Quote:
Originally Posted by marcop
Yes, it does. Which is why hospitals and other healthcare providers are almost completely opaque about their pricing, which makes comparison shopping not only time-consuming, but next to impossible, and makes the idea that there's a competitive healthcare marketplace in place just laughable.
As other developed nations have demonstrated, the best way to keep down healthcare costs is not by creating an illusion of competition, but by having a single payer (i.e., the government) deal with providers, pharmaceutical companies, etc.
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The insurance itself is just a racket.. The hospital,doctor or whatever is for the most part going to get roughly the same amount of money from you the individual being insured or not. For example, my son had a motorcycle accident about a year and a half ago. He thought he was insured under his mom so this is what he told them. They based his billing on what they assumed was his insurance. He started receiving the bills and in total it was in excess of $30k for the 8-10 hours he spent in the er. Once they figured out he didn't have insurance they changed all the billing to the "cash payer" billing and it miraculously reduced what he owed to around $5k. So basically the hospitals and such mark up the price 5-6x or more if you are insured and then bill you the 10-20% depending on your plan. Grant it with insurance you're only out of pocket at most $10k-$12k or so a year. But for a healthy person that's catastrophic insurance.
I agree single payer would be great but I don't see that happening, right now anyway.