The prices are too high The prices are good where they are The prices are too low see voting resultssaving...
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100
3 votes
Jul 21, 2015

I don't know how anyone can answer this question with any authority.

Hospitals don't have price structures in the US. You cannot call up a hospital and ask them what a particular procedure will cost. They do not know and have NO way to find out! They all use the excuse that there are too many variables - insurance, complications, etc. Those are just excuses, they have no written price structures and they do not determine final costs themselves - the data goes to a medical billing office which magically comes up with a price for a particular patient. That cost can vary the tens of thousands of dollars from person to person.

With medical tourism, you can call hospitals in ten countries and get a fixed price for a particular non-emergency procedure. You cannot do that in the US.

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100
1 vote
Jul 21, 2015

One of the reasons the prices are so outrageous is because the Hospitals expect you to haggle with them on the price and push it down. They sent insurance companies these bills at such a high rate due to the fact insurance will always try to pay the least amount of money for anything, civilians in the U.S. for the most part are oblivious to the fact they can pay the bills themselves without using their insurance and at a very cheap rate if they haggle the price down. Why don't they know this? Because the hospitals expect you to already be in the know and because no other service in the U.S. really uses haggling over prices as a main procedure anymore. That's the reason a broken ankle can cost $10,000 to fix while eye surgery (Which has a more or less fixed price) can be done for $2000-3000.

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100
1 vote
Jul 21, 2015

The question should be rephrased to ask "Why do you think the price of hospitalization and medical treatment is so high? Is it because 1) Doctors are really greedy? or 2) The government has long since destroyed the free market system?

It's not market driven, and has not been for decades. That's why it's out of control.

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50
2 votes
Jul 21, 2015

Lets face it several factors have created the high cost of health care in this cost one of them being HMO created in the 70 by Democrats to give insurance companies more control over doctors and hospitals. Tort cost further increases these cost. Mandating that everyone have health insurance has done nothing to reduce the cost of health care.
What to change it do away with mandatory health insurance, prohibit employers from providing it to employees. I hear you screaming already. What will that do first off it will bring doctors back to a cash visit it will make those doctors become competitive, Hospitals alike. Tort reform how much are you really worth I think your worth 10 years of what ever you income was based on your income tax reports. So if that were the case then malpractices suits were all but disappear because the insurance company would have a bases to set it which would reduce cost for doctors therefore bring down the cost of health care. Get the Government out of the insurance business and out of regulating them to the point that they actually drive up the cost.

If not enjoy your 6,000 dollar deductible and premiums of 1000.00 per month

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0
User voted The prices are too high.
0 votes
Oct 8, 2015

Virtually every serious analysis is clear that America's health care system is among the worst in the industrialized world on virtually every metric. The Commonwealth Fund, for example, finds that the U.S. is not #1 in a single important healthcare variable, and is dead last among the countries surveyed in access inequities due to cost, efficiency, equity, and healthy lives. Our per capita expenditures are insanely inefficient.

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