Posted by moy23 on 10/31/2012 9:23:00 PM (view original):
Posted by bad_luck on 10/31/2012 5:58:00 PM (view original):
Posted by MikeT23 on 10/31/2012 5:36:00 PM (view original):
Posted by bad_luck on 10/31/2012 5:14:00 PM (view original):
Posted by MikeT23 on 10/31/2012 4:50:00 PM (view original):
Posted by MikeT23 on 10/31/2012 12:18:00 PM (view original):
I actually agree that regular check-ups are a good thing. I'll try to be more clear.
More people with insurance = more unnecessary visits to the doctor
Do you agree?
Do we need to start over at this point?
Sure.
More people having insurance will probably lead to some unnecessary doctors visits. But the benefit of more people having insurance and receiving preventative care and care for minor problems before they become major problems far outweighs the cost of the extra people who didn't have insurance before and now go to the doctor when they just have a cold.
Again, other than a yearly check up, there is no benefit to going to the doctor if you are healthy. You only go if you are sick or in pain. We want people to go when they are sick or in pain and we want people to go to the doctor if the cut on their hand needs stitches.
Yet people do it now. They go because they can.
Man: "My back is hurting a little. Gonna go to the doc to make sure I didn't do something when I was raking the yard."
Doc: "Yeah, you're 50 and you worked in the yard for 6 hours. Stop and buy some Icy Hot on the way home."
Doesn't happen if sore back cost $125. Man waits a couple of days and figures it out.
Multiply that by hundreds of thousands and you'll see why insurance goes up and quality of healthcare goes down.
We're still going in circles as you pull things out of your ***.
Yes, that happens. People go to the doctor when they have a cold. When they hurt their back. When their foot hurts.
But that $150 or $300 or $450 dollar visit is not what drives premiums up. Those are drops in the bucket compared to premiums collected for those people. What drives rates up are the people that don't go to the doctor for ten years and then get diabetes. Or have a stroke or a heart attack or get diagnosed with stage four cancer. Those bills end up costing insurance companies hundreds of thousands of dollars each at a minimum.
Increasing copays to $125 (or whatever) will only cause more people to skip the doctor more often and has a negative effect.
I'm starting to feel sorry for you.
there are so many other factors... for example you yourself mentioned a misdiagnosis.... that's not uncommonfor doctors to do. statistically speaking, the numbers of misdiagnosis are astonishing.
I personally don't think health should be an 'encouragement' thing. An intelligent person that values their life should be more than willing to front preventative costs.... otherwise why should insurers insure people that just don't care?
I understand what you are saying... but is it theory or fact? in theory it makes sense.... realistically I'm not sure it helps as much as it drives up costs and clogs the ER.
id have to see the factual cost benefit to agree with you on this one. JMO.
An intelligent person that values their life should absolutely be willing to front preventative costs. But people tend to prioritize when resources are limited. If you are worried about paying rent and eating, spending $125 on preventative care or a small medical problem might not be a high priority. Obviously that's their fault and should be their problem, but a lot of the time it ends up being our problem.
If it ends up being our problem we have to look at what policies we have in place to mitigate the problem.
Most insurance plans already (pre-Obamacare) cover preventative care at little or no cost because insurance companies understand this concept. You make it affordable to see a doctor and people who feel they need to see a doctor, do so. Sure, some of those visits are unnecessary, but in the long run, more problems are caught sooner and costs are controlled. Making it expensive to see a doctor for minor problems means people will wait until the problem is unbearable before they finally seek medical care.