Did You Know 
No Comments Health Care Information
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**Introduction – The reason this is being written is this information is blatantly obvious to a legal immigrant such as me. Further, I wrote this just 24 hours before and in-service meeting at the college I work at. The President of the college went into detail expressing his concerns and validating everything I have written here. Anyone with a shred of education and common sense is in full agreement with him. It is sad that people are “excited” about the proposed “reform” thus showing they have no idea how things work and how bad it will be.**
It probably doesn’t matter where you are on the planet. You have likely heard about the current health care issue tearing apart the USA. Both side are loading up the airwaves with their jaw flapping while these little things called details are not mentioned anywhere. The sad part is this information is very readily available if you only ask for it. So here goes the neutral information on the USA Health Care debate.
Like any other employer, hospitals, clinics and doctor offices have overhead costs, wages, and benefits to contend with. You have the facility costs, utility costs, technology costs, insurance costs, wages of doctors, nurses, janitorial, clerical and other support staff. The list goes on and on in addition to the taxes they pay and any other costs incurred by the mountains of Federal regulations on them. Quite simply, they have to have the income to pay for their bills just like any person, business, or government agency. If they can’t make ends meet, they have to cut back or go into bankruptcy. They get paid by either Medicare, Medicaid, Insurance payments or direct payments from either charity or the patient.
One has to understand how medical facilities are paid in order to understand the debate. Medicare and Medicaid pay a medical bill at $0.17-$0.19 per dollar. What does that mean? It means for every $100 that shows up on the initial medical bill, Medicaid / Medicare will only pay them $17-$19. Those numbers are far below meeting the budget line for operational costs. How do they meet their budget then?
The burden shifts to those patients who have health insurance. The insurance company pays them a negotiated contract fee in the area of $0.75-$0.85 per dollar. That means the private insurance companies pay about $85 of the $100 that shows up on the medical bill. You get a notice saying the difference either is not covered or a result of your “discount” for using the insurance company.
However, if you pay the bill directly without insurance or Medicare / Medicaid, you are often looking at paying only a fraction of the bill which is normally around 60% or less. So if the bill was for $100, you would pay $60.
Addressing what is being pushed and talked about, forcing insurance companies to cover more categories or more people will equate into one thing. The premiums the insurance companies charge must go up as they have to foot the medical bills. This is a very simple economic statement. If you want more, it costs more whether it is a super-sized fast food meal or an expanded insurance plan.
For an example, everyone knows a 6-piece chicken nugget Happy Meal costs more than a 4-piece Happy Meal. If you follow logic what is being promoted, it seems we are to believe we can get a 10-piece chicken nugget meal for less than the 4-piece Happy Meal.
That basic economic statement carries with it a lot of pain for many people in many ways. In the next segment, I’ll give an overview of the effects such things will have and it is not pretty.
Live well and make it a great day,
Anah
