Haven’t you heard? Every hospital will also have a vat of precogs to predict what services will be needed in advance as people arrive to the emergency room.
Related though, the health insurers try to pin ranges for “common” things already for different providers. At least the UHC website has a lot of that. You can look up a doctor, then look up a specific ailment or procedure and they guess a $ range and nudge you to the cheapest providers.
Didn’t they also just pass a law putting the smack down on getting billed for out of network services while at a network dr. or facility? Starting in 2022. The anesthesiologists are all probably putting their yachts on sale now to beat the rush.
The fine for hospitals not publishing the rates is ridiculously low (Max $300/day). I predict 99% of hospitals will be paying the fine and ignoring this ‘mandate’.
Amazon, JP Morgan and Berkshire were trying to start some smart new healthcare thing. Recently they gave up, after blowing $100M on it. Don’t expect more “efficiency” from the competition.
The AMA has lobbied the government to severely limit the number of doctors by limiting the residencies to 1996 levels. Now a lot of them are getting in their golden years and there will be a massive shortage. If someone was interested in solving the problem that would be a good place to start.
Looks like the ACA subsidy cliff is going to disappear if the Stimulus Bill Passes. The cap will effectively be 8.5% regardless of income for health coverage. Though this is “temporary” for 2 years. I cant imagine not renewing. Don’t see much of a push back from R’s either.
If I’m understanding you correctly, that’s a relief. I was literally hundreds of dollars away from having to repay $5k of subsidies this year (2020), and 2021 isnt looking to offer any breathing room.
I guess it’s easier to sell it as “covid costs”, rather than health insurance subsidies.
I read it as, ACA is a poor policy that hurts Americans for working hard & earning more. A 2 year subsidy costing 34 billion & it’s only the beginning.
Instead of making ACA insurance better or less expensive. NO… Democrats will raise taxes. A natural consequence.
Again the old story, making Americans last. (one way or another)
Sounds like the usual ‘I’m against the ACA but have no replacement’ rant that R’s are fond of.
To the contrary, this helps such Americans. Until now, a single person could make up to (about) $50k, at which point they’d receive zero help with health insurance - it was all or nothing. Now, they’ll be able to earn infinitely more, knowing exactly how much of every dollar they earn will be put toward their health insurance.
I was within hundreds of dollars of falling over this cliff last year. If I had had one more $100k CD earning interest in 2020, that additional interest might’ve resulted in me having to repay over $5k in insurance subsidies. This year I wont have to worry about my income totals for the year, since at worst I will have to repay $8.50 for every $100 additional income.
This change also creates the opportunity for someone to cash out accumulated capital gains, without it causing thousands of subsidy repayments when that lump sum pushes them over the cliff.
It may prove to be expensive for the Federal government, but on an individual basis it is an improvement.
A reminder of how well the UK’s socialized medicine arm, the NHS, is doing. 2 year wait lists for serious procedures that cause ongoing pain and worsening disability as left untreated.
Here are those wait times, 4+ months for a procedure.
Apologists blame covid and ask for even more taxpayer money. They’re likely to get it too.
Really? In this case, are we safe assuming that apologists = left-winged liberals?
Not exclusively in the UK. It’s said the NHS is the closest thing they have to a state religion. People “like” it a lot, perhaps since it appeals to their cultural sense of fairness and equality, but of course the quality care compared to the other good countries and the wait times are mediocre. Whether that’s worth the cheaper cost is something I’m sure those who pay more taxes vs less would disagree over.
In any event, they are not particularly well staffed, hence the longer wait times (not just that they don’t cover the newer, more expensive and effective cancer treatments, for example). So when they shut a lot of stuff down for covid there became a huge backlog of normal but important non-covid procedures which you can see in the above charts. Of course it was still bad before, it’s just 2-3x worse now.
waiting list of 5.7 million
The UK population is about 68 million people so that would be the equivalent of about 29 million here in United States. Wow
Last I checked, the UK had a two tier system. Although there was a big difference in wait times for office visits between public and private systems, I’m unsure how this affects availability of ORs or rooms.
It’s important we keep access to healthcare limited to the upper class. If the lower class has access to healthcare, we might have to wait for our healthcare.
But on the other hand, the upper class only gets prompt healthcare because they pay a premium for it, a premium that helps funds the services necessary to serve the lower class as well. Eliminate the ability to pay more for better care, and you lower the level of care available to everyone.
There always has to be someone at the front of the line. Might as well let it be the guy who’s able to help pay for the people behind them in line too.
CA wants an 18% income tax and a bunch of payroll taxes too, roughly doubling their taxes, to fund a single payer healthcare system.
Say it isn’t true!!!
