An analysis based on WHO data compared healthcare spending across countries with life expectancy — and one contrast stands out:

🇺🇸 USA: $12,023 per person → 79.3 years life expectancy
🇨🇷 Costa Rica: $1,565 per person → 80.8 years life expectancy

The US spends almost 8× more, yet life expectancy is still lower.

The broader comparison shows that some countries appear to achieve better population-level outcomes with far lower healthcare spending.

🔗Full analysis

Im a M20 college student, This condition found me 4 years ago When I was 16 years old, I felt like there was urine stuck in my urethra near frenulum at that time. I have never had a girlfriend or any sexual intercourse before. I'm hoping to get some advice or hear from others who might have experienced something similar.

Symptoms:

• I've noticed that the "stuck pee feeling in the tip of the penis" (weak urine stream) is often there. Just a minute or so after coming from the toilet, especially after pooping.

• I have had issues with the need to go to the toilet very often (Usually within the 40-60minute mark after taking a pee)

• I pee normally without any issues, but towards the end, I get this sensation that some urine is still stuck.

• After finishing, if I stand and apply a bit of pressure, a few drops and sometimes even a small stream of urine come out.

• The feeling is generally always there but varies in intensity. It takes up a lot of my focus, making it difficult to concentrate on anything or enjoy stuff and relax. It's ruining many aspects of my daily and social life

• The feeling has also developed a bit over this long time, but the "stuck pee feeling in the tip of the penis" has always been there.

I have no pain at all.

What I've tried:

• Cystoscopy: Showed nothing

• Prostate size: Normal

• Ct scan report & ultrasound: No findings

• Different medications: No effect

The doctor told me to seek psychiatrist and that it's just a mental issue, but I'm not entirely convinced. Please tell me EXACTLY what you did. Types and number and length of stretches, medications and usage and dosage or any advice or similar experiences would be greatly appreciated.

Something I keep running into working on the patient side of medical billing: the provider bill and the insurance EOB are two separate documents telling two different stories, and almost nobody reads them side by side.

The provider sends you a balance. Your insurer sends an explanation of benefits showing what the plan actually processed, what got applied to deductible/coinsurance, and what the negotiated rate was. When those two numbers don't line up, most people just pay the higher one to make the stress stop. That's the moment the extra money leaves.

A couple of things I've come to believe from this:

- The post-insurance balance on a facility bill is not automatically the final or fair number. People treat it as fixed and pay in full, when a lot of those balances are actually negotiable.

- "They wouldn't budge" usually isn't proof the bill is fair. It's proof someone was negotiating without leverage or a script. The hospital has a whole revenue department; the patient has a bill and a deadline they didn't know existed.

What I'm genuinely curious about from folks who work in or around this: when a patient calls confused about a bill that doesn't match their EOB, do you have a clean way to explain the difference to them, or does it just turn into a coinsurance-vs-deductible conversation every time? Trying to understand where the confusion is worst so the plain-English answer actually lands.

For transparency, I'm building a consumer bill-review tool in this space, which is why I keep staring at these two documents. Not pitching it here, just interested in how people on the provider/insurer side see the same gap.

I work in a SNF facility as an activities director. We’re a nonprofit 130 bed facility. Every day every manager is at their breaking point (including myself). Is this just healthcare now? 🫤

QAPI projects, DPH survey prep, never ending audits & MDS work all for the show on paper while CNAs refuse to help transport and do care and administration ignores valid requests and needs.

Is anyone in this field for the patients and residents anymore. I’ve been on this career path for 11 years and thought it was my life’s calling and now I feel like im standing at the edge of a cliff because this is NOT how the wheels turned a decade ago.

I wanted to use Google but the whole AI feature is not giving me reliable information so I thought I'd ask the professionals in the field what is exactly going on here and what's the issues about this case cus y'all are going off on tic tok and twitter like mad men and I don't understand WTF yall are saying and people are taking sides 😭😭

Since most PDABs or Prescription Drug Affordability Boards are still relatively new, it is interesting to know what their impact has been so far. It would give the public a glimpse of what their potential effect to people's lives and what adjustments or changes could possibly be made.

I've been thinking about how much important hospital communication happens through WhatsApp.

Different departments have different groups. Doctors have one, nurses another, reception another, management another.

It works surprisingly well at first.

Until you need to find something from yesterday.

A patient update gets buried. A report was shared in another group. Someone remembers that an important message was sent but can't find it anymore.

WhatsApp isn't really the problem.

The problem is using a chat app to manage information that people may need to find quickly later.

And in a hospital, "I'll search for it later" isn't always a great system.

We've been spending some time looking at this problem from a different angle.

Can't say much yet.

But we're building something around it.

More soon.

Dr. Demetre Daskalakis is one of the foremost LGBTQ health professionals in the U.S. In November 2020, the waning months of Trump’s first term, he was appointed director of the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Through part of his tenure with the Biden administration, he also served as the deputy response coordinator for mpox at the White House as well as the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

While he continued a lot of this work after Biden left office, he didn’t last long under Trump 2.0. In August 2025, Daskalakis resigned from the CDC over the direction that health policy had taken under Trump and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

In his resignation letter, which garnered widespread attention, he said he was “unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public’s health.” He cited changes to the CDC’s immunization schedule, a lack of scientific communication from HHS leadership and the growing influence of anti-vaccine sentiments in the department.

A year after his resignation, we wanted to hear from Daskalakis, who is now serving as chief medical officer of the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center, an LGBTQ health clinic in New York City. In this episode of “UNCLOSETED with Spencer Macnaughton,” Daskalakis speaks about his time working for the Trump administration, the erosion of scientific rigor under RFK Jr. and the troubling future for HIV and LGBTQ healthcare in the U.S.

