Exactly. 95 percent of illness cures itself. also I think I may agree with those people who obsess about gut flora. I think it may be true that antibiotics are like a nuclear massacre of your good bacteria that is really bad for you.
Mine too. My parents got supremely fucked by Obama. "If you like your current plan just keep it" wasn't true. My dads plan vanished and changed into a much more expensive one. I don't even dislike Obama except for his cowardly foreign policy and his misleading health care crap.
Doctors are complicit and perhaps the biggest problem. Patients demand antibiotics and they give in even when it's viral or that patient will go somewhere else. First step is to ban prescription drugs from advertising. The fact that they spend all that money on TV spots is ridiculous. Next, there needs to be some sort of peer review of doctors and how they prescribe. Nurse practitioners need more independence as well. They are cheaper and just as adept at handling colds and minor bacterial infections. A shortage of primary care physicians should not be a problem when we have nurse practitioners that could easily fill in the gaps. Currently, they have to work in a collaborative practice agreement with doctors and there are many docs who won't use them as they consider them cheaper competition. But of course, none of this common sense stuff will work and in the end, we will have a single payer system because no one will act appropriately. I give it about 15 years before we are all on single payer.
The 25 co-pay is one of key reason healthcare is so expensive. It encourages the bad behavior above. I go to the doctor for my physical, or if i run a high grade fever for more than a few days. Typically that is never. I have been on antibiotics once in the past 18 years, when I stepped on a nail.
yep, forgot that one. co-pays should be illegal. Everyone should be on an HDHP with HSA. Further more, even on medicaid, you should pay something for a doctor visit. Even if it's 1 dollar. Something.
