PART 1. The Problem
I am writing this blog post because I am tired of hearing everyone complaining about Obamacare and the high cost of health care insurance, but yet they do nothing to change how they are dealing with their health care. As long as Americans continue to think someone else is responsible for paying for their health care then nothing will change. Anytime you have a third-party payer system for anything someone else is going to make the decisions for you. It is your responsibility, not someone else’s! Remember, once you give your money to the insurance companies, it is no longer your money, it is theirs. Think of it this way; if you went to a company and said, “I will pay you so much a month and you take care of my electric bill every month”, don’t you think they are going to control the amount of power you use every month? So what makes you think health care insurance companies are any different?
Did you know, on average, for every dollar you pay for health insurance, you get about 25 cents of service? The other 75 cents goes to the insurance companies. If you think about it, that is not a very good bargain. Yet we have been doing this since the 1920’s and think it is great. So who is getting a piece of this 75 cents?
1. The Insurance Company now has control of your insurance dollar.
2. Risk Group: ( Employer Groups) These are the people in your group that are sick, because it is a guaranteed issue group policy.
3. Government: This is all the laws, regulations, political contributions. taxes, fees, etc.
4. Labor: Because of labor unions in hospitals, costs are driven up. Labor union demands for high cost insurance plans drive up the cost; things like low co-pay, low cost prescriptions, etc.
5. Government Programs: Medicare and Medicaid; reimbursements from your policy have to go to help cover the under-payment from these programs.
6. Big Disease: These are non-profit and put mandates on every ones policies. Things like cancer, heart disease, COPD, etc. Your premiums reflect these costs because all of these have to be covered for everyone.
7. Drug Companies: The drug companies have put themselves between you and your health care dollar by marketing directly to you with ads for the next miracle drug, so you will self- diagnose and run to your doctor and ask for their drug by name.
8. Attorneys: These are the tort attorneys that are waiting for your doctor to make a mistake. Malpractice insurance is built into your doctor's cost of doing business but this forces them to do unnecessary tests just to cover themselves against the attorneys.
9. Billings and Collections: This would not be needed if it weren't for insurance companies. Billing is needed to handle the paper work involved with filing with insurance companies. Collections are needed because the insurance company can deny your claim and they have to collect from you.
10. Claims: A lot of claims are denied or delayed. The claims job is to save the insurance companies money by denial or delaying claims.
11. Case Manager: The case manager's job is to approve the least expensive treatment and the doctor with the lowest.
All of these entries are between you and your doctor, and thus, your health care.
This is a health care delivery system not health care.
This ends part 1. Please be looking for part 2 and 3 over the next few days. I have written an e-book about this, which has a lot of reference material in it. You can download it at the following link. It is free, because I am trying to help as many people as possible to become informed consumers on health care.
It is free
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