When more govt beaurocracy is added to the healthcare system like Obamacare its another hurdle for the patient to jump and why costs rise in general. The original reason of keeping costs down is forgotten and ignored. The patient is no longer in full control since the doctor who lives down the block can't be confronted over cost, the cost control mechanism is now in DC. That system also promotes graft and corruption.
I remember when my mother broke her hip and we were visiting her in rehab. A doctor with a clipboard in his hand came to the door, stepped in and asked if everything was alright - took no more than a few seconds. He did this almost everytime we were there - no exam, not even a simple check of the patients pulse. But it was evidently a govt required/medicare doctors checkup. We discovered the charge was over $150. A close friend of my mother who helped take care of her sent a letter asking for an investigation. No reply. Sent two other letters and no reply. So it must have been a way "some" doctors game the system. Theres really no benefit to the patient and the doctor is off the hook since he can say he "observed" the patient. But the charge was still applied. We began referring to that as the "doctor duck".
I don't think this kind of thing would occur if patients were more in direct control of whats billed and if they had to pay for any unneeded costs. But those costs are hidden much of the time.
Another exmple was comical. A friend was going to have open heart surgery. So he asked for some of the costs before hand. The hospital gave him a "list" of probable costs. One of them was for a "backup" doctor who would observe the procedure. Well that sounds fine on face, but he asked why they had to have a backup? The reply was that a backup was required if something happened to the surgeon at the operating table such as a a heart attack or seizure of some kind. It was supposed to be a backup procedure to ensure that the patient survived.
So my friend thought about it and said "now do you expect me to believe that if my surgeon has a heart attack that you'll be treating me or will you be treating him?" TBH, thats a pretty good question isn't it?
These are both examples of medicare, not medicaide or Obamacare, but my guess is that they will be similar to whats in store for us in the future.
This post was edited on 9/23 10:47 AM by rabidTU