They have structured their whole business model around an uncompetitive, corporate welfare paradigm. They have no incentive to keep costs down. Hospitals are loaded and helmed by legions of corporate parasites who milk the system at will, gangsters in suit and tie.
Something is wrong when you can't even find out the cost of a procedure. When you ask the hospital-industrial complex how much a procedure costs, you are never given a price list. They always answer you with another question "who's your 'provider'?" Imagine going to the grocery store and trying to buy a loaf of bread, and the clerk says to you "who's your provider?". Ten different prices for the same loaf of bread.
With the prices for that loaf of bread anywhere between "free" and "$14,798.49."
Interesting you bring that up. Advair, an asthma medication, used to be about $175-190 for a disc, before obamacare.
The patent ran out and then o’care showed up. One would think that since the patent ran out, the price would drop. Nope. It doubled. I learned firsthand, what it’s like for someone to not be able to afford medication, when they need it. It’s disgusting.
Indeed, that practice, and many others in the “healthcare” business, is illegal under current law. All we need is an Attorney General willing to indict.
A little late, and when you are sucking down 1/5th of GDP you have enormous resources to er uh "educate" the legislature as to what is in the interests of the country.
This is all true, but it's even more simple than that.
There is no mechanism for cost or quality controls in any industry built on third-party payments. When a patient needs medical care, the patient doesn't care about the cost because he isn't paying it, and the insurance company doesn't care about the quality because it doesn't have to live with the results.
It really IS this simple, folks.