Transcripts For FBC Stossel 20160521

Insurance company out of there. John is Government Healthcare the answer . It didnt work for the va. They have movie playing in the waiting room. Just so someone has a better experience. Our typical waiting time is less than five minute. Why does this doctor work so hard to please patient . Because they will leave. People will not stay, they have choices. John choice in medicine. What a concept. Thats our show, tonight. Announcer now john stossel. John i have reported on American Healthcare for decade but now its more personal. Several week ago a surgeon cut a small malignant tumor out my lung. I picked that hospital i didnt pick it, my doctors recommended a surgeon there, and what do i know about the best place to go . I spent more time researching which cell phone to buy. Its rated best in new york. Named the number one hospital in tampa bay. John good for them. But what does that mean . Are the ratings accurate . Do they help people shop for the best healthcare . We rarely have as much information about hospitals as i had shopping for this phone. How should we shop for healthcare . Lets talk to people who think about that. David gold hill is ceo of a grape show network. When a hospital killed his father he wrote this book about how to fix American Healthcare. An American Hospital killed your father. He died of an infection acquired in the hospital that was preventable. Estimates of errors are 250,000 a year. And the third biggest cause of death and i asked why does that happen . Why are hospitals not inventived to do more. John the season season tough ie incentive is not to kill you. Unfortunately the customer of the hospital isnt the patient, its the insurer, medicare, and medicaid, and that difference explained a lot of the things we see in the Healthcare System. John let me turn to what i wrote in the article. For all i know my care was good, but the Customer Service was awful. You had to fill out the same forms again and again. The same information. Sometimes they would say the doctor is coming an would come two hours later and they dont bother to email you and say hes not going to be there for a while. When they dismiss you, you wait two hours and nobody talks to you. There is no reup burstment for there is no reimbursement for good personalized care. Every hour they had an appointment for the preop. He single place had them fill out the same information. When they said why am i refilling this out, they go, the systems dont talk to each other. John you have a group leap frog trying to change the way we rate we have been publishing hospital data. A simple af grade. John i just discovered new york presbyterian got a c grade. Below and on infections. Good on specially trained doctors. Below average on a couple of never events. John patient dont know about this. What would help is if we are the customers. Then the providers chase you. John when i argue that people say we cant afford this. Only the rich would get good care. I dont know where they think the money is coming from. We are spend 800,000 per life. If people think they are not paying for that, they are kidding themselves. John i complained the machines beeped at night and the nurse would come in or not come in and say, oh, old batteries. Someone wrote to cam plain about the customer mentality. You cant sleep in the hospital with all the beeping and the lights are on, the florescent lights that are in your eyes. How are you supposed to get better if you cant sleep and dont get good food. John food compared to the surgery . There is no part of the economy where good service would mean more in producing the end product. When my sons appendix burst, filling out the same form over and over again made him sicker. John lets go back on why we had that virginia hav ask hy slogan. Duringer king ran that campaign because mcdonalds made it tough for customers to customize their burger. So burger king said. We can serve your bigger any way you think its proper, have it your way. John competition made them better, but people scream at me and say you cant compare it. Medicine is much more complex than hamburgers. The medicine is standard. If somebody come plains of certain symptoms, we know what tests we are going to do and what the treatment will be. Its trying to figure out which one is the best for that person. But there is more to a hospital than just figuring out the diagnosis and treating. You cant tell a patient dont move until this catheter is removed and someone will be with you in a halfhour. And nobody comes for 8 hours and they are sitting around and they are increasing the risk for blood clots and other complications. John michelle wrote, stop whining. Do you think an m. D. Has time to respond to patients email . I give every patient my cell phone and email. John they bug you. They do, but thats my job. He every industry would love to have a pass like that. For 3 trillion its oh da itss okay to expect the Health Industry to have the same Customer Service as other industry. John in a free market stossel would be dead. In a premarket i would have gotten better care, which wouldnt be dead. Another one. Lets see him negotiate the price of chemo when hes in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. This