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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lady Lurksalot who wrote (183)	1/15/2005 10:47:37 PM
From: i-node	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

>> David, I see we are in agreement, except: cost-shifting and repricing DOES exist. Yes, I think you pegged it -- the insurance companies have clout, but the self-pay has nothing. Simple legislation could cure it -- just requiring that self-pays be required to pay no more for a procedure than the lowest-paying of insurers (normally, Medicare or Medicaid). I would favor this kind of arrangement and it would certainly bring about an element of fairness that is not present today. That said, those amounts have to be made up somewhere. There is no free ride; it probably means that Medicare costs would go up, since Medicare already pays less than almost all private insurance as well as Medicaid in most states.