Healthcare in the US is a monopoly not subject to normal market competition. Within Trump’s healthcare reform proposals are 2 points which could reduce healthcare costs by up to 80%. First, require ALL healthcare providers to post their prices. Hospitals, clinics, private offices, all of them. An example would be the Surgical Center of Oklahoma. Second, allow for the reimportation of all pharmaceuticals and medical devices into the US at current world prices. This second proposal would reduce our costs significantly but admittedly financially implode a few of those single payer, socialized systems that appear to be so fantastic as our subsidizing of their systems would cease.
I’m actually disappointed with Trump’s plan, because he doesn’t identify one of the most expensive requirements of Obamacare - mandatory maternity coverage and the evil twin, forbidding the pricing of insurance to be based upon gender. So of course, man or woman, you have maternity coverage on your policy.
For a 40 year old woman, that is an extra $350 a month on most insurance plans (vs pre-ObamaCare plans where maternity coverage was optional.) For a 44 year old man, that’s an extra $500 a month as equality requirements mandate that he pay just as much as a member of another gender.
Two more segments that need to be done - tort reform; juries and judges no longer have a blank check to seize unlimited amounts of assets at their whim. And bankruptcy - all debt, including medical debt, should be dischargeable.
Both of those would have dramatic effect on controlling medical costs - the first from the unholy tax we all pay in this country on every single medical device, pill and office visit that goes to feed the medical tort lottery (and a considerable legal system which feeds upon it.) The second is an outright encouragement to the medical establishment to keep prices affordable.
It does not matter what their prices are; unless you are a cash customer. The reimbursement rate is fixed by the payor, i.e., MEDICARE, MEDICAID or private insurance.
That is why so few doctors accept MEDICAID. The payments are often less than their costs.
I would like to publish the prices, but the AMA forbids giving out the codes. How can I publish the prices when without coding? They offer payments to every politician at the federal level. How can we get a pricing system that works?
I love the Surgery Center of Oklahoma. Those are the only free market guys in the country for medical care I can find.
The insurance industry nearly put them out of business and refuse. They refuse to put them in their networks and discourage other people from using them.
I would like to see this catch on everywhere. I’m not sure why it’s not.