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"It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and ..." - Thomas Sowell

Posted by GaltsGulch 9 years, 5 months ago to Pics
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"It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication, and a government bureaucracy to administer it." - Thomas Sowell


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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Cease Enabling.
    Take Control
    Make Change
    In Order
    Step by Step
    Cease Believing
    It's all a lie
    To get your votes
    And taxes too
    Then they watch you die.
    While their living high
    And your still believing
    Fairy Tales
    and Propagonda
    Don't you feel stupid
    Well you oughta
    Rinos and Dinos
    Leaving huge with no pain
    While your whole life
    Goes down in flames
    But what the hell?
    You lit the match
    By believing their lies
    and enabling their snatch
    ing abilities with votes
    Don't you feel stupid
    you dumb ass dolts?

    You should.
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    They use it as a way to offset for those who don't pay. As you know all medical facilities must provide first responder to stabilized condition to anyone who comes in or is brought in regardless of ability to pay. That's been true for decades and decades. And is the main reason the no available medical claim by the left is and has been one big lie. Since many cannot pay or will not pay medicine as an industry or as a business routinely overcharges those who can pay to balance out for those who can't or won't pay. the condition arose for precisely that reason.

    A follow on is the payments authorized by government sponsored insurances such as Medicare. It's an average of the Doctors plus hospitals average billing, the areas average billings for all medical providers and third the average amount paid out by Medicare. to get the amount up to the true cost which includes the ghastly astronomicallly high liability premiums the average must be raised the billings are raised and along with them insurance premiums raised again. If the government raises or adds the number of must treat conditions or adds in the superfulous items such as cosmetic surgeries - the feel good - stuff all costs go up. Including but not limited to sex change operations. The whole thing is a racket engendered by the government in it's search for votes and tort lawyers in their search for legal fees.

    You want to lower cost of medicines lower the amounts payable by juries whose sole qualification is 'if I was the plaintiff I would award millions since the rich doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies can easily afford it.' Under advise of their rich attorney's of course.

    It's all about money....and that includes results of medical research. Same stuff can be had in Mexico at 40% of US Costs and other countries.

    Now one of the ways doctors get around that for people they know is cash payments. Another is by having nothing that can be taken in case of being sued. Their certified financial advisers set them up with house, car, clothing, etc. all owned by an out of state LLC which is owned by another out of state LLC and so on. Win a suit the guy provably has only a few thousand in the bank and this helps by the way come tax time with allowable loopholes. So your attorney goes to the LLC in let's say Wyoming only to find out that it's controlled by one in Delaware or Nevada. Three law suits later the LLC says we'll we have to get that approved by our board of directors and the next meeting is six months from now in....all that money and property you are asking about belong to.....umpteen different ....and then you find out there is no direct liability insurance company to approach.

    Oh what a tangled web is woven when first to the government we become beholden.

    And all of those steps are government approved. so now the plaintiff owed the liabiltity and torts lawyer.....

    Easily set u and any doctor or hospital that does not have such coverage is soon driven out of business as the direct buy your own liability insurance costs go up and up and up.....

    Add to that government reneging and repudiating medical costs included as future benefits for a million man military - even one cut to 500,000. the trail always leads back to the Congress and a series of Presidents who promised one thing and gave you a never ending series of ObamaCouldCareLess flim flams. While they get full boat, no deductible no co pay coverage for life.
    Seig yourself a few Heils Comrades...You DO serve the party.
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  • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Mostly because it doesn't matter what they bill. The insurance company is going to pay what their fee schedules calls for no matter what the providers bill. The provider just has to be sure to bill more than the fee schedule to be sure that they get all that they can get -- so they bill really high.
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  • Posted by $ sjatkins 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Funny thing about insurance. I have some pretty thorough blood workup done twice a year. When I paid cash last time it was $630. Yet when I charged it to insurance 6 months previously the insurance company was billed over $2100. Nor is this unusual. Many medical providers overbill insurance hugely. How come? Then we are astonished when insurance costs are high?
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  • Posted by $ sjatkins 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Are you accounting for the fact that government has been deeply involved in US medicine and causing major price disruptions for decades now? Medicaid alone was majorly disruptive and never mind the mess that is medical tort law. I know GPs that spend half their income for insurance against being sued.
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  • Posted by Mamaemma 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    CG, my overhead runs 65%, and it's only that low because all my equipment, building, etc. are paid for. I can only be profitable if I have a high volume of patients. I have many excellent patients who pay cash, but they are not enough in number to keep me in business. Many MDs don't have the high overhead, and it is probably more feasible for them.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    "I phrased that poorly. I have the right"
    By chance I saw this after I responded. I still think there're enough customers, though, who have money and willinesses to pay.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    "I no longer have the right to determine what my services are worth."
    No, no. There is still a pool of peole who want to buy stuff for the going rate. If it's medical services, it's probably a larger pool than people who need a printed circuit board and embedded processor. You have the right.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    "people have been brainwashed by the insurance company"
    Yes. HMOs started in the Upper Midwest, in MN I think, and they are big here. The brainwashing is powerful here. I worked in FL for six years, which I did not care for, but they do not have this love of turning over their healthcare purchases to someone else. My wife worked at firm in DC for a few years, where HMOs didn't rule as they do here. We feel like we're from the epicenter of the HMO brainwashing.
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    They have always taken cash. The rule is once it's a debt you can pay with US Currency, prior to contracting a debt US Currency can be refused.

