Anyone else think that the medical industry is messed up?

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Free healthcare, that's all I'm saying.

In between big pharma, big chema, disinformation campaigns, the media, people being prevented from going for things that will actually heal them, suppression of genuine treatments because they can't make people money... yeah it's pretty messed up.

What I'm really wondering, if frivelous lawsuits were better checked, how much service price would go down. Other than that I think the staggering rates that insurance companies pay has more to do with how many people are treated for free by these hospitals, due to inability to pay, and its the insurance companies that get stuck paying the heaviest price.

As far as pharma goes, that's a different story. I've been on Nexium for about 3 years and I found out one thing that really shocked me, major name-brand drugs have 20 year patent lives. My insurance has stopped covering Nexium now because they believe that Protonix and Prevacid do the same thing on everyone (not me, otherwise I would just get that rather than dole out $60 per month in co-pays); it'll be 2021 by the time a generic actually comes out - I'll be celebrating my 42nd birthday by then. The question I have to ask on that - just how long do they need to recover R&D costs, especially when so many people need it and its not even a supply and demand issue? While these companies do, with their products, save countless lives, something I think needs to be worked out if they're getting tax-payer funding (maybe patent reform, encouraged competition of analogs?).

I think maybe if the government would stop subsidizing the health care industry we might see costs start to go down. All these subsidies for the rich have got to go. They profit from the subsidies and then they profit from the high cost. It is insane.

Not much. The costs from lawsuits are relatively small and have been stable (actually declining in proportion) over the past several decades. Insurance companies take in premiums that are normally closely gauged to what they pay out - they make money by investing what they are holding for a year or so. When the market goes down, then all of the sudden, insurance companies lose money. That's when they start chain emails describing ridiculous (and entirely fabricated) lawsuits and push for tort reform - it is a diversionary tactic. They lose money playing the market, they need to raise premiums, and they need a scapegoat.






Medicaid/Medicare usually pay less than the real market rate. Most doctors have some medipay patients because they feel a sense of duty, they need a full schedule, and they make a little from these patients. The recently enacted subsidies to pharmaceutical companies are a huge waste, and should be repealed.