The health care industry is bound to collapse soon, experts say

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urge

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http://nypost.com/2017/04/30/the-health-care-industry-is-bound-to-collapse-soon-experts-say/

“Health care companies borrowed too much money, and have grown their debt faster than their revenue, so you have to have a pullback.”

Earlier this year, for example, MD Anderson Cancer, Houston’s second-biggest employer, said it was slashing 1,000 jobs amid losses that surpassed $100 million in one quarter alone. Job growth overall in the health care sector is slowing.

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Way too much advertising by "non profits". Drive around. Look at all the billboards by health care especially hospitals these days.

Many non profits (like church sponsored ones) funnel tax free stuff through churches to fund other agenda.

The health care industry is full
Of waste. As stated so many times. All physician can take a $0 salary. And we still have to deal with 93% of the health care spending. Cause docs really only cost the system 7% of total health care spending. Even adjusting for physician owned labs and surgery centers. Maybe only 15% of total health care spending is attributed to physician spending
 
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Count Brigham and Women's in on the layoff game:

Brigham and Women's Offers Buyouts to 1,600 Employees

The healthcare industry over the past 2-3 decades is probably one of the top culprits when you talk about wage stagnation and a feeble economy. Worker compensation has actually increased quite a bit over that time in the form of healthcare benefits. Unfortunately, that has meant wages haven't increased and hasn't freed up more money to do things like buy houses and pay off debt.
 
I saw (maybe on here) a graph about the explosion of hospital administration in the last decade or so. It costs money. It was simply staggering. I'll see if I can find it.

Probably one of the million things contributing to the debtload and rising costs.
 
growth-in-administrators.jpg
 
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Administrators need to grow. Cause they need more of them to create "metrics" and more administrators to collect data in order to justify their jobs. It's the sad plain truth.
 
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the problem is the administrators are the ppl w power. doctors are the little guys. so i dont see their jobs going anywhere. they'll prob try to fix the healthcare bubble by adding more administrators
 
Saw similar articles 10 years ago. Same takes back then. Everyone's a genius and think they know all the answers. Problem is they're all armchair quarterbacks
 
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Administrators need to grow. Cause they need more of them to create "metrics" and more administrators to collect data in order to justify their jobs. It's the sad plain truth.
By multiplying they can shift the blame so no one is ever held accountable and no one know really what work they actually accomplish.
 
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The collapse is definitely inevitable because the current situation can no longer be sustained.
The health care system has become literally a conglomerate of corporations that are motivated by profit and greed.
In this toxic corporate environment the only thing that matters is maintaining profit and keeping the CEOs well paid, and that's exactly what happened to the financial industry prior to the 2008 collapse.
It probably has to collapse so anew a system might emerge, hopefully a system more oriented toward providing health care to the public rather than keeping the shareholders happy.
That change is coming
 
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Careful what you wish for.

I don't know exactly how you envision this "collapse" will take place, but if the system really fails and becomes untenable, you know what the solution will be: government will take over, administration will get even bigger, and the resulting single payer reimbursement scheme will be Medicare (or worse) rates for everything.
 
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I might prefer a government takeover to the current corporate conglomerate takeover that is happening now. I'm not exactly rolling in the dough and living the good life now.
 
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Careful what you wish for.

I don't know exactly how you envision this "collapse" will take place, but if the system really fails and becomes untenable, you know what the solution will be: government will take over, administration will get even bigger, and the resulting single payer reimbursement scheme will be Medicare (or worse) rates for everything.
You can bet your sweet tukus the govt will take over. They're counting on privatized healthcare to fail. You can also bet the same private interests that control politics are working on making a fat stack of paper off the current healthcare system before they completely destroy it and ruin one of the last few avenues the average Joe has to amass even a miniscule amount of wealth and influence. End result: even less money for us, even more money for them.
 
Careful what you wish for.

