healthcare

I go to showdown way too much. Those little river bets in small pots kill me.

I don't have health insurance right now, although that may change b/c UTD has a student policy available. The reason is simple, I'm young and don't want to pay $200+ a month.

A lot of liberals think health care is a basic human right along with housing and a job. Besides the basic conservative line of thinking that the freedom of choice and responsibility is more important there is also the issue that dead beats would just take advantage and never feel any consequences. I do think it would be great if health care was available and affordable to everyone.

The only problem is that our government, much like the 18% of Americans under 65 including the young and healthy, cannot afford it which begs a question that is never asked. Why is health care so expensive? I have a few hypotheses that have no facts to back them up but are based on the little information I acquired while working in medical billing.

Most insurers have agreements with what hospitals or doctors they use. If you go out of the network for the insurer you use your bill is not covered. So the hospital thinks this is great and even gives the insurer a discount. I looked at so many eob's, explanation of benefits, which is basically a receipt showing what the insurer paid and they are writing off anywhere from 25-75% of a bill, especially medicare.

So the hospital is getting screwed because if they don't like it the insurer will go to another network. In order to recoup the reduced income they have to raise prices. Keep in mind uninsured individuals don't get to write off any part of their bill. So now fewer people can afford to pay out of pocket and are forced to not pay or file bankruptcy. The insurers who don't like the increases prices look for ways to deny a claim for any bogus unrelated reason they can find. Well now the hospital is losing more money and must increase the prices again.

One side note involving medicare... All hospitals must serve everyone whether or not they have any intention of paying. Although this has to be done what ends up happening is illegal aliens go to the emergency room for every little need and never paying. I'm not saying they all do it blah blah but so many claims with a Hispanic name and no social security number ended up going through our system 3 or 4 times before somebody higher up than me just had to claim it as a loss.

I have no idea what the laws and regulations regarding insurers are but that is where the problem lies. Medicare/medicaid is already 1/3 of our national budget. National programs are wasteful and inefficient and only serve to give those in power more power to garner votes. Find out why health care prices are so exorbitant and fix it. Everything else will fall in line.