The future of health care?

[WiseOne]

Great article about what medical costs might be without insurance companies or Medicare/CMS:

http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/11/news/ec ... ?iid=HP_LN

It gives you an idea of how much money is drained out of the system by either massive gov't regulations, or by third parties who contribute nothing to either your care or the physicians' practices.  That would be not only insurance companies but also billing and coding "professionals".

And just for the record, almost no non-surgical specialists in my neck of the woods earn as much as this guy does.  Also, the implication that only "wealthy people" can afford $600/year plus a bit extra for lab tests is ridiculous.  Compare that with what medical insurance costs under Obamacare, even for someone living close to the poverty line.

[Pointedstick]

Under the membership plan -- also known as "concierge" medicine -- each patient pays a flat monthly fee to have unlimited access to the doctors and any service they can provide in the office, such as EKGs or stitches.

The fee varies depending on age. For kids, it's $10 a month. For adults up to age 44, it's $50 a month. Senior citizens pay $100.

Whoa. That's way better than most insurance plans. The article sheds crocodile tears about lower-income people being left out, but its hard to imagine prices more affordable than those. The projected monthly cost of Obamacare's "Bronze Plan" is waaaaaaaaay more expensive than $50-100/mo.

[jbrown]

I went without health insurance for me and my daughter for a couple of years and I discovered that as long as I was dealing one-on-one with a doctor, the cash price was always significantly lower than the insurance price. Just one example - a vaccination that cost $75 if you had insurance only cost $15 without.

It was a different story when my daughter broke her arm and I had to take her to the hospital. The third-party bills kept coming and they had no mercy. But even then, it  cost less in the long run than the health insurance premiums.

Unfortunately, I doubt this is the future of health care. Up in Canada I think it is illegal to offer healthcare outside the system for cash. I expect we will be seeing the same thing here. I think this is the whole point of Obamacare and the individual mandate - nobody outside the system.

[WiseOne]

To be fair, the concierge plans are limited to care given by the physician or practice you're contracting with.  But yes, the idea is that if you remove all the health care regulations, paperwork, documentation requirements, billing/coding practices ad nauseum, the cost of care would be far lower than it is now.

And btw, it's currently illegal to charge cash-paying patients less than insured patients.  A small practitioner might be able to get away with it, but it's big penalties if they're caught.  The way most of us deal with it is to "down-code" the visit, which is to pretend that the level of care is much lower than it actually is.  That may be what happened in the case you cite.  Downcoding is illegal too, but it's much less likely to be prosecuted.

What's really funny about this:  think about this when you hear someone carrying on about "Medicare fraud".  My other favorite example is the 14 point Review of Systems.  It's utterly useless in 99% of office visits, but if you only have 13 points documented rather than 14, you're guilty of "fraud".  And yes, this is the reason for the forms you have to fill out before each doctor visit.  It semi-automates the ROS which gets that stupid requirement out of the way without anyone (but you) having to waste time.