Medical Industrial Complex’s

Predatory Pricing;

Their

Reign of Terror

Must End  

Former Hospital Chief Sending Trump Petition To End Predatory Pricing In Healthcare

The market for healthcare in the U.S. is horrendously obfuscated, meaning that prices are not set by normal forces like supply and demand. Rather, prices are set behind closed doors by federal regulators and insurance providers. Americans have seen the cost of their healthcare skyrocket more in the past year than any other time since 1984. Adding to consumers woes is the rising cost of obtaining insurance on the exchanges has become almost prohibitive. (RELATED: This Key Government Mandate Is Driving Up The Cost Of Healthcare In America)

“The biggest problem in healthcare is that there is no pricing at all,” Weissman tells The Daily Caller News Foundation. “It is not a coincidence that the only product or service permitted to be sold in the U.S. without legitimate pricing, is the one which has imposed tremendous financial hardship.”

There are even more dramatic examples. Say a patient is presented to an emergency department with chest pain, a condition that could prove serious as it is an early sign of an impending heart attack. The bill incurred by the patient for hospitalization for chest pain can range from $3,000 to $25,000, or more.

If a patient were to ask what the price of any healthcare service costs, they would be met ubiquitously with one question:

 

What insurance do you have?

Gouging occurs because the cost to the patient is not set, it’s determined by “how much can be extracted from each patient on a case by case basis,”

 

Weissman explains to TheDCNF. Effectively, what Weissman is spelling out is that there is no base price for any service in the healthcare industry. Because billing rates are not set, the industry is essentially able to prey on patients at their most vulnerable.

“Until there is a requirement for legitimate pricing, we will really never know what prices are supposed to be,” Weissman tells TheDCNF. “Whether we have single-payer, Obamacare, or free market healthcare, we need to know what a legitimate price is or we can never solve the problem.” In our current system, “there is no going rate,” Weissman explains.

If there were legitimate prices posted, instead of being limited to just a few hospitals and limited number of physicians in a given network, “patients could go to any doctor in the United States,” Weissman exclaims. 

If networks were eliminated and prices were set by the free market, “no one can charge a patient these fantasy prices that are currently the norm, because they would be violating the law,”

Weissman says. “It should be illegal to not have a real price.”

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DYI:  These practices are ALREADY AGAINST THE LAW!  On the books 100 year old plus laws:  The Robinson-Patman - Clayton - and the Grand Daddy  - The Sherman anti-trust act.  All Donald Trump would have to do is have the top hospital and associations(AMA etc.) CEO's report to the White House - the President and his Attorney General state categorically within 30 days they will be in compliance of the above three acts;  if not on day 31 the U.S. Marshall's will begin arresting the CEO's and CFO's for immediate prosecution!  Also within the State level Trump can use the bully pulpit to cajole Governors and their State Attorney Generals to invoke their many consumer protection laws on their books as well.

The reason nothing has been done is that the medical industrial complex is so flush with cash they can bribe campaign donate at any level.  We live in an age of fraud and deception but it does appear the American public is waking up.

“When Americans can shop competitive pricing for good value, our system will become the world’s role model for efficient healthcare. Total U.S. healthcare costs as a percentage GDP will be slashed and health cost misery will end,” Weissman concludes.

DYI:  According to National Health Expenditure Accounts (NHEA) U.S. citizens are consuming (paying through the nose) 17.8% of every dollar generated in the economy. Call me Mr. Skeptical just as with inflation stats are under reported I suspect these numbers are as well.  Most likely by staying within the same confines that inflation is under reported this would put medical costs around 21% as best guess.  Growing at a 6% to 8% rate!

The effect upon the Federal budget is colossal and growing at an exponential rate:

 

National Priorities Project: 

Health care is the fastest-growing type of federal spending, having risen from 7 percent of the federal budget in 1976 to more than a quarter in fiscal year 2015 as health care costs have risen in the industrialized world.

DYI:  If competitive forces are not placed upon this industry cost as a percentage of the U.S. federal budget will leap to at least 35% all within the next 4 years taking the economy with it!.  If Trump desires to be reelected he better get on this the day he is sworn in.

DYI