The obvious answer to fixing health care in the U.S. is a single payer system, culling from the best plans around world, and making it our own. But strong ideological opposition from the Republicans has so far managed to destroy lives, bankrupt families and wipe out the middle class under a sea of high premiums and bills.
The conservative answer is break up large groups of buyers, put everyone out on their own into the market place, and shop till you litterly drop from your illness. They would also do away with regulation, letting the buyer beware. If you make a bad decision, you have only yourself to blame, so stop whining. But while free marketers distract everyone with the promise of people "making their own decisions," insurance companies and providers are also making their own decisions on how to maximize profits and lessen their risks with patients.
Watch this horror story from Bill Moyers Journal about hospitals dumping patients with late health care bills into the market place of bill collecting, with interest. This is a glance into the future of patient care; paying your bills even when you may never be able to and destroying a persons credit rating. All because you got sick. And this is just the beginning of shifting the burden onto the needy.
It's horrible how quickly hospitals and other medical care providers are putting their outstanding patient balances into the collection system. If a patient has insurance coverage through two sources, e.g. if she's covered by both her employer and her spouse's employer, it's not unheard of to have the bill go into collection before both insurance companies have a chance to make payment.
ReplyDeleteOne despicable practice is getting lawyers into the process early. I've had to soothe employees by telling them that the law offices are not yet filing a lawsuit. They're just making extra money by getting into the collections business, and trying to scare patients into paying money that they don't owe.