is something i do all the time which is bizarre. No one who has said this has actually been in our Healthcare System its so impossible to figure out how to get approval for things you need even during an emergency. In a consumerdriven system where the providers are competing to get customers, you do less work, not more work. You wouldnt make the decisions in the ambulance. Would you know which hospital was cheaper or better. John lots of americans want government to take over healthcare like it does in much of the world. Get the private Insurance Company out of there. John Michael Moore made a movie about that. He claimed Government Healthcare was better than profitseeking business. I pointed out when profit is involved, people innovate. Cell phones are better than i used to get. You know what i say to people . When are they going to invent a cell phone . John progressionives hatred of the free market is so bad they cant acknowledge what the market does. The pride of the soient bloc. Of the soient bloc. It the soviet bloc. But its an awful car. It pollutes heavily. This is the best governments could produce. Dont even use those for examples. I understand why some people dont like the government running things. But the government used to be really good at things. If the government is so good at giving all this care, why are patients coming from england here because they cant get an mri scan for 9 months. We get patients from canada who say i dont want to wait 9 months to fix my knee or shoulder. I need this fixed now. John lasik eye surgery and cosmetic surgery is consumer driven. The customer always pays the bill directly. So they advertise. Some of the ads are tacky. But so what . Do you have the e factor . You owe it to yourself to come she dr. E. Lasik eye surgery prices have dropped because of this competition. And the doctors compete to offer superior Customer Service. John you have movies in the waiting room. Our typical waiting time is less than five minutes. People will not stay, they have choices. John your practice operates that way . Absolutely. John how long is your waiting time . In the waiting room . Five minutes or less. But thats my choice. I decide i would rather give better care and make less money and be happy at the end of the day with how i was treating people. Increasingly people have high deductible plans. They are realiy get really sick, im paying my healthcare out of pocket. Obamacare has made it more difficult. But its a trend that can make us see how much potential there is for competition, choice and the things we value. Service, quality, value. John hope for things to get better. Thank you. Coming up. Ill fight with the doctor about obamacare and fight with one of these personal injury lawyers. We want to get you as much money as possible. John this 15yearold will explain how the fda tried to kill him. Some more good news. In spite of government there will be is some cool new medical technology coming like a way to uber your doctor. Show me top new artist. Ah, ha ha. Show me top male artist. My whole belieber fan group. Its not a competition, but if it was i won. Xfinity x1 lets you access the greatest library of Billboard Music awards moments, simply by using your voice. The Billboard Music awards, live sunday may 22nd, 8 5 pacific, only on abc. We want to get you as much money as possible, as fast as possible. Get the money you deserve for your injuries. Call me right now. John those ads help pay my salary. And sometimes they get compensation for real victims. But as a consumer reporter i have to say i hate those lawyers. For every person they help, they hurt dozen of people. Heres why. First i should bring out our personal injury lawyer guest and let him explain why hes a good guy. When people are injured, you get them money and thats a good thing. And you deter bad behavior. If they deserve it, i think it many a good thing. John dont you agree you make everything cost more . No, i dont. If somebody gets injured they have the right to be compensated for their injuries. John but you guys take so as much. You take 30 to 40 of the money, add in the defense lawyer costs and add in the unnecessary tests that get done because people are scared of you. You make everything more expensive. But the person who has been injured recovers, and they deserve to recover. Do they walk away . Do they grin and bear it . Does the person who has a brain damaged child as a result of somebodys negligence . Do they take it on the chin . I dont think so. John you kill people by denying us good things. A company came up with a safer is best. Another with an aid vaccine and lyme disease vaccine and they dropped the research because they were afraid of being sued. I heard this but i dont believe it. What you asked me to come out here about was defensive medicine, and the doctors in their surveys say its defensive medicine because of the lawyers. The only r only problem is the government have done their own studies, not surveys. Surveys, they ask the doctor, and the doctor goes, its the lawyers. These are real studies. The studies said the ama that their surveys were unreliable and the more likely cause was the income they produce from doing the test. John