The hospitals do a HUGE amount of "charity care." It is illegal to turn anyone away from emergency care whether they have insurance or not and whether they are a citizen or not. The hospital eats some costs but mostly passes them on to others who have insurance. The not-for-profit hospitals tend to be better at charity work, but they still need to stay in business. It's hard to insert Jesus into the mix because most hospitals are in business to make money, which is both good and bad. Toss in greed, waste, fraud and bureaucracy and there are plenty of factors to mess with our system. Don.
________________________________ From: Greg <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 1:32 PM Subject: [QUAD-L] Hospital Fees I just got a co-pay bill for a hospital stay. For 3 days plus procedures, the bill was about $8,000. Now I have insurance and it is an HMO, so they contract with doctors and hospitals, etc. so they can get a better rate. Their contracted fees that the insurance had to pay was under $1,000. Now that’s great for me because I pay a percentage of that fee. A percentage of $1,000 is better than a percentage of $8,000. But if a non insured person had to pay, they pay the whole $8,000. So the non insured persons, who can afford it the least, are paying the inflated prices so the hospitals can afford to give insurance companies discounts. Somehow that just seams morally wrong. The Religious Right needs to ask themselves… WWJD? And see if they really follow His word’s and deeds. A contracted discount is great, but that’s more than a discount. And that’s just one bill, they all seem to be that bog of discounts. Greg
