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As explained in Part -2, “Universal Healthcare” is a rarity that “Capital America” & “Labor America” could agree upon, since everyone will pay less and get more. That is everyone except “MediCap America”, the true King among all “Capital America”.
MediCap is the trueblue purebred “Capital America”. While all other “Capital America” is in reality “AmazonCap”, who are more Global than “American”, MediCap has 100% of its stake in the USA. Why? Because no one else in the whole world is that stupid and willing to 2~6 times for the same healthcare end product. Worst of all, everyone else is getting better services at a fraction of the per capita cost.
For any individual company among the “AmazonCap”, even those as big as Walmart & Amazon, the idea of fighting the monster MediCap, with its aggregated catch of 18% GDP is simply too overwhelming to even worth trying. So they treat it as a cost of doing business in the USA and find it cheaper to pay the MediCap ransom instead of fighting a losing battle.
“MediCap” Madness
I used to design and manufacture a life saving medical device right here in Johns Creek. My cost was $100/pc and I sold it for $200/ps to people who resell it under their own brands. The US is among the best in this type of device and many other countries also buy "Made in USA" like mine. Things get very interesting as soon as it arrives the hospital door step.
At the Hospitals
#1: In Taiwan & Japan, a band-name manufacturer / importer / distributor charged a hospital $400 and the hospital billed the patient $500.
#2: In the US, the hospital cost was $800 and it billed the patient $2000 ~ $4000.
#3: In China, the hospital cost was $2000 and it billed the patient $4000+.
Patients’ Out-of-pocket cost
#1: In Taiwan & Japan, every penny is paid by its universal healthcare insurance & a patient pays nothing. For you the unlucky tourist who end up into the emergency room, you have to pay $500 in full yourself.
#2: In the US, if you can afford decent insurance, you pay $500~$1000. If you don’t have insurance, you pay $4000 ~ $8000.
#3: In China, if you are one of the lucky few such as the State public servants or Chairman Xi himself, you pay nothing. But if you are one of the millions of poor farmers who earn less than $1 a day, you pay $4000. You better off dying and the hospital makes sure you will.
“Evil Socialism” Encounter in Taiwan
Taiwan has not yet been labeled as a “Socialist” country by the MediCap, but their citizens do fall victims of the evil “Socialism Scheme” of Universal Healthcare, and my wife happens to be one of them.
During one of her home country visits a few years ago, her Taiwan doctor found a 2 lb ovarian tumor. It may or may not be cancerous and a surgery is immediately arranged on the spot. She entered the hospital a few days later for the next-day scheduled surgery. She chose to upgrade to a single-bed room instead of a free 3-bed standard room. During the surgery, the tumor sample was sent to the lab in the same hoptical as soon as the doctor got to it. Lucky for her it was proven benign, so only one ovary needed to be removed. Had it been cancerous, both ovaries and the uterus would need to be removed. A few days later, she could no longer withstand lying in a hospital bed doing nothing and left the hospital for her parent’s home.
The total bill was less than $5000, which she would have had to pay out-of-pocket had she failed to maintain her citizen coverage. She ended up paying for the upgrades of both a brand name medicine and the single-bed hospital room, at a total of less than $1000. Otherwise, it would have been free.
A friend in Florida was billed $80K for the same thing at about the same time, with out-of-pocket cost of $6500 in the form of annual deductible. Her annual insurance premium is about $8k and my wife’s in Taiwan is less than $1000. My wife’s annual premium here is also about $8k, just to be clear.
Only in the USA
Taiwan GDP is ~$25K per capita and ours is ~$65K. Taiwan spends ~6% of its GDP on healthcare and we spend ~18%. I’d taken 2 accounting and 1 finance classes for my MBA degree, and I still could not figure this one out. But there is little doubt why we have no money left to afford an Universal Healthcare that all other 1st world countries already have since the end of WWII.
(to be continued)
Frank Hui
2020-10-22
Atlanta, Georgia, USA
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发表于 2020-10-23 06:24:26