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

To: John Koligman who wrote (6539)	3/28/2009 1:29:32 PM
From: i-node	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

"They're lowballing deliberately. They deliberately cut the numbers so the consumer has to pay more of the cost," Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said in an interview with The Associated Press on Friday. "It's scamming. It's fraud," he said. This probably is an area that could use some attention. However, what we don't need is government DECIDING what an allowable for a particular procedure is. We have a perfectly good facility for measuring and tracking this as well as the basis for correcting it -- the Relative Value Scale which assigns RVU (relative value units) to each medical procedure based on how much time the procedure takes. Medicare uses it and many private insurers do. Once you know the RVUs required for a procedure it is a matter of multiplying it by a locality index and a "per RVU" rate to get the allowable for any given medical procedure. Being the cynic I am, I would say it is likely Rockefeller is more interested in getting providers onboard with socialized medicine than he is "helping" poor providers get their money.