BC Medicare payments will be reduced in January.

Shalimar

Shalimar

SF VIP
Location
Vancouver Island Canada
Our new provincial govt just announced that as of January 1st, 2018, BC medical premiums will be cut by fifty percent! Yay! We have a healthy provincial budget which will enable this to occur without raising taxes. Seniors and people with young families will be delighted at the news.
 

A lowering of Medical costs/premiums would almost be Miraculous here, in the U.S. Instead, starting next month, when the plans/premiums are announced for 2018, most people will be lucky to see a rise in premiums of less than 10%...with some locales seeing rises of perhaps as much as 35%. I wonder how high our costs will rise before the majority of people wake up and look at the experiences in other nations who have a SP plan, and demand that our nation begins to follow suit. These SP plans may not be perfect, but they sure make a lot more sense than this "runaway" bloated money hungry system we are saddled with.
 
Don M. said:
A lowering of Medical costs/premiums would almost be Miraculous here, in the U.S. Instead, starting next month, when the plans/premiums are announced for 2018, most people will be lucky to see a rise in premiums of less than 10%...with some locales seeing rises of perhaps as much as 35%. I wonder how high our costs will rise before the majority of people wake up and look at the experiences in other nations who have a SP plan, and demand that our nation begins to follow suit. These SP plans may not be perfect, but they sure make a lot more sense than this "runaway" bloated money hungry system we are saddled with.
Click to expand...
I agree Don, and I am so sorry for the American people caught in this terrible bind.
 
Humana just released the premiums on our Medicare Advantage plan for 2018,,,the price will be going up about 7%....which is about 5 times the 2017 rate of inflation...1.4%. But then, compared to what some of the estimates are saying for next year, we may be lucky in getting just a 7% increase. The good news is that the Social Security COLA for next year should cover that minor increase. It would almost make sense for SS to just hand over the COLA to the insurance companies....might save them some administrative costs.

Between Obamacare, and what the GOP is trying to push through, the future looks pretty bleak for anything resembling cost control.
 
Don M. said:
Humana just released the premiums on our Medicare Advantage plan for 2018,,,the price will be going up about 7%....which is about 5 times the 2017 rate of inflation...1.4%. But then, compared to what some of the estimates are saying for next year, we may be lucky in getting just a 7% increase. The good news is that the Social Security COLA for next year should cover that minor increase. It would almost make sense for SS to just hand over the COLA to the insurance companies....might save them some administrative costs.

Between Obamacare, and what the GOP is trying to push through, the future looks pretty bleak for anything resembling cost control.
Click to expand...
Many people must hope they are never faced with a catastrophic illness.
 
My feelings is that we are not getting a point for point comparison of what health care is provided by these other countries and their minimum cost. Are these programs actually comparable to the US health care abilities at all? On a line for line basis is the only way we can compare. Cost of the health care to the user and cost of the health care to the state and federal government needs to be compared for all cases and types of health care. Show the readiness and availability for service. If hospitalized then compare the patients quarters and availability. Specialist for certain medical needs need to be compared.

Many things can change the cost up or down. Being the cheapest does not necessarily mean the best run at all. For comparisons we should be given good comparative charts and costs so we can make some real and good decisions. We are not seeing those charts at all.

How well do those other countries pay their medical folks? Apparently not too well as many of our medical folks, doctors, come to the US from all over the world. Is that what makes medical so low cost in other countries? Or just one step of many that makes it so much less expensive elsewhere? Plenty to think of before making changes to make our system as low cost as in other places.
 
Charts can say what the creator wants them to say. What we need is government caps on medical costs and drugs then maybe some who are doing without could afford proper care. If all physicians were faced with those caps they would get used to the new way of life.
 
AZ Jim said:
Charts can say what the creator wants them to say. What we need is government caps on medical costs and drugs then maybe some who are doing without could afford proper care. If all physicians were faced with those caps they would get used to the new way of life.
Click to expand...

If you look up the 10 highest paid careers in the U.S., 7 of them are in the Health Care arena......http://www.fincyte.com/best-highest-paying-jobs-in-america/

Prescription Drug prices are 2 or 3 times higher here than in most nations.

If you look at where our politicians get their campaign money...at a site such as OpenSecrets.org...it quickly becomes apparent that our Health Care Industry is one of the highest contributors...to Both Parties. Since MONEY is the only thing that drives progress in Washington, it will take a massive effort by the people to change our system....namely, voting most of these politicians out every 2 to 6 years until they start working for the people.
 
Shalimar said:
I was taken aback when I first learned of American posters who order their drugs from Canada because they are cheaper.
Click to expand...

Within the US I beleive there are certain restrictions on how far down the prices might go. Protections for the inventors and creators of these newer drugs. A protection for their investments for a certain number of years. Patent rights? Anyway, if that is so then how can Canada get drugs cheaper than the US? A question, not an argument. Once the drugs are past the protection time it could be OK for the license to be sold to Canada where they might have lower cost manufacturing or pharmacy costs.
 
BobF said:
Within the US I beleive there are certain restrictions on how far down the prices might go. Protections for the inventors and creators of these newer drugs. A protection for their investments for a certain number of years. Patent rights? Anyway, if that is so then how can Canada get drugs cheaper than the US? A question, not an argument. Once the drugs are past the protection time it could be OK for the license to be sold to Canada where they might have lower cost manufacturing or pharmacy costs.
Click to expand...

U.S. drug prices are astronomical simply because Big Pharma is greedy. There is no correlation to patents or protections. That's why pharmaceutical manufacturers have been posting obscenely huge profits for so many years.

Why are they cheaper in Canada?


