<story><title>High-Deductible Health Policies Linked to Delayed Diagnosis and Treatment</title><url>https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/04/18/713887452/high-deductible-health-policies-linked-to-delayed-diagnosis-and-treatment</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>CptFribble</author><text>I think most people around here know that our healthcare payment structure is totally whack. However, we&amp;#x27;re not the people who need to know this.&lt;p&gt;Try showing an NPR article about universal healthcare to Joe USA. I guarantee you&amp;#x27;ll get one or all of the following responses:&lt;p&gt;1: I don&amp;#x27;t want my taxes to go up&lt;p&gt;2: I don&amp;#x27;t want to pay for illegals to go to the doctor for free&lt;p&gt;3: My insurance will get worse&lt;p&gt;4: I like my doctor, I don&amp;#x27;t want to be forced to go to a worse one&lt;p&gt;5: I don&amp;#x27;t want the government deciding when I go to the doctor&lt;p&gt;6: I don&amp;#x27;t want to wait six months for a doctor appointment&lt;p&gt;7: NPR has a liberal agenda&lt;p&gt;Many of my family and extended social circles are quite conservative (in the USA sense) because of how I was brought up. I have heard all of these and more every time the concept of universal healthcare is brought up.&lt;p&gt;Most of the reasoning I hear is not based on facts, but on emotionally misleading arguments from the network of memes and punditry where they get their info. And when they vote, they vote for people who oppose universal healthcare on these fallacious bases.&lt;p&gt;How do you convince someone like this that universal healthcare is better for all of us?</text></comment>
<story><title>High-Deductible Health Policies Linked to Delayed Diagnosis and Treatment</title><url>https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/04/18/713887452/high-deductible-health-policies-linked-to-delayed-diagnosis-and-treatment</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>PaulHoule</author><text>These are going to be recognized as a policy disaster.&lt;p&gt;There are many cases where a somewhat expensive treatment saves a very expensive hospitalization.&lt;p&gt;For instance,  a steroid inhaler for asthma costs about $200 a month,  maybe you have two $200 specialist visits a year.  So for $2800 a year (not covered by high-deductible insurance) you can probably be symptom free or you can take your chances and have an exacerbation and a $28,000 hospitalization (which insurance will pay some of after the deductible)&lt;p&gt;Docs hate them too.&lt;p&gt;With real insurance,  you have maybe a $20 copay you pay at time of service and they know they are going to get paid by the insurance.&lt;p&gt;With fake insurance,  they don&amp;#x27;t know what you are going to pay until months later when the insurance gets around to telling them.  Then you get a bill that says you owe $291.44 for some unspecified service you got 6 to 18 months ago.&lt;p&gt;(They can&amp;#x27;t tell you what it was because that would violate your privacy)&lt;p&gt;Needless to say they have a big accounts receivable this way,  many people don&amp;#x27;t pay or they pay late (e.g. a few months after getting a bill they don&amp;#x27;t understand as well as something that says &amp;quot;THIS IS NOT A BILL&amp;quot; they don&amp;#x27;t understand).  This is not good for their finances or their state of mind.&lt;p&gt;In theory high-deductible plans might lead you to shop around between providers to get a better price but in practice nobody can or will tell you what things costs and it doesn&amp;#x27;t work.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s a perfect example of the neoliberal mind at work.</text></comment>