    The contrived and often un needed complexity of the medical system that drags out billing for months but demands instant payment and now in the case of ObamaCare cannot pay added to liability insurance at every step of the way are the target areas for correcting the situation.

    Two major culprits are xray readings and stand by doctors in hospitals. Especially if they bill more than one currently doctored patient at the same time. Multiple same time billings makes sitting around drinking coffee and watching utube a very profitable business.
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  • Posted by Mamaemma 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I phrased that poorly. I have the right, just not the ability to do so and remain in business.
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  • Posted by Mamaemma 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    You are absolutely right, William. I no longer have the right to determine what my services are worth.
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  • Posted by Mamaemma 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    CG, I can't tell you how many times a patient tells me he will only consider treatment that is covered by insurance, and it's not always because they can't afford it. Many people have been brainwashed by the insurance company. They also don't care what it costs as long as insurance pays for it, and therein lies a big part of the problem.
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  • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Keep in mind that it doesn't matter what you bill the insurance company. They will only allow their scheduled fees for the services. You just have to be sure to bill them more than their scheduled fees because if you bill them less, the WILL pay less.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    "So I said you could make a profit being paid $5000, and you planned to bill insurance $50,000?"
    It borders on a racket. As you and edweaver say, "it's a system" for sure!

    I don't participate because we never hit our deductible except for when our first baby was born with tychypnea, which thankfully resolved within hours.

    Years later we took him to an allergy specialist and we were talking about some expensive interventions. The doc mentioned some inexpensive approach, something like a sealled pouch for his mattress, for $60 but he said we couldn't go that route b/c it wasn't covered by insurance. The problem resolved once we said we were private pay and had no issues with paying. But it always stuck with me that he assumed we would be willing to spend thousands on medical interventions but not $60 on something not covered. He must have many patients like that. It's amazing these people or their employeers give $10k+ to an insurance company a year and feel too broke to pay $60.

    That doesn't compare to your story of their planning to bill the insurance company ten times more.
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Not as long as 95% of the actual vote is going to statist corporatists and the corporatist statists. Soon as people cut the apron strings and turn their back on Republicans and Democrats can start moving to that but until then just put your chains back on.
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  • Posted by rare2may 9 years, 5 months ago
    Here is my take, remember too big to fail, then it was the banks. Now it is the insurance companies. We have banks that are bigger than the crisis of 2008, does it make sense. Health care should be decentralized , open the market for smaller companies to work with local hospitals and doctors.
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  • Posted by edweaver 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Thank you. For me it's not so much ideas as it is logic. I know you get it. I read your comments. :)
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  • Posted by edweaver 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Free market. What a concept. But, but don't we need controls. [So much sarcasm]

    It is a system for sure. Some fraud & corruption and some just a middle person that inflates cost. I wish it could go back to just catastrophic coverage with the rest pain by the consumer. Couple that with removing government and healthcare costs would likely be half of what they are.
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  • Posted by Mamaemma 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    That's part of my point, Ed. Also, if patients paid doctors directly market forces would come in to play. About 20 years ago I had a procedure that wasn't covered by insurance. I paid all hospital costs, including OR, recovery room, meds, etc before hand. The cost was $5000. A month later I get a bill for $50,000. I called the hospital, and they said, oh, we thought it was to be paid by insurance. Never mind. So I said you could make a profit being paid $5000, and you planned to bill insurance $50,000? It's a system of fraud and corruption. I so wish we could just have the free market. It works!
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  • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 9 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Absolutely. I have no disagreement with that. Most people who complain about the insurance industry assume it will be much better if the hospitals do the same 3rd party payments to the government which wasn't making an evil profit -- just wasting far more because they didn't give a damn.

    I should not have assumed that someone on the Gulch was considering the government as preferable to insurance companies.

    I think that the key issue is healthcare reform, getting government out of way and allowing us to use new technologies for people to be able to care for themselves.
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