no doctor does unnecessary tests because they are scared of being sued to cover their rear . Thats lawyers question. Im sure we can find a doctor who somewhere along the way in his life had an experience with a lawsuit and as a result may practice defensive medicine. But thats a long way away from saying all the defensive medicine out there is practiced. Reason doctors are doing unnecessary tests is because of lawyers. John on your website you say your biggest verdict, 40 million. That was a structured settlement for a grievously damaged child. John a child with cerebral palsy. John john edwards made these cases famous. He used to say to the jury, im channeling the baby. I hear her, she is saying, doctors, im suffocating please help me be born. And juries awarded lots of money. Whats the result . Are you making it better for these children . Csections have gone from 6 of all births to 30 of all births. You are causing more csections which are more dangerous and more pain new and more expensive. You are hurting people. I know one thing, when this child went through what this child went through, and a normal child became a brain damaged child, you think that child deserves that money on so many Different Levels you cant manage it. That was a knock down drag outlayup. What they did to that child was horrific and no amount of money will ever make that mother whole and ever maybe that child whole. John doesnt it bother you that csections have gone from to 30 . It does. The doctors blame it lawyers. But i know for one thing, doctors dont like sitting there for 24 hours going through labor. Once they do the csection they are done, they are gone, they are out on the golf course and its over. And by the way, they charge more for the csection. So there may be many more factors involved. John doctors are after the money. I dont want to say that. John your colleagues ad focus on the money. Ill squeeze them forker dime i can. Er single dime. Im jim the hammer. I was in pain and he changed my pain to rain. John you rain money down on people. You know what . We dont kill people, certainly not a quarter million a year. John i think you kill people by depriving us of innovation. But we wont settle that here. Thank you, david paris for coming up. Ill fight with a doctor who says obamacare is a good thing. Land mine john that was her present explaining how obama care would reduce the cost of health care and give Everyone Health insurance. Its been six years since the law passed here to never understood how government mandate could get more People Insurance for less money. It sounded like magic and it hasnt happened. More people got coverage but the cost are up so high that now some Big Insurance Companies are dropping out of the obama carrots changes. Still lots of people say obama carries a good thing. Dr. Bill jordan says that. Hes with the proobamacare physicians group. So costs are out. Understand the people are struggling with the cost of their health care but this is a problem that started way before obamacare. The prices have gone up over decades and obamacare has actually shown signs of slowing the growth of health care costs. We have a great answer to that and looking at this i dont see any slowing of the growth and now im reading that there are going to be premium hikes of 30 , 20 next year plus theres this medical device tax. So many new Innovative Devices do we not have . Device makers have been hit or you. Lets talk about the medical device tax verse. The real problem is people dont have access to basic care. Its not that they dont have access to devices. I think the people have the choice that drives prices down. With obamacare there is less choice. Every plant is goldplated comic even the cheapest bronze plan that everyone has to have free access of a morning after bill. Alcohol screening, aspirin used to prevent heart disease. Aspirin costs 8 cents a tablet. Why does your Insurance Plan have to cover this . Obesity screening. I think a lot of people went from having no insurance to having insurance and that was john goldplated cadillac insurance. Now many people have goldplated insurance. I can tell you about a woman who took care of my kid to daycare. The daycare was too small to afford Health Insurance for their employees. We found out that she was dropping out of 14 there. It turned out unfortunately she had Breast Cancer and she hadnt had insurance. She was earning too much to qualify for medicaid so she dropped out of the workforce so she could go on medicaid and get treatment for cancer. This was before obamacare. Its really sad to see that kind of thing happen and people now have choices. If they are in too much to be on medicaid they can go to the marketplace and find insurance. John they could go into a limited obama dictated marketplace and by an expensive insurance. Aggregates still too expensive but faced with the option of not having insurance i think people are overall ahead. John mackey support going further. You would like to see singlepayer like much of the world has, like canada has. I think its a very efficient system. You get everyone in the system was low at ministry of overhead. There are a lot of advantages to it. John governmentrun systems canada and england, people