Medical Insurance
Recently I read a Vietnam post about going to the hospital and this blogger (http://vuth-it.blogspot.com/2006/09/national-dayfull-problem.html) mentioned medical insurance.
My half-sister, who has only been in the States for about 3 years, gave me the impression that most people in Vietnam does not carry medical insurance. It is better to pay for it yourself. This does make sense.
In America, the cost of treating a patience is high because of 'additional' insurance that the doctor has to carry. This is a vicous cycle. Doctors in America needs to carry malpractice medical insurance in case they get sue by a patient (called medical negligence claims). For example, I don't feel good. I go to a doctor. He operates on me but the surgery did not go well or it is not a surgery that I need because he misdiagnose the illness. Now my have some kind of side effect from the surgery. I can hire a lawyer to sue the doctor. May be it's a kind of lawsuit that I can ask for $600,000 and I could win in court. If the doctor has malpractice insurance, the insurance company would pay me the $600,000. If the doctor did not have malpractice insurance and he has a a $300,000 house and $300,000 in the bank, I can take the monies in his bank account and his house if I win the lawsuit. The the doctor would be left with nothing. He might have to close his practice or start all over again. That's why doctors have to have malpractice insurance in America and premiums (the amount you pay on the insurance policy each month) are high. So the doctor pass that cost to the patient.
posted by Thuy @ 6:28 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Medical malpractice insurance is not why medical care costs so much in America. Insurance costs something on the order of 1-2% of the costs of medical care - medical malpractice insurance is not much different than other professions that also utilize insurance. Lawyers, accountants, directors and officers of companies - all these folks are generally covered by insurance (or should be), yet we don't hear complaints about that.
The high medical costs is because Americans love to throw pills at a problem - instead of treating the source, which is poor eating habits - and because Americans overeat, over drink and over smoke. We, on average, are not very healthy and that's why it costs so much to keep us going.
In Viet nam if you buy medical insurance then you only pay half of the bill and it's still not right at least I think, but better than nothing. enjoyed your post.
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