Re: Another arrogant Democrat dimisses crowd


"TravIsGod" <travisgod@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:2ae38239-a317-4555-980a-6908c1c0f913@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
What's to stop the insurance companies from simply pocketing the
difference
as increased profits? Sound better than dropping prices to the insured
right? <G>

Competition will prevent this. When a public option is that much
cheaper, people will switch voluntarily.

In any case many employers (mine for example) self insure and their
insurance company simply administers the plan and bills my bosses for my
care plus a fee for administration (their profit). The fees my bosses pay
for my and my colleagues health care are negotiated so as to be lower
than
what an uninsured is charged.

I know that. This is exactly how they can undercharge you. You
underpay; the care providers make up the difference by overcharging
the uninsured and sticking the State with the tab.

To me this is the scandal. If the doctors and hospitals will accept a
certain fee for their services they must find those fees acceptable. So
why
charge everyone else 200-300% markups on their fees. That is what drives
up
costs.
Take care

Do I actually sound like I don't know about how health care billing
works?

Look, man, there's a very good reason the tab to the State for the
uninsured is so high - the State is actually SUBSIDIZING the insured!

This is the dirty little secret nobody wants to talk about...or
apparently, nobody has figured out yet. Hospitals cannot turn a
profit treating the insured at negotiated rates without treating the
uninsured at excessive State-rebated rates. If/when the State fails
to rebate, the hospital goes BK. Individual care providers may be
able to get by on negotiated rates, but the system in the aggregate
depends upon the shortfall to be made up elsewhere.

Trav

I disagree here. I do not think doctors and hospitals are undercharging me
(the insured). I think they are willing to accept a certain payment and THAT
is the true value of their services just like any supply-demand situation.
Would they like more? Sure they would and they charge the uninsured the
heaven and earth.

The government does just like the insurance companies and negotiates the
fees downward as Medicare never pays what the hospitals charge. But Medicare
doctors are willing to take the lower amounts which IMO is the true value of
the service. Supply and demand work that way, buyer and seller agree on a
price for a good or service. Competition ensures (theoretically) a level
playing field. The US government is the 800# gorilla squeezing the hospitals
but they take what they can get.

A pal of mine some months ago fell and injured his elbow. He had a large
cyst that hurt and needed to be drained. He is uninsured and I agreed to
help him by paying up front $500 on account the clinic demanded to even see
him. Policies like this discourage folks from getting treatment. Had I not
paid up front he would have foregone treatment and hoped it would get better
on its own. Many uninsured do this, and do not game the system. He had the
procedure done and was charged a higher fee than I as an insured would be.
That is unjust.... and expensive to me who had to pay it. This same doctor
treated my broken leg for $50 copay plus what he could get from Aetna which
according to Aetna is much less that he would have charged my friend for the
same service. Take care
--
Stanley L. Moore
"The belief in a supernatural
source of evil is not necessary;
men alone are quite capable
of every wickedness."
Joseph Conrad


.

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