I don't know exactly how you envision this "collapse" will take place, but if the system really fails and becomes untenable, you know what the solution will be: government will take over, administration will get even bigger, and the resulting single payer reimbursement scheme will be Medicare (or worse) rates for everything.
Yes it has to become a single payer system heavilly regulated or controlled by the government, this is the only way to make health care a human right, the way it should be.
 
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Yes it has to become a single payer system heavilly regulated or controlled by the government, this is the only way to make health care a human right, the way it should be.

First of all, health care is not a right and no one is entitled to my services or the services of any health care professional. If you advocate for a government take over, then you no longer are advocating for consumer choice. You are advocating for rationing of care to be dictated by the government, no pharmacological or medical research to continue, long lines for everything, poor quality of care in exchange for cheap half assed care, declining reimbursement and the mass exodus of talent out of the health care industry and the deficit of health care will get WORSE in the process because there will be zero accountability of cost.
 
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First of all, health care is not a right and no one is entitled to my services or the services of any health care professional.
I believe a doctor who actively rejects treating someone who is sick because of money is not entitled to be a doctor.
 
First of all, health care is not a right and no one is entitled to my services or the services of any health care professional. If you advocate for a government take over, then you no longer are advocating for consumer choice. You are advocating for rationing of care to be dictated by the government, no pharmacological or medical research to continue, long lines for everything, poor quality of care in exchange for cheap half assed care, declining reimbursement and the mass exodus of talent out of the health care industry and the deficit of health care will get WORSE in the process because there will be zero accountability of cost.

This chart disagrees. No metric that I'm aware of demonstrates our nation's supposed superiority to nations with single-payer systems.

life-expectancy-1.png
 
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First of all, health care is not a right and no one is entitled to my services or the services of any health care professional. If you advocate for a government take over, then you no longer are advocating for consumer choice. You are advocating for rationing of care to be dictated by the government, no pharmacological or medical research to continue, long lines for everything, poor quality of care in exchange for cheap half assed care, declining reimbursement and the mass exodus of talent out of the health care industry and the deficit of health care will get WORSE in the process because there will be zero accountability of cost.

Where is that exodus of talent going to go? Are they going to all become million "I-bankers" on Wall Street or are they going to fill the many law school spots? Or maybe they'll practice medicine in those high-paying single payer countries?
 
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I believe a doctor who actively rejects treating someone who is sick because of money is not entitled to be a doctor.
Good thing that those who actually decide who is entitled to be a doctor (medical boards) disagree.

Oh, and why not tell the group just how many patients you've treated for free in the last year.
 
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I believe a doctor who actively rejects treating someone who is sick because of money is not entitled to be a doctor.
Pre-med status, check.
Simplistic view of altruism and the practice of medicine, check.
Earnest declaration that he's not doing it for the money, check.

;)

Yeah, I'm giving you a hard time, but look man, you haven't even begun to pay 1/100th the blood-sweat-tear price you'll need to pay to become a physician. Why don't you stop telling us what we owe the world until you're on the other side of residency?

(You are, of course, aware that it's already illegal to deny emergency care to anyone because of inability to pay. And that 98% of medicine isn't emergency care, even if it takes place in an "emergency" department?)
 
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I believe a doctor who actively rejects treating someone who is sick because of money is not entitled to be a doctor.

Hahahahahahahahaha. Oh, I'm sorry. You're serious.
 
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Good thing that those who actually decide who is entitled to be a doctor (medical boards) disagree.

Oh, and why not tell the group just how many patients you've treated for free in the last year.

The problem lies in the fact that healthcare is no longer a transaction between patient and physician. There are dozens of other hands trying to get a piece of that transaction. As a result, the price of that service has gone way up and is probably inflated beyond what that service is truly worth.

And patients are the ones seeing those inflated prices in the form of wage stagnation and increased insurance premiums. No one is saying (well, at least I hope no one is) that physicians should not be compensated for their services. Rather we need to simplify that transaction to bring costs down to rational levels.
 
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Pre-med status, check.
Simplistic view of altruism and the practice of medicine, check.
Earnest declaration that he's not doing it for the money, check.

