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

To: TimF who wrote (13729)	3/3/2010 10:08:29 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

Fee-for-service, just means a fee is paid for the service, there may not be any carrier involved. I wrote: "The only way to deal effectively with moral hazard is to get away from fee-for-service and low co-pay policies." Maybe I used a term of art incorrectly. I meant "carrier" as a synonym for "insurance company." Got tired of typing the same phrase over and was pleased with myself for finding a shorter alternative. <g> Sorry for any confusion. Service A, pay a fee, service B, pay an additional fee. You pay a fee for each service. I don't pay a fee for each service. I have two fee-for-service policies. Between them I have no co-pay. Medicare and Blue Cross do the paying, not me. They pay for each service whatever the established rate is. I use health care liberally. My doctors order health care liberally. Neither provider nor patient needs to be concerned about the cost. Each policy feature, fee-for-service and low co-pay, provokes what seems like moral hazard to me. Remove that and just get services "free", or buy an "all you can eat plan", and you have every incentive to use more services. I don't understand the disagreement.