Posted on 10/29/2013 1:17:01 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Nancy Pelosi’s flippant remark to “pass the bill first, then find out what’s in it,” has led Americans to the discovery that ObamaCare is indeed a “nightmare,” fraught with bureaucratic tangles, the risk to personal privacy, and the real possibility that, when all is said and done, many will have a health insurance card, but no actual health care.
The free market, apparently, will have none of that, however, as America’s entrepreneurial spirit in real health care marketplaces is moving forward, with doctors and patients negotiating health care outside of government interference.
MediBid, for example, is a website that offers Healthcare Savings Account (HSA) and self-pay patients access to doctors who will provide them with quality medical care and direct cash pricing. The site also provides doctors with access to self-pay patients, allowing them to avoid insurance companies who underpay, and then only after months following the actual treatment or surgery.
(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
Ralph Weber, MediBid’s president and CEO, opened the global marketplace for healthcare in January of 2010 after living in Canada and witnessing the need for a free market in the healthcare industry in a place where healthcare is rationed by the government.
On MediBid, patients can create a free, private profile, and then pay a one-request fee of $25 or $4.95 per month for a year of unlimited medical requests. Patients can then make a medical request for the type of treatment or surgery they need, and physicians and facilities are matched to patients who can proceed to collect bids from them.....
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
No, but he may grab your assets
With such high deductibles, most of us will be doing this anyway with the new health plans. Just wait until a subsidized patient who pays little in premiums find out that they have to meet a huge deductible before being given care. Then we'll have another pissed off group. Methinks the riots that are being predicted has less to do with EBT cards than Ocare deception awakening.
Of course the cost of medical services would be reduced by 90% if the government were not involved.
I went and briefly looked over their website. I am curious if they have some geographical listing of physicians in your area?
I couldn’t find anything real useful and didn’t want to sign up just yet....
I was wondering the same thing. I think you have to pay $25 to start the doctor bidding process.
This is good except for one thing: you still have to pay the fine, which will be 2.5% of adj gross income, and sure to rise later.
How does any of this deal with acute incidents, like heart attack, stroke, trauma? No time or ability in those cases to negotiate anything.
What about long term chronic care: dialysis, chemo,IV antibiotics for osteomyelitis or Lyme, neurological disease, etc? Some could be treated in dedicated assembly-line type clinics and some of this happens now. The article points out that you need blood tests, labs, images before you go to the doc on the auction site. Where and how do you get those and how do you check for reliability and fair pricing? There’s a lot of instances where hospitals with labs, pharmacies, technicians and specialists are necessary. ERs today just stabilize at outrageous costs.
And after care? How do you make affordable checkups every few months if your primary MD is 500 miles away? You need a cardiac ablation? Will you live long enough to travel somewhere and where will you be placed so you can subsequently be monitored?
Off shoring opens up other issues: Most foreign countries want employment for their own nationals. So perhaps US MDs will own these clinics or part of them, but they may not be permitted to work in them or may be forced to only hire natives for tech, pharmacy and nursing positions. That could be ok somewhere with First World education, but that is not always the case. There is rampant corruption in many island nations that can and does interfere with the logistical supply line. On and on. Multiple train wrecks are possible.
All the US system needs to do is deny hospital privileges to any MD not complying with their mandates. Any hospital not compliant can lose all government accreditation and reimbursement, such as it is, not to mention the lack of timeliness. There’s lots of ways they control providers, besides licensing, as well. My husband was just asked to join a regional 5-county network for Medicaid clients as a medical massage therapist. These are people with multiple physical and psychological issues and most of them are noted on the referrals as non-compliant (won’t exercise, lose weight,stop drug use, take required meds,keep appointments, etc). It required an IRS audit, malpractice insurance review (must be up to their mandated standards) and a complete background check, both to be repeated every three years on top of 3rd party payment which is admitted to be 120-180 days at negotiated discounts. He declined.
