(The Economic Collapse Blog)—Do not read this article if you do not want to get angry. The “healthcare industry” in the United States has become one gigantic money making scam, and tens of millions of American families now live in great fear of illness and disease. Why are they so afraid? It is because a single trip to the hospital can ruin you financially. Even if you are covered by health insurance, medical debt can still wreck your finances. In fact, most of the people that go bankrupt due to medical bills actually have health insurance. Meanwhile, on the other side there are lots of people that are becoming fabulously wealthy from this system. Our “healthcare industry” has turned large numbers of doctors, lawyers, health insurance company executives and pharmaceutical company executives into multi-millionaires. Of course the largest shareholders in our gigantic healthcare corporations are raking in the most cash of all. The healthcare industry in the United States has become a cesspool of corruption and greed, and this has been the case for so long that we don’t even remember what a legitimate system even looks like anymore.
Many Americans truly believed that health insurance would protect them if something went terribly wrong with their health.
But then they discovered that health insurance companies will use their “delay, deny and defend” tactics to weasel out of paying what they owe any what that they possibly can.
Even if you do have a health insurance company that is relatively honest, and that is fairly rare these days, you are still just one really bad accident or one really bad illness away from bankruptcy unless you are independently wealthy.
Our healthcare system is designed to rapidly drain money out of us when we are at our most vulnerable. If you have to call for an ambulance to take you to the hospital, are you thinking about how much your care will cost at that point?
Of course not. You are just hoping that you will survive.
Today, it is so easy to rack up $10,000, $20,000 or even $30,000 in medical debt in the blink of an eye and many hospitals are becoming extremely aggressive about collecting on those medical debts.
I guarantee that many of you that are reading this article know exactly what I am talking about.
One trip to the hospital can wipe out years of financial savings. But why should it cost so much? In many cases, a doctor only spends a few minutes with you.
Sadly, you discover the truth when you follow the money. There are a lot of people that are becoming exceedingly wealthy from this system, and unfortunately that does not include middle class Americans.
The following are 18 horrifying statistics about medical bills, medical debt and the healthcare industry that will make you so mad you will want to tear your hair out…
- #1 According to the CFPB, approximately 100 million Americans are in medical debt right now.
- #2 Even though the vast majority of the population is covered by health insurance, 62 percent of the two million personal bankruptcies that are filed each year in the United States are caused by medical debt.
- #3 One survey found that U.S. households have piled up more than 220 billion dollars in medical debt.
- #4 A three day stay in the hospital will typically cost you somewhere around $30,000.
- #5 Americans spend more than 200 billion dollars treating cancer each year.
- #6 According to the CDC, heart disease costs this country more than 250 billion dollars each year.
- #7 According to the NIH, diabetes costs this country more than 400 billion dollars each year.
- #8 A 25-year-old mother in Nevada was handed a bill for $700,000 after her baby daughter spent about two months in the neonatal intensive care unit.
- #9 One study found that hospitals overcharge Americans “by as much as 18 times over their costs”.
- #10 78 percent of U.S. adults have avoided hospital visits because they cost so much.
- #11 Hospital profits have risen by more than 400 percent since 1999.
- #12 A study that was conducted a few years ago determined that more than 90 percent of all hospital bills contain errors that can result in “overcharges, unnecessary costs, and insurance claim denials”…
- According to a 2020 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, billing errors affected over 90% of hospital bills. These errors can result in overcharges, unnecessary costs, and insurance claim denials, leading to financial hardship for patients.
- #13 The average family premium for employer-sponsored health insurance in the United States has skyrocketed to $25,572 annually.
- #14 One survey found that 18 percent of all insured adults in the U.S. have had a health insurance claim denied within the past year.
- #15 Since Obamacare became law, the annual profits of the five largest health insurance companies in the United States have gone up by 230 percent.
- #16 In 2023, the six largest health insurance companies in the United States had combined revenues of almost 1.1 trillion dollars.
- #17 In 2023, the CEOs of the five largest health insurance companies in the U.S. brought home approximately 75 million dollars in total compensation.
- #18 There are five giant pharmaceutical companies that each make more than 10 billion dollars in profits each year.
Our healthcare system should not be based on greed. It should be based on helping people and doing what is right for patients.
Other industrialized nations spend a much smaller portion of their GDP on healthcare, and many of their systems are actually more efficient.
