LogFAQs > #904056972

darkjedilink posted...

The funny thing is, this isn't even necessary to get health care costs down.

Make Medicare and Medicaid actually pay 100% of the reimbursement charge, instead of only 20% like it does now. This means that hospitals don't lose 80% of the cost of every procedure covered by the largest insurance provider in the country, forcing them to raise prices on everyone else to make up the difference.

Medicare on average pays 80% of what private insurance does, Medicaid pays about 56%. Paying more would not make costs go down, that is a crazy way of thinking.

It is true that they raise a lot of money through charging the uninsured, but it doesn't have much of anything to do with Medicaid or Medicare costs. It has to do with us mandating hospitals serve people without an ability to pay for their services.

darkjedilink posted...

Mandate that drug and medical device manufacturers can't advertise to the public. These companies often cite the advertising costs for their products as a reason for their expense. Along these lines, mandate that these companies are no longer allowed to add in 'future research' fees to their pricing.

There are plenty of other things that people on both sides of the aisle miss for a multitude of reasons, that would lower costs without fundamentally changing the entire system.

barring advertisements on drugs and medical devices isn't a bad idea, but it is a pretty lefty idea, and I don't think it would do much to control costs (it would help, just not sure how significantly)
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It's one more thing we do to the poor, the deprived: cut out their tongues . . . allow them a language as lousy as their lives