If all clinics and hospitals and doctors were required to post their fees, satisfaction ratings or provide estimates like a mechanic, which they couldn’t go over without approval or putting their own money on the line, we could be empowered consumers of healthcare rather than sitting ducks for the bloodsucking “non-profits” around here.

Universal health care will do nothing but afford more people the opportunity to deal with the frustration I’ve felt while battling for my rightful benefits.

I also agree with Pranab because I went to the emergency room for an abnormal heart beat, and got bills that my insurance was supposed to pay. So I had to call the insurance and send them the bills, and then I got more bills from other doctors who did one of the many tests I had done. If I hadn’t known better, I would have paid these bills. The hospitals and insurance companies have no incentive to get it right and bill correctly. The hospital gets paid either way, and if you pay it, the insurance company gets off the hook. I bet hundreds of millions are collected from unknowing individuals every year.

Personally, I think we need to go to a system that does not have any managed care. HMOs have driven costs to ridiculously high levels because they do not care if they get the best value for their dollar. If you and I were paying, we would question bills and fight for the lowest cost. Insurance companies, drug companies, etc, have no incentive to lower or control costs.

Our health care is run by lawyers, accountants and bureaucrats. We need it to be run by patients and doctors. Until we get big business and managed care out of the way, we will continue to have a system that is the laughing stock of the civilized world.

It’s complete insanity. I was in the hospital couple of years ago for a about a week. The paper trail continued for a year along with numerous phone calls for clarification and I have a box full of paper work from that one incident of hospitalization.

All other examples are only secondary effects of that central key.

And politicians act like giving everyone the privilege of paying for Health Insurance will solve everything. It won’t. It might spread the costs but we really need to fix what happens once people get sick and ask the insurance companies for money.

Some people get mad, all I can do is sing about it:

http://www.fandalism.com/index.cfm?songid=216577
http://www.fandalism.com/index.cfm?songid=216499
http://www.fandalism.com/index.cfm?songid=216498

1. Publish all fees for all services by CPT code. It’s the fault of the healthcare industry that people don’t know what a CPT code is except for the insurance industry, Medicare and Medicaid. I had to file an open-records request to get the list here in Texas.

2. Require that all invoices to the uninsured be accompanied by the CPT codes and a statement as to what the fee would be if charged to Medicare.

3. Give all patients MFN status, meaning that the patient is not charged more for any treatment than Medicare, Medicaid or an insurance company would be charged.

4. Encourage some physicians and hospitals to refuse to deal with insurance, Medicare and Medicaid altogether, so that the self-insured can be spared the 40% markup in the bill that covers the front office insurance and medicare filings.

If US physicians and nurses don’t institute some of these reforms, they deserve to become Obama government employees and treated like the Canadians and Brits treat their healthcare workers, only the US docs and nurses won’t be able to improve their situation by crossing the border, as the Canadians do.