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I can't believe you folks would rather have a politician get your medical information and decipher it for you then to just talk to the doctor himself/herself. We all know how politicians look out for the little man. No one makes better choices for yourself than you and you alone. You allow a politician to make those decisions and you officially converted the health carer system into the High School popularity contest. It should be very clear to everyone that you can hire government or corporations, both have the same results. I know it's crazy but people really do look out for themselves despite their swagger or their affiliations in government or industry. The only thing that used to keep those in check were consumer power. Take away the freedom of choice and watch your power as a consumer disappear into a black hole.
Your power as a consumer? Is there such a thing at all given the state of our healthcare? Not sure what you are talking about. Have you tried to go to the doctor office or a hospital and 'shop around' for a price of a visit, or a hospital stay, or a surgery? There only one 'wing' of medicine related field where consumer power is still present - cosmetic surgery. Yes, that's right, devoid of any health insurance middle man, cosmetic surgery and cosmetic treatments (cosmetic dentistry, laser treatments, injections, etc) is probably the only one medical field where such things as competition and price transparency still exist. Hence, ironically so, the optional facelift will run you a lot less than a life-saving appendectomy. A laser treatment performed at a cosmetic laser center will cost a lot less than a laser treatment prescribed by your doctor to remove some benign growth for example and performed at your doctor's facility or a hospital.
No hospital or a doctor will disclose to you upfront the cost of your treatment without first asking what insurance plan you have, that is even if they are willing to discuss the prices at all. Price you will be quoted (if you get so lucky to even obtain this info) will highly depend on whether you are a cash patient and what insurance you have. You will not be given a choice to use or not to use your health insurance if the cost under your insurance plan with high deductible is actually more than what a cash patient would pay. It happened to me before and I was sent a bill of 1500 for a very basic 1 hour ultrasound exam with nurse practitioner. It didn't even include a doctor's evaluation. I ended up paying 1200 out of pocket only to find out later after calling the hospital that had I been a cash patient my fee would have only been about 700-800. I asked to revise my bill, but the hospital responded that if I had disclosed to them that I had an insurance policy, I was obligated to use it, that's it.
Warning to those who have high deductible insurance plans: the prices they negotiate with the hospitals may not be cheaper than for you to show up at the door to pay for the treatment in cash. Basically, I've learned that if the doctor prescribes any sort of screening exam (be it an x-ray, mammogram, MRI, or an ultrasound) - don't use the facilities they refer you to, go shop around. Try to find private clinics specializing in screening that take only cash and credit cards and don't deal with health insurance, at least you'll know your costs upfront. Yes, I may miss applying the cost towards my deductable, but I never will be able to meet my deductible anyway, only in case of serious medical problem. So, them telling you to apply it towards your deductable, it's just a way to sucker you into paying more for a treatment or screening that should cost a fraction of that price.
Insurance company telling you that prices they negotiate with the doctors and hospitals are cheaper? It's not always true.
Maybe we should dismantle the interstate highway system, the service academies, and any other federal influence.
interstate highway system is in the pervue of the federal goverment, since it is interstate. the service academies are in the national defense of the union.
health insurance is a self responsibility, not a national one. when are you liberal, democrats, rinos and neo-cons going to learn that the Constitution is about you the "people" and not the federal goverment.
maybe when you do learn that, we the "people" can finally be free to live free from tyranny and another goverment welfare check.
interstate highway system is in the pervue of the federal goverment, since it is interstate. the service academies are in the national defense of the union.
health insurance is a self responsibility, not a national one. when are you liberal, democrats, rinos and neo-cons going to learn that the Constitution is about you the "people" and not the federal goverment.
maybe when you do learn that, we the "people" can finally be free to live free from tyranny and another goverment welfare check.
Why does anyone get the message that he is not proposing UNIVERSAL heathcare or a one payer system he estimates that 15 milion american will not signup because it will be too expensive in their view.For sure its not going to be any beetter than medicare and many on medicaid might actaully lose benefits in the end by having to pay more.
