10 Reasons Healthcare is Outrageously Expensive in America

[Martin Hash]

1. Being a monopoly in a Capitalist system is the major reason Healthcare costs are so high in America. If there was ever a government function that needs to be socialized, healthcare is it! (They do it for old people and the military - why not for everyone?)
2. How is it logical that insurance companies take a huge cut by denying delivery of service?
3. Why are our doctors treated like rock-stars. Only North America requires physicians to have a Bachelor’s degree, and only North America has such outrageous education costs! Other countries start their medical students at 17 when they get out of High School, and most sponsor a medical education. Consequently, medical graduates in other countries don’t require such inflated incomes just to pay off loans, nor are valuable potential engineers veered into medicine because of the pay & prestige.
4. Threat of lawsuits. Every examination is a potential jackpot. Why should healthcare be the primary source of income for so many attorneys?
5. Why are so many doctor’s offices decked out like the Taj Mahal? Americans have come to expect lavish glass palaces and stylish accoutrements at the local clinic – anything less and they assume the care will be bad.
6. Why are 80-year-olds getting hip replacements while pregnant women are left unattended. I know old folks are the biggest voting block but the selfishness is unforgivable.
7. Patients aren’t held responsible for their own bad behavior: cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, but most of all – weight. Fat people are expensive.
8. The expenses for the handicapped is totally out of proportion with society’s ability to pay for them. Leave out the guilt, bring in the accountants.
9. Any attempt at reformation is politicized. “Death panels”?! My goodness, people.
10. Self-righteous indignation. How many times have you heard, “If the doctor had only found it – we all knew. It’s their fault.” Where does that sense of superiority come from? Passive-aggressive behavior is counter-productive and ultimately expensive through a variety of insidious reasons, like acceptance of quack medicine, (homeopathy, naturopathy, feng shui, crystals, etc.)