dave45

Every other day.

Every possible system will have its flaws. What makes our system so unique is that it seems to found a way to have all the flaws of every other health care system while avoiding any of the benefits.

Seriously though, I think one way to improve our system is to cap how much hospitals can bill. It's been done in Maryland since 1977 and works fin there. It won't fix all of our problems but I like to approach problems one step at a time.

Here's a blog I wrote about it: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-belk/hospital-bills_b_4257433.html

Yes, and that's exactly what I said in my conclusion:

Everyone in health care likes the idea of making our health care system more efficient and less costly, right up until it starts to impact their paychecks. So health care reform, of any kind, will always be met with a lot of resistance from inside the system. All of that money isn’t just wasted— it’s going into the pockets of a lot of people who will fight very hard to keep things as they are.

There is no shortage of good ideas for how we can reform our healthcare system. Nearly every other country in the developed world has a healthcare system that’s less expensive, more efficient and has better outcomes than ours. We could easily take all the best ideas from all the existing systems in other countries to create more efficient and effective ways to deliver healthcare in the US, were it not for the resistance each new idea would face. At least $1 trillion is wasted each year in our healthcare system, but the people getting that $1 trillion can use that money to fight reform at every turn.

Also, if you want a more extensive summary of my work, you can watch this 48 minute video I made last year called The High Cost of Collusion: Why Healthcare is so Expensive in the US.

Also, Check out my blogs at Huffington Post. Especially this one about a woman who was told that $41 worth of migraine medication would cost her $1,490 at Walgreens, or this one about a woman who was charged three times the cost of her chemotherapy treatment simply because her insurance refused to cover it.

It's not whether you can negotiate a bill dow, it's by how much. Most hospitals bill four or more times their expected payment for medical services. If you negotiate 50% off a bill from a hospital that normally bill eight times what the value of their services, you've been taken big time