;)

Yeah, I'm giving you a hard time, but look man, you haven't even begun to pay 1/100th the blood-sweat-tear price you'll need to pay to become a physician. Why don't you stop telling us what we owe the world until you're on the other side of residency?

(You are, of course, aware that it's already illegal to deny emergency care to anyone because of inability to pay. And that 98% of medicine isn't emergency care, even if it takes place in an "emergency" department?)
I know I'm not **** and probably don't understand 99.99% of what any physician has done, but I believe denying treatment based off someones inability to pay is terrible. I'm not saying that someone with a deviated septum should be able to get it fixed for free but from my knowledge (could be completely wrong) people are consistently dying because they can't pay for certain medications or treatments. For emergency situations (again I can be way wrong), I thought doctors are only required to stabilize patients.

I was under the impression stuff like this happens: Person gets sick goes to hospital, doctor tells them they need an organ transplant, patient has no insurance and cannot pay for transplant or medication needed after, so hospital either transfers or discharges them.
 
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I know I'm not **** and probably don't understand 99.99% of what any physician has done, but I believe denying treatment based off someones inability to pay is terrible. I'm not saying that someone with a deviated septum should be able to get it fixed for free but from my knowledge (could be completely wrong) people are consistently dying because they can't pay for certain medications or treatments. For emergency situations (again I can be way wrong), I thought doctors are only required to stabilize patients.

I was under the impression stuff like this happens: Person gets sick goes to hospital, doctor tells them they need an organ transplant, patient has no insurance and cannot pay for transplant or medication needed after, so hospital either transfers or discharges them.

I mean thats life... a lot of the time its not even the docs decision. The surgeon may say, sure i'll work for FREE and do your transplant. But he aint doing any transplant without anesthesiologist, nursing staff, OR equipments, OR, meds, and the floor/ICU stay afterwards. Floor/ICU stay are thousands of dollars a DAY. Hospitals are already going bankrupt left and right as it is, your system would just crush the entire system

Someone is paying somebody to get this done. If the patient isn't paying, then either the docs, hospital, pharmaceutical companies, etc or combination of above are paying

Good luck adjusting in residency and beyond haha
 
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I mean thats life... a lot of the time its not even the docs decision. The surgeon may say, sure i'll work for FREE and do your transplant. But he aint doing any transplant without anesthesiologist, nursing staff, OR equipments, OR, meds, and the floor/ICU stay afterwards. Floor/ICU stay are thousands of dollars a DAY. Hospitals are already going bankrupt left and right as it is, your system would just crush the entire system
So the current system is that if you are going to die immediately hospitals are forced to keep you alive, but if you will die in a week they need their money?
 
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So the current system is that if you are going to die immediately hospitals are forced to keep you alive, but if you will die in a week they need their money?

Well it doesn't really matter cause everyone goes to the ED for their care anyway. so hospitals are forced to care for them.

Same as do you think restaurants should deny hungry people who can't pay??
 
First of all, health care is not a right and no one is entitled to my services or the services of any health care professional. If you advocate for a government take over, then you no longer are advocating for consumer choice. You are advocating for rationing of care to be dictated by the government, no pharmacological or medical research to continue, long lines for everything, poor quality of care in exchange for cheap half assed care, declining reimbursement and the mass exodus of talent out of the health care industry and the deficit of health care will get WORSE in the process because there will be zero accountability of cost.
If you were even remotely right then Europe should be a hell of a place to live in where no medical research exists and people die waiting for sub-optimal care.
In reality that's not the case and they have excellent patient care that focuses on prevention and on doing what's right for the patient not for the insurance companies,
A good example is France that ranks first in health care while we rank at 37 according to the WHO

World Health Organization's Ranking of the World's Health Systems
 
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Touché. I don't really think Americans have lower health metrics than any other country (those that are lower cam usually be explained by obesity) but there is a really interesting point in that article about privately insured Americans vs the average in socialized nations.

The author used it as a supporting arguement for private insurance based care vs socialized systems. Then in other parts it is mentioned that income (our GDP on a national scale) correlates more strongly with outcomes than any ther metric. Seems to ignore that most privately insured people are also of middle or upper-class socioeconomic status.
 
