So as you fly through the air after being ejected in a car crash, make sure to pull out your phone and negotiate upfront pricing with your providers before you hit the ground and are rendered unconscious.
While I agree after the fact billing is stupid, your scheme implies people choose their hospital based on rates as they are flying through the air after being ejected from a car in a crash. Make sure to choose wisely before you black out!
Or, every doctor visit has an attending billing assistant to explain costs of care to both the doctor and the patient.
Because the doctors don't know and don't have time to know.
In the end this is all Republican laissez faire fantasies. We need socialized medicine, like ever other civilized and (by our standards) uncivilized country has.
I have no clue when the Republican party would have been able to push any coherent reform to the health care system. 50 years ago? The modern Republican party exists solely to defend entrenched oligarchies and anticompetitive cartel dominated markets. That's what campaign finance rules reward.
The Democrats also perform the same function, but at least with some attempts at reform around the edges, because that's what their voting block demands.
> require providers to publish a uniform all-payer rate schedule for emergency/urgent care
What I described is just laying out a bare minimum for some semblance of sanity. Your laissez faire straw man fantasy extrapolates as if I am pushing this as a complete solution, but I am not.
In one complete solution most everyone would still have insurance (actual insurance) for such catastrophic events, either purchased themselves, packaged as part of auto insurance, bought through the government as a provider of last resort, supplied as part of a minimum social safety net, etc.
Alternatively, keep right on pushing for Medicare for All! It's orthogonal because there are many things that wouldn't be fully covered by M4A, even in the emergency context (eg a single occupancy hospital room).
The point is that there needs to be some market dynamic to keep prices "real" and allow for straightforward competition between different providers, regardless of who is paying.
(FWIW you could also do some research ahead of time about local urgent care providers, or hear recommendations from other people - for most urgent situations you would not be unconscious and could choose where to go.)
While I agree after the fact billing is stupid, your scheme implies people choose their hospital based on rates as they are flying through the air after being ejected from a car in a crash. Make sure to choose wisely before you black out!
Or, every doctor visit has an attending billing assistant to explain costs of care to both the doctor and the patient.
Because the doctors don't know and don't have time to know.
In the end this is all Republican laissez faire fantasies. We need socialized medicine, like ever other civilized and (by our standards) uncivilized country has.
I have no clue when the Republican party would have been able to push any coherent reform to the health care system. 50 years ago? The modern Republican party exists solely to defend entrenched oligarchies and anticompetitive cartel dominated markets. That's what campaign finance rules reward.
The Democrats also perform the same function, but at least with some attempts at reform around the edges, because that's what their voting block demands.