If it ain't a mess it'll do 'til one gets here.



                                \\\healthcare costs\\\




Time Magazine article from 2013:
http://time.com/198/bitter-pill-why-medical-bills-are-killing-us/


$1.50 for a single 325mg tablet of acetaminophen is only the start.

400% markup on a cancer drug. Why? Because they said so.

And because their stockholders or administrators would like to make
more money, and they're in a position to just charge you more.


Pricing as  'what the  market will bear'  has eaten  the healthcare
industry  and  turned its  lopsided  market  advantages versus  its
'customers' into something  obscene. No one involved  wants to talk
about it. The reality is  that the healthcare industry - insurance,
hospital 'systems', administrators, and equipment manufacturers are
slowly but surely strangling the rest of the entire US economy.

They are bribing our elected officials to look the other way.


Other countries  of the  world are  not doing this.  That is  not a
coincidence.


The  simple fact  is  that  someone, somehow,  /must/  rein in  the
profits of the medical industry so that they are not a drain on the
entire rest of our economy in the US. Otherwise it will continue to
be very good for their stockholders and the administrators of these
companies and very bad for, well, /all of the rest of us/.

Medical bills have been one  of the leading causes of bankruptcies,
home foreclosures, and similar  personal and family financial melt-
downs for quite some time. The pace of that will only accelerate if
we let it, if we don't do something about it.

Two points  from a site  dedicated to bankruptcy  information (Dec.
2017) (https://www.natlbankruptcy.com/us-medical-debt-statistics/):

  About 1 in 10 adults delay medical care.

  1 in  5 working-age  Americans with  health insurance  still have
  trouble paying off their medical bills.


The Affordable Care  Act attempted to start at  getting these costs
under control. The  lobbyists made sure to crush  the public option
and  keep things  in  private  insurance. The  ACA  has been  under
ideological attack pretty much since it  was signed into law and is
gradually being whittled away. There is  no real plan to replace it
with  anything functional  by  those doing  the whittling,  despite
repeated promises by  that party that their  solution to healthcare
costs is being developed. They will have it ready for us to look at
Real Soon Now.

Their plan  is apparently to  make their  money while they  can and
hope someone  else solves this  problem or they're dead  before the
other shoe falls.


It is interesting to note that  the crippling rise of medical costs
was identified  by W.  Edwards Deming  as one  of the  Seven Deadly
Diseases of American industry back in the 1980's (deadly disease #6
to be  precise). So you  can't say we haven't  been aware of  it or
that  we  don't  know  the  origin of  the  problem.  We  know  the
consequences and we know that we  can do something about them if we
can stop Congress from listening to that industry's lobbyists for a
moment or two.


The   healthcare  situation,   much   like   the  food   insecurity
(starvation) situation, is  one that people tend to  turn away from
though,  either because  they  feel  helpless in  the  face of  the
enormity  of  the problems  or  because  the suffering  makes  them
uncomfortable - or  because of the knowledge of 'there  but for the
grace  of  (something)  go  I  and everyone  that  I  care  about'.
Regardless, people that aren't directly faced with it let those who
are handle it on their own -  on both the personal and the national
level.


https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=678749817

   "All  told, the  Canos spend  about 15  percent of  their annual
   income on health care"

   "Mostly  to pay  off that  health  care debt,  Robert has  taken
   several part-time  gigs this year  - as a substitute  teacher, a
   nighttime security guard and a  sandwich deliveryman for a fast-
   food chain in Scottsdale, 40  miles away, where tips are better.
   He said he sometimes works up to 120 hours in a week."


                         So much  for 'if  you work hard  you won't
                         end up in debt and penniless'.


What happened  to "We must all  hang together or we  shall all hang
separately"? We are all hanging separately.


If this were  the 1700's in America the response  by citizens being
sold out to  this degree by their  'representatives' would probably
have involved  hot tar and feathers  (or worse). I'm not  sure what
the modern equivalent to that really  is, but if we don't figure it
out  we may  just have  to resort  to 1700's  methods to  get their
attention and realign their priorities  in Congress before it's too
late.


                                            NO CARRIER