The health care industry reminds me of the auto body repair business. If your car bumper needs to be repaired, the first question an auto body shop will ask is if you're paying out of pocket or using insurance. The reason? They will write a higher estimate if you're using insurance. Private auto body businesses know how to milk the system.
After an auto accident last year, my ex-wife had an MRI. The charge to the insurance company was $700. But, I go to the same MRI firm and pay $250 out of pocket for my son's MRIs (he's a baseball pitcher and has had several of them). No one would think of the health care industry as "scam artists" in the same way we often think of auto body shops; they are worse.
The next time, God forbid, one of your family members is in the hospital, ask to see an itemized list of charges. You will find $50 ibuprofen, $250 doctor visits, $400 per day room charges - a laundry list of inflated charges. Hospitals and doctors charge the insurance company inflated rates, the insurance company passes those costs on by raising premiums. The cycle is repeated over and over until the system is out of control. Everyone used to joke about the Pentagon paying $500 for a hammer, except that health care costs are no joke.
One might think it silly to defend such a system, but that's exactly what Republicans do under the "free enterprise" philosophy of government. The private sector unrestrained, according to the G.O.P., will solve ANY problem by itself. I have my own idea about free enterprise and it goes like this: A company, completely unregulated, will charge the HIGHEST price they can get away with. And, if you don't believe that, I know a lot of auto dealerships that would like to see you on their showroom floor.
What is free enterprise doing with health care? It is opening health clinics in drug stores with unqualified personnel that barely speak English. The person giving flu shots was the same person I saw the week before at the cash register. That, my friends, is unregulated health care.
That latest Republican health plan comes from Representative Paul Ryan under the disguise of budget cuts. Ryan's plan would end Medicare and Medicaid. If you're on Medicare, Ryan's going to give your $96 back (taken out of your social security check for Medicare) and expect you to buy private health insurance. It's impossible to find private health insurance for $96 per month.
Ryan's Medicaid plan is going to lower payments and, eventually, phase them out. Here's what you need to know about seniors and Medicaid: Most people in nursing homes use Medicaid because they run out of assets before they die and they have nowhere else to turn. Am I supposed to watch thousands of elderly people be denied entrance to nursing homes or indigent AIDS patients denied life saving drugs just so the Republicans can balance the budget without raising taxes?
There are solutions. Universal health care plans such as the Massachusetts plan continue to control costs by lowering premiums 20-40% and improve overall health by covering 98% of citizens. I'm not concerned with where solutions come from, whether free enterprise or government. But, free enterprise health care better offer me something more than a health clinic at the local drug store. That place sucks.
Paul Ryan's budget that ends Medicare and Medicaid is not a solution. It is a problem.
And, that is a view from Missouri.
