The "Cadillac Tax"

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

(11-10-2015, 02:12 AM)Benton Wrote: Yes... because teacher pay is so outrageous, that's why we can't get any good engineers or doctors... teacher unions are mandating all those obscene teacher salaries. That's the problem with education. Yup.




Uh... the medical industry is in the free market. That's why you might pay a few hundred times the actual cost of a drug, or several hundred just to see an ER nurse (rates vary, but the average for non-life threatening visits is around $600). The logic here is backwards.

I know I'm wasting my breath, but my wife was an ER director. Their biggest shortfall? The uninsured. They were people who used the ER because a doctor's office wouldn't take them for basic stuff. So they come to an ER and claim they're sicker than they are, then they get in and get the antibiotics or stitches or whatever they really need.

You know who they love? The insured. More than them? Medicaid/Medicare. They pay a smaller percentage than those with private insurance, but there's no hassle over treatment or paperwork. 

A big part of healthcare costs going up is to cover the cost of the uninsured who don't pay. You want prices to stabilize, you've got to figure out some way for medical providers to get paid because — contrary to what you're saying — they're in the free market and that's causing them to lose money.


To the OP, meh. The co-op's going broke — by and large — wouldn't have if Republicans hadn't manipulated the reimbursement rates for high risk cases. In Kentucky the co-op was supposed to get back $79 million. It got around $9 million (if I remember right, my numbers may be off by a million or so). It's not that the funds weren't there, Republicans just didn't allow them to be dispersed through the omnibus bill.

Yay politics. Instead of fixing anything let's make the other guys look bad!  :snark:

Good post.



LaLaLucie says the medical industry isn't a part of the free market.   :crazy:

Can you arrange it so everytime LaLaLucie logs on the theme song for Rawhide plays?  You know . . .  Trollin', trollin', trollin' . . .