If they don’t do anything about the cost of healthcare (not insurance) then it doesn’t matter. A hospital should have to charge the same bed rate (within a narrow band) for everyone. Same for physicians per visits and surgeons per type of surgery, same for drugs. They should have to publish their fees and adhere to them. Not $100 for Medicaid, $400 for commercial insurance, and $2,500 for individual pay.
Why? Businesses have always offered discounts for companies that buy in large volume. Those companies, in turn, reap the benefits of their buying power and pass some of the savings on to their customers. Why should insurance be any different?
“If they don’t do anything about the cost of healthcare (not insurance) then it doesn’t matter.”
Needs to be repeated over and over until THIS is the conversation.
If everyone paid the same, than either Medicaid would go bankrupt or all the hospitals in the country would go bankrupt. and there would be a lot of suffering either way. Medicaid reimbursement is a joke.