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Originally Posted by greytone
I honestly don't know what the answer is. Socialized medicine is the easy answer, but I don't believe it is the best. We need an overhaul of laws overseeing insurance plans. They can not be allowed to cherry pic only the best patients and leave the rest for government after they are forced in bankruptcy. We need a populace with better science education so they are better health care consumers. We need more of the money going directly from employers to employees and letting them make choices. We need tort reform to prevent CYA test ordering and lower malpractice costs in a number of states. We need an overhaul of much of the private and public bureaucracatic nonsense that doctors and hospitals have to deal with. You would not beleive how much of our time and recourses go to making nonproductive pencil pushers happy.
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Thank you for your posts from a provider's point of view. It must be very difficult to do business in this environment with all the insurance and government paperwork as well as the legal problems and patient demands for ill conceived treatments. You guys seem to have to walk a tightrope and I am beginning to appreciate the difficult nature of your profession.
The following comments are "cherry picked" from your last post.
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We really can't tell you what your costs will be ahead of time because we really don't know. There are so many variables. We have a very complicated way of charging for our services which was forced on us by medicare.
Normal economics just don't work in healthcare because the purchace choices are not made by the payor.
Many patients pressure providors for care that is really not necessary and is not cost effective.
Insurance is not affordable for individuals because of our income tax laws. Insurance is tax deductible for your employer but not for private people. More importantly, those that want to get a plan are priced out of the market by insurance companies who only want healthy customers or big contracts.
We need an overhaul of laws overseeing insurance plans. They can not be allowed to cherry pic only the best patients and leave the rest for government after they are forced in bankruptcy.
We need tort reform to prevent CYA test ordering and lower malpractice costs in a number of states.
We need an overhaul of much of the private and public bureaucracatic nonsense that doctors and hospitals have to deal with.
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For some of the above reasons as well as others, many of us are beginning to think that the system is getting to the point of being beyond fixing as it now stands. For most of the fixes listed would require legislation that probably has little chance of passing because of various lobbying groups pressure. Perhaps it is time to rethink the entire medical (and medical insurance) industry and consider having the government provide it. Maybe the nature of health care just doesn't lend itself to capitalism and competition.