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  #23   Report Post  
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Default An article about medical costs

In article ,
says...

On Mon, 11 Mar 2013 21:49:56 -0700, Urin Asshole
wrote:

On Mon, 11 Mar 2013 22:56:35 -0400,
wrote:

On Mon, 11 Mar 2013 17:37:37 -0700, Urin Asshole
wrote:

On Mon, 11 Mar 2013 19:39:55 -0400,
wrote:

On Mon, 11 Mar 2013 12:21:12 -0700, Urin Asshole
wrote:



Yep, and Medicare, by law can't negotiate with either hospitals of
Pharma. That's quite a free market system isn't it.

Go read the article again. Medicare pays about 10% of the Charge
Master price on the bills they looked at.
That was a big part of what Brill was saying.

That isn't a negotiation. They're barred by law from negotiating. It's
a fixed price that Medicare pays. And, 10% of complete bull**** is
still complete bull****. the costs are way below that. Try again.

The 10% is higher than the reality. Medicare pays more like 6-7%
OK I will try quoting the article you didn't seem to read.

Chest X ray $283 Medicare $20.44
Troponin Test $199.Medicare $13.64
CBC $157.61 Medicare $11.02
EKG $1200 Medicare $96
The list goes on


Brill says Medicare does pay too much for medical equipment tho.


What the **** is your problem? You said 10%. They don't negotiate.
It's a fixed percentage for each item. You go read the ****ing
article.


I said 10% and it was actually lower than that. You are right, it is
not a negotiation, they just say what they pay and the provider has
the choice, take it or leave it. A lot of providers are "leaving it"
and not taking Medicare patients.


I laugh when I hear this. They might as well close shop. It's called
"Pricing yourself out of the market." Or maybe "My business would be
profitable if I had any ****ing customers."
I've seen estimates that 70% of all health costs are charged for elderly
care. Jesus, just look around the provider's waiting room.
Then account for the multiple drugs and procedures the old farts are
getting compared the the young.
Half of all health care money to providers already comes from
government. Health care has been for years the biggest socialist
"business" going, after defense.
It's like Northrop Grumman refusing any more defense contracts.
Difference is Northrop Grumman can't be easily replaced by a hungrier
health care provider.
It's really funny hearing this argument.
Besides that, +50% of ALL Medicare cost is spent to keep what might be
called "vegetables" alive for their last 2 months of life.
I don't take a stand end-of-life care, except for myself.
But the solutions to all of this are pretty simple. Cut costs, or cut
services, or pay up.
  #24   Report Post  
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Default An article about medical costs

In article ,
says...

On Tue, 12 Mar 2013 10:05:30 -0500, Boating All Out
wrote:

In article ,
says...


I said 10% and it was actually lower than that. You are right, it is
not a negotiation, they just say what they pay and the provider has
the choice, take it or leave it. A lot of providers are "leaving it"
and not taking Medicare patients.


I laugh when I hear this. They might as well close shop. It's called
"Pricing yourself out of the market." Or maybe "My business would be
profitable if I had any ****ing customers."


We are heading toward a two tier system like they have in UK
There are already doctors who are moving into concierge medicine
where they only court rich customers who pay a premium for better
service.
Everyone else may end up standing in line for a 3d world doctor with
English as a second language


Most of the doctors at DeWitt Army Hospital at Fort Belvior were
contract doctors and they were better than the Army docs.

I've seen estimates that 70% of all health costs are charged for elderly
care. Jesus, just look around the provider's waiting room.
Then account for the multiple drugs and procedures the old farts are
getting compared the the young.
Half of all health care money to providers already comes from
government. Health care has been for years the biggest socialist
"business" going, after defense.
It's like Northrop Grumman refusing any more defense contracts.
Difference is Northrop Grumman can't be easily replaced by a hungrier
health care provider.
It's really funny hearing this argument.
Besides that, +50% of ALL Medicare cost is spent to keep what might be
called "vegetables" alive for their last 2 months of life.
I don't take a stand end-of-life care, except for myself.
But the solutions to all of this are pretty simple. Cut costs, or cut
services, or pay up.


Hungrier providers? Like WalMart?

I do tend to agree that we spend too much money on people in the last
6 months of life but when you ask the families, they want that last 6
months with grandma and grandma usually wants it too.
I am a little frustrated by the number of 6 month old artificial hips
we bury.


