[JohnnyD]

Originally Posted by TheSpecialist

The government regulates Electric, telephone, and natural rates. IN Mass they regulate car insurance cost, so what difference does it make if they regulate HealthCare cost nationally.

Considering that electric, telephone and natural gas companies have government-sanctioned monopolies issued by towns, they should be regulated. My preference is to not have the government-sanctioned monopolies and allow the free market to do its thing.

Do you think Obamacare is going to reign in the cost of healthcare?

Not even a little bit - and that's not because I think it's going to be created impotent by the Supreme Court. ObamaCare, if allowed to completely materialize, will have no effect on prices while further contributing to long waiting times to see a specialist.

There were 3 specialties that were over 100,000 for average cost
of premium. Orthopedist was around 89,000 and the other 21 specialties were less than 60,000 in 2010. But Massachusetts has one of the highest in the nation rates There are other states where every specialty is under 100,000, and according to Mass Div of insurance rates seem to have stabilized.

Do these seem reasonable to you? I've read that approximately 10% of medical costs are due to malpractice insurance. According to the wikipedia (take the source for what it is) entry on "Medical Malpractice", 60% of claims against doctors are dropped (still costing an average $22k per dropped claim) and 90% of the time cases go to trial, the doctor is found to be not negligent (yet costing an average $100,000/case).

How about a situation like in the UK where the loser in these frivolous suits are held liable for all or a % of the legal expenses? How about creating a limitation of 1-year from the incident to bring up a claim? How about not allowing families to sue every time someone that needs a high-risk surgery dies?

This country has turned into such a litigious society that someone that gets injured breaking into my house could sue me for medical damages. A little bit of tort reform would do this country some good and could have a real beneficial impact, not only on medical costs, but on society as a whole. This is an area that the government actually has direct control over.

I definitely think that tort reform is needed, drug companies need to be regulated better, but bottom line is if you are charging X dollars 20% of X dollars as payment, and making your nut, then there is something wrong with your prices.

That is price gouging at it's finest.

And when Uncle Scam starts telling medical institutions how much they can charge, you know what's going to happen? Smaller practices will close down because their overhead is too high and the tight margins created by the government won't be sustainable. Also, medical institutions will be forced to cut corners and reduce the quality of care in order to be sustainable.

Name me one market that has every benefited by being over-regulated by the government. Typically, more governmental regulation results in significantly more red-tape while having little to no benefit for the consumer.

Like I said above, maybe the government should regulate the price of a gallon of gas and the price of bread. Those prices are too high too.