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from the if-you-think-healthcare-is-expensive,-try-going-without-it dept.
A new analysis by researchers from Brown University and the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation has found that nonfatal injuries in the U.S. in the year 2013 cost more than $1.8 trillion.
And nearly all injures are preventable, said Dr. Mark Zonfrillo, an associate professor at Brown University's Warren Alpert Medical School and a pediatric emergency medicine physician at Hasbro Children's Hospital.
The study, led by Zonfrillo, found that in 2013 about one in 10 individuals in the U.S. was treated for an injury at a hospital, resulting in an annual cost of $1.853 trillion. The findings were published on Monday, Oct. 8, in the journal Injury Epidemiology.
Annual price tag for non-fatal injuries in the US tops $1.8 trillion
[Also Covered By]: EurekAlert
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 12 2018, @07:43PM (7 children)
You were speaking of reducing it by a factor of four. Sure, I buy that we can reduce such things by a factor of two. But as in the two examples I gave of US single payer systems, don't expect single payer to fix what's broken. You'll need more than that.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday October 12 2018, @09:00PM (6 children)
More than the fact that single payer works everywhere else in the 1st world?
More than the obvious efficiency of eliminating the huge administrative overhead of crazy cross billing?
More than the obvious simplification for every citizen of not having to wonder how many different entities are planning to bill them for a single visit to the ER? And having to go through the process of submitting (and re-submitting) to insurance for each?
If you just enjoy throwing away money, I'll tell you what, we can go to single payer universal healthcare and you can write me a check for whatever amount you feel you underpaid. I'll even let you decide what interval you'd like to send the checks.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 12 2018, @09:06PM (5 children)
Let's not get hasty. We don't actually know that they work. A key problem is that everyone's health care consumption is going up as a fraction of GDP. I think the US is merely in first place in exploring how bad one can make this problem. But the others will arrive in time.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday October 12 2018, @09:40PM (4 children)
We do know they all pay less than the U.S. and I have already given several plausible reasons. We also know that most people would appreciate the financial certainty that comes from universal single payer. The rest of the world is flabbergasted that Americans actually go bankrupt from medical bills
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday October 13 2018, @06:27AM (3 children)
Would those people also appreciate the financial uncertainty that comes from a government that can't pay for basic services because it's paying for health care instead?
My rebuttal here is that single payer fails too, just slower than the US system. Single payer isolates the purchaser of health care from the costs of their purchase. I think that'll be what destroys any single payer system in the long term. There's no end to the wants of patients using the system, but there is a limit to society's ability to pay for those wants. And spending on health care as a fraction of GDP has been going up over the past few decades as one would expect in this situation for the developed world.
The problem is that one can bankrupt countries like one can bankrupt people.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday October 13 2018, @02:14PM (2 children)
Expenditure/GDP is going up faster in the U.S. than it is where socialized healthcare is implemented. That trend was firmly in place before AHA as well, so don't bother blaming Obama.
You seem to be assuming that healthcare demand is fully elastic. It is not. The situation of go to the ER or die comes up too often to call healthcare demand elastic.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday October 13 2018, @06:22PM (1 child)
Yes, but that just means the US is failing faster than elsewhere.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday October 13 2018, @07:28PM
So, you prefer to fail bigger and faster?