Most old people never recovery from a broken hip regardless as to
whether it was replaced or not. Too bad we can't just take them out back
and leave them there.

As soon as you bring this up you start hearing about death panels.



  #25   Report Post  
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First recorded activity by BoatBanter: Feb 2013
Posts: 968
Default An article about medical costs

On Tue, 12 Mar 2013 01:45:00 -0400, wrote:

On Mon, 11 Mar 2013 21:49:56 -0700, Urin Asshole
wrote:

On Mon, 11 Mar 2013 22:56:35 -0400,
wrote:

On Mon, 11 Mar 2013 17:37:37 -0700, Urin Asshole
wrote:

On Mon, 11 Mar 2013 19:39:55 -0400,
wrote:

On Mon, 11 Mar 2013 12:21:12 -0700, Urin Asshole
wrote:



Yep, and Medicare, by law can't negotiate with either hospitals of
Pharma. That's quite a free market system isn't it.

Go read the article again. Medicare pays about 10% of the Charge
Master price on the bills they looked at.
That was a big part of what Brill was saying.

That isn't a negotiation. They're barred by law from negotiating. It's
a fixed price that Medicare pays. And, 10% of complete bull**** is
still complete bull****. the costs are way below that. Try again.

The 10% is higher than the reality. Medicare pays more like 6-7%
OK I will try quoting the article you didn't seem to read.

Chest X ray $283 Medicare $20.44
Troponin Test $199.Medicare $13.64
CBC $157.61 Medicare $11.02
EKG $1200 Medicare $96
The list goes on


Brill says Medicare does pay too much for medical equipment tho.


What the **** is your problem? You said 10%. They don't negotiate.
It's a fixed percentage for each item. You go read the ****ing
article.


I said 10% and it was actually lower than that. You are right, it is
not a negotiation, they just say what they pay and the provider has
the choice, take it or leave it. A lot of providers are "leaving it"
and not taking Medicare patients.


Not many actually. Most take it and do just fine. Read the fricken
article! I thought you were claiming to be well-read and reasonable?


  #26   Report Post  
posted to rec.boats
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First recorded activity by BoatBanter: Feb 2013
Posts: 968
Default An article about medical costs

On Tue, 12 Mar 2013 12:31:42 -0400, wrote:

On Tue, 12 Mar 2013 10:05:30 -0500, Boating All Out
wrote:

In article ,
says...


I said 10% and it was actually lower than that. You are right, it is
not a negotiation, they just say what they pay and the provider has
the choice, take it or leave it. A lot of providers are "leaving it"
and not taking Medicare patients.


I laugh when I hear this. They might as well close shop. It's called
"Pricing yourself out of the market." Or maybe "My business would be
profitable if I had any ****ing customers."


We are heading toward a two tier system like they have in UK
There are already doctors who are moving into concierge medicine
where they only court rich customers who pay a premium for better
service.
Everyone else may end up standing in line for a 3d world doctor with
English as a second language

I've seen estimates that 70% of all health costs are charged for elderly
care. Jesus, just look around the provider's waiting room.
Then account for the multiple drugs and procedures the old farts are
getting compared the the young.
Half of all health care money to providers already comes from
government. Health care has been for years the biggest socialist
"business" going, after defense.
It's like Northrop Grumman refusing any more defense contracts.
Difference is Northrop Grumman can't be easily replaced by a hungrier
health care provider.
It's really funny hearing this argument.
Besides that, +50% of ALL Medicare cost is spent to keep what might be
called "vegetables" alive for their last 2 months of life.
I don't take a stand end-of-life care, except for myself.
But the solutions to all of this are pretty simple. Cut costs, or cut
services, or pay up.


Hungrier providers? Like WalMart?

I do tend to agree that we spend too much money on people in the last
6 months of life but when you ask the families, they want that last 6
months with grandma and grandma usually wants it too.
I am a little frustrated by the number of 6 month old artificial hips
we bury.

As soon as you bring this up you start hearing about death panels.


