"Wes" wrote in message
...
"Ed Huntress" wrote:

Hey, Andrew, speaking of medical bills, here's some ammunition for you,
when
you're arguing about your health care system versus ours: I have POA for
my
mother and I received two bills for her two moderate hospital stays last
year. Combined bill: $734,000. Yes, I have the comma in the right place
and
that's the right number of zeros. g

Apparently her insurance paid around $85,000 and the hospital was
satisfied
with it. But if she had no insurance, the $700,000+ would have been her
real
bill.


Ed,

I'm having a beer in the US atm. Now why is 85K good enough with
insurance and 700K the
price w/o some sort of muscle behind you?

That's a very damned good question, Wes. It has an answer, but it's an
obscene and infuriating one.

The shorter answer, as I keep saying, is that the US health care system is
seriously broken. I didn't realize *how* broken it is until I started
editing in the pharma and medical field.


Now I'm thinking you are saying we need national health care to solve the
problem. I may
be wrong so pipe up if I am wrong on that since my line of thought is
based on that in
this thread.

I didn't say anything about it. National health care is about solving the
problem of people who don't have health care insurance or any other kind of
coverage. If you noticed, Gunner says he got a bill for $10K just for
getting checked out after chest pain. In some ways, that's worse than the
outrageous bill he'll get for the bypass surgery.

As for cutting medical costs, that's a separate problem that also needs to
be addressed. It's also by far the harder problem to deal with.


Government forces health care to provide care at discounted rates and give
urgent care to
those that show up in the emergincy room. That causes a transfer of
expense to other
consumers.

The discounted rates are also demanded by commercial insurers. The Medicare
rates and the Blue Cross/Blue Shield rates are not much different. In fact,
three local hospitals refused BC/BS insurance last year, while they were
still taking Medicare.

The individual rates for the uninsured are a joke. But they get all they
can. God help you if you're uninsured and you have some assets other than
your home, which usually will be protected when you declare bankruptcy.


Now some consumers are represented by insurance companies and have the
clout to take
something close to US Government discounts. Not as close, but a good
discount.

In my experience, they're very close. I've been through this a lot lately
with my mother.


The only group of consumers left are those that have no powerful group to
negotiate for
them. That is the guy that pays cash.

That guy is in trouble in today's health care environment.


So as I see it, the distortions in health care are caused by government,
fought by
insurance companies, and stuffed up the arse of people standing on their
own.

The distortions over relative payments are due to the mutually coercive and
noncompetitive nature of both health care providers and health care
insurers. The "market" is a complete joke, and it can't be otherwise. It's
in the nature of the industry, and of humans.

The high prices are due to a variety of things, and a much more complicated
issue.


I hope you are not advocating we need government to fix the mess
government got us into.
Sounds too much like our current state of things in the financial
industry.

The question you're asking is almost the same as the question about why we
need more nuclear power. And the answer to both is the same: Because there
is no viable alternative.


Instead of single payer, I think we need single price. Paid by those that
demand service
be given.

Wes

It sounds good, but it doesn't address the problem of high prices. They'd
still be high.

--
Ed Huntress