This has NOTHING to do with Obamacare.
I have no idea why this is not screamed from the mountaintops: Our Healthcare System is Corrupt! Just because it is legal does not mean it isn’t unethical, anti-competitive, bad for the economy and the nation.
We complain about third world countries and bribes and corruption when our system is the most corrupt of all, but legal. We pay our Congress $30,000,000 a day (salary, overhead, expenses) to literally do nothing. Our system is designed to make lawyers, insurance companies and lawmakers rich. We require those jobs, we practically require them to be rich, with laws and more laws. We have to buy insurance, we have to hire lawyers, we have to pay our lawmakers. We make people immune from ethics and the harm that they do.
For the price of a colonoscopy in Torrington one can fly to Costa Rica, have your colonoscopy, stay three nights in a large beachside hotel, and return with $3000 in your pocket. You can get health care that is as good or better from a neighboring country for a tenth the cost. And we all scream free enterprise. Why do we want no government oversight over the obscene prices of our health care? And why do want the government in our homes when we install a light switch? The disconnect is obvious. We are brainwashed.
Why is that? I wondered why people go to Mexico or Canada or the internet to buy their prescription drugs. But now I know. A drug I was prescribed that cost about $100 a dose I bought from China for $9 including shipping. Why? Is there an answer beyond corruption? Is there a better word?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/business/high-cost-of-medical-procedures-in-the-us/
The cost of corruption is that this will be an international world. Fly to Mexico and stay in a hospital room for $50 a day, or in the US for $1000 – $2500 per night. Routine procedures in the US cost more than double the amount they cost in the next highest country. And there are two prices in the US, one when you have insurance and one when you don’t. Does that make sense to anyone?
I run a computer repair company and I wish I could make people buy insurance for my services, and after they pay for the insurance I could charge them triple for my service. But that is okay, for them the cost of coverage goes up, not my fault.
http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/lists/average-cost-per-inpatient-day-across-50-states-in-2010.html
I have been in hospitals in both countries and I believe the Mexican hospital treated me better. But since I have the best insurance my government can give me as a retired State worker I should just shut up and let my insurance company and hospital post billion dollar profits every year. If a doctor can’t make $1000 an hour the practice closes.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2013/06/daily-chart-18