|
n. Illinois | Here is a dose of Reality.
The Federal Government pays roughly 65% of all Medical costs in this country VIA Medicare and Medicaid. The other 35% is from the Private health insurance sources, IE Blue Cross/Blue Shield and all Employer sponsored health insurance plans.
Every CFO in every medical provider in this country knows this fact. They have to run their operations based upon what Medicare/Medicaid pay and the profit comes from the private pay customers (your employer sponsored plan is consider private pay as is Blue Cross/Blue Shield etc)
The Government Demands a discount on every thing. So to illustrate: Code XXXX (everything has a code) The Fed's tell the providers that they will only pay 60% of the retail cost So if the provider needs $1000 to cover their actual costs they have to tell the Feds the retail price is $1667. Then the Government tells the providers (Hospital Doctor Clinic etc ) that if anyone else gets that same Code XXXX they have to charged them $1667 unless there is a pre-negotiated discount (IE the private health insurance providers including all employee sponsored plans). The only person getting charged the $1667 is the person who shows up without any insurance coverage at all.
The Federal Government provides one final perversion, They tell all providers that if they are caught not charging the full retail price the the Feds will come after them and throw them in jail (guess who will never risk that)
So the local rural hospital which reported a net profit of $1,000,000 last year complains how much they lost because they couldn't collect the full retail price for all of their services As if they were ever going to collect the full retail price and all the while they are spending another $10 million with some capital spending project while at the same time complaining about how horrible they are doing. So you can ignore their cries of poverty.
If there are some actually going broke its because they borrowed too much money to spend too much capital on something with zero to negative marginal returns. I doubt that there is a single doctor that could run a business that actually makes money if they didn't have a gross margin approaching 60% IE they keep 60 cents of every dollar after paying all operating costs. The costs that break them is the capital spending which is funded 100% with borrowed money and all of the graft and corruption/overhead that is well hidden inside of these large medical practices. (IE Michelle Obama got a $300,000/yr job at Univ of Chicago Medical center as soon as he became a Senator and the as soon as he became President the job disappeared because it was a fake job to begin with)
So if your ever caught in that non insurance coverage, After getting the bill which is the full retailed price for everything they did (again remember no one pays full retail and they know it) Approach the business billings folks and make them an offer to pay them in cash today the same price that they would have collected from Medicare plus some x% (5,10-20% more) and they will bite like a bluegill taking a worm off the hook. | |
|
Trump Budget cuts?
