As long as we have a Republican domination of the Senate and WH, companies like Epic will continue to bilk Americans for everything they got. The USA has the world's most costly health care system, and you level of wealth decides the quality of the care you receive. How much longer can this scam go on?
Democratic congresses, some with an overwhelming majority, have had ample opportunity over the years to change it. In fact the ideal time would have been the "Obamacare" legislation IMO. Instead, they chose NOT to include any pharma or healthcare price controls, simply mandate insurance coverage. Not smart at all IMO, simply politics again so as not to upset the insurers or hospitals, but I'm a nobody and the country's leaders march to their own drumbeat and not mine. Or yours.
So don't blame it on those bad ol' meanie Republicans. Doing the right thing for us is hard and I don't think either party has the stomach for it. Some would have to turn their back on a whole lot of financial support and fracture political allegiances. Dems absolutely share the blame and IMO unlikely to significantly change it for the better if they manage to take control of Congress and the Presidency again. It's gonna be a slow roll and some "emergency" will be required to push them to do what should be done instead of pushing the problem on to the next Congress to deal with the unpleasantries. Social Security is the poster child.
Well no...
But nice try at the false equivalency.
LOL... False equivalency to what, only the Republicans fail to fix our health care expense problems? This article is about Epic and the control of health data. Epic was the same Epic under Democratic leadership, and dominate in their field since at least 2003. In fact the HIPAA rules that allowed Epic to flourish were constructed under a Democratic administration and Congress.
Besides, how would false equivalency even come into play with my comment? This isn't the Republicans complaining and trying to delay, it's Epic, health providers. and companies like them. The false equivalency if there was any, came from the OP introducing the Republicans as equally comparable to Epic as reason for the delay. Heck, it's a Republican administration proposing the rules change rather than impeding it. Did you even read the article?
Not really. When the Dems had control of congress they were busy worrying about the 50 million who were blocked from our healthcare system -- and EHRs were in their infancy. Actually, it was Obama who gave them impetus and made them prevalent enough that companies like Apple are able to initiate things like this.
As long as we have a Republican domination of the Senate and WH, companies like Epic will continue to bilk Americans for everything they got. The USA has the world's most costly health care system, and you level of wealth decides the quality of the care you receive. How much longer can this scam go on?
Democratic congresses, some with an overwhelming majority, have had ample opportunity over the years to change it. In fact the ideal time would have been the "Obamacare" legislation IMO. Instead, they chose NOT to include any pharma or healthcare price controls, simply mandate insurance coverage. Not smart at all IMO, simply politics again so as not to upset the insurers or hospitals, but I'm a nobody and the country's leaders march to their own drumbeat and not mine. Or yours.
So don't blame it on those bad ol' meanie Republicans. Doing the right thing for us is hard and I don't think either party has the stomach for it. Some would have to turn their back on a whole lot of financial support and fracture political allegiances. Dems absolutely share the blame and IMO unlikely to significantly change it for the better if they manage to take control of Congress and the Presidency again. It's gonna be a slow roll and some "emergency" will be required to push them to do what should be done instead of pushing the problem on to the next Congress to deal with the unpleasantries. Social Security is the poster child.
Well no...
But nice try at the false equivalency.
LOL... False equivalency to what, only the Republicans fail to fix our health care expense problems? This article is about Epic and the control of health data. Epic was the same Epic under Democratic leadership, and dominate in their field since at least 2003. In fact the HIPAA rules that allowed Epic to flourish were constructed under a Democratic administration and Congress.
Besides, how would false equivalency even come into play with my comment? This isn't the Republicans complaining and trying to delay, it's Epic, health providers. and companies like them. The false equivalency if there was any, came from the OP introducing the Republicans as equally comparable to Epic as reason for the delay. Heck, it's a Republican administration proposing the rules change rather than impeding it. Did you even read the article?
Not really.When the Dems had control of congress they were busy worrying about the 50 million who were blocked from our healthcare system -- and EHRs were in their infancy. Actually, it was Obama who gave them impetus and made them prevalent enough that companies like Apple are able to initiate things like this.
So again, nice try on your false equivalency...
So vague... "Not really"? Not really what, that the Republican Administration is not behind the rules change giving you access to your own health data and it's really the Democrats doing this under opposition from those evil Republicans? Is that what you believe? That would mean one of two things: Either you didn't understand it the article (assuming you read it), or you're being a dishonest poster.
Yours makes a far better example of false equivalency. You're still failing to comment on the article itself and only seem interested in adding and posting unrelated politics, "yeah, but...but", as tho the Republican administration is behind Epic's and the medical data industry at large delay tactics instead of acknowledging it is the current administration trying to change the rules for your benefit.
