OMD,
Forgive me if I'm wrong here, but...If you live in LA, you haven't seen a doctor for anything significant lately.
My experience with the healthcare system over the last two years as been anything short of disaster, and I have been totaly unimpressed with the 15 or so doctors I've seen, winding up getting 2nd and 3rd opinions because many of them are greedy bastards who only want money.
Healthcare costs are rising, significantly, but the real costs of the services are not. Thus if you go in with insurance and pay attention to what's happening, it's freaking criminal. Not all doctors, but I would say MOST, bill as much as the insurance company will pay(In fact they bill way more, then negotiate to get as much as they can). If you don't have insurance, those same doctors will bill you differently, I freaking guarantee it. Corporate benefit packages have slowly eroded over the last few years to trim costs at the expense of what they cover.
The people who are predicting a crisis aren't lying, it's just that the costs are being effectively absorbed by the huge amount of cash that's floating around in a grossly overinflated system that keeps pushing the limits as far as it can push them at every opportunity. |
