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On Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:04:01 -0400, the infamous "Ed Huntress" scrawled the following: "Curly Surmudgeon" wrote in message ... On Tue, 11 Aug 2009 18:23:07 -0400, "Ed Huntress" wrote: "Nicholas" wrote in message ... On Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:49:25 -0400, Cliff wrote: http://bigcountryhomepage.com/conten...xt/?cid=164942 [ "I just had to have the battery replaced on my defibrillator," she explained. "I was in there two days and it was $196,000." ] Just the hospital bills so far I expect. Doctors will bill next. $72,960 for the pacemaker I know. My 1 stent (I have a total of 5 in me now) and my ICD/PM cost $80,000 US. Good thing I have Health Insurance! My *unit* needs to be replaced about every 3 to 5 or is it 5 years, depending on how quickly the non-rechargeable battery wears down. My five stents were billed at something like $40,000. The whole deal, including four days total in two hospitals, was $220,000. However, my insurance company paid $48,000 and everybody was happy. More evidence of the scam. Why should insurance companies get a break? -- Regards, Curly That's a good question, and fixing that little atrocity should be the very first step in reforming the health care system. Amen, but your President and his men aren't doing (or even considering) that, are they? Nor did Shrub, etc. deep sigh -- Seen on a bumper sticker: STOP THE INVASION REOCCUPY MEXICO |
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"Larry Jaques" wrote in message ... RCM only On Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:04:01 -0400, the infamous "Ed Huntress" scrawled the following: "Curly Surmudgeon" wrote in message ... On Tue, 11 Aug 2009 18:23:07 -0400, "Ed Huntress" wrote: "Nicholas" wrote in message ... On Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:49:25 -0400, Cliff wrote: http://bigcountryhomepage.com/conten...xt/?cid=164942 [ "I just had to have the battery replaced on my defibrillator," she explained. "I was in there two days and it was $196,000." ] Just the hospital bills so far I expect. Doctors will bill next. $72,960 for the pacemaker I know. My 1 stent (I have a total of 5 in me now) and my ICD/PM cost $80,000 US. Good thing I have Health Insurance! My *unit* needs to be replaced about every 3 to 5 or is it 5 years, depending on how quickly the non-rechargeable battery wears down. My five stents were billed at something like $40,000. The whole deal, including four days total in two hospitals, was $220,000. However, my insurance company paid $48,000 and everybody was happy. More evidence of the scam. Why should insurance companies get a break? -- Regards, Curly That's a good question, and fixing that little atrocity should be the very first step in reforming the health care system. Amen, but your President and his men aren't doing (or even considering) that, are they? Nor did Shrub, etc. deep sigh You can't fix it as long as the health care system is a captive of the insurance industry, Larry. The first thing you have to do is to break their backs. And the way you *start* to do that is with a public option for insurance. As long as the insurance industry has the reins, they'll use it to steer the industry to maximize their profit, and they'll continue to treat the welfare of patients as an annoying distraction. -- Ed Huntress |
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On Tue, 11 Aug 2009 21:24:01 -0400, the infamous "Ed Huntress"
scrawled the following: "Larry Jaques" wrote in message .. . RCM only On Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:04:01 -0400, the infamous "Ed Huntress" scrawled the following: That's a good question, and fixing that little atrocity should be the very first step in reforming the health care system. Amen, but your President and his men aren't doing (or even considering) that, are they? Nor did Shrub, etc. deep sigh You can't fix it as long as the health care system is a captive of the insurance industry, Larry. The first thing you have to do is to break their backs. And the way you *start* to do that is with a public option for insurance. Interesting. Do you feel that the public option has a good chance of rationing healthcare, or can we get around that? I still think that more free/sliding-scale clinics would do away with a lot of the prices the hospitals get for minor stuff, too. As long as the insurance industry has the reins, they'll use it to steer the industry to maximize their profit, and they'll continue to treat the welfare of patients as an annoying distraction. A bit of tort reform is in order, too, as are punishments for doctors who **** up too much. -- Seen on a bumper sticker: STOP THE INVASION REOCCUPY MEXICO |
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"Larry Jaques" wrote in message ... On Tue, 11 Aug 2009 21:24:01 -0400, the infamous "Ed Huntress" scrawled the following: "Larry Jaques" wrote in message . .. RCM only On Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:04:01 -0400, the infamous "Ed Huntress" scrawled the following: That's a good question, and fixing that little atrocity should be the very first step in reforming the health care system. Amen, but your President and his men aren't doing (or even considering) that, are they? Nor did Shrub, etc. deep sigh You can't fix it as long as the health care system is a captive of the insurance industry, Larry. The first thing you have to do is to break their backs. And the way you *start* to do that is with a public option for insurance. Interesting. Do you feel that the public option has a good chance of rationing healthcare, or can we get around that? Health care is already rationed -- by the insurance industry. They're the ones that dictate what will be paid for and not. There is no getting around that, unless you're a millionaire, and for many conditions, you need multiple millions. No insurance will pay for some available, long-shot treatments, which, as a self-fulfilling prophesy, tend to be "experimental" in their eyes. But the public option has no influence at all on what kind of high-end insurance you can buy, if you want to buy it from commercial carriers. My fear for the public option is that it will become a dumping ground for the commercial insurance industry; a way for them to shuck off individuals with any risk at all, and then to cover up the resulting outrageous profits they make as a result. That will mean much more profit for them and a higher-than-necessary cost for the government-backed insurance. And with their lobbying power, they'll probably get exactly that. The private, commercial carriers will wind up being the high-end, by default, because they'll be playing with much better actuarial tables than the government is. And that, of course, is exactly how Medicare came about. A public option provides only the possibility of getting the insurance industry under control; it won't necessarily produce the desired result. But without it, we'd might as well fold our tents and just have our paychecks sent directly to the insurers. The thing that's hard to see through all of the smoke and fog they send up is that they don't really care what medical costs