My company offers good insurance--very cheap for me, but I am prepared to go rogue if I ever need to get it on my own again....

You forgot double billing ... if your kid goes in for surgery to repair an ACL and to repair a meniscus, those are two separate CPT codes. The surgery center (the doctor's bill is separate) charges for both because they are two separate CPT codes and this is allowed per Medicare. I have tried reasoning with them that she used just one bed, one set of sheets and blankets, one glass of orange juice, one packet of pretzels. Nope ... it's two separate CPT codes so I get charged twice ... in essence double billing.

eternal optimist that i am

i hope he's holding his cards until after this recount chicanery is past. If it goes to house, well, we know what industry owns that august body.

........................................................................

on another note - watched "Big Short" on netflix last night. A darn good movie about the '08 crash, from Lewis's book. Shines a floodlight on the corruption and incompetence , explains those financial instruments for the uninitiated. Recommend it to your liberal friends.

old jim

I live in his district, and Price's staff hemmed and hawed with idiotic "free trade is good" letters every time I sent him a letter opposing the TPP. Despite my myriad points about it not being about free trade, but rather another extra-legal attempt to enforce elite dominance and privilege.

Hmm, kind of like how the medical monopolies enforce elite dominance and screw the rest of us.

I suspect he has gone over to the "dark side." No person in their right mind could support the TPP and still maintain a conscience. He's a rotter.

We are ****ed, even more so than before,since people think or believe we are saved somehow! Jeebus wake the **** up folks! We are being fed a [****sandwich] & people are willing to line up for a second helping

So far, it looks like Trump will do what is easy, not what is right.

Sigh....

Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

Don't really know Price, but I've worked with many orthopedic surgeons through the years. Bar none, the dumbest breed of doctor there is compared to other specialties, and generally arrogant and won't take advice. All generalizations break down at times, but this is as true as any in medicine.

i.e., Good luck to seeing any real change, he'll only tinker around the edges.

I'd love to buy a real catastrophic policy again. Obama care made the deductibles as much as catastrophic used to be, with twice the premium.

A cat policy, under a fixed system, would run you in the neighborhood of ~$50/month. That's a rational price for TRUE INSURANCE. 5 or 10 times that amount is not.

$50 a month - late 1990s currency! - was what I actually paid for catastrophic. It seemed a reasonable bet with reasonable odds to me.

But what the frack is Trump doing even announcing his picks? He isn't even in yet! The only thing he should be announcing is that he's taking applications and conducting interviews - and current politicians, lobbyists, and department heads need not apply - and that he'll announce his picks on January 21st.

I had my hopes up, but with the announcement Trump was giving Hillary a pass and now this I have lost any hope in Trump.

FYI, here was his proposed act from May to repeal and replace the ACA: https://tomprice.house.gov/HR2300

Lowlights:
Insurers are not required to cover pre-existing conditions, unless your employer changes from a group plan to an individual plan.
Coverage Caps are back and lower than ever (20k)
Lifetime caps are back
Ability to be dropped mid-year is back
No mandate, so the individual market is dead.
Selling across state lines is in, so a race to the regulatory bottom
First steps towards privatization of Medicare; allowing an opt out.

We need to start somewhere. The pill business would be a good place. No where is the scam more obvious. Limit them to 40% above average world price and most drugs drop a significant amount.

I would be for a system that gave eligible people vouchers to see a doctor. Do the math. 100 million times $75 is $7.5 billion. Double that and you get $15 billion. In fact, you could give everyone 2 and the limit would be $50 billion. They could circulate as cash. Put a 2 year expiration on them. A bar code scanner would process and cancel them. $50 billion a year to ensure access. Gets rid of the problem the liberals are crying tears over with a stop. Hardly need a bureaucracy. People can donate theirs to someone that needs them. They would contain a bar code that would cancel them upon use. I'm sure the liberals would give theirs up the first day.

There would be a set up cost and I believe it could be administered for $1 billion. They could be a 2 year expiration and many would expire unused. Total cost, less than $55 billion.

Using 4 million births a year, there are roughly 72 million kids 18 and under. How much bull**** do we hear about insurance so they can go to the doctor? I venture this nonsense is used to soak $1 trillion a year out of the public. Parents and 2 kids would have 8 trips a year. Little administrative costs, as the vouchers would clear, like checks.