As an aside that applies to part of your comment, and actually has far more to do with the proposed rules changes: Part of the reason the records issue is harder to fix now is the $36B billion given to health care providers as part of the Obama/Democratic Congress economic stimulus bill to assist with the costs of installing mandated EHR systems before solutions were in place to enable all those providers to share patient information. That's why we have the massive Epic so ingrained in the system today.
...and BTW Mr. Obama himself says one of his regrets was not insisting on health care cost controls as part of his Affordable Care Act when he had the high road and the opportunity. He allowed Ms. Polosi and other Democratic Party leaders to convince him the health industry would apply too much pressure for them to garner enough support from Congress. Too many allegiances to their campaign benefactors so we had legislators who would not risk losing the money if they acted counter to what those health companies wanted. There's still a massive amount of work to do to prevent costs from leading to the failure of the act itself, which IMHO is a distinct possibility.
As long as we have a Republican domination of the Senate and WH, companies like Epic will continue to bilk Americans for everything they got. The USA has the world's most costly health care system, and you level of wealth decides the quality of the care you receive. How much longer can this scam go on?
Democratic congresses, some with an overwhelming majority, have had ample opportunity over the years to change it. In fact the ideal time would have been the "Obamacare" legislation IMO. Instead, they chose NOT to include any pharma or healthcare price controls, simply mandate insurance coverage. Not smart at all IMO, simply politics again so as not to upset the insurers or hospitals, but I'm a nobody and the country's leaders march to their own drumbeat and not mine. Or yours.
So don't blame it on those bad ol' meanie Republicans. Doing the right thing for us is hard and I don't think either party has the stomach for it. Some would have to turn their back on a whole lot of financial support and fracture political allegiances. Dems absolutely share the blame and IMO unlikely to significantly change it for the better if they manage to take control of Congress and the Presidency again. It's gonna be a slow roll and some "emergency" will be required to push them to do what should be done instead of pushing the problem on to the next Congress to deal with the unpleasantries. Social Security is the poster child.
Well no...
But nice try at the false equivalency.
LOL... False equivalency to what, only the Republicans fail to fix our health care expense problems? This article is about Epic and the control of health data. Epic was the same Epic under Democratic leadership, and dominate in their field since at least 2003. In fact the HIPAA rules that allowed Epic to flourish were constructed under a Democratic administration and Congress.
Besides, how would false equivalency even come into play with my comment? This isn't the Republicans complaining and trying to delay, it's Epic, health providers. and companies like them. The false equivalency if there was any, came from the OP introducing the Republicans as equally comparable to Epic as reason for the delay. Heck, it's a Republican administration proposing the rules change rather than impeding it. Did you even read the article?
Not really.When the Dems had control of congress they were busy worrying about the 50 million who were blocked from our healthcare system -- and EHRs were in their infancy. Actually, it was Obama who gave them impetus and made them prevalent enough that companies like Apple are able to initiate things like this.
So again, nice try on your false equivalency...
So vague... "Not really"? Not really what, that the Republican Administration is not behind the rules change giving you access to your own health data and it's really the Democrats doing this under opposition from those evil Republicans? Is that what you believe? That would mean one of two things: Either you didn't understand it the article (assuming you read it), or you're being a dishonest poster.
Yours makes a far better example of false equivalency. You're still failing to comment on the article itself and only seem interested in adding and posting unrelated politics, "yeah, but...but", as tho the Republican administration is behind Epic's and the medical data industry at large delay tactics instead of acknowledging it is the current administration trying to change the rules for your benefit.
As an aside that applies to part of your comment, and actually has far more to do with the proposed rules changes: Part of the reason the records issue is harder to fix now is the $36B billion given to health care providers as part of the Obama/Democratic Congress economic stimulus bill to assist with the costs of installing mandated EHR systems before solutions were in place to enable all those providers to share patient information. That's why we have the massive Epic so ingrained in the system today.
...and BTW Mr. Obama himself says one of his regrets was not insisting on health care cost controls as part of his Affordable Care Act when he had the high road and the opportunity. He allowed Ms. Polosi and other Democratic Party leaders to convince him the health industry would apply too much pressure for them to garner enough support from Congress. Too many allegiances to their campaign benefactors so we had legislators who would not risk losing the money if they acted counter to what those health companies wanted. There's still a massive amount of work to do to prevent costs from leading to the failure of the act itself, which IMHO is a distinct possibility.
As long as we have a Republican domination of the Senate and WH, companies like Epic will continue to bilk Americans for everything they got. The USA has the world's most costly health care system, and you level of wealth decides the quality of the care you receive. How much longer can this scam go on?
