We Need Single Payer 0
In the Tampa Bay Times (the renamed St. Petersburg Times), Robyn Blumner describes her treatment for cancer. After praising the doctors, she moves to the subject of billing (emphasis added).
First, trying to be an educated consumer of health services by understanding pricing schedules is like cracking Enigma code. Second, the way the medical establishment and private insurance system is organized ensures that Americans get impersonal, redundant medical care for the highest cost, a subject I will discuss in my next column.
Any one who has had the simplest test done at a hospital become bewildered by the flurry of bills: two or three from different departments of the hospital, one from each doctor, one from the janitor, several from persons you never heard of. It is easy to imagine that the process is impenetrable on purpose.
Republicans like to talk about shopping for health care as if it were like shopping for a television.
Try it.
The sleazy used car dealers down the side streets are paragons of openness and disclosure when compared with the business end of the health care industry.
