A community of 30,000 US Transcriptionist serving Medical Transcription Industry
Starting a new thread because the old one is too hard to follow any more.
You've got me doing more googling than I ever intended but that is a good thing. Total cost of health care in this country was up to 2.3 trillion a couple of years ago and undoubtedly higher now. Frivolous law suits accounted for only 1 to 1.5% of the costs and unnecessary tests an even smaller percentage at 6.8 billion. I couldn't copy the link but if you google frivolous lawsuits health care costs there is a very concise and interesting NY Times article and for those who want to tell me that the NY Times is a biased liberal paper, don't read it.
Another part of the health care costs I would like to see discussed is end of life costs. Medicare spends approximately 25 to 30% of its total outlay on the last 2 months of life. Whenever this subject is brought up some politician screams that we are trying to pull the plug on grandma. Well, I am grandma as are many of my friends. I do not want to spend the last 2 months of my life in the ICU with a tube in any place one can be inserted. I have recorded my advanced directives as should everyone my age. Many will want to hang on until the bitter end but I suspect that most will not. If we, as a nation, could discuss end of life issues without the hysteria, we might be able to lower costs dramatically. The only politician I have ever heard bring this up is Mitch Daniels and although I am a Dem, I give him lots of credit for discussing it.
I look forward to your comments.
;