I guess the main reason for S.Korea’s success on Covid-19 so far is “how much efforts the whole system puts to protect medical staffs”. Because of this, many doctors and nurses volunteered in hotspot like Dae-gu while closing their office (although they are allowed to open).
The fact that some hospitals do not even allow medical staffs to wear protective gears is heartbreaking.
As I said earlier, S.Korea charges less than 10% for the same medical services than US. Where did the enormous amount of health care expense we paid in US go?
Administration and lack of price management. Every chain needs to negotiate prices independently. And so much inefficiency and loss between the doctors and staff figuring out how to charge insurance companies and insurance companies trying to figure out how to minimize charges.
There is no incentive to cut down costs. Patients don’t pay for medical care. Their insurance does. And most don’t even pay for their own insurance. Their employers do. We are twice removed from the costs, and nobody has any idea how much things cost, nor do they care.
If one entity, like in Korea the government, is the one who pays at least there is some incentive and capacity to cut down costs.
This is an example of the massive waste in our health spending:
We spent $635B a year on back pain, medication, surgery and lost work days combined. And most are wasted on needless MRI and surgery, with little to show for. Doctors and hospitals are incentivized to over prescribe.
The litigation piece and insurance for litigation is only a small piece. Of course there is the hidden fee where doctors over prescribe testing to avoid getting sued. An even bigger piece is the price we pay for medical gear and pharmaceuticals. Same drugs cost a fraction just across the border in Canada. And don’t forget administration overhead.
Medicare / Medicaid can drive costs down a lot lower then any of the other administration systems in the US and per patient costs are quite a bit lower under medicare / medicaid
One of the good or bad effects of living in a free-market economy is to pay someone what he can charge for his services and product. The free market allows you to do the same for your services. Charge as much as you can or quit.
Xi and officials knew about and covered it up for a month. If the whole area had been aggressively quarantined in December the virus would be contained. Hundreds of thousands will now die.
Processed 1,906 of which 1,036 are positives. 54.4% compared to 52.4% yesterday
As of April 1, approximately 92,500 tests had been conducted in California. At least 32,944 results have been received and another 59,500 are pending. These numbers include data California has received from commercial, private and academic labs, including Quest, LabCorp, Kaiser, University of California and Stanford, and the 22 state and county health labs currently testing.
California now has 9,191 confirmed cases and 203 deaths.
Governments should stop wasting precious time needed to fight the coronavirus after squandering an opportunity to prevent the Covid-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization’s head said.
“We squandered the first window of opportunity,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “The time to act was actually more than a month ago or two months ago.”
Ok, don’t fight coronavirus, just focus on blaming others.
The world has a second chance, as 150 countries have fewer than 100 reported cases and still have time to prepare, Tedros said. Those that have ordered lockdowns have won themselves time to implement aggressive measures to stamp out the disease.
Ok, those have less than 100 cases, should fight.
I think the journalist reporting is screwed up. It made Tedros talk like an idiot.
