Re:Health Bill Would Add 3.8% Tax on Investment Income
by tptacek on Sunday March 21, 2010 @03:18PM
(#1208402)
Again: you use this word "sugar daddies" as if the role was foisted onto the insurers. It wasn't.
The insurers colluded with the providers to set artificial, market-oblivious standard prices for procedures on a region by region, hospital by hospital basis. From what I understand, prices were often set by allocation schemes negotiated between the payers and the providers, with no apparent regard to the actual cost, supply, or demand for the procedures. At the same time, even as they managed to drastically distort the pricing of health care, insurers apparently negotiated special payment processes directly with providers, thus creating not one but two artificial tiers of pricing.
It's meaningful to talk of "sugar daddies" and "insurance" only when there's a real market for health insurance. But no such market exists. For mainstream medical procedures, for the standard of care that Americans expect (a visit to a doctor, completion of the lab work the doctor requests, some form of radiology, and then a procedure or perscription to resolve whatever comes out of that diagnostic work), unless you are either willing to play chicken with the providers and say "no" when they try to collect debts, or willing to pay incredibly, drastically inflated prices for basic procedures, there is no way to get care without involving your insurer.
The insurers colluded with the providers to set artificial, market-oblivious standard prices for procedures on a region by region, hospital by hospital basis. From what I understand, prices were often set by allocation schemes negotiated between the payers and the providers, with no apparent regard to the actual cost, supply, or demand for the procedures. At the same time, even as they managed to drastically distort the pricing of health care, insurers apparently negotiated special payment processes directly with providers, thus creating not one but two artificial tiers of pricing.
It's meaningful to talk of "sugar daddies" and "insurance" only when there's a real market for health insurance. But no such market exists. For mainstream medical procedures, for the standard of care that Americans expect (a visit to a doctor, completion of the lab work the doctor requests, some form of radiology, and then a procedure or perscription to resolve whatever comes out of that diagnostic work), unless you are either willing to play chicken with the providers and say "no" when they try to collect debts, or willing to pay incredibly, drastically inflated prices for basic procedures, there is no way to get care without involving your insurer.