Democratic congresses, some with an overwhelming majority, have had ample opportunity over the years to change it. In fact the ideal time would have been the "Obamacare" legislation IMO. Instead, they chose NOT to include any pharma or healthcare price controls, simply mandate insurance coverage. Not smart at all IMO, simply politics again so as not to upset the insurers or hospitals, but I'm a nobody and the country's leaders march to their own drumbeat and not mine. Or yours.
So don't blame it on those bad ol' meanie Republicans. Doing the right thing for us is hard and I don't think either party has the stomach for it. Some would have to turn their back on a whole lot of financial support and fracture political allegiances. Dems absolutely share the blame and IMO unlikely to significantly change it for the better if they manage to take control of Congress and the Presidency again. It's gonna be a slow roll and some "emergency" will be required to push them to do what should be done instead of pushing the problem on to the next Congress to deal with the unpleasantries. Social Security is the poster child.
Well no...
But nice try at the false equivalency.
LOL... False equivalency to what, only the Republicans fail to fix our health care expense problems? This article is about Epic and the control of health data. Epic was the same Epic under Democratic leadership, and dominate in their field since at least 2003. In fact the HIPAA rules that allowed Epic to flourish were constructed under a Democratic administration and Congress.
Besides, how would false equivalency even come into play with my comment? This isn't the Republicans complaining and trying to delay, it's Epic, health providers. and companies like them. The false equivalency if there was any, came from the OP introducing the Republicans as equally comparable to Epic as reason for the delay. Heck, it's a Republican administration proposing the rules change rather than impeding it. Did you even read the article?
Not really.When the Dems had control of congress they were busy worrying about the 50 million who were blocked from our healthcare system -- and EHRs were in their infancy. Actually, it was Obama who gave them impetus and made them prevalent enough that companies like Apple are able to initiate things like this.
So again, nice try on your false equivalency...
So vague... "Not really"? Not really what, that the Republican Administration is not behind the rules change giving you access to your own health data and it's really the Democrats doing this under opposition from those evil Republicans? Is that what you believe? That would mean one of two things: Either you didn't understand it the article (assuming you read it), or you're being a dishonest poster.
Yours makes a far better example of false equivalency. You're still failing to comment on the article itself and only seem interested in adding and posting unrelated politics, "yeah, but...but", as tho the Republican administration is behind Epic's and the medical data industry at large delay tactics instead of acknowledging it is the current administration trying to change the rules for your benefit.
As an aside that applies to part of your comment, and actually has far more to do with the proposed rules changes: Part of the reason the records issue is harder to fix now is the $36B billion given to health care providers as part of the Obama/Democratic Congress economic stimulus bill to assist with the costs of installing mandated EHR systems before solutions were in place to enable all those providers to share patient information. That's why we have the massive Epic so ingrained in the system today.
...and BTW Mr. Obama himself says one of his regrets was not insisting on health care cost controls as part of his Affordable Care Act when he had the high road and the opportunity. He allowed Ms. Polosi and other Democratic Party leaders to convince him the health industry would apply too much pressure for them to garner enough support from Congress. Too many allegiances to their campaign benefactors so we had legislators who would not risk losing the money if they acted counter to what those health companies wanted. There's still a massive amount of work to do to prevent costs from leading to the failure of the act itself, which IMHO is a distinct possibility.
As long as we have a Republican domination of the Senate and WH, companies like Epic will continue to bilk Americans for everything they got. The USA has the world's most costly health care system, and you level of wealth decides the quality of the care you receive. How much longer can this scam go on?
We spend $3.5 Trillion a year on healthcare -- 5 times more than the defense budget. So, yes, the end is near. Very simply, we can't afford it (and it doesn't matter who's paying the bill or how, we just can't afford it as a nation).
It is interesting that the only real fix is actual prevention -- meaning healthy lifestyles that prevent and delay the so called "age related" chronic diseases that eat up 80% of that $3.5 Trillion. But that is the one thing our so called "healthcare" system won't touch: Healthy Lifestyles. Instead it is a disease management system that reaps enormous profits treating the effects of those unhealthy lifestyles. The closest it comes to prevention is early detection -- which merely starts the process sooner.
A huge problem with private healthcare is fraudulent billing and it's a similar issue with military budgets. Just look at the amount listed in the article:
"According to today's report, an Epic installation can cost up to $1 billion for major hospitals, a price that could increase should the HHS initiative be successful."
There was a post from someone with an itemized bill here:
Besides the nonsensical charges, the adjustments to the bill are ridiculous and just shows they are ripping people off with impunity. Someone in the comments below it mentioned a $30-40k bill for an operation. The $3.5t figure you mention means that it costs $10,000 each to cover ~350m US citizens per year.
