Our health system is so broken and disjointed. Most of the time I go to my healthcare provider and I have no idea what I will be charged until I see receive the EOB "Explanation Of Benefits" letter I receive weeks later from my insurance company. Negotiated rate? If the healthcare provider is willing to accept the "negotiated rate" for services every time then that should be their rate. We need a published rate across all healthcare providers that doesn't change based on whatever insurance provider a deal had been cut with.

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This is an issue I want to hear out of the mouth of every elected official in this state.

I'm able to live comfortably but I had to struggle really hard to get where I am. WAY more than I should have had to. And I worry so much for young people just starting out.

After living my entire life in NJ I don't want to see my own children get chased out due to cost of living. Medical bills are absolutely part of that. Perhaps one of the biggest parts if a person is unfortunate. We need to do better. Our young people deserve better.

PA looks pretty appetizing. More space, I can have a gun at home, I can ride a quad on my property, I can still visit family in jersey or go to concerts in New York. But friends who live there say the cost of living is climbing as well

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Or parking lots, apartments and golf courses replacing some of the remaining agriculture in middlesex county

I'm old enough to remember when most of the current prescription drugs didn't exist. lots of stuff wrong with healthcare from doctors running it like a business for maximum revenue to insurance companies requiring too much documentation that adds to cost.

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but in the end modern health care is essentially most people going to the doctor who does some tests and tells them they weigh too much or whatever is wrong with the bloodwork or some autoimmune issue and instead of changing lifestyle people simply take the prescriptions and continue to do what they do that made them sick

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I have family whom I've seen start on blood pressure meds then gain weight and she ignored everyone telling her to lose weight and change lifestyle and then went to statins and now full type 2 diabetes and seems to not want to change a single thing except to keep on taking drugs and insulin. another friend i had did some new drug therapy for IBS or something like that. I looked it up and it turned out to be expensive cancer drugs being used for digestive inflammation issues. told him to maybe try dietary changes and he didn't want to hear and told me how eating whatever is supposed to make you feel bad and it's completely normal. meanwhile he thinks he's cured by taking drugs that almost destroy your immune system

it's not the cost per procedure but the amount of people using it. at this point something like half of Americans are on a prescription drug on a regular basis including kids and it's going up every year. I know that most modern drugs didn't exist 30 years ago but the difference is that 30-40 years ago you went to the doctor if something was wrong and they might do something to cure you. these days it's prescription drugs to "maintain" whatever condition you have

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type 2 diabetes which is easily preventable and reversible is surging and people are choosing medicine instead of lifestyle changes

It is remarkable to think that the US Healthcare system is not the result of any grand plan or national strategy, but a series of historical accidents, most of them occurring in and around World War II. Factory owners needed to keep up with the breakneck demand of the wartime economy, and looked to "fringe benefits" to attract workers, including private health insurance plans. Then the IRS really threw gasoline on the employer provided health insurance model by issuing a ruling in 1943 that health insurance benefits were not taxable.

The structure of our healthcare system is an 80 year old hack. It's highly illogical, inefficient, and very very expensive.

Some of your post is spot on, some is quackery lol.

there is a bunch of health info on YouTube with real doctors and research scientists talking about their research, data, etc. you can google it and NIH has free access to some studies or there will be some journal or sciency website that will have a summary. but lots of real research now about anti-inflammatory foods and the health benefits.

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I got into it almost a decade ago after Tom Brady's book came out and everyone saying he was crazy but lots of real science about this stuff now

The burden of evidence falls on you, not us. Telling us to "google" it, or to search the NIHs website is insufficient and beneath real dialogue; you are making a statement/claim you believe is backed up by fact. OK. Provide the corroborating evidence. We'll wait.

I went to medical school so I know how to ‘do my own research’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V02z9mqTWzg&t=94s

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I don't watch the channel this much it's a medical doctor interviewing scientists and other doctors. this guy doesn't do low carb research but it's essentially eat low carb diet.

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https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NCQ3E5sAAAAJ

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listened to an interview with the above who said he advocates low carb and dairy free for everyone. never read his papers but there they are

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bunch of other channels i listen to. some are functional medicine people, another one is a celebrity nutritionist, another is used to be in pharmaceuticals and now runs a health oriented business and youtube channel. there is a research convention in australia and they publish the presentations on youtube.

