It is the result of no one actually knowing what the bill is. Some pay through the nose, some don’t pay at all and the care is not exactly comparable. But people are being charged twice that of the next country down the list in Europe per capita. We pay the gold standard for a crappy catastrophic plan that pays for all the little stuff and gouges for the things that cost.
It is the Medical Industrial Complex...to steal a phrase.
DK
Wow, I really agree with you.
Sorry for the late reply, but that is so true.
(Sorry, writing fast, apologize for anyeone reading this if there are poor wordings etc.)
To me you could make it, “it is illegal to charge different people different prices for the same service. It is also illegal to force different people’s services to be considered “different” when they are substantially the same service.”
This prevents them from forcing doctors and hospitals etc to use “Price Masters” where they have a series of ridiculous prices on a list that no one pays unless they are a cash customer.
(Because if, as a doctor, you set a low price, the insurance companies only want to pay you a percent of it. So everyone sets a fake “real” price (charge master price) and cites that to any insurance company that it is “contracting” with. This forces all doctors and hospitals and labs to set up fake prices (that only affect cash customers) because that is where they negotiating from. It’s a conflict of interest fixing the market — they know this forces uninsured people to buy insurance because they are out in the cold created by those very insurance companies! It’s a joint market-fixing collusion by insurance companies, but no one has stopped them.)
Everyone with some type of insurance gets a massive discount due to some variable mechanism. Your insurance company’s main job is to have wheeled and dealed in advance. Those companies and people who don’t buy insurance (cash cunstomers) are left out in the cold.
You can of course get a price up front, if you push hard, but it’s not the price you want, the price that most people pay. They are embarassed by their “master” prices! A lot of place will discount for cash up front, but it’s not enough of a discount to be fair compared to what theu charge others, and there’s no good feedback to the free market.
These companies and hospitals are quite happy to receive a surprisingly small amount for services on most things, charges go from 10,000 to $1,200 for example on some things, even worse than that. Lab tests that go from $300 “retail” to $18 “real” price.
Eliminating tag with fake prices, and tag with the fake procedure codes (which would occur if you did not address that too — they would have 10 versions of the same blood test all with different prices, and only certain people could buy certain tests) would help.
So lets go somthing like here:
One Procedure Code at One Price for all People receiving a substantially similar medical procedure ...
Then price setters would have to pick a price, the price could compete in a real free market, and common sense would again reign.
Then we would have to publish it in an advance marketplace so that competition could occur. Shopping in the middle of the night when you are stuck with the only ER around if like living in Hooterville and buying everything at Mr Haney’s.