The hospital charged $12,500 partly because of the law that prohibits them from charging anyone less than they charge any medicare patient. They inflate the charges over actual cost, not because they expect to collect that much, but rather as their own cushion against the unforeseen regulatory problems. They don’t want to go to jail for violating the complex regulations.
Their actual costs, including some allowance to pay for non-paying patients, is probably close to the $1500. If your insurance was medicare, they would probably allow the hospital to collect even less, less than their actual cost, maybe $1000, and of that medicare would pay $800 and the hospital would be required to bill you for the remaining $200.
Under this system, hospitals that accept medicare patients are likely to deteriorate. At the same time, the medicare insurance system is going bankrupt. Medicare is likely to find more and more creative ways to reduce their costs, like weighing the cost of your medical care against the dollar value of your life.
There is a lot of complete crap in here, but it comes from the complex regulations and cheesy payments associated with medicare, not from the private insurance company.
Like I said earlier. It needs fixin! Fix it. If it dont work then keep fixing it till it does.
Somebody has got to do something and like now. Obama is pushing real hard for something to be done. No one else is.
I’ve heard about healthcare reform since Clinton and nothing has been done. Nothing. It’s been screwed up so much for so long and I’m sick of it.
God bless Barak Obama!!