flstf

I'm certainly no fan of government control and I realize that most things provided by the government will cost more because of the bloated bureaucracy, etc.. But I am beginning to believe that health care may be an exception. Surely you can't be saying that reduced Medicare fees is the only problem with health care costs.

There is something fundamentally wrong with the health care system. I'm not smart enough to know what but I believe the legal profession (malpractice suits) and insurance company costs (CEOs making $52 million) have something to do with it. For some reason the costs continue to go up faster than inflation, there seems to be no competition or if there is I have not found an easy way to get price comparisons for services.

I also believe that most people don't care that much about the total cost of their injury/illness after the copay and deductible is remitted so there is not much incentive to shop for services. However this will soon change as more companies start to pass on the higher insurance costs to their employees or dropping coverage altogether.

I have read elsewhere that we have some of the highest health care costs in the world and still have millions of people who are not covered. I have also read that the very poor can get emergency treatment but I have known several middle class people forced into bankruptcy after being laid off because of medical bills in order to try and stay in their house. How much worse can total government control be?

You listed a few ways that doctors pass on their high costs to patients but did not give any ideas for fixing the system or making health care more competitive and affordable. Doctors at least can find some ways to pass on these costs but who do we pass them on to? Eventually the patients wind up paying for all the legal, insurance and overhead costs.