Posted on 05/20/2002 1:09:58 AM PDT by sarcasm
The only solution I can see is a Market Oriented Solution: ELIMINATE THE 3RD PARTY PAYERS. As long as someone else is paying, users demand more of everything,and providers raise costs without being scrutinized. The exact same situation exists with tuition for higher education.
I agree entirely with this. I also think that we need tort reform to bring down costs so that people don't need to be so dependent on insurance for their basic medical needs. Somehow we need to redraw the distinction between medical tragedy and cash-cow opportunity. Maybe limit the amount layers can collect personally for every agrieved individual they represent, you know, just to ensure they're doing it for noble reasons and not simply exploiting someone's suffering
I respectfully disagree. Market economics have pushed down the price for any complex technology you can name (beer, cars, air travel, electricity, air conditioning, 4 bedroom homes, etc.) In fact, practically the only area where medical costs have declined is for uninsured, voluntary procedures: breast implants, Lasik vision correction, etc., all of which were previously limited to the extremely wealthy.
As you correctly point out, the will to live and the natural law right to one's own life renders it difficult for people to accept that good health is a scarce commodity. Solace for this uncomfortable, inescapable fact of existence can be had, among other places, in the teachings of Christ.
Nearly every doctor we visited during OUR trip through the cracks passed on about a 30% FEE REDUCTION for NOT having to fight with some third-party payor/insurance company for his dough. That's about what the current system adds to his office overhead to TRY to collect on claims. See all those NON-MEDICAL folks in his office? There ya go!
Check with your guy's office or business manager before coming in and I'll bet you find the same thing.
And don't forget to ask for some of the FREE SAMPLES the drug companies give ALL doctors. It's been established that 85% or more of the medicos here HAVEN'T A CLUE AS TO THE COST OF THE DRUGS THEY PRESCRIBE SO LIBERALLY.
The sudden uptick of women in medicine has led to a DECLINE in the numbers of---
1) Hard-driving medical specialists such as surgeons, neurosurgeons, OB/gyns who still deliver babies, and other specialties that involve unpredictable schedules and great physical demands.
Interestingly, skyrocketing malpractice premiums lead to the lack of the same sorts of specialties. These are high-risk medical professionals who don't make any more than the other professionals.
Women want predictable work hours, and a surgeon on call just won't live that kind of life. Not to mention that a higher number of women docs just plain quit if they happen to marry another doc...
So. Don't break your backs, fellas. And don't have babies, gals...
Your doc may or may not be aware, but this will get him into very hot water...
How so? I know that a doc accepting assignment from Medicare has to be very careful about fee schedules to recipients. However, I am not aware that there is anything that prohibits a doctor from negotiating a fee with a self-insured patient--just the same as he negotiates with the various insurance plans with which he participates.
There are regulations that prevent a doctor from discounting. Discounting one patient, you see, means that he's "overcharging" the insurance companies . The HMOs and others would then have the means to cut his fees to the discounted rate he gave you, which would surely drive him out of business when they then take their cut out of the lower fee! Medicare is particularly sticky on this...you can't even deal in the kind of transaction at all with someone over 65, or the doc risks being cut out of Medicare altogether.
They call it "fraud" and it is certainly absurd and unfair. But you're talking rich greedy doctors..
It is another of the great Unconstitutional programs that are creating enormous problems in America today.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
From Brittanica: Shark malpractice lawyers are scavengers. They feed off the remains of inept and sloppy medical providers. In doing so, they perform a vital service for the ocean community by removing sick and unhealthy doctors from the environment.
and then, standards will have to be lowered, as in the mililtary and police, so the person treating your illness tomorrow is the gum chewing, eye pierced, extasy taking raver dingbat of today....
take your vitamins and have a happy day.
in days before hmos, and all the other cost increases, medical visits were much cheaper. the most competent people in society are the most productive. these are the people who are able to produce the miraculous advances that save lives today. they are the surgeons who steal life back from terminal patients etc. daily. if you dont think what they do deserves compenstation in terms of a free market, which this ceased to be long ago, then remove all the artificial costs which lead to the inflated costs of today.
Having one patient billed one way, and another patient billed another way is an invitation for some regulator to assume that some cheatin' is going on. Local prosecutors can earn themselves a nice political boost by bashing up a local doctor who finds himself accused of overbilling patients. That the doc only ends up ruined, not in jail, is not much comfort...although it is theoretically possible that he can end up in jail, too.
Even well-intentioned physicians can find themselves visited by the feds and the HCFA dudes, ready to carry out your files in cardboard boxes...An entire "compliance" industry of lawyering has sprung up to try to help docs figure out how to obey laws that don't make much sense to anyone, especially not the lawyers themselves, who aren't nearly as intelligent as we give them credit for.... Hiring these compliance firms is a useful demonstration of "good faith" when the feds descend upon your practice, even if their advice isn't worth what you're paying for.
Keep in mind, that these compliance firms fees are part of the expenses that get passed on to the patients. Ain't lawyering grand?
BTW, the lawyers can discount their fees any way they please. :' )
No businessman should assume that the law has any common sense.
~Yet.
"...just the same as he negotiates with the various insurance plans with which he participates."
Remember what we spoke of in a prior discussion concerning the American Leftist-Socialist's attempt(s) to *break* our system?
Well?
Phase One: Remove free market rules governing the Healthcare Industry.
Phase Two: MAKE healthcare a, "right."
(1 & 2 totally interchangeable...)
That'll give us Socialized Medicine if they pull this off -- no matter WHAT they wind-up calling it or WHO we're told they're "trying to reach" -- which'll be *precisley* how this thing shall be marketed to the American masses.
~Just watch & see.
This attempt is, IMO, but-one of the Liberal-Socialist's multi-pronged attacks upon Capitalism; targeted at a specific industry but, designed to capture the whole magilla in the end.
Hillary-Care is alive & well.
(& now a *Big* thank you to the citizens of New York is in order too for allowing that monster-bitch to run amok.)
This happens here?
The Canadians can finally stay home for own healthcare, eh?
...& just think of the gas savings. {g}
Though I must point out that I'd rather have today's medical care than when it was much cheaper. Were I to have a heart attack today, I'd stand a good chance of walking out of the hospital a few days after being admitted. Years ago, I'd likely be a goner. yay, nsaids...
We do pay more, but we get more. The harsh truth is that we were brought up with a sense of being entitled to the best health care in the world--it must be paid for in one way or another. As a nation, much of the cost of our medical care includes all the expensive things we have put in place to AVOID that harsh truth...lawyers, regulations, socialism...
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