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Originally Posted by JohnnyD
There's a reason many private practice doctors don't accept Medicaid (some won't event accept Medicare). The government sets pricing and then pays 60-75% of that actual price, if they pay at all. Also, medical offices that accept Medicare patients are subjected to significant increases in the amount of BS they have to deal with, including how they bill, manage records, operate their office and a ton of other things that increase overhead.
It is exactly the above reason that in some states Walgreens has stopped accepting Medicaid.
Again, it comes down to matter of leverage due to volume. The government has the leverage over many providers because of the volume of elderly patients on Medicare.
Some of the most successful private practice doctors that I know of have enough patients that they do not need to accept patients with Medicare/Medicaid. Not to mention they don't get stuck dealing with nearly as many people begging for pain pills, people that play the system to get disability checks and the other dregs of society.
Personally, I'd prefer the government to stay the hell out of setting prices. Make no mistake, government regulation is a major contributor to why health care costs are so high.
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Good points but not what I am saying.
We would not use medicare rates, and the paperwork would go to the health insurance company. Rather than 100 different insurers haggling over rates you could average the rates and that would be the max that any hospital or doctor could charge for that procedure whether the person has health insurance or pays cash. This way everyone is paying the same.
Right now if I have insurance and you do not we pay different amounts for the same quality of care:
My insurance might pay 200 for a checkup, and I pay my 10 copay
You might see the same doctor, get the same care but with no insurance and paying cash you pay 395.
That is not a good way to control or keep health care costs down.
The fed could say to the doctor you can charge 265 for the check up no matter what insurance someone has or doesn't have, because that is the average rate the 10 best insurers would pay you.