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

To: TimF who wrote (3805)	1/11/2008 7:44:19 PM
From: Katelew	Respond to of 42652

One of my neighbors is an orthopedic physician, part of a doctor's group that operates a big popular clinic in my town. Several years ago, maybe 4-5, his clinic began offering an automatic 20% off all the services available at the clinic to people who are uninsured and can pay the full bill before leaving the clinic. He said his clinic arrived at that number after determining that approx. 18% of their overhead is tied to the filing of insurance claims. Those uninsured who can't pay the full bill and need a payment plan, their bill is reduced by 15% but they're expected to pay the full bill within 3-4 payments. His clinic also reserves all of its drug samples for the uninsured. According to him, most of the time their uninsured patients walk out with enough drugs to take care of most one-time illnesses. And I would assume that his clinic, like most, has their fees for the insured set high enough to offset the lower fees they receive for Medicare patients. To cut costs, the Bush admin. has cut Medicare disbursements for several years in a row now. These cuts are behind some of the overall increases in all healthcare costs since doctors and clinics must raise fees on other patients to offset them. All in all, we have a complex multi-leveled system of healthcare delivery and healthcare costs.