Why an MRI costs $1,080 in America and $280 in France

[uppityperson]

43. The easiest most noticable way to cut outgo is to pay providers less.It's happened to me, as a nurse

Last edited Sun Mar 4, 2012, 04:16 PM - Edit history (1)

many times over the yrs. But. If the goal is to decrease patient care, to overwork nurses so there is a "nursing shortage", that is a good strategy.

There is no nursing shortage. There are and have been plenty of nurses. Again, but...so many have quit the profession because of the combination of over work, over stress, low salaries. Yes, a nurse in a specialized field can have a really decent salary, but for the rest of us? Same thing for many physicians. Specialists can make good wages, but family practice docs? So many clinics are being absorbed into larger groups with the pressure put on to do more, see more, in less time. It ends up being poor medicine and many docs and nurses won't do it.

The cost of health care, esp for things like MRIs is not dependent upon how much nurses and physicians make.

I'd start with for-profit health insurance companies. Regulate them more. Way more.

And look at the managers, from top on down. See who makes what and what they do. What can be shrunk down. A top manager needs an office assistant. They might need an assistant. Next down also needs an assistant. Hey, let's make another position to handle this problem, ok? Now they need an assistant also, or...they can share with the others so let's overwork that person.

Look at all those nurses. Patients and families see them working. Work nurses work. See the nurses work. Hey, if we cut one of those nurses, spread the patients out between the others, we will save....$900/day! Cool. Work nurses work. See the nurses work. See a patient have a problem and the nurse handle it. See another patient have a problem and the nurse handle it. See a 3rd patient have a problem but what is this? The nurse is busy handling the other 2 problems? Quick nurse! Leave those 2 problems and go call for help from the manager. What? They are not available? And what happened to the 3rd person with the problem? Bad nurse. Bad bad nurse. You need to prioritize! No raise for you. Oh, you also need to know that we aren't making enough money so we are increasing your patient load.

Also realize that in France, you get a lot more benefits for less salary. 5 weeks paid vacation a yr (could be 4, am too tired to look it up but it is a hell of a lot more than we do in the USA), health care, decent patient load, etc.