeline to a hospital that would otherwise go dark…

Published fee schedules vary greatly and a great way one can research offerings.

 

[Jstpssng]

Often the for profit buyers throw a lifeline to a hospital that would otherwise go dark…

It's going in the other direction here...
A for profit bought up most of the smaller facilities over the past couple of decades. Now they are in free fall so are closing some facilities and cutting services in others.

 

[ultrarunner]

Maybe to consolidate market share?

Some California regions are basically sole provider…

Being a sole provider in a region often means a take it or leave it regarding insurance contracts.

Rural and small hospitals continue to close due to finances.

It's going in the other direction here...
A for profit bought up most of the smaller facilities over the past couple of decades. Now they are in free fall so are closing some facilities and cutting services in others.

 

[JasperFrank]

I don't have a problem with employers offering a healthcare plan. It is a benefit to all employees. My issue is with the for profit hospitals. Affordable healthcare starts when people aren't making money off of others health needs. We will never stop the outrageous prescription prices, too many are lining their pockets by keeping them high.

I had a friend that was an editor for an in industry mag dealing with big pharma. He said something interesting to me. He said the whole world is so concerned about illegal drugs, when the real money is in the restricted, though, legal drugs. And he was right about that. The prescriptive market is protected by US Law. And under patent protection, no one can make a generic till the patents expire. Till then, they can charge what ever they want.

 

[gsganzer]

I had a friend that was an editor for an in industry mag dealing with big pharma. He said something interesting to me. He said the whole world is so concerned about illegal drugs, when the real money is in the restricted, though, legal drugs. And he was right about that. The prescriptive market is protected by US Law. And under patent protection, no one can make a generic till the patents expire. Till then, they can charge what ever they want.

The reality is the patentee, finds a re-listing for their drug and buys out the generic and closes it. Therefor guaranteeing their over pricing for a number of years,

 

[Mtsoxfan]

Pharmaceuticals should not be linked with hospitals…

They are very distinct in my opinion.

Maybe one solution is to not patronize for profit hospitals?

Most counties have county hospitals and some counties have several county hospitals as mine does.

County hospitals are happy to accept insured and cash pay patients.

It is said if you are a gunshot victim the most experienced emergency rooms for gunshots is county.

Also, mental health hospitals are often mostly goverment.

I like having options and researching ahead of time is time well spent.

Often the for profit buyers throw a lifeline to a hospital that would otherwise go dark…

Published fee schedules vary greatly and a great way one can research offerings.

Where we are, East Coast, for profit hospitals are the norm. +++ Pharmaceuticals should not be tied. I relate this to the food service industry from which I am from. As part of a food group company, we were tied to SYSCO for the majority of our products. We assumed our company was getting kickbacks, no proof, as we could buy most items cheaper from competitors.

 

[kenmbz]

Most of the medical test books used in colleges are written by or sponsored by the Pharmaceutical companies.

 

[Markopolo645]

As a preamble, I'm not an MD, or a licensed healthcare professional.

One way to improve that might be to give the networks permission to access the other network's information. I've had to do it a couple of times, and then professionals on all sides can see everyone's prescriptions, and perhaps more importantly, their internal software has a chance to flag potential counter indications and side effects.

As a general comment: clinical trials to approve any given drug are generally set up so the single drug is given to one group of patients and the current "recommended" drug is given to the other. For some trials, the two groups may be switched half way through. Unless disease or disorder requires multiple drugs as a starting point, most drugs aren't tested with other drugs. That means that drug interactions between two or more drugs are almost entirely worked out in patients after approvals, with patients who have a variety of disease(s) states, and backgrounds. So if drug #1 plus 2,3,4 causes something unwanted, often all four drugs will get tagged with a contraindication, even though some other combination of those drugs with a fifth, or all but one, might work.

I think that multiple drug therapy is very complicated adhd treatment Chandler, but when the doctor decides that the patient needs it, that's not my call.

All the best, Peter

While clinical trials are designed to test drugs in isolation or against a standard treatment, real-world patients often require multiple medications at once, which introduces interactions that weren’t fully studied beforehand.

 

[ponytug]

While clinical trials are designed to test drugs in isolation or against a standard treatment, real-world patients often require multiple medications at once, which introduces interactions that weren’t fully studied beforehand.

Yes, polypharmacy is definitely an issue, as is genetic diversity in patients. If the drugs are related to a single condition, trials are often run on top of, i.e. in addition to other drugs, but by no means always.

Clinical trials cost money, often a great deal of money, so the pressures to keep the trial simple to clearly identify the action of the new drug are enormous. A company I know of, met all of its previously agreed clinical endpoints that the FDA had asked for to approve the drug. Then a competitor, with an unrelated molecule experienced significant cardiac side effects in its patients. The FDA then asked the company that I know to repeat the phase III trial with cardiac monitoring. Cost? An extra $100,000,000, twenty odd years ago.

Sometimes the FDA will allow drugs on to the market with the requirement that early patients be followed to look for rare issues, or polypharmacy effects. (Phase IV trials)

All the best,

Peter

 

[not2old]

I have been curious to see an analysis that compares the costs under both systems: Canadian taxes versus US insurance premiums, high billing rates, and co-pays. I wonder which costs more to the patient?

The cost of our health care here is buried in our income taxes so It would be difficult to calculate. Our provincial government quit charging premiums several years ago so there are no direct costs to the patient. Someone mentioned over $2000 a month for premiums. We are retired with total income similar to a tradesman and pay about that in total income tax.