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Originally Posted by uncle_el
the government and hmo's are already in control!! insurance companies, hmo's, and the government (via medicare, medicaid, etc.) set the price of what they will reimburse a physician or dentist.
besides that, there are so many things to add up when calculating a cost for a particular service. for instance, if you come into a general practioner's office for a sore shoulder you hurt during a basketball game... your copay may be $10 or $20... but there's the receptionist's salary, the nurse's salary, the physician's time to evaluate you, the cost of an x-ray... not to mention what the physician should or shouldn't charge for his/her hourly fee (traditionally, there is no hourly fee for physicians). so, you may only pay 20 bucks, but the cost is much more than that. the physician will likely be reimbursed a good portion of the cost of the x ray via insurance. but that doesn't account for the salaries of the receptionist, nurse, and physician him or herself.
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Thanks uncle_el. The way my insurance is and will be set up with a HSA is that I have no copay and will pay for everything up to the deductible (now $5000 and soon to be $10000). I am simply trying to shop for health care services like I would for anything else and compare prices with quality.
I have worked in engineering for many years and I know that the best engineers are not always the highest paid ones. I assume that doctors and dentists can be evaluated as well. You know, some will charge less and some will charge more for the same quality. It seems like this information is hard to get since most people are only concerned with the amount of copay and/or deductible.
I think I am beginning to see that the medical industry is not really a free market and is already regulated to some extent by insurance companies, etc. I'm not sure that having our health care in the hands of insurance companies is a good thing. I wonder if we shouldn't open it up to competition or failing that just let the government provide the service and regulate it even more.