Unnecessary surgery exposed! Why 60% of all surgeries are medically unjustified and how surgeons exploit patients to generate profits Friday, October 07, 2005 by: Alexis Black Every year millions of Americans go under the knife, but many of them are enduring great pain and shelling out thousands of dollars for surgeries they don't really need. In fact, the only people who seem to really benefit from these unnecessary medical procedures are the medical professionals who stand to make exorbitant amounts of money from performing them. An estimated 7.5 million unnecessary medical and surgical procedures are performed each year, writes Gary Null, PhD., in Death by Medicine. Rather than reverse the problems they purport to fix, these unwarranted procedures can often lead to greater health problems and even death.
Going to an emergency room instead of scheduling a doctor's appointment has become a trend in this country. Translated into dollars and cents that means 40.5 million people paid up to three times as much for routine care as they would have paid at a physician's office. They probably wasted a lot of time too because emergency rooms are not set up to care for routine illness, and they do not work on a first-come, first-served basis as many people mistakenly believe. To ensure that the sickest patients get immediate care, emergency rooms use a triage (French for "sorting") system of evaluation so that critical cases, such as people suffering from heart attacks or injuries from serious accidents or violent crimes, are treated first. Everyone else may have to wait quite a while before being seen.
with all of its technology and high industrial development is still lacking to provide all its citizens health services. The health care system in the U.S. has major faults that affect both patients and physicians. Many Americans lack health insurance, and cannot be seen by a physician routinely. There is a shortage of physicians due to the cost of medical school and of malpractice insurance. In order to provide free education for medical students, malpractice insurance for physicians, and free health care for everyone, taxes need to be raised.
The Medicare program is for an individual who is at least 65 years old, under 65 and disabled, or any age with permanent kidney failure or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease). It also requires that the person is a U.S. citizen or has been a legal resident for five continuous years and has paid into Social Security for at least ten years and is eligible for the benefits. Medicare helps those people with the cost of health care, but it does not pay for all medical expenses or the cost of most long-term care. There are four parts to the Medicare program. Part A is the hospital insurance which helps pay for the in-patient care at a hospital or skilled nursing facility following a hospital stay, some in- home health care and hospice care.
D. Crawford Alicia K. Hatcher Eng 112 March 18,2013 Private healthcare insurance for all, or universal free health care? Although health care is a universal need, unfortunately not all citizens are able to afford it. Not to mention government has proved that it's difficult to balance the healthcare budget; and the costs of medical healthcare is steadily increasing. Should we as Americans be totally responsible for our own health costs and eliminate private insurance? Or should we have an encompassing healthcare system which provides free service for all?
But what is the point of that when patients can’t even be seen even if they are on their death bed? I feel that in any country that the federal government should provide you with some type of health care for all citizens even those who cannot afford their own. Something that I do know about The United States is that it is a law that you have medical. The difference from china and the United States is that it’s a lot easier for you to get some type of health care. For example, Medicare is for 65 and over and we have Medicaid for the low income.
Having problems paying for primary healthcare is no longer the preserve of the poor or the unemployed, but is affecting even those with medical insurance (Shea, 2005). Fifty million Americans lack medical insurance, while another twenty five
September 16, 2010 “Unhealthy” Essay It is so disturbing after watching the film Sicko to find how a lot of hospitals and health insurance companies treat the patients that cannot afford health insurance. I knew that the healthcare field was a complete mess, but I never would have dreamed that some hospitals would literally dump them on the street with no medical help. Everyday people continue to amaze me, how they value money over everything, including for some, and their own lives. The United States healthcare industry seems to decline more each year, compared to other countries. I have to admit, before watching Michael Moore’s documentary, Sicko; I did not have the slightest clue how terrible the United States healthcare industry was.
Medicare and Medicaid both offer acute and long-term health care services for dually eligible individuals. One major weakness of Medicare is it does not provide insurance coverage for services such as, acute dental care, transportation services, and vision care. Another service is not provided by Medicare is long-term-care. Medicare mainly provides coverage for elderly individuals over the age of 65 years-old. Medicaid major weakness is it is more costly than Medicare, and in order for married individuals to receive Medicaid they must be financially broke.
Since the uninsured are frequently unable to pay for the care they receive, the costs for their care are shifted to government programs or private plans, or to the charity of providers, even if unintended. The costly administrative excesses of private health plans, especially when contrasted to government programs, have been well documented. This fragmented system of funding care places an even greater administrative and financial burden on the providers of health care. (McCanne DR, 2004) Although the exact amount is disputed, most policy analysts agree that replacing this fragmented system of funding care with a single, universal, publicly administered insurance program could recover 200 billion dollars or more, which are currently being wasted on useless and sometimes detrimental administrative