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Originally Posted by The Great Fumar
Good post Steve..
The minute I change my homestead I can not longer carry Michigan Blue Cross . I have to change to Florida Blue Cross where premiums are 40% higher and not as much coverage......They are stopped from competing with each other by Intrastate commerce laws that are enacted to protect business from competition ....Your post is right on the money........Some of our alleged experts on here really don't know whereof they speak....... 
Thanks for the point fumar |
I will take that slap and run with it....I have not seen John McCain's proposal so I am not sure if what you say is true. But I have seen the State of Colorado try and regulate Hospitals. What a total farce that was...the commission ruled that if a Hospital was non-profit they couldn't have any profits...so how were they supposed to buy equipment. They also had to review any equipment purchases in my community only one hospital was allowed to purchase a CAT scanner and only one was allowed to do Open Heart Surgery.... Eventually it failed.
Then came DRG's....Diagnositc Related Groups or as we call it DA Revenue is Gone. The government came up with a payment plan based on your diagnoses and then they applied the number of days allowed for this illness. Of course they set a unit price for the day. If you would look at the percentage of RN's and Medical Technologists then verses the DRG coders and billing staff you would be amazed. My company, and I have installed this equipment, sales a Total Laboratory Automation System that can reduce the number of technologists by 50-60%. This mean that a single technologist has to review thousands of results every day.
The ER's have to turn around patient as fast as they can...labs are driven by the TAT or Turnaround Time...Lab results have to been turned out within these limits. Labs have done things to meet these times I would never had done. Wrong results go out just to meet the times. Education budgets are gone...techs can't go to workshops unless they pay for them out of their on pockets
How many actual nurses are on the floors anymore? Not many. Patients are sent home...a couple of years ago I had some OP surgery after which I was so sick I couldn't keep my head up. They said I'm sorry but your time is up put me in a wheel chair and pushed me out...all the while my roommate was saying can't you see that she is sick.
Small hospitals can no longer compete..so they join together...take a look at the corporate structure and what they pay the CEO.
I see it everyday....because I am in a different hospital every week.
I have Blue Cross Blue Shield of CA and I live in Colorado...I'm lucky because my companies PPO plan is Blue Cross Blue Shield across the country. Otherwise I might have to be under an HMO which to me is the kiss of death.
I'm no financial wizard but I do know what has happened to hospitals over the past 25 years.