i work for a company that has multiple 100s of thousands employees employees. $165 bucks a week for “health care”.. the liberals waged war on it -“ health care should be free!!”…it is a bloated bureaucracy full of corruption..
Insurance is not there to "pay" for medical care. It is there to protect your fiscal health. Why do you carry homeowners insurance? Because it is prohibitively expensive to rebuild the house after a fire, etc.. Same for auto insurance. So... why is medical insurance expected to pay for every time you see any kind of medical professional?
Simple answer, culture. We, as in everyone in the western world, have been trained to think medical care is somehow a "right" and someone else should pay for it. Medical insurance has ceased to be protection for your fiscal health, and has become a sugar daddy.
Change the culture (easy, right? RIght???) and you will see medical care costs drop.
I could rant on for days about this, but the reality is we, as a society, seem to think that if it involves health in any way, someone else should pay the bill. And, once someone else is paying, you stop caring about the cost.
The cost of care and procedures goes up exponentially when someone else is paying, too. Partly because the providers can charge more, and partly because there's a MASSIVE amount of overhead and hassle when dealing with insurance companies.
Most everyone here has probably seen a billboard in their area advertising a MRI scans in the $99-200 range. That's the cash price if you pay for it yourself. If you let insurance pay it, it's $1800-2000.
Why? Again, partly because they can. But also because when the clinic bills to insurance, they have to hire people to deal with insurance as a full time job. The "billing specialist" will submit the claim to insurance, the insurance will respond with a low-ball counter-claim for what they think the service is worth, and then there's a back-and-forth until they settle on the price, which is then paid -- three to six months after the actual scan. Until then, the clinic basically worked for free ... but the doctor and billing person need to be paid, as do the lease on the building and all the other bills. When they're getting paid that far in arrears, the amount has to be worth the while, to make up for effectively taking on debt to keep the doors open and lights on.
If the billing process were straightforward (read: didn't require a full staff of specialists) and payments were quick, the costs would probably come down quite a bit.
The costs would come down almost immediately if the doctor's office no longer billed the insurance company directly. Insured pays the bill up front, and seeks reimbursement from the insurance company.
How many people would start asking if they really needed to see the doctor for some minor item if they knew what it really cost? I suspect a lot of them would.
Quite right. And the cost of insurance itself would come down if (using my example above) the MRI for which the insured is seeking reimbursement costs $200 cash-up-front instead of $2,000 through the byzantine processes and back-channels.
Here's an idea: Keep the current system for catastrophic care (emergencies and major surgeries and such, which can quickly push costs into six-figures), but for routine check-ups and health maintenance, go with the "cash up front, reimbursement later" idea.
Another layer of cost inducing malarkey is HSA/FSA accounts, administrators, and attendant regulations. TINS, I went to my dentist, paid my copay/deductible/whatever else was my dime using my FSA account debit card.
Subsequently received a letter from the FSA administrator requesting a receipt. From the dentist. For the DENTAL service I had received. So that they could determine if my DENTSL service was allowable as a FSA expense.
Which I totally get. I mean, who doesn't go to the dentist for beer, hookers, ammo, and taxidermy?
It's not health insurance, it's effectively sick insurance. They need to insure you're sick so they make their profits. When we can pick our policy, including the option of accident or major med only then you'll have the option for lower costs. First you have to demolish Obamacare and Fed gov involvement in the industry. Damn the Commerce Clause to hell anyway.
It isn't always this way. My employer recommends I get a yearly physical, and if I do and submit the results, I can get a discount depending on the numbers.
i work for a company that has multiple 100s of thousands employees employees. $165 bucks a week for “health care”.. the liberals waged war on it -“ health care should be free!!”…it is a bloated bureaucracy full of corruption..
Before I was forced, by age, to sign up for Medicare, I wondered the same thing myself.
Paid for ob-gyn coverage i could not use (as a male human)? Why?
A) it’s not healthcare, it’s sick care. B) nobody that can do anything about it cares. Too busy enjoying the grift.
Insurance is not there to "pay" for medical care. It is there to protect your fiscal health. Why do you carry homeowners insurance? Because it is prohibitively expensive to rebuild the house after a fire, etc.. Same for auto insurance. So... why is medical insurance expected to pay for every time you see any kind of medical professional?
Simple answer, culture. We, as in everyone in the western world, have been trained to think medical care is somehow a "right" and someone else should pay for it. Medical insurance has ceased to be protection for your fiscal health, and has become a sugar daddy.
Change the culture (easy, right? RIght???) and you will see medical care costs drop.
I could rant on for days about this, but the reality is we, as a society, seem to think that if it involves health in any way, someone else should pay the bill. And, once someone else is paying, you stop caring about the cost.
The cost of care and procedures goes up exponentially when someone else is paying, too. Partly because the providers can charge more, and partly because there's a MASSIVE amount of overhead and hassle when dealing with insurance companies.
Most everyone here has probably seen a billboard in their area advertising a MRI scans in the $99-200 range. That's the cash price if you pay for it yourself. If you let insurance pay it, it's $1800-2000.
Why? Again, partly because they can. But also because when the clinic bills to insurance, they have to hire people to deal with insurance as a full time job. The "billing specialist" will submit the claim to insurance, the insurance will respond with a low-ball counter-claim for what they think the service is worth, and then there's a back-and-forth until they settle on the price, which is then paid -- three to six months after the actual scan. Until then, the clinic basically worked for free ... but the doctor and billing person need to be paid, as do the lease on the building and all the other bills. When they're getting paid that far in arrears, the amount has to be worth the while, to make up for effectively taking on debt to keep the doors open and lights on.
If the billing process were straightforward (read: didn't require a full staff of specialists) and payments were quick, the costs would probably come down quite a bit.
The costs would come down almost immediately if the doctor's office no longer billed the insurance company directly. Insured pays the bill up front, and seeks reimbursement from the insurance company.
How many people would start asking if they really needed to see the doctor for some minor item if they knew what it really cost? I suspect a lot of them would.
Quite right. And the cost of insurance itself would come down if (using my example above) the MRI for which the insured is seeking reimbursement costs $200 cash-up-front instead of $2,000 through the byzantine processes and back-channels.
Here's an idea: Keep the current system for catastrophic care (emergencies and major surgeries and such, which can quickly push costs into six-figures), but for routine check-ups and health maintenance, go with the "cash up front, reimbursement later" idea.
Another layer of cost inducing malarkey is HSA/FSA accounts, administrators, and attendant regulations. TINS, I went to my dentist, paid my copay/deductible/whatever else was my dime using my FSA account debit card.
Subsequently received a letter from the FSA administrator requesting a receipt. From the dentist. For the DENTAL service I had received. So that they could determine if my DENTSL service was allowable as a FSA expense.
Which I totally get. I mean, who doesn't go to the dentist for beer, hookers, ammo, and taxidermy?
Sarcasm, off.
It's not health insurance, it's effectively sick insurance. They need to insure you're sick so they make their profits. When we can pick our policy, including the option of accident or major med only then you'll have the option for lower costs. First you have to demolish Obamacare and Fed gov involvement in the industry. Damn the Commerce Clause to hell anyway.
It isn't always this way. My employer recommends I get a yearly physical, and if I do and submit the results, I can get a discount depending on the numbers.
Similar with mine, but they also want us to commit to taking positive actions to maintain or improve our health.
It doesn't reduce our insurance premiums, but we get a (wee) bit more pay to help cover them.