[JustSurrounded]

Well, I got an EOB the other day for some blood tests. Quest billed blue cross more than $400, Blue Cross said only a bit over $40 was allowed, which I paid because I haven't maxed out my deductible. That's it. Quest received and accepted $40 total for the service. Think of the cost of overhead to process that paperwork. Had I gone in paying cash, I would have been forced to pay $400. Why? Because if Quest charged me the $40 directly, insurance would cut them off. It is collusion to fix prices for the uninsured. Feds do it, too. It's a racket to make insurance necessary, allowing insurance companies to grow fat on premiums.

It is outrageous, racketeering, and a national disgrace.

It would be a simple thing to make it illegal for insurance companies (and medicare) to set prices for folks who don't have or choose to use insurance. That is a cheap change ... no new bureaucracy.

Right now there is no free market, no level playing field. That change, along with removing the mandate and allowing the purchase of only catastrophic coverage, and I believe we'd be well on the way to correcting the system.

That would be the very first thing I'd do.

[Jimmy The Snake]

You bring up a good point. As a kid in 1965 I broke my arm being a kid climbing a tree. My Dad was a Sr. Mgr at a family owned factory (we were not owner family). We had no insurance back then, nobody did. Dad paid the $400 to fix my arm ($3000 today) out of his pocket. Six weeks in a cast X-rays etc.

Medicare was just starting and covered my Grandma’s heart attack but was a nightmare for Mom and Dad from a paperwork perspective, but it got paid.