Posted on 09/12/2010 5:09:23 AM PDT by Alas Babylon!
Sorry for the extra post on this, but hit post to quickly.
WA state has quite a few R voters. The problem is that like many other states, including IIRC CA, the Dims are in the big cities with more population (in our neck of the woods, primarily the I-5 corridor).
Who gets paid for what and how close are the billings to actual costs? ...is this the reason why some doctors refuse to even take medicare patients?
The term: "Cost Shifting".
It should be illegal, it is how the providers "make ends meet" due to the government's giving away "free healthcare" to Medicaid and Medicare patients.
The ratios are different in every state, but hypothetically, if the commercial rate paid by insurance companies for a doctor's visit were $50, for the same doctor's visit:
Medicaid pays $27.
Medicare pays $38.
Insurance pays $50.
Cash patient pays $75.
Further, the Medicaid patient don't usually have primary care physicians and use the expensive emergency room as their doc. Also, since this is free and there is no copay, they go there at the drop of a hat for a case of the sniffles or a hangnail. (overutilization) Both cost shifting and overutilization should be made illegal.
Additionally, many states not only reimburse providers at a rate of pennies on the dollar, they also are hundreds of millions behind on their payments...more cost shifting.
If the government wants to give away "free healthcare" it should at least pay the providers a decent rate and in full. They also need to police the gimmee girls on their hospital habits.
In a nutshell you pay for medical welfare twice; once in taxes, and again in elevated premiums due to inflated claims from cost shifting.
FYI. Colorado uses Denver Health for Denver residents with Medicaid and Colorado University for outside Denver residents. The Univ. of CO has cut off seeing Medicaid or Medicare patients because the state has failed to reimburse the hospital the money promised by our legislature for the past three years.
I guess our Democrat legislature thinks the hospital is okay operating at a loss. Surprise!
Yeah it does, ever heard of, The Kennedys, Olympia Snowe, Chuck Schumer? Etc, etc, etc.
Wow, looks like the whole thing is a nightmare! Now I see why there is so much double billing and add ons to bills. And why some people I know are in the doctors office all the time for anything.
I guess we should no be surprised its run by the govt.!
Amazing...three years?
I was at a "healthcare" public forum many years ago before Dirigo was passed into law. I overheard a couple of RAT-reps talking and laughing about how hospitals and doctors had more money than God, and they didn't mind screwing them at all.
Yep. The Denver Post was surprised the hospital wouldn’t just suck it up and write it off.
It never ceases to amaze me. The Democrats do believe they can screw the public, businesses, doctors and others, and there will be no repercussions. They figure the rich or the masses will be more than happy to pay whatever the Democrats believe they can get away with taking.
Sadly, too often that turns out to be true, until they start taking so much that people rebel. There’s way to much of this screw the rich thinking, as well as someone else should pay for our problems.
Bring up the failing Social Security system or the bankruptcy of Medicare/Medicaid and Democrats just look at you like you’re crazy. To them, these are non issues since they believe they can tax as much as they want to pay for any government program.
When you think about what a disaster health care was and is than zero comes along and doubles the trouble, makes it twice as bad,if you are trying to logically ask yourself why? There are few answers other than destroying the country in favor of Marxism. It's about all you can come up with other than mass incompetence or whacked out egomaniac.
Nationally, 0zero and the Democrats believe they can do whatever they want to do, and state wise the same attitude is there. Large cities too, if you think about it: NYC, LA, Chicago etc.
It used to be called “white flight” but that no longer applies because anyone with the means will leave high taxing cities and states. In most cases they move to lower taxing suburbs and if they have the money, like Rush, they leave the state all together. More than once Rush has said the outrageous NY and NYC taxes made him move. That’s also why FL gets so many new residents. Personally, even with state taxes I wonder if some of the other coastal states would not be as good. SC, MS, AL and others seem to have lower overall taxation with a lower cost of living.
Add to that John Kerry [he served in Vietnam, you know] and John Baby-Daddy Edwards!!!
Another Obama/Axelrod false choice. The two are inexorably linked. Healthcare is 1/7th of the economy. When combined with the uncertainty over taxes, energy and government you have a perfect storm that resulted in the serious post election economic downturn. On the margin this has to be one of the biggest downturns in US economic history.
Not only that down here in S Fla. malpractice insurance can be six figures with ease.
Yeah the Soutward migration has been tremendous for years. Until about a year or two ago we had 800 new residents coming to Fla. a day. Now that many are leaving.
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