The Health Care Hoax You Buy Into
I find it pathetic how inept and deliberately uninformed our Washington leaders remain about America’s health care system. Republicans are trying to repeal, and if it’s convenient, replace ObamaCare – a plan that was doomed before it was ever signed into law. Doomed because it didn’t address the fundamental problem with our health care system – the inflated costs. The GOP is making the same mistake Democrats did seven years ago. And they simply don’t care. Because any health care plan they enact into law isn’t going to affect them in the slightest. It’s completely unimportant to them how history remembers them – as do-nothing lawmakers who missed their opportunity to create a workable solution to a pressing national problem.
Before backing a system that’s supposed to cover the high costs of health care, Congress should first address the reason for the outrageously high costs. Hospitals are free to charge any amount they want for any service. Here’s a fact: Hospitals charge more than20 timeswhat it costs them for services like anesthesiology and CT scans, according to John Hopkins researchers. And they’re entirely free to do just that. Here’s why…
A century ago, it would cost hospitals, say, $10 to set a broken arm. The hospital would then add on, say $2 as a fair profit, and the patient goes home happy and healing. Then insurance companies come along. They confront hospital administrators with the fact that they’re sending countless numbers of their insured patients to those hospitals – it’s only fair that hospitals give insurance companies a discount price for these services. The hospitals say that’s simply impossible, they’re making a $2 profit on a broken arm. C’mon, there’s no room for any discounts. So as the insurance companies increase the pressure on hospitals, administrators come up with a brilliant scheme to keep both sides happy. Hospitals will artificially inflate the prices they charge for services, and then provide insurance companies steep discounts on those fake prices. This way insurance companies are satisfied that they’re getting discounts (albeit fake ones), and hospitals still make a profit. It’s a scam that’s alive and well today – and perfectly legal.
Hospitals have what’s called a “chargemaster.” It’s a highly-secretive document similar to a restaurant menu of the thousands of services it offers and what the hospital charges for each of its services. If a CT scan costs the hospital $150 to complete, the chargemaster price is set at a ridiculous $3250. But no worries. Insurance companies don’t pay the chargemaster price. They pay a much discounted rate, say $1250, which has been negotiated in their contracts with each hospital. Then we, the insured, pay a percentage of that $1250, say $75 based on our deductibles and insurance coverage limitations. Seems somewhat fair since we pay only a small percentage of the discounted rate. But here’s the catch. It’s a little something called “out-of-network”. Oh, you poor schmuck, should you get a CT scan at a hospital or clinic that is not in your insurance provider’s network! You get a bill for the full $3250 – the obscenely inflated rate. Same goes for those of you who are uninsured. You pay the artificially high fake rate for any hospital service you use. That’s where we see skyrocketed health care costs – you know, the $150 for an aspirin kind of crap.
Why is this allowed to happen? Simple. The health care industry spends more on lobbying efforts in Washington than oil and defense combined – to keep the system operating with little government interference. These are the same lobbyistsPresident Donald Trumppromised to drain from the swamp. There seems to be a clog in that drain. Comprehensive lobbying reform, a key issue the president campaigned on, is still a thing of the future.
No doubt, it took balls forJohn McCain,Lisa MurkowskiandSusan Collinsto kill the repeal bill – to cast a vote in favor of theirconscienceversus theirparty. We need more balls on both sides of the aisle – people who vote for right versuswrongrather than right versusleft. Killing ObamaCare without immediately replacing it with a viable alternative would be a travesty for the millions who now depend on it. It’s downright un-American. I’m curious, if there was a provision in a Senate bill that required all Senators who vote for passage of a new health care law to also cancel their Congressional health coverage and join this new plan they crafted and voted on – would the bill go down in a crushing defeat? Damned straight!
There’s only one unforgivable vice in Washington. That’s hypocrisy.