are. What they care about is increasing their margins. High medical costs and high margins are not necessarily incompatible. And lowering costs does not necessarily improve their margins. They'll go with the flow, as long as they get theirs. And they'll get theirs until we can't be squeezed anymore. They are approaching that limit, which is why we hear organ music coming from the industry, and offers by them to cooperate with Obama. But there is NOTHING they do that isn't about extracting more money from the people they insure. Nothing. And to the degree that they're insuring us as individuals, rather than as members of an organization or employees of a large company, they have and will continue to have no competition (this is another story; I'm not suggesting that the reasons for this are obvious.) I still think that more free/sliding-scale clinics would do away with a lot of the prices the hospitals get for minor stuff, too. And who pays for the "free" clinics, or makes up the difference on the sliding scales? We have lots of clinics now. Where I live, we often go to them for things that don't require hospitalization -- my son gets most of his sports injuries treated in such a place, and my wife and I both go to specialized clinics for various outpatient procedures. Our insurance pays. It probably would help to encourage them, with a form of insurance that encourages those people without commercial insurance to go to them. But right now, if you don't have insurance, the only institutions that *have* to take you are hospitals with ERs. As long as the insurance industry has the reins, they'll use it to steer the industry to maximize their profit, and they'll continue to treat the welfare of patients as an annoying distraction. A bit of tort reform is in order, too, as are punishments for doctors who **** up too much. You want to fight a lot of battles against the big lobbies at once. You sound like Obama. g They have more money than God. Good luck! -- Ed Huntress |
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On Wed, 12 Aug 2009 00:50:13 -0400, the infamous "Ed Huntress"
scrawled the following: "Larry Jaques" wrote in message .. . On Tue, 11 Aug 2009 21:24:01 -0400, the infamous "Ed Huntress" scrawled the following: "Larry Jaques" wrote in message ... RCM only On Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:04:01 -0400, the infamous "Ed Huntress" scrawled the following: That's a good question, and fixing that little atrocity should be the very first step in reforming the health care system. Amen, but your President and his men aren't doing (or even considering) that, are they? Nor did Shrub, etc. deep sigh You can't fix it as long as the health care system is a captive of the insurance industry, Larry. The first thing you have to do is to break their backs. And the way you *start* to do that is with a public option for insurance. Interesting. Do you feel that the public option has a good chance of rationing healthcare, or can we get around that? Health care is already rationed -- by the insurance industry. They're the ones that dictate what will be paid for and not. There is no getting around that, unless you're a millionaire, and for many conditions, you need multiple millions. No insurance will pay for some available, long-shot treatments, which, as a self-fulfilling prophesy, tend to be "experimental" in their eyes. You have a point there. But the public option has no influence at all on what kind of high-end insurance you can buy, if you want to buy it from commercial carriers. My fear for the public option is that it will become a dumping ground for the commercial insurance industry; a way for them to shuck off individuals with any risk at all, and then to cover up the resulting outrageous profits they make as a result. That will mean much more profit for them and a higher-than-necessary cost for the government-backed insurance. And with their lobbying power, they'll probably get exactly that. The private, commercial carriers will wind up being the high-end, by default, because they'll be playing with much better actuarial tables than the government is. And that, of course, is exactly how Medicare came about. Hmm... A public option provides only the possibility of getting the insurance industry under control; it won't necessarily produce the desired result. But without it, we'd might as well fold our tents and just have our paychecks sent directly to the insurers. Some people are damnear doing that now, with $1,930/mo payments for their families. Dayam! The thing that's hard to see through all of the smoke and fog they send up is that they don't really care what medical costs are. What they care about is increasing their margins. High medical costs and high margins are not necessarily incompatible. And lowering costs does not necessarily improve their margins. They'll go with the flow, as long as they get theirs. And they'll get theirs until we can't be squeezed anymore. They are approaching that limit, which is why we hear organ music coming from the industry, and offers by them to cooperate with Obama. But there is NOTHING they do that isn't about extracting more money from the people they insure. Nothing. And to the degree that they're insuring us as individuals, rather than as members of an organization or employees of a large company, they have and will continue to have no competition (this is another story; I'm not suggesting that the reasons for this are obvious.) I still think that more free/sliding-scale clinics would do away with a lot of the prices the hospitals get for minor stuff, too. And who pays for the "free" clinics, or makes up the difference on the sliding scales? We would, via the gov't., but that'd be less than we're paying now. We have lots of clinics now. Where I live, we often go to them for things that don't require hospitalization -- my son gets most of his sports injuries treated in such a place, and my wife and I both go to specialized clinics for various outpatient procedures. Our insurance pays. I simply cannot believe what has happened to the commercial emergency clinics in the past 20 years. What used to be cheap is now the same price as the friggin' ER at an overblown hospital. It probably would help to encourage them, with a form of insurance that encourages those people without commercial insurance to go to them. But right now, if you don't have insurance, the only institutions that *have* to take you are hospitals with ERs. Depending on your income, community clinics do, too. As long as the insurance industry has the reins, they'll use it to steer the industry to maximize their profit, and they'll continue to treat the welfare of patients as an annoying distraction. A bit of tort reform is in order, too, as are punishments for doctors who **** up too much. You want to fight a lot of battles against the big lobbies at once. You sound like Obama. g Bite your tongue, heathen! Bama is a whole 'nother kind of idealist. They have more money than God. Good luck! Yeah, that's why nothing has been done yet. It's a Catch 22 situ, with everyone corrupt so nothing ever gets done. -- Seen on a bumper sticker: STOP THE INVASION REOCCUPY MEXICO |
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