This is my hypothesis.
Up to the mid 1900s, doctors charged a reasonable amount of money for care; nobody needed to go into debt for a minor injury and no one certainly needed to pay two weeks salary or more for a few stitches. Then, the health insurance industry grew and doctors started thinking, "This isn't some poor family paying the bill but a billion dollar insurance company, I think that they can afford me to raise the rate a little this one time." The insurance companies didn't put their foot down and then this process was forever repeated and allowed the rates to beat inflation a hundred fold and now we are in the situation that we now have, where doctors charges are inflated, tied hand in hand with health insurance rates. I am not a doctor and I don't know one personally and there are probably more factors, but this is my hypothesis of at least partly how this country's problem came to be and will be very difficult to solve.
Just found this article from the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/health/for-medical-tourists-simple-math.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&
The gentleman was offered the hip replacement in the US "at cost" at usd14000, then the hospital wanted usd65k to install. "FU, I'll go to Belguim and get the whole thing done for usd13k."
Up to the mid 1900s, doctors charged a reasonable amount of money for care; nobody needed to go into debt for a minor injury and no one certainly needed to pay two weeks salary or more for a few stitches. Then, the health insurance industry grew and doctors started thinking, "This isn't some poor family paying the bill but a billion dollar insurance company, I think that they can afford me to raise the rate a little this one time." The insurance companies didn't put their foot down and then this process was forever repeated and allowed the rates to beat inflation a hundred fold and now we are in the situation that we now have, where doctors charges are inflated, tied hand in hand with health insurance rates. I am not a doctor and I don't know one personally and there are probably more factors, but this is my hypothesis of at least partly how this country's problem came to be and will be very difficult to solve.
Just found this article from the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/health/for-medical-tourists-simple-math.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&
The gentleman was offered the hip replacement in the US "at cost" at usd14000, then the hospital wanted usd65k to install. "FU, I'll go to Belguim and get the whole thing done for usd13k."
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