It’s Dangerous To Get Sick In America

By APRA.

The American medical system is mainly controlled by large corporations with a single goal: to earn a profit. One of the ways they earn profits is through the ownership of hospitals, where patient safety is neither a priority nor a legal requirement and there is no transparency or price controls.

Hospitals often earn money when they treat complications that result from medical errors.  Since the federal government does not track medical errors as a cause of death, and there are no national standards or regulations with respect to them, hospitals are free to deal with or ignore preventable harm, as they wish. The more profitable solution is to avoid dealing with preventable harm.

In addition, there are no regulations with respect to disclosing hospital fees so hospitals are free to charge a captive public whatever they wish for medical treatment without disclosing their fees in advance.

​As a result:

• medical bills are the number one cause of bankruptcy
• Preventable medical errors in hospitals are the third leading cause of death. Hundreds of thousands of people are dying needlessly and millions more are being injured in hospitals every year due to an epidemic of preventable medical errors and harm*. If ambulatory surgical centers, ​doctors offices and nursing homes are included there is compelling evidence that medical errors may be the leading cause of death. It is a hidden epidemic.
• hospitals earn more money when errors occur so they won’t take responsibility, be transparent, or make meaningful change
• local media companies profit from hospital advertising so they won’t investigate or report about them
• since people don’t know what’s happening at their local hospital they don’t take the necessary precautions to protect themselves and their family from harm as a result MORE people die needlessly or are bankrupted by their medical bills   
• 1 in 5 adults have experienced a medical error
• 1 in 3 hospital patients experience a preventable medical error
• medical errors cost our economy about $1 trillion annually, almost 1/3 of all health care costs
• health care is approximately 18% of our Gross Domestic Product, the highest in the world
• the U.S. ranks last in overall healthcare system performance compared to the top 11 leading industrialized nations
• medical bills are the number one cause of personal bankruptcy

* an extrapolation based upon an estimated 250,000 mean rate of death per year from medical errors as reported in The BMJ by Dr. Martin Makary and Dr. Michael Daniel of Johns Hopkins. University School of Medicine.

Also

• hospital owners and CEO’s are not held accountable for preventable deaths that occur at their facilities and are not required to inform the public or community they serve
• when preventable harm occurs to a hospital patient the hospital and attending physician are not legally required to, and often do not, inform the patient or their family, accept responsibility, admit that harm has occurred or make meaningful change, even when the patient dies as a result
• ​​​local media companies, in most cases, won’t investigate or report about preventable hospital deaths because they profit from hospital advertising
• since the information is suppressed people aren’t aware of the public health threat in their local community that is causing preventable deaths and injuries
• since the information is suppressed people have a false sense of security and trust when receiving medical treatment and they don’t take the necessary precautions to protect themselves and their families from harm​

Why hasn’t something been done?

​The hospital and medical industries lobby against any legislation which might reduce physical or financial harm to patients but threatens their profits or autonomy. Their budgets for lobbying are some of the best funded in the country totalling approximately $41 million in 2016. ​​

In individual cases of harm which result in lawsuits, hospitals with annual profits in the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars employ teams of attorneys to successfully fight all but the most egregious cases, invariably settling out of court without publicity or fanfare and requiring strict confidentiality in order to maintain an information blackout so that the community is not informed.  

Most Americans are unaware that their health, life savings, and  even life are at serious risk, one that is growing daily, threatened by a  healthcare system that is out of control.

Healthcare premiums are growing at four-times the rate of inflation. Employees are currently paying 41% of the healthcare dollar through both premium sharing and benefit costs. Soon employees will be paying more than 50%.

And with just a minor illness or household accident, anyone, except for the very richest, and even those with Medicare, can be rendered bankrupt due to exorbitant hospital bills, and their life can be placed unnecessarily at risk due to the failure of our federal and state governments to protect patients from the dangers of a broken healthcare system.

Not long ago the wealthiest business in most communities across America was the local bank and the highest earners were bankers. Today it’s often the local hospital and its’ executives. Hospital administrators earn over a million dollars a year running hospitals that annually bankrupt thousands of patients without health insurance, charging them unconscionable fees that are much higher than any insurer pays.

Most hospitals in America, unlike those in the rest of the world, profit from housing and treating patients. Some hospitals will admit patients with health insurance, but no demonstrated need of hospitalization, simply to increase their profits from tests and imaging, putting those patients at needless risk of hospital acquired illnesses. Patients may be admitted to satisfy illegal quotas, often at the expense of the patient if their health insurance is not accepted or they have none. How can hospitals get away with such travesties? Lax laws which don’t protect patients.

Why would private insurers tolerate such activities? They are businesses which are concerned about the bottom line and little else. As middle men they simply pass the cost on to the consumer by increasing premiums or reducing benefits. The government fights fraudulent activity that affects Medicare and Medicaid but only gross misconduct receives investigation while minor infractions aren’t acted upon. And state medical boards are mainly concerned with protecting doctors, although they profess to protect the public even though they do little to actually protect patients.

American citizens have few rights and no protection against unfair, dishonest, illegal, deceptive, abusive or dangerous tactics by those in the medical industry, and there is little help available for the millions who fall victim each year. Patients and their families are left to fend for themselves against typically cloaked, protected and non-communicative opponents when it comes to any problem or complaint. These common practices that victimize patients place the health and well-being of every citizen, as well as our country’s economy, at risk.