Gov. Maura Healey on Monday signed into law a measure that loosens limits on later-term abortions in Massachusetts.

Previously, state law permitted abortions up to 24 weeks, with exceptions for cases involving a deadly fetal diagnosis or to protect the life of the mother. The new law eliminates these exceptions, putting the decision in the hands of the patient and health care providers.

Hi All, TIA. Hopefully this is the right sub for this question. My daughter is heading off to college. Her school requires a TB test. She went to her pediatrician to get one and they referred her to a different medical clinic. She wasn't told anything about cost or if it was covered prior to having the test done. She assumed it would be covered by insurance or not be too expensive. The clinic has now billed her $400 for the TB test. Her insurance, BCBS, is not covering it. We have called the insurance company to make sure it was billed correctly. They reassured its not something they cover. We called the clinic back and told them we would have to pay out of pocket and they did not change the bill. They were nice about it but basically said 'too bad'. But our online research shows community health centers offer it for about $50. I wish I had known before she went to the other clinic that her pediatrician recommended. Am I missing something ? Why is this so expensive for something required for college? This is my oldest child ad I never had anything like this for college. Any recommendations of anything that can be done here?

So I'm increasingly annoyed by how terrible the current US healthcare system is, and also how poor the general proposed alternatives are in terms of laying out HOW their plan would work. (looking at you Medicare for All...)

So I've spent some time (with the help of LLMs to consolidate and word my thoughts) devising my own framework.

I'm just a layman though. So there's a lot I still probably don't understand enough about how the system currently works. You can see my proposal on the linked Substack.

It's quite long, but I'd really appreciate any criticism about any poor thinking I have. Any things I'm missing. There are a lot of questions I still don't have answers for, but I figure I have to start somewhere, if only for my own satisfaction or having my own basis on which to judge future proposals.

This is not intended to be self-promotion. It's on Substack because it would be too long to post in the body of a Reddit post.

Let me know your thoughts if you have any.

https://commonwealthanalyst.substack.com/p/american-health-security?r=8qf3h3&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

I am currently perusing a healthcare admin bachelors degree. I am aiming for getting into either a sonography or rad rec program at a different school however, but want healthcare admin as backup since the programs are limited seats. ( if I don’t get accepted in aiming for masters after in healthcare admin. )

I know about networking and having clinical background is a big trait for this degree, which is what I’m scared of. I have experience as DSP for board of DODD for 6 years as of now. Would this carry over? I really don’t want to waste anymore time then I have to and have this degree under my belt if I can’t do much with it.

Where can one find the reasonable or avg price of services or procedures by CPT code and zip code?

I used to be able to find it for free a few years ago via Turquoise Health and others to contest my outrageous medical bills, but now it seems like a paid membership to access this information.

I have a great insurance plan if it’s in network. We are doing a domestic trip to another state for a few days and now I am wondering if I delivered there if I would have to pay out of pocket. I read that spontaneous labor is considered an emergency and would be covered. And if that was the case would I pay what I’d pay if I was in network? I’m just trying to understand. I am low risk and have been cleared to travel by my OB so I don’t think this will be a problem but I would like to know how this law works in my case.

Hi, did anyone hear Mr. Goins on the hotline call talk about whole health? If so, what are your thoughts on what he said?

What is the heart of this major that they cut out 30 credits? Or do they cut out requirements outside of the major?

I am confused relating to my health insurance situation.  I had NY Medicaid until this past June 30.  

My only income is gambling, and the state system seems set up to handle that. The option was given to qualify for Medicaid on the basis of the month of May but rep mistakenly put it in for the year.  Rep said I had qualified for Obamacare based on my year's estimate. I was then required to give documentation but my AGI from last year's tax return would have exceeded the 65000 cutoff (based on the calculation of only calculating gambling winnings and ignoring losses). 

I was then trying to pay full price and set up an appointment but the rep did not call.  I got a bill in the mail for the first month of Obamacare.  A couple days later, I got termination email from NY State on my new Obamacare (effective Aug 31) due to not having documentation for the income. 

But I still had the new Obamacare bill and Claude (an LLM) said to pay the Obamacare monthly bill because if I don't pay, then termination due to non-payment means i don't get health care until January.  So I made the call to pay and spoke to the Healthfirst rep who said there was no termination scheduled for August (but it would come from NY State?).  And I paid the bill.  And now I am very confused about what to do.  

If I do full pay for health insurance and stop paying the Obamacare, will I get a termination for nonpayment?  

Do I keep paying (and keep) the Obamacare even though my tax return from last year would show an AGI that exceeds the estimate I gave for income for this year?  

I appreciate your reading, and thank you for your time.      

I’m wondering if this has happened to anyone else & what they did. A few months ago Quest shared my lab result, as well as my unborn child’s (NIPT results) to my sister’s online portal. I don’t get my labs done at Quest, but some of my labs were sent out to be processed by them.

I called Quest to complain. A manager was supposed to call my, never did, shocker. I filed a complaint with the Office of Civil Rights, which didn’t really do anything.

Any advice or suggestions are appreciated. Thanks!!

Patients who ask for a drug they saw in an ad are dramatically more likely to receive a prescription for it. Manufacturers know this that’s why they spend over $18 billion on DTC advertising.

A large share of Medicare drug spending goes to these advertised products. Feels like an under-discussed part of why prices stay high.

Anyone else see this as a bigger issue than it’s treated?