Concierge medicine, auction sites, off-shore facilities address only a portion of the medical spectrum.
Medical Tourism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_tourism
Medical Tourism Philippines – A Place for Health and Travel Together
https://exploreb2b.com/articles/medical-tourism-philippines-a-place-for-health-and-travel-together
Absolutely. I read that our local concierge doctor advises people to have a comprehensive plan to insure against accidents, etc. I am really confused about how to proceed. I just want to insure my assets. I also care about my health, but insure as heck don’t need or want to go to the doctor very much, but would like to when I really need to, and not have the doctor bill me like I just had some major surgery. The price exceeds the reasonable. This is a mess and it’s just so sad that people running the country flat out don’t care at all
“How does any of this deal with acute incidents, like heart attack, stroke, trauma? No time or ability in those cases to negotiate anything.”
When you eliminate the cost of dealing with insurance the cost of everything drops dramatically. I’ve read recently of prices going from $16,000-20,000 with insurance to a few thousand for cash. Virtually all of Blue Cross’ bronze plans had $12,000 out of pocket for a family and $6,000 per individual. For $6,000 cash you can get lot done.
I worked for an Israeli company and the Israelis raved about their “free” medical care. But in the very next breath they’d add, “Well, if you want it now you’ll have to pay a little under the table.” So “free” medical or rationed medical care will simply add a new level of corruption to the present system.
We need to hang tough and eliminate Obamacare before it becomes impossible and we end up with the same abysmal survival rates they have in England.
This is from Whiskeyx
Unfortunately for those persons on Social Security, you are denied by law the right to pay a concierge physician for healthcare out of the Medicare network when Medicare and the secondary insurer do not cover the charges for the healthcare procedure. You must forfeit your Social Security to opt out of Medicare Part A.
Obamacare may not cover healthcare costs for out of network providers or for providers outside the area of the healthcare exchange, which may mean outside the county of your residence.
It was this kind of denial of healthcare services for which Michelle Obama was paid exorbitant employment compensation to deny service to patients in Chicago.
Bookmark
In the middle of an acute event, what counts most is time. You either get to an acute care center promptly and receive the best care possible right away, or cost is the least of your worries. You will be in that acute care center for awhile and will need access to technology and pharmaceuticals as well as staff.
All of the above necessities are being degraded with this insurance scheme. A card does not equal care if the infrastructure is degraded.
In too many instances, even coming in ER without insurance will not get you care, just stabilization and a referral. If you do get to an OR and then to a ward,the social worker might be the first employee you see after regaining consciousness if you have no insurance.
There are dedicated medical centers right now for endoscopy, dialysis, imaging that have brought down costs for tests, treatment and chronic needs management. For a lot of that, you are correct: the costs can be dramatically reduced, but the problem for the patient will be the mandated exorbitant premiums and unreachable deductibles make it impossible to afford anything. Still, you would not go offshore or seek out a medical auction for this sort of diagnostic or treatment.
By mandating people spend money they do not have just for basic access with a high deductible, even the most efficient system will be starved for payments because the money went for the card, not the care.
“By mandating people spend money they do not have just for basic access with a high deductible, even the most efficient system will be starved for payments because the money went for the card, not the care.”
The money going towards a valueless card is my fear. My mother is 96. She fell and cracked her coccyx. She was completely immobilized and we could not care for her at home. But nobody wanted to take her (I think Medicare; whichever is for elderly but not indigents.) The facility that finally took her was terrible. They left her for hours with a wet diaper, the facility was filthy and has now been closed. Had it not been for constant family attention she might have been left with wet diapers even longer periods. Is this what to expect from Obamacare?
Apparently if you go outside the system and pay cash you can permanently lose her elderly care insurance.
Back Alley Apendectomies.
Free Abortions.
Of course, the whole thing would probably fall apart completely if that were done, but that is incidental to this gross violation of civil rights which must be removed.
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