Quixote |
07-01-2020 09:22 AM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by nn0wheremann
(Post 1795525)
How about this. Just eliminate all forms of health insurance, managed care, and HMOs. Watch the price of medical practice and care go down to something more reasonable. Much of Ophthalmology is already this way. If you want LASIK, you shop around and buy it. Honest bills, not hyper-inflated to four and five times the price the doctors have already agreed to pay.
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I completely agree—and unfortunately it'll never happen. The primary flaw in ACA is that there was no way to get away from access to health care being run by the insurance industry—a powerful lobby—deciding who gets care and who doesn't. Two telling stories:
When one starts taking blood thinner Coumadin, one must be tested regularly to make sure the level of the med is within a range that will make it effective at preventing blood clots but not so effective that it would not prevent clotting. Back in the day, the lab charged $28 for this test—but an Explanation of Benefits (EOB) from the insurance company revealed it paid the lab $2 as full payment. How can the lab stay in business receiving $2 for a $28 test, and with the insurance company dictating to the lab that it will pay only $2, and who pays $28? The response was 'Oh, only the uninsured pay the full amount!' Believable?
Following an accident in a Third World country (where a pair of shoes cost about $75, a suit off the rack about $150, and food at the supermarket about the same as here), the cost of excellent basic health care (medical, surgical, anesthesia, hospital, prescription meds, and so forth) was a pittance of comparable care here. Imagine a private hospital suite at $35/day! How is health care so reasonable? In their view, the well qualified physicians see themselves as upper middle class workers, not demigods; they themselves own the hospital facility; and the primary reason, they say: there is NO INSURANCE INDUSTRY! Private hospitals for private care; public hospitals supported by everyone through taxes to provide care to everyone not receiving it otherwise.
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