  • the cost of existing medications cannot rise higher than the rate of inflation
  • new drugs cannot cost more than the median price in other countries
  • new medications cannot cost more than similar medications for the same illness

why-are-meds-cheaper-in-canada.jpg
 
SifuPhil said:
U.S. drug prices are astronomical simply because Big Pharma is greedy. There is no correlation to patents or protections. That's why pharmaceutical manufacturers have been posting obscenely huge profits for so many years.

Why are they cheaper in Canada?


  • the cost of existing medications cannot rise higher than the rate of inflation
  • new drugs cannot cost more than the median price in other countries
  • new medications cannot cost more than similar medications for the same illness

why-are-meds-cheaper-in-canada.jpg
Click to expand...

All of this speaks of price control and little else.

In the US there is patent control that protects the inventors from product theft and heavy taxes. I lived near the site of a new factory that was built to develop and manufacture a specific drug. It was a large factory that employed a large number of people. After some years of developement and testing the new product was failed from becoming a available drug component in the pharmacies.

The plant was shut down for that product but was converted to a place to build and market a different but approved drug. All those years of development and employees wages needed protected from various ways of stealing designs and ideas. These costs and money spent needed some sort of protection to ensure folks would consider trying to make newer drugs for personal use. Tax protections for their learning years and special privacy were allowed. Not many willing to just toss away their wealth on unprotected items.

Big surprise if Canada does not also allow special treatment for design and patent protections.
 
AZ Jim said:
Charts can say what the creator wants them to say. What we need is government caps on medical costs and drugs then maybe some who are doing without could afford proper care. If all physicians were faced with those caps they would get used to the new way of life.
Click to expand...

If you are talking of my expense and content compare to be nothing but charts, that is a mistake. I am talking about folks actually talking and reviewing with other countries and comparing actual to actual. Not some game with cute charts. Delay in appointments, hospital needs and facilities, on and on, and then trying to make a comparison to the US ways from the smaller European style methods up to the massive US health system. Is their too much wasted on federal controls that cost money and do not improve our health system? Is our size a problem? Should we actually allow the states to run their own systems to fit their needs? Do we really need just one system for all to use?

We have many ways to handle the health system and so far I see mostly those looking for the cheapest way to do so. We need to look for the best way to do so for the US. Cheap may not work at all.
 
BobF said:
I am talking about folks actually talking and reviewing with other countries and comparing actual to actual. Not some game with cute charts.
Click to expand...

There are "folks" right here on this forum that live in those countries and actually are covered by those health care systems and not a single one of them agrees with you Bob. So what makes you think you know more about it than they do? Inquiring minds want to know.
 
BobF said:
All of this speaks of price control and little else.

In the US there is patent control that protects the inventors from product theft and heavy taxes. I lived near the site of a new factory that was built to develop and manufacture a specific drug. It was a large factory that employed a large number of people. After some years of developement and testing the new product was failed from becoming a available drug component in the pharmacies.

The plant was shut down for that product but was converted to a place to build and market a different but approved drug. All those years of development and employees wages needed protected from various ways of stealing designs and ideas. These costs and money spent needed some sort of protection to ensure folks would consider trying to make newer drugs for personal use. Tax protections for their learning years and special privacy were allowed. Not many willing to just toss away their wealth on unprotected items.

Big surprise if Canada does not also allow special treatment for design and patent protections.
Click to expand...

The idea of patent protection in the pharmaceutical industry is a joke.

Increasingly, drug companies are not investing in R&D proportional to the profits they earn from the drugs they bring to market, despite their protests to the contrary. Instead, many have figured out that it’s simpler and safer from a financial perspective to either buy the rights to drugs developed by others and raise the prices many times over, as with Sovaldi, or to obtain a medication already in existence and, using monopolistic control, raise the price as much as 500% or more, as in the case of the EpiPen.

As a consequence, the patent protection process now primarily serves the drug companies, most often not on behalf of the American people, but, rather, at their expense.

Patent protection effectively grants the pharmaceutical industry a monopoly, regardless of the human consequences.
 
Trade said:
There are "folks" right here on this forum that live in those countries and actually are covered by those health care systems and not a single one of them agrees with you Bob. So what makes you think you know more about it than they do? Inquiring minds want to know.
Click to expand...

How do you know so much anyway. Likely a lot of BS to start with.

I never said they should not be happy at all. I am asking for a REAL comparison of the systems, costs, who pays, etc., and then a direct comparison to the proposed US system and the current US health system. There definitely are differences but not one of us knows what they are and in a direct comparison. Many of those other countries are not much bigger than some of our states. Needs and abilities will be different from the entire US.

I think a direct comparison will tell us more than any of the political talk now going around. Political talk is all about lying for a personal want.
 
SifuPhil said:
The idea of patent protection in the pharmaceutical industry is a joke.

Increasingly, drug companies are not investing in R&D proportional to the profits they earn from the drugs they bring to market, despite their protests to the contrary. Instead, many have figured out that it’s simpler and safer from a financial perspective to either buy the rights to drugs developed by others and raise the prices many times over, as with Sovaldi, or to obtain a medication already in existence and, using monopolistic control, raise the price as much as 500% or more, as in the case of the EpiPen.

As a consequence, the patent protection process now primarily serves the drug companies, most often not on behalf of the American people, but, rather, at their expense.

Patent protection effectively grants the pharmaceutical industry a monopoly, regardless of the human consequences.
Click to expand...

A US patent is not a joke at all. It is for the protection of the investors that are paying to design and test a new product. The US and Canada are two different countries and the rules can be entirely different in both countries. I have never yet seen prices as high as those in that chart you posted.

https://www.news-medical.net/health/Drug-Patents-and-Generics.aspx
 

You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top