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Anger is insufficient. Without consumer choice, there is no mechanism for individuals to impose pressure on Healthcare providers and insurers. They can continue

Anger is insufficient. Without consumer choice, there is no mechanism for individuals to impose pressure on Healthcare providers and insurers. They can continue to 'milk the cow'.

mooreds 7y ago
Just give consumers access to a price list before service is provided. That will go a long way towards helping the problem. (Not that you are going to price shop for every service--a trip to the emergency room for a broken bone wonte get shopped--but some portion of health Care is discretionary or is deliberate enough it can be shopped.)
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  I agree. This probably won’t be a full solution but at least it would bring a little transparency into the process. Usually going to a US doctor or hospital means to pretty much hand out a blank check telling them to take as much as they feel like and your only hope is that they won’t rip you off too much.
- bad-joke 7y ago
  Price lists and comparisons are available for health insurance plans. That hasn't stopped premiums and deductibles from rising to the point of popular furor.
  - Ididntdothis 7y ago
    Where are these lists?
    - david-s 7y ago
      I was able to find one for some hospital procedures on their website recently. It was not helpful. It was both incomplete and inscrutable.
    - bad-joke 7y ago
      I'm not talking about price lists for procedures, I'm talking about price lists for deductibles and premiums on health insurance plans. Visit healthcare.gov and navigate to your state marketplace. They typically provide a detailed price comparison based on several adjustable factors (expected income, expected visits, number of medications, etc). If readily available and detailed price comparison tools haven't stopped health insurance deductibles from tripling in the past year[1], why should we expect price comparison tools at the point of healthcare service to reduce costs? [1]https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-health-insurance-medical-bills-20190502-story.html https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-health-insurance-...
- koolba 7y ago
  That’s not enough. What the people should do is demand that corporate health insurance be banned and demand uniform/transparent pricing. (Removing the corporate tax deduction and adding a personal one would have the same effect) That’d lower the cost of the average policy as their would be an influx of (on average) healthier people to the market for insurance.
  - mywittyname 7y ago
    We need to eliminate tax deductions as well. They distort behavior yet only benefit the wealthy. Families making under $50k aren't paying much in federal taxes as it is. The federal tax bill for a family of 4 making $50k/yr is $2,739. Cutting their tax bill in half gives them back a little over $100/mo.
    - koolba 7y ago
      The individual tax deduction is meant to be a temporary bait and switch. A full top line individual deduction of health insurance premium would allow corporations to shift their current contributions to their employees with no net tax consequence (income paid is deductible for the corporation and the premium would be for the individual). Once that’s in place the next step would be making the general populace aware that the majority of the deductions, at higher tax brackets mind you, are going to the top. That would give the political capital to eliminating the “fat cat insurance deductions” and gradually get us to sanity.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      As long as you ignore the 15.2% that everyone pays in social security and Medicare. There is no separate account where those taxes go. It’s just goes into the general tax budget.
turk73 7y ago
I work in Big Healthcare. It's unbelievable what this company wastes money on. It is my daily ethical dilemma. I came to the job to help make healthcare better and quickly found out that this is just a big, publicly traded company whose executives play up the "helping people" aspect but at the end of the day it's all about the money. It's funny because I have avoided the General Dynamics and Lockheed Martins out of concern for the ethics of that kind of work. But every place I have been has been ethically challenged one way or another. You would not believe how many companies are taking government money, for example. America is not the place you imagine it to be, it is truly fascism. My health insurance costs have well more than doubled since 2014 thanks to ACA. I deliver that failure directly at the doorstep of Obama and his Administration as well as the gutless Supreme Court that could have struck down this awful handout to corporate America. It's disgusting, completely disgusting.

Anger is insufficient. Without consumer choice, there is no mechanism for individuals to impose pressure on Healthcare providers and insurers. They can continue to 'milk the cow'.

mooreds 7y ago

Just give consumers access to a price list before service is provided. That will go a long way towards helping the problem. (Not that you are going to price shop for every service--a trip to the emergency room for a broken bone wonte get shopped--but some portion of health Care is discretionary or is deliberate enough it can be shopped.)

Ididntdothis 7y ago
I agree. This probably won’t be a full solution but at least it would bring a little transparency into the process. Usually going to a US doctor or hospital means to pretty much hand out a blank check telling them to take as much as they feel like and your only hope is that they won’t rip you off too much.
bad-joke 7y ago
Price lists and comparisons are available for health insurance plans. That hasn't stopped premiums and deductibles from rising to the point of popular furor.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  Where are these lists?
  - david-s 7y ago
    I was able to find one for some hospital procedures on their website recently. It was not helpful. It was both incomplete and inscrutable.
  - bad-joke 7y ago
    I'm not talking about price lists for procedures, I'm talking about price lists for deductibles and premiums on health insurance plans. Visit healthcare.gov and navigate to your state marketplace. They typically provide a detailed price comparison based on several adjustable factors (expected income, expected visits, number of medications, etc). If readily available and detailed price comparison tools haven't stopped health insurance deductibles from tripling in the past year[1], why should we expect price comparison tools at the point of healthcare service to reduce costs? [1]https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-health-insurance-medical-bills-20190502-story.html https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-health-insurance-...
koolba 7y ago
That’s not enough. What the people should do is demand that corporate health insurance be banned and demand uniform/transparent pricing. (Removing the corporate tax deduction and adding a personal one would have the same effect) That’d lower the cost of the average policy as their would be an influx of (on average) healthier people to the market for insurance.
- mywittyname 7y ago
  We need to eliminate tax deductions as well. They distort behavior yet only benefit the wealthy. Families making under $50k aren't paying much in federal taxes as it is. The federal tax bill for a family of 4 making $50k/yr is $2,739. Cutting their tax bill in half gives them back a little over $100/mo.
  - koolba 7y ago
    The individual tax deduction is meant to be a temporary bait and switch. A full top line individual deduction of health insurance premium would allow corporations to shift their current contributions to their employees with no net tax consequence (income paid is deductible for the corporation and the premium would be for the individual). Once that’s in place the next step would be making the general populace aware that the majority of the deductions, at higher tax brackets mind you, are going to the top. That would give the political capital to eliminating the “fat cat insurance deductions” and gradually get us to sanity.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    As long as you ignore the 15.2% that everyone pays in social security and Medicare. There is no separate account where those taxes go. It’s just goes into the general tax budget.

turk73 7y ago

I work in Big Healthcare. It's unbelievable what this company wastes money on. It is my daily ethical dilemma. I came to the job to help make healthcare better and quickly found out that this is just a big, publicly traded company whose executives play up the "helping people" aspect but at the end of the day it's all about the money. It's funny because I have avoided the General Dynamics and Lockheed Martins out of concern for the ethics of that kind of work. But every place I have been has been ethically challenged one way or another. You would not believe how many companies are taking government money, for example. America is not the place you imagine it to be, it is truly fascism. My health insurance costs have well more than doubled since 2014 thanks to ACA. I deliver that failure directly at the doorstep of Obama and his Administration as well as the gutless Supreme Court that could have struck down this awful handout to corporate America. It's disgusting, completely disgusting.