Good article. Taxpayers are going to be paying 20% solely for healthcare within the decade. Surely we cant stop paying for hair and erection pills for medicaid, thats just too cruel.

http://www.comcast.net/news/health/index.jsp?cat=HEALTHWELLNESS&fn=/2007/02/21/592263.html&cvqh=itn_healthcare

2/21/2007 2:09:18 PM

Why worry?

Prez. Hillary will get all those nasty rich people to pay for our health care. Damn them.

2/21/2007 11:40:33 PM

so since health care already isnt a free market can we stop fucking around and just put together a universal health care plan that doesnt suck?

2/21/2007 11:43:05 PM

Quote :

" Prez. Hillary will get all those nasty rich people to pay for our health care. Damn them."

Sounds good to me. Damn them indeed.

2/21/2007 11:57:35 PM

^^ We can provide universal healthcare with market characteristic.

Anything would be better than the current configuration.

2/22/2007 9:22:31 AM

What is driving health care costs up? I don't get it.

2/22/2007 9:51:38 AM

bad patent laws, and carnivorous healthcare companies

2/22/2007 10:02:30 AM

and people who cause their own health problems.

fat people
Smokers
etc.

2/22/2007 10:17:11 AM

well you have middlemen and in this case thousands of middle men, that always drives the price up. And you have people who receive free drugs instead of living a healthier lifestyle. Its much easier to take a pill than to walk 2 miles a day. Also, if you look at what is GIVEN to medicaids, its ridiculous. Tax payers fund them to have hair pills, listerine, sensodyne toothpaste, viagra, sleeping pills.. while workers not only have to cover these freebies, but pay thier own premiums and prescription copays for the same drugs. Its upside down.

People in this country demand the best care, no waits, latest technology...but dont want to pay for any of it. Then they sue if they dont like the outcome. Charlie Weis is a good example. Has an ELECTIVE procedure, has a complication..and recovers. So despite signing countless waivers, he sues. Which makes his rant on signing day about commits keeping thier word all the more ironic. Not to mention that there is a mistrial bc the jurors in the case got sick and the defendants(doctors) helped her.. thus tainting the jurors.. great country.

2/22/2007 11:01:10 AM

A poor system of incentives.

Unlike all other industries, healthcare providers can charge whatever they want with no change in consumer behavior because consumers only pay the costs of care indirectly through taxes and insurance premiums.

[Edited on February 22, 2007 at 11:04 AM. Reason : .,.]

2/22/2007 11:02:38 AM

shark, you obviously have gotten some bad information. Health care providers can charge a million dollars for an exam, however if you accept ins. you take the 55 bucks and write off the rest. The ins. companies are making the huge profits. It is very clear when as a practice we get cut 3% this year in reiembursements, but our premiums for the office rise 14%. Now, tell me where the money is going if its not spent on exams and procedures.

2/22/2007 11:41:03 AM

^ yeah but the problem is you are checking my blood pressure, my eyesight, and my reaction time and charging me $400 if I DONT have insurance. However if I do you accept $55... and move on.

THATS what's fucked up.

You as a doctors office should provide one set payment level. It pisses me off that I have to pay 3-4 times what the insurance carrier provides because you "accept" it.

So not only do you FORCE us to HAVE to have insurance but you're promoting the bullshit that is happening with health care. Sure I'm lucky I don't have to pay my premiums because of my job but I've been there so I still fight the good fight for those that aren't lucky like me.



[Edited on February 22, 2007 at 11:48 AM. Reason : !]

2/22/2007 11:47:13 AM

im sorry rage, but if you came into my office without ins. you would get a 20% discount. So you would pay around 89 bucks.

Where you are getting things mixed up is if you go to a hospital who is forced to see patients, then the paying patients do make up the slack. Hence the 10 dollar tylenol pills.

Btw, there isnt a set charge because it varies with insurances. Also, if someone comes to me for an eye exam and is planning on using thier vision insurance and i discover they have a medical condition and i do further testing.. i bill thier medical for thier exam and procedures. So it becomes a different exam.. The bitch is that the insurance companies dictate what i can do on the same day. For instance if i need to take retinal photos and run a visual field, i can only do one a day. So I can make you come back tommorrow and do the other, and the ins. will pay or have you pay for the other test. The ins. companies do that because they know if you are there you will get all the necessary tests, if they force you to leave... and a 20% no show rate applies nationwide they just saved millions.

2/22/2007 12:01:44 PM

A good idea esp for younger people would be to have a health savings account, where you draw some pretax dollars and your employer matches, just like a 401k. You use this money to pay for your regular visits. Then pay 150 a month for a catatrophic plan to cover yourself against anything major like an auto accident. Your account would grow over time and you would be able to get the test and medicines you need, not what a company will cover. It will also lower medical costs, as you have essentially cut out the middle man, as well as promote healthier decision as you are actually writing checks.. so you might instead choose to lose 10lbs instead of just getting another pill.

It would lower cost because we expect our ins. to cover everything. Can you imagine how much car ins. would be if it covered oil changes and other routine costs. No, its there incase of a major incident.

2/22/2007 12:07:06 PM

Quote :

"shark, you obviously have gotten some bad information. Health care providers can charge a million dollars for an exam, however if you accept ins. you take the 55 bucks and write off the rest. The ins. companies are making the huge profits. It is very clear when as a practice we get cut 3% this year in reiembursements, but our premiums for the office rise 14%. Now, tell me where the money is going if its not spent on exams and procedures."

Easy, it's being spent on exams and procedures. I don't know where you got the idea that hospitals write off the part owed by the insurance provider... or did I misunderstand what you wrote? If I am a hospital charging $1000 for a procedure and I accept insurance then the customer pays the co-pay ($55) to me and I send a bill for the remaining ($945) to the insurance company, which then wires me the money later. Since I, the hospital, is sending ever higher bills to the insurance company every year the insurance company is going to raise its premiums every year for its customers (there are exceptions such as when the hospital is in league with the provider in which they do write it off, but this is a mutual state of affairs).

Where does this end? In other industries, such as auto insurance, it ends when the insurance company refuses to pay and directs its client to a more reasonable repair shop. For Health Insurance, it is illegal for the insurance company to refuse even absurd charges, so eventually all charges are absurd, which leads to absurd premiums.

2/22/2007 12:22:49 PM

shark you are uninformed how it works. If they accept an insurance that means they accept whatever reimbursement that ins. provides. Take cataract surgery, in thier prime they used to get 2k an eye, today they make 300 bucks. So back to your example. Lets say its an MRI. If your insurance nego that it will pay 500 for the mri, they hospital will bill 1000 and get 500 in return, then they just write off the rest. The problem is that if they give you 500 this year, they will only give you 450 the next. The only recourse is that medicare sets the bar for reiembursements, and they do so by region. So we have to raise our "costs" to shield against cuts.

Did I answer that better for you? Shoot me an IM and i can try to explain it differently.

2/22/2007 12:33:50 PM