[StBernard] Governor Blanco urges support of SCHIP expansion

[Westley Annis]

Gaby,

The dirty little secret is that Uncle Sam sets the prices for medical care.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, formerly known as the Health
Care Financing Administration, sets a fee schedule on a regular basis for
how much different procedures should cost.  Of course, this schedule varies
according to geographic region, and if any provider wants to accept
Medicare/Medicaid patients, they must charge everyone the same price, even
if they want to pay in cash.

This works out to be the equivalent of a hotel's "rack rate".  You know, the
price they listed on the back on the door that is usually $200 more than
what you are actually paying.

This is where that "discount" the insurance companies have negotiated with
the providers comes in.

It is an accounting racket, but the providers are able to claim some type of
tax benefit due to that discount.

I had to laugh at my kids first pediatrician.  He was very old school since
he had been in practice forever (he was my pediatrician growing up).
Getting vaccines for my oldest when she was born only cost me like $20-$30 a
shot, depending on what she was getting.

By the time my youngest was born and he was phasing out his practice for
retirement, he had joined up with Oschner.  Oschner, of course, was very
much into the new game of medical financing, so I was still paying my $20
co-pay (I had insurance for the young ones), but the bill was a good bit
higher that what I had paid for the oldest one.

It just goes to prove, when government gets involved, everything costs more.

Westley

-----Original Message-----

	As I understand, it will let folks who make up
	to 4 times the poverty level become eligible for the program


>>

I am not too familiar with the details, but I have to figure an amount of
the poverty level (what is it now, 15 grant) times four, might be possible
to live comfortably in a family with 2.5 kids, but health care cost for the
kids has gone through the roof.
If the feds fork over money for paying for those costs, maybe these inflated
health care prices will be forced down again. 
I obtained emergency healthcare for my daughter overseas when needed, and
paid cash. It was exceptional care and cost less than a dinner out for us as
a family. Then why do we have to fork over hundred plus bucks just to be
seen in an ER and still get a bill? 
Thank goodness I now have health insurance, but the prices they have to pay,
even on the negotiated plan, are appalling. 
I also think that a big part of that money goes to overhead cost, due to the
enormous and ridiculous paperwork involved. That joke of a paperwork
reduction act was.................wellllllllllll .....a joke
 
Gaby
To live only for some future goal is shallow. 
It's the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top.

-Robert M. Pirsig