The problem lies in the fact that healthcare is no longer a transaction between patient and physician. There are dozens of other hands trying to get a piece of that transaction. As a result, the price of that service has gone way up and is probably inflated beyond what that service is truly worth.

And patients are the ones seeing those inflated prices in the form of wage stagnation and increased insurance premiums. No one is saying (well, at least I hope no one is) that physicians should not be compensated for their services. Rather we need to simplify that transaction to bring costs down to rational levels.
I do direct primary care, so I'm 1000% in agreement with this.
 
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So the current system is that if you are going to die immediately hospitals are forced to keep you alive, but if you will die in a week they need their money?

Things cost money. Not sure how this is a new concept to you.
 
I know I'm not **** and probably don't understand 99.99% of what any physician has done, but I believe denying treatment based off someones inability to pay is terrible. I'm not saying that someone with a deviated septum should be able to get it fixed for free but from my knowledge (could be completely wrong) people are consistently dying because they can't pay for certain medications or treatments. For emergency situations (again I can be way wrong), I thought doctors are only required to stabilize patients.

I was under the impression stuff like this happens: Person gets sick goes to hospital, doctor tells them they need an organ transplant, patient has no insurance and cannot pay for transplant or medication needed after, so hospital either transfers or discharges them.

Your optimism is nice, but your lack of understanding is surprising. Or maybe not considering how much of America thinks like you. I, although a doctor, am also a person. I have a wife and a child I have to provide for. Where do you get off telling me what I should do with my time because I have a degree? How arrogant is a person to think that they are entitled to my expertise that I spent years and boatloads of money to gain while sacrificing immensely. I don't owe anyone but my wife and child anything. My time is not a public good. It's something I decide what to do with, and for what price.
 
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First of all, health care is not a right and no one is entitled to my services or the services of any health care professional. If you advocate for a government take over, then you no longer are advocating for consumer choice. You are advocating for rationing of care to be dictated by the government, no pharmacological or medical research to continue, long lines for everything, poor quality of care in exchange for cheap half assed care, declining reimbursement and the mass exodus of talent out of the health care industry and the deficit of health care will get WORSE in the process because there will be zero accountability of cost.

Don't completely agree with the first bolded part. I personally think that IF we go to single payer, there's going to be a very real split in the quality and timing of healthcare. There will be the public option/single payer or whatever you want to call it. You'll wait weeks-months to see overbooked physicians only to wait weeks-months for that radiologic study and then weeks-months for surgery or whatever other intervention you need. I imagine most of the physicians will be those that can't make it into the second system for one reason or another as a handful of super altruistic people. The second option will be private and costly, but upper middle and upper class will take advantage of this. I imagine this care won't be much different than what we have today, except maybe with a little less of the bureaucracy. This will be just another striking dividing line between the haves and have-nots.

Completely agree with the second part. I do believe some government regulation is needed in all sectors, but has complete government control ever really made anything more efficient?
 
If people would just go beyond the Fox news interpretation of a single payer system they might see that the rest of the world is really not as horrible as they were made to believe.
Every advanced country other than the US has a single payer system where people are entitled to health care the way they entitled to air, water, and dignity.
Most of those countries have much better outcomes than us at a fraction of the price.
 
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Your optimism is nice, but your lack of understanding is surprising. Or maybe not considering how much of America thinks like you. I, although a doctor, am also a person. I have a wife and a child I have to provide for. Where do you get off telling me what I should do with my time because I have a degree? How arrogant is a person to think that they are entitled to my expertise that I spent years and boatloads of money to gain while sacrificing immensely. I don't owe anyone but my wife and child anything. My time is not a public good. It's something I decide what to do with, and for what price.
I don't think you read what I said lol. I'm arrogant enough to believe everyone is entitled to have the same chance of living regardless of how much money they have.
 
