I'm certainly no expert in healthcare but I think the billing process takes
a very large chunk of the dollar paid. I used to go to an old dentist that
had no staff and took only cash. If credit was needed it was from him. He
wrote it in his notebook and you paid when you came back. I assume he sent
you packing if the bill got too large and he felt you could pay. I do know
that he wrote it off, if he knew you couldn't pay. His prices were about 50%
of what other dentists charged and my father skipped the dental insurance
offered by his work because there was no need. My current dentist has a full
time staff of at least 4 that deal with billing because the insurance
companies are such a pain to deal with (busy father-son office). So for 2
dentists and 4 hygienists he needs 4 people to do billing. That has to add
up to a good percentage of the incoming cash to be eaten up in overhead
related directly to the problems with collection. I don't know what the big
picture solution may be but I was reading an article about a few doctors
offices that have gone to a cash only system and dropped their prices
accordingly. The article stated that a large number of their patients were
self employed people that were more than happy to switch their coverage to
catastrophic and pay cash for normal office visits and tests. The upside was
the doctors actually pocketed more per patient and were able to cut their
patient load to a reasonable level which provided a better level of service
for their patients.

..
"Bill Tuthill" wrote in message ...
Tinkerntom wrote:

Hillary Care was a startup program that would have cost several
trillion by itself, with no guarantee that it would work, and a
history of big government boondoggles and porkbarrel politics
supporting programs that don't work. If I remember right, they
estimated 1.7 trillion, and politician estimates are always low when
they are the ones trying to sell the program! But what is another 500
billion +/-, we would have gotten, mediocre medical care, by doctors
who gave up really caring, after standing in long lines, waiting for
our slice of the American Pie.

So how is that different from our current health care system? The
current employer-based insurance-reimbursement system is a shambles.

A single-payer system could very well result in a lower percentage
of GDP being paid for health care. In 1990 the US spent more on
health care per capita than any other western nation, and by 1996
spent even more as a % of GDP.

Total 1990 Healthcare Expenditures

Nation Per Capita Percent
==========================================
United States $2,566 12.1 (1996=13.6%)
Canada 1,770 9.3
France 1,532 8.8
Sweden 1,451 8.6
Germany 1,486 8.1
Switzerland 1,633 7.7
Italy 1,236 7.7
Norway 1,184 7.4
Japan 1,171 6.5
United Kingdom 972 6.2

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