Too many people with connections profit off of the current situation, the poorest people pay the price.
This is why there is no demand for real change and why all previous efforts got essentially stonewalled.
This is why there is no demand for real change and why all previous efforts got essentially stonewalled.
In this case it was a middle class family losing their 4 bedroom house due to "$164,000 in medical bills for emergency surgery". It's not just hurting the poor, it's a relatively small number of people organized in a cartel ripping off the entire country.
Medical cartel needs to be investigated by FTC like any other cartel. Being under purview of HHS and state medical boards infiltrated with physicians is not working due to conflict of interest. Cartel can be broken down by rewriting scope of practice laws to focus on "standard of care" rather than "board certified license" as a gatekeeping regulation to practice medicine. Once the physician cartel falls everybody else leeching downstream (insurance, global pharma, PBMs, countless vendors, etc) will simply dry out.
Medicare for all (public option) could also have a similar effect if implemented properly in a way that strips power away from physicians. But if implemented by naively increasing taxes and throwing money into the current system it's going to do more harm than good.
MDs no less! Forget the Hippocratic Oath!
Perhaps white-coat fraud is the equivalent of white-collar-crime in the public health world. Nothing matters more than the bottom line. Not even human lives.
Medicaid, which even happens to pay reasonable amounts for procedures performed. The entire system would re-adjust into a sustainable steady-state, if all prices were equivalent to Medicaid reimbursements. But I suppose that under such a model, the average middle-aged surgeon wouldn't be able to afford their third summer home...
That said, the only way to win is to not play - never get sick and emigrate before you have any serious health issues.
If all procedures performed were done at Medicaid-like prices, hospitals and physicians, and pharma firms, and, by proxy, insurers and medical schools would have to tighten their belts, and figure out how to cut costs. That's the entire point of such an exercise. We can't let health costs grow in an unbounded manner.
Dunno how 'Medicare for all' will work out if you simply start paying providers what Medicare currently pays. Dictating a price might work in the long run but would be plenty hairy in the short.
I can sympathize with the on-the-ground employees but the businesses they're keeping the lights on in are leeches on the healthcare market - I posted separately on this article going into the specific functions of PBMs, Pharmaceutical Manufacturers, Providers and Insurers if you're curious about the details, but there is a ton of inefficiency here.
OTOH, I'd say that the people who got really nailed with the ACA were the middle-class individual policy holders.
And if the ER thinks you're a deadbeat, they will give you the minimal treatment necessary to make sure that you won't die on the hospital grounds - and discharge you.
Makes me ill to think of the cost.
Christian (judging others), logical (how much does she know), fiscal (most costs to system are not kids)
Forgot parenting (who else is supposed advocate for the kid?)
If the US paid the prices for care that other countries pay (pick any developed country you want, it'll be less), everyone could get a tax cut and universal care. It would save US governments money.