The medical health care system and why it doesn't work anymore

May 4th

Today I spoke to an adminstrator of one of the hospitals in California. He did a very good job in explaining me the history of the health care system in the USA.
In 1965 it was decided that the elderly (65 years and older) and the disabled would receive medical care by a system called Medicaid. This is a federal system, which has different names in different states. In California it is called Medicare. All employees pay a contribution to Medicare and when they turn 65 and need medical care, Medicare will pay. In 1965 a total number of 8 employees paid money to this system, to give health care to one elderly. Life expectancy was about 69 years. Nowadays, 70% of people who are 65+, eventually reach the age of 90. Moreover, the ratio employee/ elderly is nowadays 2-3:1. This means that the Medicare system will soon get broke. The state has lowered the amount of money that is paid for the diagnostic and therapeutic interventions in the hospitals. The amount of money paid is even lower than the actual costs. Because the hospitals need more money to survive, they charge patients with private insurance more money, to compensate for their losses. In return, the insurance companies will ask more money to their members. The fact that most insurance companies were taken over by private investors and the fact that only 85% of all the money in an insurance company has to be spent on medical care, aggravates the problems encountered. The fact that medical doctors get paid for eveything they do (CT-scans, bloodworks, etc.), makes that more tests are ordered. The fact that every medical doctor can be sued, even many years after he saw the patient, makes that most doctors practice a defensive kind of medicine in which even more tests are ordered, which will make health care even more expensive.
An 18-year-old girl who wants birth control, gets a breast examination, a mammogram and a PAP-smear, before she receives her receipe. All these diagnostics are performed, despite the fact that they are (in best) controversial all around the world.....