Originally Posted by FlaviusAetius

A study by Stanford economists Daniel P. Kessler and Mark B. McClellan compared healthcare costs in 28 states with tort reform to healthcare costs in states without tort reform. The effects of medical liability reforms were analyzed using data on Medicare beneficiaries who were treated for serious heart disease in 1984, 1987, and 1990. They found that liability reforms reduced defensive medicine practices, leading to a 5.3 percent reduction in medical expenditures for acute myocardial infarction patients, and a 9.0 percent reduction in costs for treating for ischemia patients. Significantly, they found no effect on quality: Mortality and complication rates were the same. The difference was in costs; states without tort reform paid an additional $500,000 per elderly patient each year.
Since the study’s publication, the results have often been applied to current healthcare expenditures to approximate the cost of defensive medicine across the nation. If these statistics are applied to the nation’s $1.4 trillion annual health care expenditure, healthcare costs could have been reduced by $124 billion overall, and government healthcare expenses by $50 billion per year. This would be a savings of $174 billion per year. Adding the cost of defending malpractice cases, paying compensation, and covering additional administrative costs (a total of $29.4 billion), means the average American family pays an additional $1,700 to $2,000 per year for health care just to cover the costs of defensive medicine. With the nation’s healthcare costs expected to reach $4.3 trillion by 2017, the cost of defensive medicine to the average American could triple in the next 10 years.

More recent studies, including one conducted in 2006 by Price Waterhouse Coopers for America’s Health Insurance Plans, believe the costs associated with defensive medicine are much higher than estimated. For example, costs associated with medical liability are estimated to account for between 7 percent and 11 percent of health insurance premium dollars. Since the 1996 Stanford study, one of the fastest rising costs in medicine has been medical imaging. Approximately $100 billion dollars per year is spent on imaging, and radiologists estimate that $30 billion per year is unnecessary imaging. In the absence of tort reform, however, a doctor serving in the emergency department may order a computed tomography scan of the head for patient with a headache, “just in case.”

The need for tort reform in the current healthcare debate

Whose study do you want to trust?

Originally Posted by HarryTheSpider

Medical liability costs in U.S. pegged at 2.4 percent of annual health care spending | News | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

And let's not overlook the fact that where there are concentrations of people with money, you find concentrations of well-equipped healthcare providers etc. Head out in to the more rural areas, and it's a very different story. Yes, the USA is more expansive, but that simply exacerbates the flaws in a private-only health care provision industry - no business will invest in an area that cannot pay enough to make the business viable - and in the US it is a healthcare INDUSTRY first, and service second.

Originally Posted by FlaviusAetius

The US Department of Health offers a program to pay part or all of the cost of a student's medical training in exchange for a commitment to set up a medical practice in remote areas of the country, including Indian reservations. Everything is supplied under the program: salary, office, equipment, staff, etc. Students make those commitments only as a last resort, because the salaries amount to a pittance compared to what they could earn in areas with concentrations of money and people. Also, how many people, fresh from years spent in medical school want to be stuck hundreds of miles away from civilization, in barren waste lands?

Originally Posted by saraanderson

Just for laughs I went to the healthcare.gov site and filled out the information. They offered me a 900.00 dollar a month healthcare package that had a 5,000 dollar deductible. WOW! That is insane.
My husband has insurance through his employer and we pay 300 for a month for the entire family including my 21 year old son, with 40 dollar co pays to the doctor, 7 dollar medications, and a 1,500 dollar deductible.
I thought Obama came to save us?

Originally Posted by Steve_

Mmm, anyway, can we at least all agree that going to a plastic surgeon when you've got a cough is f---ing stupid.

Originally Posted by saraanderson

I thought Obama came to save us?

Originally Posted by FlaviusAetius

A study by Stanford economists Daniel P. Kessler and Mark B. McClellan compared healthcare costs in 28 states with tort reform to healthcare costs in states without tort reform. The effects of medical liability reforms were analyzed using data on Medicare beneficiaries who were treated for serious heart disease in 1984, 1987, and 1990. They found that liability reforms reduced defensive medicine practices, leading to a 5.3 percent reduction in medical expenditures for acute myocardial infarction patients, and a 9.0 percent reduction in costs for treating for ischemia patients. Significantly, they found no effect on quality: Mortality and complication rates were the same. The difference was in costs; states without tort reform paid an additional $500,000 per elderly patient each year.
Since the study’s publication, the results have often been applied to current healthcare expenditures to approximate the cost of defensive medicine across the nation. If these statistics are applied to the nation’s $1.4 trillion annual health care expenditure, healthcare costs could have been reduced by $124 billion overall, and government healthcare expenses by $50 billion per year. This would be a savings of $174 billion per year. Adding the cost of defending malpractice cases, paying compensation, and covering additional administrative costs (a total of $29.4 billion), means the average American family pays an additional $1,700 to $2,000 per year for health care just to cover the costs of defensive medicine. With the nation’s healthcare costs expected to reach $4.3 trillion by 2017, the cost of defensive medicine to the average American could triple in the next 10 years.

More recent studies, including one conducted in 2006 by Price Waterhouse Coopers for America’s Health Insurance Plans, believe the costs associated with defensive medicine are much higher than estimated. For example, costs associated with medical liability are estimated to account for between 7 percent and 11 percent of health insurance premium dollars. Since the 1996 Stanford study, one of the fastest rising costs in medicine has been medical imaging. Approximately $100 billion dollars per year is spent on imaging, and radiologists estimate that $30 billion per year is unnecessary imaging. In the absence of tort reform, however, a doctor serving in the emergency department may order a computed tomography scan of the head for patient with a headache, “just in case.”

The need for tort reform in the current healthcare debate

Whose study do you want to trust?

Originally Posted by HarryTheSpider

We know that medicines sold to the NHS by big pharma can cost fractions of what the same meds in the US cost, from the same provider - and note that the provider IS making a profit on these when selling them to the UK and other countries. It seems we just have rampant price gouging etc.

Originally Posted by Englishmum

It's not just British expats who think that US healthcare is "a pain in the arse" - this link is from a local forum in NJ and look at the hassle people are experiencing with the various insurance/medicare plans:

Bills mounting but getting no replies from Pharmacy as to why!! - M/SO Community Forum

I've always been of the opinion that I don't want to become elderly in the USA....I doubt that I could cope with all the paperwork every time I ever had a medical consultation or pharmacy visit.