have to wait longer for treatment. Care is rationed here in the u. S. And a lot of people dont have basic access. Their access to care is the emergency room. John i look at these headlines in the british paper, and other National Health service for story. Dying elderly cancer patient left screaming in pain for nine hours. The british goal is to treat you for months after diagnosis, four months and they are not even meeting that standard. A lot of those problems that come with cuts over the last decade so in the Health Care System in the u. K. And thats why you get those horror stories. John i got this graph from the World Health Organization and perperson Government Health spending, i dont think the trend is up. Write to trend is up with the aging population they have likely have here here in the u. S. The cost have been rising so they havent been investing as much as they need to. John thank you dr. Jordan. Next, why this young man had to leave america to get the treatment that probably saved his life. They tried to get the drug but they couldnt. They live in america, arizona and americas food and Drug Administration fda said no you may not take that drug. So diego what did she family do . They moved my family to London England where we lived for nine months to get this treatment. John and its working . At the moment i am cancerfree. John is a scene where they had to leave the country . Its very odd. The nurses rally surprised that we were american and we were in london getting medical treatment because they always thought that america must be ahead in every medical field. John america may be ahead but there are certain things the government says you may not have what do you think about that . I think that patients and families should be allowed to make their own informed medical decisions. John moeed too. Diego stay with us for a broader perspective on all of this. Lets turn to paul howard of the Manhattan Institute which has begun something called project fda. Its a group of policy experts and economists who look at how we regulate Drug Development today. The system we have is about 50 years old dates back to 1962 and i dont think anybody looks at the system today and says if we started from scratch today we would do it that way. Its extremely efficient and highly expensive. John you mentioned the laws started in 62. Lets look at how the fda got to be so powerful. One reason u. S. Drug laws are so strict, goletta mind. Every woman must be aware that its important to check the medic and medicine cabinet. John dozens of women who did take thalidomide gave birth to children no arms and no legs. America said thank goodness for the fda, there protecting us. Your tolerance for risk is probably low. If you are patient is facing a lifethreatening or disabling disease as diego is your tolerance is very high. We have different rules for cars to drive on racetracks and on their way to the grocery story. For patients we should be taking as many risks as we can getting informed consent of the patients collect the information as we go and do things at work. John also its my body. Dont i have a right to try something if i want to . If you have the right to die you have the right to try. We have a culture that says we dont think you should take these risks that the patient is the best person to say im willing to take that risk. John a lot of the resistance to the fda began with the epidemic. A lot of people said you were killing us. Lets try this stuff. That was when americans began making up to the fact that they dont just protect us, they kill us too. The fda responded to that with this commercial it made for itself. The job of the food and drug demonstrations to make sure these drugs are used responsibly it takes too long to get a drug approved in all market on the other hand consumer groups often complain that fda approves drugs to quickly and without adequate. So fda is caught in the middle and that is as it should be. Its a delicate balancing act always weighing risks against health benefits. John it sounds reasonable. They are in the middle. A delicate balance. If you are cancer patient or a 1992 you were an aids patient you didnt want an agency in the middle. He wanted one who is on your side and let the fda did in response to these activists and we owe them a german instead of gratitude under enormous pressure drove a tunnel for the regulations and created the system that i was proposing that gives patients fast access to experimental drugs colon the outcome. Now we have conquered aids and we have got to the point where we can take a single bill once a day that keeps a disease that used to be a death sentence and check for decades. John for aids there was a lobby that people like diego and i will give you the last word, they couldnt do that. Terminal patients dont have any hope so these potentially lifesaving treatments are just giving hope where there is no hope to begin with. John how dare they deny people that. Thank you diego and paul. The government in protecting protecting us often does its best to kill us. Next come the good news. In spite of government entrepreneurs are making health care better. Boy this is the story of a boy who didnt talk for a long time. The boy liked things