Yeah, yeah, the sky is always falling on the right.
  #27   Report Post  
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Posts: 968
Default An article about medical costs

On Tue, 12 Mar 2013 21:25:24 -0400, wrote:

On Tue, 12 Mar 2013 17:13:30 -0700, Urin Asshole
wrote:

On Tue, 12 Mar 2013 19:22:34 -0400,
wrote:

On Tue, 12 Mar 2013 16:04:30 -0700, Urin Asshole
wrote:

On Tue, 12 Mar 2013 11:08:49 -0400,
wrote:

On Tue, 12 Mar 2013 08:44:49 -0400, iBoaterer wrote:

What in the article on health care costs do you disagree with and why?
Please give examples proving it wrong.

Brill did a lot of good research and I believe the cost numbers he
wrote but I disagree that simply putting everyone on Medicare would
fix anything.
Perhaps if they would actually tell us what the tax increase in your
FICA would have to be to do this, people would understand.
Just to pay what Medicare actually costs for seniors right now, the
tax needs to go up about 4% on your "first dollar" income with no cap
(total, both sides).
We spend well over two times what MC takes in with a 3% tax and the
trend is going more in the red every day

Cause you don't know what the **** you're taking about.. that's why
you "disagree."

Are you trying to say the SSA trustees report is a lie?


I'm saying that when you say this **** "but I disagree that simply
putting everyone on Medicare would fix anything" you're making ****
up.


Do I need to tell you what page of the article we are talking about?

Start with the bold print "The way out of the sinkhole"


So, perhaps you need to read that section??

You mean this:

"I was driving through central Florida a year or two ago," says
Medicare's Blum. "And it seemed like every billboard I saw advertised
some hospital with these big shiny buildings or showed some new wing
of a hospital being constructed ... So when you tell me that the
hospitals say they are losing money on Medicare and shifting costs
from Medicare patients to other patients, my reaction is that Central
Florida is overflowing with Medicare patients and all those hospitals
are expanding and advertising for Medicare patients. So you can't tell
me they're losing money ... Hospitals don't lose money when they serve
Medicare patients."

or this:

"If that's the case, I asked, why not just extend the program to
everyone and pay for it all by charging people under 65 the kinds of
premiums they would pay to private insurance companies? "That's not
for me to say," Blum replied.

In the debate over controlling Medicare costs, politicians from both
parties continue to suggest that Congress raise the age of eligibility
for Medicare from 65 to 67. Doing so, they argue, would save the
government tens of billions of dollars a year. So it's worth noting
another detail about the case of Janice S., which we examined earlier.
Had she felt those chest pains and gone to the Stamford Hospital
emergency room a month later, she would have been on Medicare, because
she would have just celebrated her 65th birthday.

If covered by Medicare, Janice S.'s $21,000 bill would have been
deeply discounted and, as is standard, Medicare would have picked up
80% of the reduced cost. The bottom line is that Janice S. would
probably have ended up paying $500 to $600 for her 20% share of her
heart-attack scare. And she would have paid only a fraction of that —
maybe $100 — if, like most Medicare beneficiaries, she had paid for
supplemental insurance to cover most of that 20%.

In fact, those numbers would seem to argue for lowering the Medicare
age, not raising it — and not just from Janice S.'s standpoint but
also from the taxpayers' side of the equation. That's not a liberal
argument for protecting entitlements while the deficit balloons. It's
just a matter of hardheaded arithmetic."
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Default An article about medical costs

On 3/12/13 10:15 PM, Urin Asshole wrote:
On Tue, 12 Mar 2013 21:25:24 -0400, wrote:



Are you trying to say the SSA trustees report is a lie?

I'm saying that when you say this **** "but I disagree that simply
putting everyone on Medicare would fix anything" you're making ****
up.


Do I need to tell you what page of the article we are talking about?

Start with the bold print "The way out of the sinkhole"


So, perhaps you need to read that section??

You mean this:

"I was driving through central Florida a year or two ago," says
Medicare's Blum. "And it seemed like every billboard I saw advertised
some hospital with these big shiny buildings or showed some new wing
of a hospital being constructed ... So when you tell me that the
hospitals say they are losing money on Medicare and shifting costs
from Medicare patients to other patients, my reaction is that Central
Florida is overflowing with Medicare patients and all those hospitals
are expanding and advertising for Medicare patients. So you can't tell
me they're losing money ... Hospitals don't lose money when they serve
Medicare patients."