Getting rid of the script scam and providing annual access would go a long way to streamline costs. No forms for doctors offices, little on the other end. $150 per capita blanket costs. This clears annual access for over half the population with no insurance, including private, medicare and Medicaid.

There are only a few illnesses and injuries that should bankrupt the average person. Insurance for these items should be broad and first dollar. Most people would never collect on such a policy, as it would be closer to life insurance than health insurance. A lot of fun outrageous costs of health care are buried in this area. I believe if this area was separated from the typical health care plan, there would be more focus on cost containment and fraud.

The third area is what falls in between. I would take a look at the competitive surgical centers and associated doctors and get an idea. OKC will do a gallbladder for around $6000, turnkey including doctor visits. At that price, an insurance plan barely pays anything. Their list is a good guideline for coming up with a comprehensive health solution.

What I bring up with the competitive health centers is the crux of the problem. There probably isn't $250 a day marginal cost between an empty hospital bed and an occupied one. Why should one cost you that plus the price of a nice full service hotel room. I would venture the hospital and doctors down the street would give me a bill in the $40,000 range for a 2 day stay for a gallbladder. I venture the insurer will pay no more than $10k to $12k. Thus the $40k bill is extortion.

Getting rid of traditional health insurance and redesigning health coverage along the lines of the above would go a long way toward solving the problem. On the high end, insurers could manage the costs by competing for premium. There is plenty of actuarial data and the reinsurance business can take care of catastrophe. The vouchers and the elimination of the script racket would solve the front end for 90% or more of the population, or more. Individual health care isn't a major problem on a year to year basis for most people. The traditional individual and family health plan has to go. It is nothing but a bureaucratic system and a smoke screen to hide competition.

Competition in the broad are between basic care and disaster has to occur or we will all get something we don't like.

Watching health care stocks rally again, I am thinking Karl can just write a quick script to set the background font on the ticker forum increasingly darker as a function of those health care stocks prices.

Until those suckers start imitating the BKX circa 2008, we're doomed.

There is "direct care" which takes care of most of the day-to-day issues. My Dr uses this, doesn't take insurance and costs me $75/month ($50 if I was younger). This covers all office visits and I have his email and cell phone #. Rx are at 10% over cost...in most states, doctors can dispense meds & buy them from the same suppliers that pharmacies use. My current Rx is about $1.35/month and I pick it up at the doctors office.

He doesn't charge for minor things like suture kits and blood work is $25 or less, depending on the number of tests ran. He has cash prices from local MRI that he negotiated, etc.

See the website http://atlas.md/wichita/ for more info and search "Josh Umbehr" on YouTube for some of his talks, etc. He makes a lot of sense, both from his perspective and ours.

"Do no harm and that includes no financial harm" makes sense to me!

Apparently there is a lot of interest from doctors about this kind of practice and I can say I'm very happy with it.

And yes, this isn't for everyone, but if he and others can make a living doing "health care" this way & see less patients & have more time (for at least your normal day-to-day care), it shows you how screwed up the system is.

I think some combo of regular care like this + catastrophic policy would be fine for most people and would be affordable and would largely leave insurance out of the picture. (where they should be).

Why do you need a "plan"? This at least shows there are alternatives that just involve you & the doctor with no pharmacy or insurance.

Not only has KD been calling this, but Ann Barnhardt has been calling Trump "wolf in sheeps clothes" for over a year...here's one from August 2015: http://www.barnhardt.biz/2015/08/11/so-y....

It's all BS folks...the trend is set and the fate of this nation cannot be altered.

Limit them to 40% over world average drug prices? Then the fix is still in and nothing really changes.

Its incredible the gyrations politicians will go through to keep the medical lobby happy.

My wife's doctor has the solution to the whole thing: Charge a membership fee to go along with your deeply gouging prices. Yep, in order to be fortunate enough to be seen by this partnership of doctors one must now pay a fee of $120 and up (tiered) per month on top of any services provided. I am still laughing my scrawny ass off at this one. What next? WalMart charging admission to its retail stores? Now you see them. Now you don't. Scratch one more Colorado medical practice from the rolls.