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last year I listened to some UK doctor who was doing personal diabetes research and talked about his findings before he published them. he was looking to catch T2D years before the normal glucose tests came out elevated

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best part of 21st century is free access to all this information in ELI5 format

congratulations

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I've gone to doctors for decades and have never received decent advice and in my 40's I'm finally in my best health after listening to doctors other than the ones i went to

> PA looks pretty appetizing.

You and I are very, very different people.

It is. The parts bordering nj in the Philly metro really aren’t much cheaper these days.

I’m sorry but your friend likely had IBD not Ibs. Dietary changes are not going to cure autoimmune diseases.

Stop giving out unsolicited medical advice when you don’t know the difference between IBS and IBD.

Yes eating healthy foods can make a tremendous difference in quality of life. That does not mean it’s a cure all- because it’s not.

I’m pretty sure most common medications cost pennies to produce. It’s a total red herring. European countries have GDPs a fraction of ours yet it seems they can afford drugs and good quality healthcare just fine. And they spend so much less for it.

there is also this thing called sleep and exercise

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some of the earliest studies about Alzheimer's I can remember are correlations between little sleep and developing Alzheimer's.

it's not the production cost but everything else around it. you need to go to the doctor who has expenses. the pharmacy has expenses. the insurance companies have expenses. that's why some stores can sell some generics for less than $10, they are cheap to buy and they have other revenue sources.

Sure, but why the austerity mindset around healthcare. By all measures the problem in America is not that people go to the doctor too much but too little, because they have no insurance, shitty insurance, or can’t get time off work. You complain about people taking insulin and blood pressure medication which literally cost pennies and require minimal medical oversight. You realize these people take these meds for a reason and not just for fun? Save a few cents denying someone medication, now they have a diabetic crisis or a heart attack and now require intensive long term care. It’s so short sighted.

Another reason seeing the doctor is so expensive is that the healthcare industry has purposely made medical school outrageously expensive, and artificially limited the number of med school/residency slots for physicians. It’s not just that people are too greedy and seeing the doctor too much. The industry has colluded to limit the number of doctors on purpose.

Yeah Bucks County is at least as expensive as the nicer parts of Mercer County. But have fun on your quad with your gun I guess?

Tom Brady, MD.

my last job our HR used to have benefits meetings every year and explain the reason for the cost increase. it was because people used the benefits a lot more than the year before.

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the incidence of all kinds of non-infectious diseases like diabetes are rising every year. you can find the info from the real medical pros and the alternative medicine doctors on how to reverse these things without pills.

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most of the doctors I've been to were older and long past their medical school debt. it's the cost of providing the care that's the issue. everything from rent to insurance to salaries to buying the equipment and supplies.

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The NYC mayor reversed his diabetes naturally, but you can find similar stories all over youtube from regular people, medical professionals, researchers and you don't even have to go vegan or vegetarian.

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point is more and more people are using the medical benefits instead of making simple life choices to avoid medical care. it's simple numbers. it's one thing when only a few people had type 2 diabetes and there were more healthy people to pay into the plan to treat them, but the amount of people getting treatment on a regular basis is increasing every year.

yep, either listen to the people pushing a pill for every little thing or the guy who's going to be playing in the NFL at 50 and is healthier than 99% of all the athletes and former athletes out there

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just like i listen to a chiropractor from Georgia who's a former Olympic athlete, almost 60 years old and looks better than people half his age. I actually get a mainstream medical channel in my feed sometimes and this guy is probably 45 or so and has this hanging chin and trying to tell people what to do

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or I watch the former fat guy who reversed diabetes and is now a weightlifter and quotes a bunch of studies on his channel.

You seem to be confusing being in good health with knowing about medicine.

I'll remember that next time I watch someone who's a university researcher discussing the details of cholesterol and why the high cholesterol is bad is BS or a cardiologist talking how he got his patients off of statins

Exactly. See my post on facility fees.

I think you should live your life as you please without doctors.

another good part of the 21st century is you can go get a blood test on your own if you pay for it. advanced lipid profile too

Depends on where you live. I actually live in PA now, but grew up in Jersey. I live in the Lehigh Valley and rent prices here rival that of New York. One bedroom apartments here are going for around $1,500-$2,000 depending on where you live. Prices are really climbing quickly. Housing prices are also skyrocketing.

My uncle purchased a two bedroom home for $75,000 back in 2012 and now that same home is valued around $250,000. Needless to say he’s thinking about selling and moving somewhere else.