Why the government needs to stay out of medicine

Have no fear, Rog35 will be along soon to remind us that this surgeon is just a racist, uneducated 'Bircher.
 
I was about to post the same thing regarding the Leftist response. It will be something along the lines of "the doctor is just trying to get rich healing these people."
 
Medicine is one obvious place where rules and laws designed to provide guidelines for almost every conceivable situation turn out to be wrong in a lot of unanticipated circumstances. Everything from sentencing guidelines to zero tolerance in schools end up being destructive to the individual and society as a whole -- and everybody involved an see the idoicy, but they try to follow the rules. NPR is doing stories on people going to jail because they are too poor to pay fines for inconsequential violations (fish caught out of season, a traffic ticket) end up in jail. One poor guy had just started a $12 an hour job, but hadn't received his first paycheck and could pay only $100 on a $200 fine for keeping a fish he has misidentified. Jailed for three weeks, he lost the job. When he got out, he was billed for the time he was jailed and he may go back to jail, because even with a job he doesn't have the spare money to pay.. It's been what 20 or 30 years since Philip K Howard wrote "The Death of Common Sense."? Since then, America is bent on proving, the more times you run over a dead cat, the flatter it gets.
 
I recently had a knee replacement. The cost was over 50K not counting rehab. My insurance paid 100%. Under the obamacare rules I read in the Amarillo Newspaper the feds will allow only 30K and the patient will pay the difference. Thank you very much Obama and dems.
 
I wouldn't disagree that there is always a level of distrust with insurance companies and certainly instances of misconduct. But just for context, Medicare has a higher turndown rate than private insurance - they just don't get the publicity.
The Link
 
Fair point, and I think the site I linked even mentions that. Should it account for twice the number of rejections? I don't know the answer to that, either, and I don't know that it can be answered without actually digging into claims and seeing what kind are being rejected.

Assuming that they are attributed to more elderly patience, I'd want to know if rejections of claims by elderly people is also disproportionately high in private insurance.

I would argue that the incentives to cover are much higher in private insurance - there is no governing body that is going to hammer Medicare for denying a claim, and there is no legal option at that point. People talk about private insurance ripping people off by denying payable claims, but no one talks about the ramifications of being able to meet budget by simply striking out claims with no worry about reprisal. That's where health care rationing is going to go.
 
That surgery was last Nov before the limits go into effect. It cost me nothing. The next one, if after the new limits go into effect, will cost me through the nose under Medicare (and Medicare supplement if any still is allowed to exist under Obozocare).
 
It took me three days to get my daughter into an MRI for her knee because of new government requirements for special references that started this year. When this was needed a couple years ago I went straight from the doctors office to the MRI office.

This is a prime indicator that things are only going to get worse as more and more government intervention happens.
 
Just quoting the doc. I don't know if it has anything to do with the ACA or not. He just said new government referral rules for these types of procedures to prevent fraud and consequently delaying care. Sounds like its attached to the ACA but who knows. Seems to me if my doc thinks my daughter needs an MRI that should be good enough.
 
I got on medicare two years ago and the only difference I have noticed from my old state pool policy is that I don't pay $940 a month for a policy with a $2,500 deductible anymore.
Same doctor, same hospital as before.
 
Seattle, it is the job of insurance representatives to deny claims. The more claims insurance companies deny the more money the insurance company makes. They attack both doctors and patients in this endeavor. If the ACA makes rules for Medicaid or Medicare that make it more difficult for doctors or patients to get reimbursed, it is a given that the insurance companies will follow the same rules.
 
hornpharmd, that sounds like a single payer system. What private group would start a company that will make no profits? Of course single-payer is the goal of ACA - we all know the government wouldn't need to make a profit.
rolleyes.gif
 
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