Question

In your own words, discuss: why ARE American health care costs so high? If you were a lawmaker, what would you propose to reduce these costs? Relate any personal experiences you care to share with the class.

Answer 1

A) Why are American health care costs so high?

More tax money is paid per capita by US citizens as compared to Australia, the UK, and Germany. And, also relatively Americans visit less to hospitals as compared to citizens of these countries. There are many attributes to the higher costs of the American Health System. Few of them are cited below:

1) It’s the private insurance system in the US that makes it expensive. The free market is bad at controlling health care in the United States. In Us the price for the same procedure in the same hospital varies enormously depending upon who is paying the bill. The price for the Public Insurance like Medicaid or Medicare is the lowest. Simply because the insurance companies negotiate with hospitals that how much they would pay for the procedure or prescription. However, if you visit the hospital as an individual, you would end up paying more for the same hospital visit.

2) The cost of drugs is too high. The Govt. has very little control over the drug prices. For example in May 2019 Rep. Ocasio-Cortez examined the Gilead’s pricing for an HIV prevention drug known as Truvada for PrEP. The public funding was for 15 billion to develop the drug and this public funding was also used for the approval by the FDA. The list price for Prep in the US is $1780 whereas it was $8 in Australia in its generic form because Truvada had patent protection in the US. This patent has been privatized.

3) A single-payer system like having a master price list for hospital bills, medical procedures, pharmacy needs to be regulated by Government as such is the case in countries like UK, Germany.

4) US health care practitioners and hospitals suggests the tests to prevent lawsuits. This is because of the fear of ‘Just in Case’. Hospitals are profit centers. They have a lot of influence on the White House.

5) Doctors and Nurses are highly paid. The average salary of HCPs in the US is the highest in the world.

6) Administrative costs are too high. We do not have a single-payer system like Canada which includes the cost for billing, advertisement, etc. The administrative complexity includes filling out duplicative intake forms to transferring medical records between providers to sorting out insurance bills.

B) If you were a lawmaker, what would you propose to reduce these costs?

As a lawmaker I would propose for Single-Payer Health Care System. This system allows the public to have a wide range of choices of doctors and they need not to change doctors as and when they switch to a different employer. So this enables the continuous care to patients. Vaccination and preventive care would be available to more people. Single-payer agency would be in the capacity to negotiate prices for services, pharmaceutical products. They will use their purchasing power of the entire for masses making it affordable for all. Single-payer would lead to no co-payments and premiums.

C) Relate any personal experiences you care to share with the class.

As my sister was busy with her studies and was trying to build a career in management and she missed paying her insurance premium. And after a couple of months she developed the pain in my legs and she was dreaded to visit the doctor as she was not covered. But the pain was excruciating and one fine day she paid a visit to the doctor. During her visit she was having dyspnea. She was rushed to the ER and the clot was found in her legs. Though she was shaped and she ended up under the burden of $18000. This has lead her to take a semester break from studies and now is struggling to pay the debts which she borrowed for her treatment.