Cost shifting is the name of *the* game in paying for medical care in
this country. Just about everyone in the game does it, too. Yesterday, I
was running errands and picked up an Rx for a neighbor who has the flu.
He is diabetic and takes insulin in those "handy" pen cartridges. The
full "price" of the Rx for a month's supply (one shot a day, three shots
per cartridge), was $800 and change. His co-pay amounted to about 20%,
and his insurance company paid the rest.

Now, you have to ask yourself, why is insulin so damned expensive? It's
not a new drug, it's been around for a long, long time. It's not the
packaging, the cartridges are no more complicated than a decent Pentel
plastic pen. The needles are sold separately. The answer is that
everyone along the way is making a huge profit off this relatively
simple but life extending drug, and that includes the neighbor's
insurance company.

We do almost nothing in this country to actually control medical costs.
If Medicare "under-reimburses," those "lost profits" are assessed
against someone else, either an insurance company or an individual. The
insurance company covers its "losses" by overcharging its clients. In my
wife's field of psychotherapy, psychiatrists charge about $200 per
patient visit, and what do most of them do during that visit, which,
typically, lasts about 15 minutes? They try to find out if the meds they
are prescribing are "helping." They don't provide any therapy; that is
left to various non-medically-degreed mental health professionals. Ever
paid $20 for a Tylenol in a hospital? Or $15 for a package of facial
tissues? It's cost-shifting.

We need to entirely restructure how we pay for medical care in this
country. I don't see it happening, so we all will continue to be ripped
off by the supply chain...hospitals, drug companies, insurance
companies, and to a lesser degree, direct providers of services.



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Default An article about medical costs

On 3/13/2013 8:13 AM, F.O.A.D. wrote:
On 3/12/13 10:15 PM, Urin Asshole wrote:
On Tue, 12 Mar 2013 21:25:24 -0400, wrote:



Are you trying to say the SSA trustees report is a lie?

I'm saying that when you say this **** "but I disagree that simply
putting everyone on Medicare would fix anything" you're making ****
up.

Do I need to tell you what page of the article we are talking about?

Start with the bold print "The way out of the sinkhole"


So, perhaps you need to read that section??

You mean this:

"I was driving through central Florida a year or two ago," says
Medicare's Blum. "And it seemed like every billboard I saw advertised
some hospital with these big shiny buildings or showed some new wing
of a hospital being constructed ... So when you tell me that the
hospitals say they are losing money on Medicare and shifting costs
from Medicare patients to other patients, my reaction is that Central
Florida is overflowing with Medicare patients and all those hospitals
are expanding and advertising for Medicare patients. So you can't tell
me they're losing money ... Hospitals don't lose money when they serve
Medicare patients."


Cost shifting is the name of *the* game in paying for medical care in
this country. Just about everyone in the game does it, too. Yesterday, I
was running errands and picked up an Rx for a neighbor who has the flu.
He is diabetic and takes insulin in those "handy" pen cartridges. The
full "price" of the Rx for a month's supply (one shot a day, three shots
per cartridge), was $800 and change. His co-pay amounted to about 20%,
and his insurance company paid the rest.

Now, you have to ask yourself, why is insulin so damned expensive? It's
not a new drug, it's been around for a long, long time. It's not the
packaging, the cartridges are no more complicated than a decent Pentel
plastic pen. The needles are sold separately. The answer is that
everyone along the way is making a huge profit off this relatively
simple but life extending drug, and that includes the neighbor's
insurance company.

We do almost nothing in this country to actually control medical costs.
If Medicare "under-reimburses," those "lost profits" are assessed
against someone else, either an insurance company or an individual. The
insurance company covers its "losses" by overcharging its clients. In my
wife's field of psychotherapy, psychiatrists charge about $200 per
patient visit, and what do most of them do during that visit, which,
typically, lasts about 15 minutes? They try to find out if the meds they
are prescribing are "helping." They don't provide any therapy; that is
left to various non-medically-degreed mental health professionals. Ever
paid $20 for a Tylenol in a hospital? Or $15 for a package of facial
tissues? It's cost-shifting.

We need to entirely restructure how we pay for medical care in this
country. I don't see it happening, so we all will continue to be ripped
off by the supply chain...hospitals, drug companies, insurance
companies, and to a lesser degree, direct providers of services.



Krausie needs to get his facts in order before he makes dumb statements
over the internet. You could help cut down excessive cost shifting if
you would only limit your annual checkups to annually instead of monthly.
Are you some kind of hypochondriac, or what.
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