Sorry, I was on my way out the door so I didn't finish my thought.
If you can't afford to pay for insurance, you sure as hell can't afford to pay a $100k medical bill. Doctors offices, pharmacies, and hospitals are all businesses, so they have to recoup the lost revenue somewhere, usually in the form of higher costs for everyone else. And then the next person who comes along can't pay the even higher price defaults on their bill, lather, rinse, repeat.
Malpractice and the litigious tendency of the American public certainly plays a part, as do the inadequate drug testing methods employed by certain pharmaceutical companies, which result in more lawsuits, which result in higher costs for the consumer and drug industry claims of less available revenue for testing, which results in less rigorous trials, which results in more lawsuits. See above re: lather, rinse repeat. Same goes for medical equipment manufacturers.
And then you have the current administration's utter refusal to reign in the pharmaceutical industry and their relentless profiteering. There is no reason on earth why the same drug made by the same company should cost 2-20 times what it does than if sold for veterinary use or is marketed in another country.
In short, the whole system is diseased. But by helping people to manage their insurance costs and get preventive care, the theory is that it'll start to reign in the utter insanity that exists in the other parts of the healthcare business.
If you can't afford to pay for insurance, you sure as hell can't afford to pay a $100k medical bill. Doctors offices, pharmacies, and hospitals are all businesses, so they have to recoup the lost revenue somewhere, usually in the form of higher costs for everyone else. And then the next person who comes along can't pay the even higher price defaults on their bill, lather, rinse, repeat.
Malpractice and the litigious tendency of the American public certainly plays a part, as do the inadequate drug testing methods employed by certain pharmaceutical companies, which result in more lawsuits, which result in higher costs for the consumer and drug industry claims of less available revenue for testing, which results in less rigorous trials, which results in more lawsuits. See above re: lather, rinse repeat. Same goes for medical equipment manufacturers.
And then you have the current administration's utter refusal to reign in the pharmaceutical industry and their relentless profiteering. There is no reason on earth why the same drug made by the same company should cost 2-20 times what it does than if sold for veterinary use or is marketed in another country.
In short, the whole system is diseased. But by helping people to manage their insurance costs and get preventive care, the theory is that it'll start to reign in the utter insanity that exists in the other parts of the healthcare business.
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* Drug costs.
* Lawsuits
* High costs passed on to other consumers
The third is addressed by making sure everyone has access to primary care.
How do we tackle the other two?
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