to always be the same. Any changes would scare and upset him. The unknown was an unfriendly place. The boy was very sensitive to lights and sounds. So he built secret hiding places where they couldnt get in. The boy didnt like looking people in the eye. He wasnt trying to be mean, it just made him feel uncomfortable. Sometimes he would flap his arms again and again. Second boy one day, i found out i had something called autism. My family got me help. Slowly i found my voice and learned all the ways i could live with it better. Announcer Early Intervention can make a lifetime of difference. Learn the signs at autismspeaks. Org. John anytime we are sick its usually a pain. They wont take questions by email. Its hard to get a doctor on the phone so Many Americans just go to the emergency room and there they often wait for hours, maybe picking up a new disease from other sick people. If they get a prescription they have to go to the pharmacy and probably wait again but now a new company says it has a better idea. If you have a Health Problem use this phone app to text or videoconference with a nurse or if your problem is more serious a doctor. They will tell you what they think you should do and if they cant do it via the internet they will come to your house. Sarah mueller is a nurse who makes those housecalls and andrew komer. Im the executive Vice President of marketing. John how much is the patient pay . The patient pays in that sense, the patient just pays for the actual visit so they may pay 100 for physical or 200 for the actual outcome. John most of the cases you saw without having anybody do a house call 60 conversation via tax. You press a button and within seconds you can chat with their nurse and there in there are couple of routes. Not every case we can solve for so we want to make sure we get you on the best path as quickly as possible so you sometimes people need to go to the er but in the cases we can solve 60 of the time we will solve that over the phone. It could be in a video, could be over the phone and 40 of the time we believe that its best served by coming to the house. John so sarah you go to the house. What mostly do you do . As a nurse for pager i delivered flu shots into electric screenings, we call them house chats. John when you show up uhaul to send . I have a backpack here that i take with me. Someone can request a visit for a flu shot and i will take the backpack he we have a bag of medications on the side, mostly antibioticsnd achievements for infections. Commonly we see upper respiratory infections especially during the fall and winter seasons so the flu, strep throat, sinusitis, common things that people donate to good emergency room for. John how many housecalls that they made . I have made hundreds of housecalls between flu shots, definitely a spike in that in the fall and winter season, Health Screenings that i do and then i do care testings or urinary tract infections, upper respiratory. We do insulin tests and strep test. Everything is done at the bedside on i ran. John so they dont have to wait in line at the pharmacy either. You have the Delivery Service for prescriptions. We have made it as simple as possible. We partner with a group who helps us with actual prescription deliveries. Is it drug is the name of the company. Imagine this, you hit a button and within seconds you are connected. Within 60 minutes you are receiving care from your couch or your office in some cases and within another 50 minutes we john you think you are keeping room. We are. Kind of the misuse of the entire system. People good emergency room as a solution because they dont know what else to do. What pager provides his immediate access and actually 1. 8 ilya dollars is spent in the er and nine out of 10 of those cases could be solved in the urgent care setting or something that costs usually a fraction of the cost of the er. In emergency room bed to wait in line and they might need to go to the emergency room but it creates part of the problem where people are waiting for a long time. But pager represents is an easier way to simplify that process. John are you profitable . We are still a startup job so i would say we have the road to profitability. John did luck to you. Sarah and andrew thank you for joining us. There are lots of other hightech innovations being developed. They should make medicine better so next lets take on the socialist fantasies of people like Michael Moore and Hillary Clinton. Singlepayer would have lower i cant believe we broke old man hennesseys window correction dude, you broke. I just threw the ball. This is really bad. What are we going to do . Dude, kiss your life goodbye. Lets go. Oh. Keep smiling, keep shining knowing you can always count on me, for sure hi knowing you can always count on me, for sure tell him it was an accident and we can fix the window. Knowing you can always count on me, for sure ill come with you. Woah, thats what friends are for john get a grip stossel come at the hospital. Ranting about your Customer Service, get over yourself. That was a Facebook Post from someone named melissa. A lot of people were angry at me for writing that column which says while my medical care was excellent the hospitals Customer Service