Re: SCOTAL Itch
Mom's ER visit for a broken finger in NOLA? $1500.00 for cash people, 850.00 just for the ER facility (not the doctor or pharmacy or x-ray). Medicare paid the hospital 8.00 for that. Not 80.00, but 8.00. And the hospital took that 8.00 "as agreed"
So, a poor person paying his own way would have paid 100X the negotiated Medicare rate. Why is that mark up there in the first place? Because ERs have to cover those who cannot pay, and have to pay an army of administrators to negotiate rates with multiple insurance companies, then to later determine and collect the negotiated rates from amongst all the agreements with various insurance providers including the government. The bigger the provider, the less they pay for services, but it's made up for in volume or whatever.
A single payer system without a whole bunch of middlemen with profit motives would reduce costs. Period.
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