Your power as a consumer? Is there such a thing at all given the state of our healthcare? Not sure what you are talking about. Have you tried to go to the doctor office or a hospital and 'shop around' for a price of a visit, or a hospital stay, or a surgery? There only one 'wing' of medicine related field where consumer power is still present - cosmetic surgery. Yes, that's right, devoid of any health insurance middle man, cosmetic surgery and cosmetic treatments (cosmetic dentistry, laser treatments, injections, etc) is probably the only one medical field where such things as competition and price transparency still exist. Hence, ironically so, the optional facelift will run you a lot less than a life-saving appendectomy. A laser treatment performed at a cosmetic laser center will cost a lot less than a laser treatment prescribed by your doctor to remove some benign growth for example and performed at your doctor's facility or a hospital.
No hospital or a doctor will disclose to you upfront the cost of your treatment without first asking what insurance plan you have, that is even if they are willing to discuss the prices at all. Price you will be quoted (if you get so lucky to even obtain this info) will highly depend on whether you are a cash patient and what insurance you have. You will not be given a choice to use or not to use your health insurance if the cost under your insurance plan with high deductible is actually more than what a cash patient would pay. It happened to me before and I was sent a bill of 1500 for a very basic 1 hour ultrasound exam with nurse practitioner. It didn't even include a doctor's evaluation. I ended up paying 1200 out of pocket only to find out later after calling the hospital that had I been a cash patient my fee would have only been about 700-800. I asked to revise my bill, but the hospital responded that if I had disclosed to them that I had an insurance policy, I was obligated to use it, that's it.
Warning to those who have high deductible insurance plans: the prices they negotiate with the hospitals may not be cheaper than for you to show up at the door to pay for the treatment in cash. Basically, I've learned that if the doctor prescribes any sort of screening exam (be it an x-ray, mammogram, MRI, or an ultrasound) - don't use the facilities they refer you to, go shop around. Try to find private clinics specializing in screening that take only cash and credit cards and don't deal with health insurance, at least you'll know your costs upfront. Yes, I may miss applying the cost towards my deductable, but I never will be able to meet my deductible anyway, only in case of serious medical problem. So, them telling you to apply it towards your deductable, it's just a way to sucker you into paying more for a treatment or screening that should cost a fraction of that price.
Insurance company telling you that prices they negotiate with the doctors and hospitals are cheaper? It's not always true.
Until you folks understand pluses and minuses, "free" health care for all will end up in "free" health care for none. Even worse is if you venture off on that path you just continue to grow debt bigger and bigger and bigger. To solve that inflation will be used if it gets out of hand like in the 70's. Most people don't have a clue what 10-15% inflation would be like. Your income, your savings and the cost of living are attacked relentlessly with inflation. Till it's understood that adding more people will not become less expensive then there is no argument. It's solely a public display of emotion.
I was simply demonstrating that the current healthcare we have is neither 'free' (which of course everyone knows) nor it's 'market driven' (which many fail to understand). We are getting scammed out of our life savings and getting suckered to paying more for the fairly simple procedures and treatments that should cost a fraction of the price. Did the nurse practitioner who administered my ultra-sound get paid at least $500 per hour she spent with me? She wishes! Is the equipment used in my exam a sophisticated new machine that is only available to few cutting edge treatment centers? No! This piece of machinery is ancient, it even used an old cathode display as opposed to some new LCD sleeker machines I've seen. Is my exam more complicated than let's say getting a session of laser hair removal (cost of equipment is roughly the same)? So, how come my routine ultra-sound costs 1500 and the same time-length 1 session of hair removal performed by the nurse practitioner is about 200? I am pretty open minded - please someone explain to me why cosmetic (non-insurance) procedures even complex ones cost so much less than necessary routine healthcare. The only things that come to mind - less overhead, guaranteed payments via credit card/cash upfront, more competition and opportunity for the consumer to shop around. The liability insurance for plastic surgeons must also be very high (not going to make a claim that it's higher or the same than that of a regular surgeon) as they get sued by their patients pretty frequently. Is it possible to have AFFORDABLE healthcare in our country? That's the big question here.
Until you folks understand pluses and minuses, "free" health care for all will end up in "free" health care for none. Even worse is if you venture off on that path you just continue to grow debt bigger and bigger and bigger. To solve that inflation will be used if it gets out of hand like in the 70's. Most people don't have a clue what 10-15% inflation would be like. Your income, your savings and the cost of living are attacked relentlessly with inflation. Till it's understood that adding more people will not become less expensive then there is no argument. It's solely a public display of emotion.