Your optimism is nice, but your lack of understanding is surprising. Or maybe not considering how much of America thinks like you. I, although a doctor, am also a person. I have a wife and a child I have to provide for. Where do you get off telling me what I should do with my time because I have a degree? How arrogant is a person to think that they are entitled to my expertise that I spent years and boatloads of money to gain while sacrificing immensely. I don't owe anyone but my wife and child anything. My time is not a public good. It's something I decide what to do with, and for what price.

The problem is that the transaction between a patient and physician goes through some labyrinthine kafkaesque system that nobody really understands and no one teaches. The money that you receive as a physician is nowhere close to the costs that a patient sees. His lack of understanding is not surprising because the American public doesn't understand the complexity of that transaction. I don't understand it and you probably don't either.

This is the inherent problem. The system has gotten so bloated and so unnecessarily complex that we have absurd price inflation. As physicians we aren't seeing any more compensation, but the patient is seeing higher prices. It's unsustainable.
 
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I don't think you read what I said lol. I'm arrogant enough to believe everyone is entitled to have the same chance of living regardless of how much money they have.

I understand what you said. I think you don't understand exactly what you said. You have one kidney to transplant and two possible matches - one homeless, one is a CEO who never misses his doctor appointments or his meds. Who gets the kidney? Maybe he's not homeless, but works 2 minimum wage jobs. He isn't going to be able to afford transportation to get to and from follow up appointments.

Life isn't fair. We're not all equal. It would be great if we all had unicorns, but we don't.
 
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The problem is that the transaction between a patient and physician goes through some labyrinthine kafkaesque system that nobody really understands and no one teaches. The money that you receive as a physician is nowhere close to the costs that a patient sees. His lack of understanding is not surprising because the American public doesn't understand the complexity of that transaction. I don't understand it and you probably don't either.

This is the inherent problem. The system has gotten so bloated and so unnecessarily complex that we have absurd price inflation. As physicians we aren't seeing any more compensation, but the patient is seeing higher prices. It's unsustainable.

Sure, but I can choose to work in a more affluent hospital that pays better.
 
Sure, but I can choose to work in a more affluent hospital that pays better.

You sure can.

Although, some of the most affluent hospitals I know pay the worst. They have a corporate structure where the physician is merely a commodity and the goal is to maximize CEO profits.
 
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You sure can.

Although, some of the most affluent hospitals I know pay the worst. They have a corporate structure where the physician is merely a commodity and the goal is to maximize CEO profits.

Fair argument.
 
If people would just go beyond the Fox news interpretation of a single payer system they might see that the rest of the world is really not as horrible as they were made to believe.
Every advanced country other than the US has a single payer system where people are entitled to health care the way they entitled to air, water, and dignity.
Most of those countries have much better outcomes than us at a fraction of the price.

What's their obesity and diabetic rate relative to ours?

A lot of data coming out has shown through Obamacare that increased access to healthcare coverage does not improve outcomes. In fact, at least one study I saw showed Obamacare may have harmed outcomes.

Did increasing access to opioid prescriptions through patient satisfaction reporting and expanding Medicaid coverage to low-income groups start an epidemic? Interesting thought to ponder.
 
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I was under the impression stuff like this happens: Person gets sick goes to hospital, doctor tells them they need an organ transplant, patient has no insurance and cannot pay for transplant or medication needed after, so hospital either transfers or discharges them.
You obviously have never seen a patient on Medicaid. They get everything done for them. Knee replacements, transplants, cataracts, you name it. They even send a driver to pick them from home and drive them back for their scheduled appointments.

The ones who suffer are the people who work and make just enough not to qualify for Medicaid.
 
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If people would just go beyond the Fox news interpretation of a single payer system they might see that the rest of the world is really not as horrible as they were made to believe.
Every advanced country other than the US has a single payer system where people are entitled to health care the way they entitled to air, water, and dignity.
Most of those countries have much better outcomes than us at a fraction of the price.
Have you seen the healthcare worker strikes in U.K. ? The system is falling apart.

Health can be a human right, but not health care.

Health care means there is someone providing it and since slavery was abolished, nobody is entitled to other people's work.
 
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