The cost to cover that many people is based on the cost to put the infrastructure in place, the cost of the staff and equipment. Lets say it costs $1b to build a hospital with capacity for 1000 people and costs $100m per year to maintain with full staff. There are ~6000 hospitals in the US ( https://www.aha.org/statistics/fast-facts-us-hospitals ) so 1 hospital can cover ~50,000 people.
Over 10 years, a $2b cost to build and run divided by 50,000 people is $4k per person per year. That amount can be collected from taxes to provide universal healthcare and it could be cut massively if big tech companies got more involved in helping to reduce the costs of setting up and running a hospital.
And the issue about medical data privacy is a bit of a joke in private healthcare when people have to tell random insurance provider employees intimate medical details because they have to check if any procedures are covered under the policy they have.
It's about time the private healthcare industry got some investigation as to what's going on and who's profiting out of it and it needs competition from public bodies that can guarantee costs won't be marked up significantly beyond the base infrastructure costs.
A tech company (or group of tech companies) could even do something like this. They could pick an area, put up the initial $1b investment and take on 50,000 subscribers at $100 per month and this subscription would cover every treatment. The challenge would be to reduce setup and operating costs to the point that this is sustainable. Then they can build more hospitals under the same, more efficient model. Along the way, they'd be able to implement systems for data sharing and protection.
Comments
Not really what, that the Republican Administration is not behind the rules change giving you access to your own health data and it's really the Democrats doing this under opposition from those evil Republicans? Is that what you believe? That would mean one of two things: Either you didn't understand it the article (assuming you read it), or you're being a dishonest poster.
Yours makes a far better example of false equivalency. You're still failing to comment on the article itself and only seem interested in adding and posting unrelated politics, "yeah, but...but", as tho the Republican administration is behind Epic's and the medical data industry at large delay tactics instead of acknowledging it is the current administration trying to change the rules for your benefit.
As an aside that applies to part of your comment, and actually has far more to do with the proposed rules changes:
Part of the reason the records issue is harder to fix now is the $36B billion given to health care providers as part of the Obama/Democratic Congress economic stimulus bill to assist with the costs of installing mandated EHR systems before solutions were in place to enable all those providers to share patient information. That's why we have the massive Epic so ingrained in the system today.
...and BTW Mr. Obama himself says one of his regrets was not insisting on health care cost controls as part of his Affordable Care Act when he had the high road and the opportunity. He allowed Ms. Polosi and other Democratic Party leaders to convince him the health industry would apply too much pressure for them to garner enough support from Congress. Too many allegiances to their campaign benefactors so we had legislators who would not risk losing the money if they acted counter to what those health companies wanted. There's still a massive amount of work to do to prevent costs from leading to the failure of the act itself, which IMHO is a distinct possibility.
Oh, and Apple didn't "initiate this" even if you might assume they had.
You might try reading the related AppleInsider article. since you're plainly missing a lot in your haste to comment.
Suggestion: More reading and fewer words until you have.
https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/01/24/apple-to-attend-meeting-promoting-easy-access-to-health-data
"According to today's report, an Epic installation can cost up to $1 billion for major hospitals, a price that could increase should the HHS initiative be successful."
There was a post from someone with an itemized bill here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/55qntw/i_had_to_pay_3935_to_hold_my_baby_after_he_was/
Besides the nonsensical charges, the adjustments to the bill are ridiculous and just shows they are ripping people off with impunity. Someone in the comments below it mentioned a $30-40k bill for an operation. The $3.5t figure you mention means that it costs $10,000 each to cover ~350m US citizens per year.
The cost to cover that many people is based on the cost to put the infrastructure in place, the cost of the staff and equipment. Lets say it costs $1b to build a hospital with capacity for 1000 people and costs $100m per year to maintain with full staff. There are ~6000 hospitals in the US ( https://www.aha.org/statistics/fast-facts-us-hospitals ) so 1 hospital can cover ~50,000 people.
Over 10 years, a $2b cost to build and run divided by 50,000 people is $4k per person per year. That amount can be collected from taxes to provide universal healthcare and it could be cut massively if big tech companies got more involved in helping to reduce the costs of setting up and running a hospital.
And the issue about medical data privacy is a bit of a joke in private healthcare when people have to tell random insurance provider employees intimate medical details because they have to check if any procedures are covered under the policy they have.
It's about time the private healthcare industry got some investigation as to what's going on and who's profiting out of it and it needs competition from public bodies that can guarantee costs won't be marked up significantly beyond the base infrastructure costs.
A tech company (or group of tech companies) could even do something like this. They could pick an area, put up the initial $1b investment and take on 50,000 subscribers at $100 per month and this subscription would cover every treatment. The challenge would be to reduce setup and operating costs to the point that this is sustainable. Then they can build more hospitals under the same, more efficient model. Along the way, they'd be able to implement systems for data sharing and protection.