freedom is absent today - parte due
Our healthcare system is being plauged by a conflict of interest. More and more our hospitals are being bought up by the insrance companies that pay the bills. The system works well for the hospitals, and the insurance companies alike.
It works for the hospitals because the quality of their care and the knowledge of their staff doesn't matter all that much. If people are dissatisfied, tuff shit for them. The hospital still gets paid. If we were on a system where the patient was expected to pay at least a greater part of their hospital bills, only one in ten would be paid. I don't believe this is because people can't afford it ($1,200 isn't a lot of money in a day and age where people spend more than that on a TV), it's because if I had received that bill, I wouldn't pay it on the grouds that I was completely dissatisfied with the service my wife received. If you hire someone to put in a door at your house, and they show up and have no idea what they're doing and it takes them 2 weeks to finish, they make a mess, and the door doesn't work, what do you do? Do you pay them anyway? No. You would complain to them, possibly contact the Department of Comsumer Affairs, and you would refuse to pay them for their work. Because there is no direct contact between the "customer" and the "supplier" (so to speak) in the health-care system, there is no system of checks and ballances in place. Insurance companies aren't going to refuse to pay the bill for two resons: first of all, as far as they know, the patient received top-notch care. The second brings me to my second reason why this works for both the hospitals and the insurance companies themselves. That reason is that, more and more, hospitals are coming under the private ownership of the very insurance companies that pay them.
That's right. Insurance companies invest large sums of money, and even buy the titles to many of the hospitals they make their checks out to. Basically, if you break it down to simple terms, they're paying themselves. So the hospital writes a bill for $1,200 for low-grade care given by un-qualified doctors and medical students, the customer doesn't care about the bill because he/she only owes fifty dollars, the insurance company writes a check for the $1,200, but then the insurance company itself makes a profit on that money, because they own the hospital they wrote the check to.
Sound crazy? That's because it is. But it sounds right, given how upside down everything else has become.
It works for the hospitals because the quality of their care and the knowledge of their staff doesn't matter all that much. If people are dissatisfied, tuff shit for them. The hospital still gets paid. If we were on a system where the patient was expected to pay at least a greater part of their hospital bills, only one in ten would be paid. I don't believe this is because people can't afford it ($1,200 isn't a lot of money in a day and age where people spend more than that on a TV), it's because if I had received that bill, I wouldn't pay it on the grouds that I was completely dissatisfied with the service my wife received. If you hire someone to put in a door at your house, and they show up and have no idea what they're doing and it takes them 2 weeks to finish, they make a mess, and the door doesn't work, what do you do? Do you pay them anyway? No. You would complain to them, possibly contact the Department of Comsumer Affairs, and you would refuse to pay them for their work. Because there is no direct contact between the "customer" and the "supplier" (so to speak) in the health-care system, there is no system of checks and ballances in place. Insurance companies aren't going to refuse to pay the bill for two resons: first of all, as far as they know, the patient received top-notch care. The second brings me to my second reason why this works for both the hospitals and the insurance companies themselves. That reason is that, more and more, hospitals are coming under the private ownership of the very insurance companies that pay them.
That's right. Insurance companies invest large sums of money, and even buy the titles to many of the hospitals they make their checks out to. Basically, if you break it down to simple terms, they're paying themselves. So the hospital writes a bill for $1,200 for low-grade care given by un-qualified doctors and medical students, the customer doesn't care about the bill because he/she only owes fifty dollars, the insurance company writes a check for the $1,200, but then the insurance company itself makes a profit on that money, because they own the hospital they wrote the check to.
Sound crazy? That's because it is. But it sounds right, given how upside down everything else has become.
posted by adampaul at
1:41 PM
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