[Longbow1969]

I owned a health care firm and it was a relief to see the patient was a Medicare or Medicaid patient and not some private insurance company that I didn't know when or if we would get paid. Or what sort of special hoops I'd have to go through in billing.

I appreciate your particular experience, but all the doctors I know feel pretty much the opposite. They are increasingly looking to drop Medicare or Medicaid because the reimbursement is't enough to make it worth their while. In fact, we recently had to move a friend of the family who is getting old because we couldn't find many doctors in her area who would even take the gov't health plans. Ended up taking her to NYC where at least there were more options for people in her situation.

[DannyTN]

Yeah, the doctor reimbursements are low. And hospitals are starting to get hammered as well. But that’s a government plan setting those reimbursement rates, not private plans.

And I only brought them up from a single payer standpoint, that it was nice to know we were going to know we were going to get paid and paid quickly without a lot of hassle. There has to be a way to accomplish the best of both worlds.