I believe that in no place in my post I've mentioned that healthcare should be free. Although I do believe that in any country that considers itself 'advanced' healthcare should be free and accessible for anyone (at least basic healthcare). I never mention this in my posts though. I simply want to point out that we are OVERPAYING, we are getting ripped off! We are in danger of getting sick and losing our life savings because this system is broken, because the prices are so outrageous - 1 million on healthcare for one serious health problem is not an unusual price tag even if the treatment is not 'cutting edge' revolutionary but pretty widely used. 6K on average for 1 day at a hospital sharing a room with someone else while the most sophisticated equipment used on you during this day is a drip and blood pressure monitor. I understand why hospitals are expensive - they are not always profitable, they must pass their overhead costs and their losses to their patients, from treating people who cannot and won't pay, to those who do. You ARE ALREADY PAYING FOR OTHERS! The reason why? Because these others must be treated and because they won't be able to pay and because the hospital will get absolutely nothing from either the government or any insurance policy for treating these people. So, who pays for all this? YOU DO! with all the sky-high prices that are out of this world!
This must be posted again (brilliant post that summarizes pretty well why you are overpaying):
Quote:
Originally Posted by TristansMommy
NEWSFLASH: YOU are already paying for someone else's healthcare costs and guess what .. YOU ARE OVERPAYING for it,.. at INFLATED RATES.
Health insurance is all about RISK POOLS.. you pay for other people USING the health insurance
You pay medicaid/medicare taxes.. and do not get to use that service.. instead people who don't work get to use it THAT is FREE healthcare (UHI or NHS is NOT free healthcare)
YOU are paying for those who have used the system and then couldn't pay their bill when the cost is passed on to you in higher prices.
And then.. with your insurance premiums you are paying for
30% Administrative costs (as opposed to 5% Administrative costs in Medicare/Medicaid)
CEO's bloatd salaries (see the post a few pages back that shows that if the 12 heads of CEO's cut their salaries by 10% something like 35,0000 people a year could be insured for that a mount for like 5 years!!!)
Profits paid out to Shareholders
My personal favorite.. the lobbyists hired by insurance companies to make sure bills get killed in the Senate/house that would help the CITIZEN .. this to protect their "profits" and their overbloated CEO salaries
AGain.. you may want to arm yourself with some FACTS rather than regurgitating the same old tired right wing nonsene. I may be spekaing "liberal" to you. .. but atleast I have some facts and figures to back it all up.. what have you got.. NOTHING...
This was a excellent O.P...he shoved this whole healthcare B.S. right up all you liberal azzes and what do they say...."ooh so you dont care about the 7 %" lol haaaaaaaaaaa you left wingers are a wild and funny bunch.
Oh and by the way..there are no uninsured...every1 in this country can walk into a hospital and get treated and cant be turned away......just ask the illegals they do it everyday.
Individual states are NOT easier to insure in a UHI type plan when you haven't addressed the problem across the entire system.
And that is addresssing the cost of healthcare and procedures.
WHy.. why do you think that it costs so much? Of course if you do not address alot of other issues you are going to have high costs problems.
The UHI failed because it addressed only 1 issue.. not the others effecting it at the same time
I would bet that they wanted it to be and set it up to be a failure so that all of you on the right wing can say "see it doesn't work"..but you're stupid if you think it's going to work when you are not addressing other issues within the healthcare business.
So let's look at the costs of healthcare:
1. Over ordering tests and procedures.
but why do they order so many dang tests? Ask any doc and they will tell you. Fear of lawsuits. Frivilous lawsuits are the number one problem with healthcare. Doctors have to charge more, to pay for ever increasing malpractice insurance premiums. They have to run more tests to CYA. I konw doctors that can tell what is wrong with the pt just by a simple physical exam, then have to order $5000 in tests to make sure. Hospital visits cost more, which increases insurance costs, so rates go up.
2. Abuse of the Healthcare System
I would love to hear how you or anyone else is going to keep people from abusing the ER. People these days don't want to share in the responsibility for their healthcare. Noncompliant diabetics, heart patients, seizure pt's. Personal accountability has gone out the window.
But if you could fix those two things, I think costs would come down.
3. Ever increasing technology. Those MRI and CT machines const millions of dollars. Robotic arms for surgery, dialysis. Everything costs more. We could all be like daschle and decide just not to invent new and better (and more expensive) medical treatments. (since they are not cost effective)
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