What is wrong with us? Why can’t we get our healthcare system fixed? Can anyone answer that question?
Unfortunately, I don’t think that it is going to be fixed. They have made trillions of dollars by keeping us sick and managing our illnesses.
When trillions of dollars are at stake, any effort to fundamentally fix the system will be met with overwhelming resistance.
So it appears that we are stuck with our current system for the foreseeable future, and that is very bad news for all of us.
Michael’s blockbuster entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
Here in Arizona we have been negatively affected for decades by the illegal alien invasion. They usually do not have a primary care physician or insurance, so some use the emergency room if they get the sniffles. Every pregnancy and anchor baby is paid for by American taxpayers. A couple of decades ago I was shocked when I had to go to an emergency room because I broke my foot and the hospital charged me $6,000 to just to take X-rays and wrap my foot in an Ace Bandage. Then they told me I should go see a foot doctor. I assumed that the hospital has to make money to stay in business and that because they were giving away free health care to illegal aliens, they had to overcharge the citizens to make up the difference. I’m sure it is far worse now than back when I visited that ER so many years ago. I haven’t gone back to an ER since.
We warned people that if Obamacare passed it would ruin our healthcare system. Thank McCain and Roberts. We also warned that once it was in place it would be very hard to end it. It will hurt for a while but we need to do it anyway if we want to survive it. Sometimes I feel like I am wasting my time and breath.
Wow…thank you for a defeatist…and no possible fixes…conclusion to your article. You must be getting a kickback from the health industry. A fix is always possible…it’s not your fault that you, dear writer, are without courage or creativity. But maybe we should ask Elon Musk what the people can do for themselves to break the stranglehold. Anything is possible with a critical mass of people willing to crush the opposition.
I went to the ER last year because I knew I had a kidney stone. I got there at 8am and they did a CT Scan. They informed me that the stone was relatively small and they wanted to admit me. At first I said yes, then I said no and left the ER a little before noon. A month later I got the accounting from my insurance – $14,000. They paid it. I was furious because I couldn’t protest for fear of something being charged back and the distinct possibility that Dignity would then come after me.
Your insurance didn’t pay $14,000. They paid less than 10% of that as their “allowable” contracted rate.
Its cant say its going to get worse because its already there. My wife retired from a world famous health clinic and my daughter works for them now. I havent seen my doctor for two years because they put a PA in between us and she handles most everything and is a fine person to work with but.
the but, I can see this clinic in greed mode and my daughter is getting worried about her job and she see’s first hand cut backs, and automation coming in rapidly.
ex. two years ago I was in a large waiting lobby on one wing of this clinic floor waiting for my wife. While sitting there I got the idea, they have three attendants at this counter to basically check your id and your appointment.
It would be easy to replace these people with robots. 3 people per counter and 4 wings on each floor times 18 floors. No call ins for sickness, no pay, no coffee breaks, no retirement or health insurance to pay.
Then I said, if I can envision this you know they already did and have someone on it.
Six months later at this clinics satellite office near my home, I walk in and the lobby had kiosks for signing in and the counter no longer has attendants working there. That fast. They had one person on duty to help if you couldnt figure out the instructions on the kiosks screen.
If we get the Jews out of healthcare, we might get somewhere. Who leads the Rockefeller foundation, again? Oh yeah, a Jew. Who heads the CDC again? Oh yeah, a Jew. Who heads Pfizer again? Oh yeah, a Jew. And going back to the Rockefeller foundation, out of 24 board members, 1 of them MIGHT be white, but he might also be a Jew.
Not a very “diverse” group, the way it completely excludes white Christians.
Wake up.
I don’t think mentioning company profits and CEO salaries is relevant, since they’re such a tiny part of the entire industry.
What’s needed is a wall separating public/private and generics-public domain / patented / early adopter biotechnology and Rx. If what worked long enough to become generic is good enough, that’s what patients would choose.
Govt shouldn’t subsidize unnecessary patented biotech. Until patents expire and then generics or public domain products come out. Patients and families should decide if they want to pay extra to be guinea pigs and early adopters. Others can pay less for generics and public domain, proven over time that doesn’t kill patients like new drugs and gadgets do.
Stupid Congress got suckered into paying “overhead” costs for patented research.
How about outlawing patents for medicine at all?