stunk. Basically people said what a jerk they saved his life and he complained. And they have a point. Just a few weeks later here i am back at work. I lost half of the long but im hardly in pain and im grateful that i got good medical care. But im a consumer reporter. I dont get why the rest of experience cant be good too. Why do anxious patients have to wait pointlessly, endlessly so often . Why in the hospital do we have to fill out the same form, first name medical history again and again. By Kent Hospitals use modern Technology Like texting and email . Because they dont care if they dont email or if the patient has to wait because the customer is not made. Its the patient. The hospitals customer is the one who pays the bills of thats almost someone else would usually government or private Insurance Company. Hospitals compete to please them not me. Real consumer pleasing competition happens only when the customer has skin in the game, when we pay for most of our care ourselves. And we deal directly with a doctor in the doctor worries about making our experience better, not just reading my illness. But that cant work or medicine complained readers posting comments about my article. Health care is too expensive day they said. Most people couldnt afford their own care. Who would pay the nurses and the staff and keep the hospital running . Well excuse me, who do you think pays them now quick picks government and Insurance Companies dont make health care free. Government takes it from us. Thirdparty payments just hide the cost, increase the cost. Of course politicians like costs. Im not surprised that are likely next president was enthusiastic about singlepayer fully governmentrun health care. Hillarycare. Singlepayer would have lower costs and one of the reasons the president has a provision in his approach that guarantees safe singlepayer is to permit states that are able to do that to start down the singlepayer road create. John progressives, love that idea. Get the private health Insurance Company out there. John progressives say thats why canadas governmentrun system is better. Health care is free but free comes with a cost not just in tax money but limits on service. Before obamacare canadian to doctor told me he hates the way his patients must wait for their free care. If you want to see your narrow it just no problem you just have to wait six months. You want an mri, no problem. Free as the air, you just have to wait six months. John come on say most progressives most canadians get Good Health Care health care and so what if they wait in line. Thats a line where they live three years longer than we do. Thats the one i want to be in. John its true canadian to many europeans live longer than americans. Americans use that statistic to slammer system that is deceitful. Those people live longer not because they are Health Care System is superior but because they are different from us. They drive cars less often. There are fewer accidents. They shoot each other less often than they are also less like the to be. I confronted moore about that. In america we kill each other more often. We shoot each other and we have more car accidents. John more of us look like you. I will say in part its because they never have to worry about paying to see the doctor. They live longer because they dont worry . Its nice not to worry but that wont save your life. There is so much more innovation in the free market and many canadians live as long as they do only because they freeload off of americas innovation. However we did find one pocket of freemarket medicine in canada. Clinics that offer lifesaving technology and they have an alliance. If i see a patient that is torn cruciate ligament, we can generally have the patience scheduled within probably a week john but you have to bark or me out to get this kind of treatment. If you want a ct scan in canada that clinics can get a dog in the next day. For people the waiting list is. Many clients will come here with their patzert as they are leaving they say the next time i get sick i want to come here. I want to go to the regular hospital. John i dont want to go to kansas hospitals either but the government is in charge. Long lines and someone else decides to get even get treatment. We should decide for ourselves and this is a Market Competition will bring us better choices. Choice always is people power. That drives down costs and produces better care. I know which system i want. Thats our show. Thanks for watching. At home, we appreciate you watching every single night. Lou dobbs is next. Keep it right here on fox business. Lou good evening, everybody, im lou dobbs. Donald trump today bashing Hillary Clinton as the most antigun, antisecond amendment candidate to ever rub for the president city run for the presidency. The Presumptive Republican nominee speaking to the National Rifle Association Moments after the gun group enforced trump for president. Hillary clinton wants to abolish the second amendment, just remember that. Were not talking about change here. She wants to abolish the second amendment. So were not going to let that happen, i can tell you that right now. Were going to preserve it, were going to cherish it, were going to take care of it, okay . Lo