Don, back in the day, your barber, did the work of today's surgeons, and there were no lawsuits. The operating room often was the barber chair and sometimes at the nearest home. Profit wasn't considered as everyone paid for their own haircuts and shaves (smiling) Today, its all so very different. We actually have For-Profit Private Hospitals who turn away ambulances to other facilities. They survive on the gravy of the business and self paying customers. These hospital often look just like regular hospitals from the outside. Many or most of today's modern hospital have been taken over by most of the religious groups. We have the Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran, Mormon and several others too. Today, these hospital are rarely charity in the sense we remember and you don't get out without paying or signing a promise to pay agreement. Regarding lawsuits, I believe most have medical merit before an administrative judge. And how much value to we place on permanent loss? I agree with you that nothing will be perfect.... until both sides agree without bias. Best Wishes In a message dated 6/25/2012 5:11:44 P.M. Central Daylight Time, [email protected] writes:
The hospitals do a HUGE amount of "charity care." It is illegal to turn anyone away from emergency care whether they have the 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
