Its probably good. Depends on the checks and balances. Insurance companies sure don’t have our best interest in mind.
I was wondering when they would start this....................
Imagine, paying the hospital, in advance, for their services in case you need them................
Not exactly a recipe for success, but the Insurance execs that Obama scammed probably didn’t see that one coming
The law of unintended consequences can be a bitch
Considering that insurance companies have driven up the cost of doing business in healthcare, I am all for this.
I read elsewhere a few months ago that solutions like this will force people to travel less for fear of getting hurt while being too far away from their covered hospital.
-PJ
Sounds to me like the push is now full on to cut out insurance companies and go straight to single payer, i.e., Government, which was always the leftist intent from the get-go.
My wife is a nurse working for an insurance company. She is paid to evaluate insured members fresh out of the hospital with the goal of preventing any repeat visits. The insurance company would much rather spend $5,000 on rehab and rehab equipment, for example, than have their member return for another $60,000 hospital visit. She sometimes seems to be the only person reviewing the total list of prescriptions to check for adverse side affects or harmful drug interactions.
Insurance companies help to control costs. Sometimes that involves - gasp! - rooting out fraud. Yes, there are people who go to hospitals with false ailments to get drugs, or who seek a doctor’s justification to collect SS disability. She saw that often while working as a nurse in a large local hospital.
Obamacare was never meant to be the ends, only the means.
I should add that as a nurse in a hospital, she often heard doctors discussing what the state’s medicaid program would pay before deciding on what was ‘wrong’. In one case, they decided to replace both knees on a woman with knee pain. The woman was 4’11” tall and weighed 300 lbs...but Medicaid would pay for knees. What she needed was a diet! With her weight, the artificial knees were doomed before they ever were inserted.
I’ve got friends that work medical accounts payable. Many of the problems with our healthcare system start with insurance companies. The big problem is they’re cheap, they never want to pay the bill handed to them, so there’s this crazy high/low game AP has to play to get the money they want they increase the bill knowing the insurance company will pay only a fraction of it (and then send you a letter bragging about how much they “discounted” your bill). And that cheapness also causes them to deny treatment plans that will work because they’re expensive and there’s some other way cheaper method that almost never works but they want that to fail first. Played tag with that when my wife ruptured her achilles, about 1% it will regrow all by itself if you keep the foot immobile for about six weeks first, or you can fix it with surgery (which also takes about 6 weeks to recover from), they wanted to try the regrow, we didn’t want her in a cast for 3 months with the first half doing nothing; took a lot of phone calls and threats and a smart doctor to navigate their idiocy.
And in the end this all costs everybody money. Doctors and hospitals spend a lot of money arguing with insurance companies, who spend a lot of money saying no, and we get sicker requiring more expensive treatments while all this happens. If you ever really want to see how much insurance companies cost everybody next time you need treatment whip out your Visa instead of your insurance card, guaranteed the price drops by at least 50%, probably over 60%.
Since Medicare Advantage is going away as part of the ACA this administrator is so far behind the curve it isn’t even funny
Why deal with random insurance company _________ who may or may not pay you what you are owed. When you can cut them completely out of the picture and take those profits to pad your own with 1/100th the hassle.
I envision private hospitals that only serve members and accept no walk ins, that charge a monthly fee similar to what health insurance does, but it's insurance but a club fee, with free healthcare being simply one of the benefits of the club.
IOW you will be enslaved to a medical plantation.
Slave because trains only go to government appointed stations.
slave because only quasi government bureacrats can offer life saving medical care.
You are nothing more than a tax serf.
If it does work well, count on the government to make it untenable.
There are lots of attempts by doctors to open low-cost non-insurance clinics year after year...and it is seldom the finances of the medical care that causes them to fold.
What a wonderful idea. I am sure hospitals cannot WAIT to be run by the federal government.
The hospital is NOT cutting out the insurance company, the hospital is setting up a subsidiary that will be an insurance company. Same system, just both entities owned by the same holding company.
This could be great.. it could reduce costs, make payments easier, etc.
Or the opposite could be true: you could end up with your medical provider and your insurer in bed together, neither having any incentive to cut costs, etc.
Exhibit A: the mud-slinging eye-goughing insult-throwing groin-kicking slap-fight currently going on here in Pittsburgh between UPMC and Highmark BC/BS.
I’ve always thought that a company like Wal-Mart would be what revolutionizes medical CARE. I thought a company that knows how to bring low cost goods to every corner of the nation would somehow figure out how to put urgent care or walk in clinics at affordable prices to all their stores. Much like they do with the eye glass stores.
BUT, the system is so irredeemably screwed up the system will collapse. And it has nothing to do with care. I am blessed with a good enough business and savings to cover all but the most catastrophic medical emergencies. No Obamacare for me. To those that had their plans cancelled and have deal with this mess I am sorry for you. I am sure eventually it will be a criminal offense NOT buying obamacare approved insurance and I will be threatened with prison time but until that day comes I’ll keep as far away from Obamacare as possible.