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Originally Posted by TheSpecialist
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.
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First, if everyone is paying the average of what we all pay today, I don't see how that lowers the cost, except for people who currently pay as they go without insurance. Second, while your idea controls the amount that doctors get paid for services, it doesn't address the costs of the care that the doctors provide.
We need to somehow address the underlying cost of the healthcare that docs provide. One way to do that is tort reform. Unfortunately, the American Trial Lawyers lobby gives big $$ to democrats, who consequently won't allow that reform.
That's just a very small piece. I don't know that there is a solution. It's a staggering problem even in a simple environment, but when you throw on top of it the looming tsunami of the baby boomers, and we are in for a real reckoning. A real reckoning.