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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (19263)	9/11/2010 2:00:21 AM
From: dybdahl	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 42652

Yes, but it is not an insurance system like you know it. You don't do insurance papers and there is not payment between an insurance and a provider. It basically works like this: Somebody does something incredibly stupid and breaks a couple of legs. He is taken care of by the hospital that is best suited to handle it. That's it. The treatment is paid for using the hospital tax-funded budget. If the treatment is handled outside the patient's home region, a bill will be sent to the home region by the hospital - the patient never sees that. Inside Denmark, the prices are based on DRG, outside it is based on negotiation and controlled by Danish doctors. But, as you can see, the doctors are both representing the payer and the health care treater. This is what limits costs. The cost-limiting part differs from region to region, but also from hospital to hospital, and sometimes from doctor to doctor. For instance, Hvidovre hospital does not want to operate smaller stomachs on obese people that don't understand Danish well, because they think it is essential for the outcome. Other hospitals in the same region have a different opinion on that, they accept that a translator is present in OR. We have a free choice of hospital, so if one does not want to do it, you can ask another, or if one has a waiting queue, ask another. Interestingly, most patients want to use their local hospital, they have a distance preference over quality or availability of care - and this means that distance is a perceived cost. Makes sense - if the hospital is 100km away, it will cost you 100-150 euro to get there and back, by car, all included, for each trip. Only people with chronic diseases get money to help with transport, and this only covers public transportation, which takes time, and as we know time is money. If you want a treatment that nobody in the danish health care sector thinks is necessary, you need to pay yourself at a private hospital, full price.