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Comment by michaelmrose | Hacker News Reader

Simple don't let doctors choose patient by insurance plan or negotiate a higher rate. Everyone pays the same. There are first world countries wherein the massive profit potential at every step between patient and care just doesn't exist and they in general have better health outcomes than we do.

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I’m pretty certain that would violate the Constitution. Any lawyers around that could comment on this?

What part of the Constitution covers medical billing? Doctors can get tort protection but patients can't get billing protection? Wages have been set by the U.S. government before so I'm not sure you could argue that, and there's no personal expression protection with accepting insurance. I'm really unsure of where this could possibly become Constitutional other than the right to life.

Perhaps it’s the ambiguity when I read the parents post about not allowing doctors to charge different rates. Does that mean not allowing me to charge more than you, or not allowing a doctor to charge one patient more than the former.

When I originally read it, it seemed like the former, but given everyone’s responses it must be the latter.

I'm for capping costs AND not allowing a provider to charge different rates to different patients for clarity.

Neither would violate the constitution. It's not that long a document and written reasonably clearly. If you disagree please cite the section.

USA already has the common carrier law which states that certain services are not allowed to discriminate against specific customers, everyone pays the same price. So all you would need is institute a similar law for medical practice, like a "Common Health Provider" law. If you think that net neutrality is a good idea then you should also think that this is a good idea.

So you're saying we have too many doctors? Because this is how you get rid of doctors.

I would gladly pay more to be seen sooner by a more qualified doctor. If I have to fly to another place to do that, I would.

Only a fraction of the population can afford to fly somewhere to be seen. We are trying to improve the situation for everyone else.

Other counties pay less and have plenty of doctors per capita plus waste far less on middle men.

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