Money and the US Health Industries

I was taking an overnight sleep test the other day and before the time period was over I asked if I could go home because instead of being asleep I was wide awake. I was told they would have to check if the test had been long enough to be paid by the insurance, ect. So this is an interesting area. Is medical care based on economics or need.

I have already been billed recently because the insurance wouldn't pay for lab work that they said was done but they said it was unnecessary and wouldn't pay.

If we move to a nationalized medicine, in the US, how do we monitor that the government is not riped off more by the medical industry.

Unfortunately I think the biggest cost of medical care is going to be not the actual care but the adminstration of the program.

I have a solution which I think has been suggested in the UK recently. You visit the doctor and you pay him directly for the visit. How about £20 for the visit? No paper work. Hospital. You pay £100 per day for the stay for the first 5 days. Hospital operations costs would be limited to avoid abuses. It is always brought up that a lot of people can't afford the cost. But there are a lot of people who think they can't afford the expense but they can if they had to. If I was making say £100,000 a year do you think I could pay? If I was taking three holiday trips a year do you think I could afford to pay? Put the government in the position of monitoring what patients are being billed instead.

Unfortunately the population want to shift their medical costs to the government so that they get it free. In my opinion this is a shell game because the cost to the wage earner is probably say three time higher when you consider the cost of collecting taxes and then the adminstration of the health care program.

I know it was a different world 80 years ago when medical care was taken care of in some cases by charity as in religious organisations or even employers? You got sick and society felt an obligation to help each other if you that misfortune.

Slightly off the subject but something that bothers me here in the US is if you want to discharge yourself from hospital before the doctor releases you you will be billed because the insurance company wont pay. The bill could in some cases be hundreds of thousands of dollars. Why would you want to release yourself? Maybe you felt you were not getting the correct care.