re: Is the healthcare system in America bloated?

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Add to that no medical profession is being taught healing or nutrition only testing and filing insurance paperwork.

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Wrong. 80% of patients are too stupid or stubborn to change their diet. Large percentage of people aren’t even literate on a middle school level. Things get blamed on healthcare that are the result of the failing education system in America.

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Tell that to my friend on workmans comp who can't get an MRI until April.

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I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in May, 2025. I’ve had chemo and an 8-hour Whipple surgery. I’m on BC/BS in Alabama. My scans and bloodwork - dozens of them - were scheduled in a matter of days. First time in my 60 years I’ve had to navigate the medical system with a major illness. They have been nothing short of amazing. Professional, attentive, kind, on-time, efficient. UAB O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center, Birmingham, AL.

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Try to get a colonoscopy covered before age 40. Or an EKG done Or a CT

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I’m 32 and just got all 3 done in the span of 2 weeks, but you can also toss in 3 ultrasounds and an extra CT (second was with contrast).

Not sure the issue?

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I've been on workman's comp and you can choose your own doctor.

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Not in my state.

The rules vary by state.

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If your friend really wants an MRI he/she can get one

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Sure, if he/she wants to pay for it. But in my state you aren't getting reimbursed unless you go where you're told.

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80% of patients are too stupid or stubborn to change their diet.

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This is true, but it's also true what he said.

Two things can be true at once.

Patients will not change lifestyle factors, AND doctors are not trained in how to modify them in the first place.

Absolutely. Cost of healthcare should be a high priority for our government, but never seems to get enough attention.

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You’re talking about the top 1% of performers

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no, not even when I worked for LSU Med School/Children’s Hospital in the early 2000s was that the case.

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it’s significantly more difficult to get into medical school now than it’s ever been.

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because of DEI, I hope that changes soon though

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Worst healthcare system among any developed country. Run by insurance and drug companies and a cost that isn’t practical one bit.

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I see someone has consumed a lot of propaganda.

The American system is not "the worst" in the world, but it is the most different.

It's a for-profit system. And there's a reason that it remains a for-profit system even though it's been debated for 50 years. Regardless of which political party was in power and how much they crowed about it, no one has changed it during that time frame.

Over 90% of the medical R&D in the world happens in the US. Why?

Because we are a for-profit system. There's a profit motive to research new treatments, pharmaceuticals, and technologies. If that goes away, so does the motivation, and medical progress comes to a screeching halt.

Not just here, but globally.

So we endure the inherent downsides of medicine being for-profit here in order to preserve the benefits. Again, not just for us, but for the whole world.

Obamacare did combine the worst elements possible, so we can do better than we are right now, but this is a much tougher problem to work on (notice I didn't say "fix," because there is no such thing with regard to health care, only picking your poison) than people think it is.

And part of the reason they think that is because they believe the propaganda (like you have), that everybody else has these trouble-free systems that work perfectly and it's just because we refuse to emulate them that we don't live in a world of health care unicorns and fairies.

Health care has three aspects: Cost, availability, and quality. You cannot maximize one of those points on the triangle without suffering on at least one other point.

For example, you can maximize availability, but you do so at the expense of lowered quality and/or higher cost.

Don't be fooled, other countries face the same triangle and have to prioritize and make hard decisions also, although we are literally subsidizing the R&D for the entire world, so that's one aspect of quality that they get for free.

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aren’t the doctors going through the same education system?

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No, a lot of doctors are doctor's kids & grew up going to private schools & top colleges. Remember, the US does have the best colleges in the world. Our problem isn't with the top performers.

Our problem is the patients (that should've been held back in grade school) trying to apply said doctor's advice. You can only dumb it down so much

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Medical training now is more rigorous than it has ever been in terms of what students are required to learn.

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they learn all electronic stuff & how to use computers. Most of this is how to treat symptoms and not actually how to heal a person

Healthcare systems get too much money from pharmaceutical companies to really care about the regular person.