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[Frenchfry]

Obama Warns Supreme Court Not To Overstep On Healthcare Law

[Tiny]

And then nobody would become doctors or build hospitals.

Soon no one will be able to afford to go to the doctor or hospital either.
For 45 years, my family has owned a small business and our health care premiums have been going up $10,000 to $20,000 a year for the last 10 years. That's only for 5 families. That cuts right into profits, so we have to change plans to less coverage to be able to afford insurance. So now we have less coverage and less profit, soon it will no longer be worth while to stay in business. We are just working to make the doctors and hospitals rich. Imagine what Fords and other big corp. are going through. Everyone used to complain about paying high income taxes, they're a drop in the bucket compared to health insurance premiums. Being an owner the premium comes indirectly right out of our pockets. It costs $11,000 a year for my wife and myself. The health care bubble has to blow soon. 

[Baby Hitler]

Soon no one will be able to afford to go to the doctor or hospital either.

I hate to be the one to break the news to you, but it's been that way for many for quite some time.

Little Timmy needs a kidney transplant, and if he gets one, he could live a regular life, it's just going to cost you everything you own, and then on top of that, just another $500,000.

Personally I'd rather see healthcare socialized.
It should be a basic human right.
Eliminate the profit motive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialized_medicine

I tend to agree with that.

[Frenchfry]

Antonin Scalia Has No Judicial Integrity

Antonin Scalia Has No Judicial Integrity

[Baby Hitler]

It was a simple question: How much do hospitals charge to remove an appendix?

The answer stunned researchers at the University of California, San Francisco.

As the Associated Press reported, the researchers found that California hospitals charge anywhere from the price of a refrigerator to the cost of a house.

For this common procedure, patient bills varied from as little as $1,529 to as much as $182,955, with an average of $33,000 — and experts worry that the situation isn’t unique to California.

    “There’s no method to the madness,”  said lead author Renee Hsia, an emergency room physician and UCSF researcher. “There’s no system at all to determine what is a rational price for this condition or this procedure.”

Hsia said she and her colleagues expected to see variations among hospitals of two or three times the amount, but not 100 or 121 times.

The study illustrates that “the laws of supply and demand simply do not work well in health care,” Howard Brody, M.D., director of the Institute for the Medical Humanities at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston and a frequent critic of skyrocketing medical costs, told the Associated Press.

The researchers examined 2009 data that hospitals were required to submit to the state on 19,368 adults under age 60 with appendicitis. To get the fairest comparisons, the researchers included only uncomplicated cases with hospital stays of less than four days.

Huge variations in pricing were found, even within the same county, the researchers reported.

The study also found:

* Charges went up with the patient’s age.

* The uninsured and those on Medicaid were charged more.

* Those with other health conditions, like cancer, diabetes and congestive heart failure, were charged more.

Obviously, patients should be shopping for price when it comes to health care, but that’s easier said than done, the researchers note. A patient doubled-over in abdominal pain, they write, “is in a poor position to determine whether his or her physician is ordering the appropriate blood work, imaging, or surgical procedure.”

So what can consumers do if faced with an exorbitant bill?

There are companies that can help you negotiate your hospital bill.

The consumer website Healthcare Blue Book offers a guide to fair prices in your area, which can give you some idea of what you should have been charged.  In addition, the website also offers tips on how you can negotiate a lower bill.
http://blog.aarp.org/2012/04/30/how-much-for-that-appendectomy-1500-to-182000-study-shows/?sf4064781=1

Just another reason why we need to have a one payer health care system, so we can root out exorbitant fees like these.

[Frenchfry]

Thanks to a provision in the health care reform law, millions of consumers will be receiving rebates from their insurers this summer.

By Aug. 1, insurers that failed to meet one of the early guidelines of the Affordable Care Act are going to issue rebates averaging $127 to certain policyholders, according to estimates from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Last year, the Affordable Care Act started requiring health insurers to spend a certain percentage of the premium payments they receive toward patient care, such as doctor's visits and hospital stays, and quality improvement activities, including discounted gym memberships or wellness brochures, instead of things like administrative and marketing costs.

Under the law, large employer-sponsored plans must spend 85% of a policyholders' premiums this way, while insurance companies that cover individuals and small businesses have to spend at least 80%. If an insurer fails to meet that threshold, they must issue a refund.

What health care reform is (and isn't) doing now

Based on insurers' recent filings to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, those rebates will total $1.3 billion altogether this year, according to Kaiser.

A large share of this money, or $426 million, will go to consumers who bought their own insurance through one of 215 plans. Nationwide, these consumers -- roughly 3.4 million people -- will each receive an average rebate of $127, Kaiser said in its report.

Most likely, they will receive a check in the mail, although the rebate could be issued as a discount on future premiums. Actual amounts will vary by insurer, by state and the extent to which the insurer fell below the threshold, Kaiser said.

In some states, like Alaska and Maryland, the average rebate is estimated to be near $300, while in New Mexico and Maine, the average rebate will be just $1 (not even enough for the insurer to issue a check).

Those insured through a private employer or a state or local government plan could see nothing at all. Those rebates will mostly go to the group policy holder, although the money could be passed on to employees who contributed a portion of their paycheck to their premium last year.

Kaiser calculated the averages based on insurers' early estimates. Actual rebates will be based on the reports the insurance companies submit to the federal government later this summer, Kaiser said.
http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/26/pf/health-insurance-rebate/