<story><title>Single-payer healthcare would save $450B and 68k lives a year: study</title><url>https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)33019-3/fulltext</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>beat</author><text>This is where I think political leaders (Democrat or Republican) could do really well. It&amp;#x27;s not just making sure people are covered. It&amp;#x27;s the existential dread of dealing with opaque, unpredictable, and incomprehensible bureaucracy that can make life-and-death decisions or drop financially crippling bills in your lap, &lt;i&gt;even if you have good insurance&lt;/i&gt;. The American health care system isn&amp;#x27;t just bad for the poor. It&amp;#x27;s bad for everyone. We just can&amp;#x27;t deal with it, because we are exposed directly to unnecessary complexity.&lt;p&gt;But the fact that the people with money and good insurance are suffering from the system as well as the poor seems to be lost on Democrats, and the Republicans are just paralyzed by the whole idea of fixing health care. It&amp;#x27;s a massive political failure for both parties.</text></item><item><author>onemoresoop</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m paying nearly 20k (parents+child) on insurance I don&amp;#x27;t have time to use (and luckily no serious need) and once my son went to see his pediatrician and our &amp;#x27;private&amp;#x27; insurance company (that i&amp;#x27;m not going to name) sent us bill of $500, for a check-up. We disputed the charge with the insurance and  they agreed to wave the payment next month. Next month comes and guess what? The same letter comes in mail. We disputed it again and again the month after when the bill was sent to us the third time. This is been happening for 6 months and don&amp;#x27;t take it seriously anymore, I don&amp;#x27;t have time to waste. I realize that a lot of money goes to waste on a system that is not working even if you&amp;#x27;re paying a lot. It is utterly broken. Downright revolting. And on top of it I get a better deal if I use no insurance at all for prescriptions. Then what am I paying for? Emergencies? I am paying nearly 20k a year for possible emergencies? It&amp;#x27;s become so complicated that nothing can be reasoned about it, this is a monster that has to be killed with fire then drowned in deep waters.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>codegeek</author><text>&amp;quot;isn&amp;#x27;t just bad for the poor. It&amp;#x27;s bad for everyone&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Thank you for saying that. I am amazed at how so many people don&amp;#x27;t see and understand this. It is not just about Cost which is insane alright. It is about the BS we have to go through after a visit to a  doctor or hospital. I am scared about the type of bills and claim fights I have to do if I visit a doc. Not because I cannot afford it necessarily. But because I have to spend may be like 5 hours calling doctor&amp;#x27;s offices, insurance admins, billing departments and what not.</text></comment>
<story><title>Single-payer healthcare would save $450B and 68k lives a year: study</title><url>https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)33019-3/fulltext</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>beat</author><text>This is where I think political leaders (Democrat or Republican) could do really well. It&amp;#x27;s not just making sure people are covered. It&amp;#x27;s the existential dread of dealing with opaque, unpredictable, and incomprehensible bureaucracy that can make life-and-death decisions or drop financially crippling bills in your lap, &lt;i&gt;even if you have good insurance&lt;/i&gt;. The American health care system isn&amp;#x27;t just bad for the poor. It&amp;#x27;s bad for everyone. We just can&amp;#x27;t deal with it, because we are exposed directly to unnecessary complexity.&lt;p&gt;But the fact that the people with money and good insurance are suffering from the system as well as the poor seems to be lost on Democrats, and the Republicans are just paralyzed by the whole idea of fixing health care. It&amp;#x27;s a massive political failure for both parties.</text></item><item><author>onemoresoop</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m paying nearly 20k (parents+child) on insurance I don&amp;#x27;t have time to use (and luckily no serious need) and once my son went to see his pediatrician and our &amp;#x27;private&amp;#x27; insurance company (that i&amp;#x27;m not going to name) sent us bill of $500, for a check-up. We disputed the charge with the insurance and  they agreed to wave the payment next month. Next month comes and guess what? The same letter comes in mail. We disputed it again and again the month after when the bill was sent to us the third time. This is been happening for 6 months and don&amp;#x27;t take it seriously anymore, I don&amp;#x27;t have time to waste. I realize that a lot of money goes to waste on a system that is not working even if you&amp;#x27;re paying a lot. It is utterly broken. Downright revolting. And on top of it I get a better deal if I use no insurance at all for prescriptions. Then what am I paying for? Emergencies? I am paying nearly 20k a year for possible emergencies? It&amp;#x27;s become so complicated that nothing can be reasoned about it, this is a monster that has to be killed with fire then drowned in deep waters.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sjg007</author><text>One problem is that a bunch of folks have gold platinum private insurance.  Things like $0 copays, no co-insurance etc...  A lot of that was union negotiated.  Some high end jobs have similar perks.&lt;p&gt;Regular rank and file workers use to have HMOs but those plans have given way to HSAs and PPOs.  PPOs were advertised as doctor choice but that&amp;#x27;s really misleading, all they really do is increase your out of pocket.  For a condition that can&amp;#x27;t be handled in network within a reasonable distance of your house then the HMO insurer has to allow out of network access.   HSAs are a great deal if you don&amp;#x27;t get sick, are rich or can put money in them... but if you need health care they aren&amp;#x27;t so good since the out of pocket is high.&lt;p&gt;If we don&amp;#x27;t get a public option or Medicare for all then I think HSAs will be the future, basically pushing insurance as catastrophic care with some legally mandated primary care covered by default (with a copay).&lt;p&gt;At least with a $25k deductible you generally won&amp;#x27;t go bankrupt and you just have to imagine paying off that imaginary new car for 5 years.</text></comment>