Want to lower insurance costs? Rein in hospitals charing $20 for one aspirin pill!

[Deja Q]

Why aren't hospitals audited?

[GKirk]

1. Are they charging twenty bucks for the pill

or for administering the pill?

[Deja Q]

2. For the pill itself.

http://www.google.com/search?q=%2410+aspirin&btnG=Google+Search

[ellenfl]

3. that's how they cover people in ers with no insurance. eom

[Deja Q]

6. Thanks (to both of you who said it so far )

:)

[lapfog_1]

4. That's a hidden tax.

to cover the cost of uninsured in the ER.

[FLyellowdog]

5. Exactly.nt

[abumbyanyothername]

7. Single payer = uniform reimbursement rates. nt

[Riley18]

8. Went to the ER the other day, and never even saw a doctor in over 4 hours.

I have insurance and came in by ambulance. All I saw was a physician's assistant who told me what the doctor somewhere else thought I should do. My knee looked shattered and when I had to go to xray the "nurse?" pulled me into the room by my ankle. I mean the ankle attached to the same leg as the shattered knee. I am not exaggerating. The bills have not come in yet, but I expect they charged plenty.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

9. I think we need to address hospital/doctor costs as well as insurance reform

Some doctors give their time to the poor and are genuinely concerned about the community around them. But many of them are just businessmen in white smocks. When my father was dying of cancer in the hospital, very little was done for him because he was too far gone. Nonetheless, at least ten medical specialists paraded through his room, looking at his chart and clearing their throats, otherwise doing absolutely nothing. I still have no idea who called them in. The result were enormous bills by these specialists to Medicare and Tricare. I consider these types of opportunist doctors parasites and leaches who might have been lined up against the wall and shot in other circumstances for outright theft. They disgust me. The very worst doctors are the outright whores who handle workers comp and personal injury cases, with their illegal kick backs under the table to attorneys and their willingness to sell their opinion to the law firm that keeps sending them business. But there are lots of whores elsewhere in the medical profession who overbill and don't devote themselves completely to their patients. And there are those doctors who move over to the insurance companies to become executives who function only to give medical authority for the denial of claims. I wish I could just sing the praises of those good doctors who deserve our respect and gratitude.