Friday, June 12, 2015

speaking of greedy for-profit hospitals...



Washington Post | Fifty hospitals in the United States are charging uninsured consumers more than 10 times the actual cost of patient care, according to research published Monday.
All but one of the facilities are owned by for-profit entities and the largest number of hospitals — 20 — are in Florida. For the most part, researchers said, the hospitals with the highest markups are not in pricey neighborhoods or big cities, where the market might explain the higher prices.
Topping the list is North Okaloosa Medical Center, a 110-bed facility in the Florida Panhandle about an hour outside of Pensacola. Uninsured patients are charged 12.6 times the actual cost of patient care.
Community Health Systems operates 25 of the hospitals on the list. Hospital Corporation of America operates 14 others.
“They are price-gouging because they can,” said Gerard Anderson, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, co-author of the study in Health Affairs. “They are marking up the prices because no one is telling them they can’t.” He added: “These are the hospitals that have the highest markup of all 5,000 hospitals in the United States. This means when it costs the hospital $100, they are going to charge you, on average, $1,000.”
The researchers said other consumers who could face those high charges are patients whose hospitals are not in their insurance company’s preferred network of providers, patients using workers’ compensation and those covered by automobile insurance policies.
Carepoint Health-Bayonne Med­ical Center in Bayonne, N.J., for example, also charges rates 12.6 times the actual cost of patient care. State law limits the maximum that hospitals can charge uninsured patients to 115 percent, a spokesman said.
By comparison, the researchers said, a typical U.S. hospital charges 3.4 times the cost of patient care.
Officials representing the 50 hospitals disputed the findings, saying that they provide significant discounts to uninsured and underinsured patients.
Understanding hospital pricing and charges is one of the most frustrating experiences for consumers and health-care professionals. It is virtually impossible to find out ahead of time from the hospital how much a procedure or stay is going to cost. Once the bill arrives, many consumers have difficulty deciphering it.
Most hospital patients covered by private or government insurance don’t pay full price because insurers and programs such as Medicare negotiate lower rates for their patients. But millions of Americans who don’t have insurance don’t have anyone to negotiate for them. They are most likely to be charged full price. As a result, uninsured patients, who are often the most vulnerable, face skyrocketing medical bills that can lead to personal bankruptcy, damaged credit scores or avoidance of needed medical care.
Researchers said the main factors leading to overcharging are the lack of market competition and the fact that the federal government does not regulate prices that health-care providers can charge. Only two states, Maryland and West Virginia, set hospital rates.

19 comments:

CNu said...

lol, please share the link, that's waaaaaay past circumstantial data in fin d'siecle post-trans-racial Uhmurkah!!!!

Michael Varian Daly said...

"Ruthanne said she, Larry and the younger adopted siblings moved to South
Africa in 2002, and lived there until 2006. Larry was stationed there
as an employee of the faith-based Creation Ministries International." http://www.cdapress.com/news/local_news/article_385adfeb-76f3-5050-98b4-d4bf021c423f.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_Ministries_International

makheru bradley said...

It comes as no surprise that the NAACP is supporting Ms. Dolezal. I can’t verify this, but a NAACP member told me today that they have two all-white chapters in North Carolina. I did find this article.

[Here in the mountains, the organization is enjoying a burst in growth, and many of those new members are white people. Western North Carolina is home to five new NAACP chapters that have formed within the past year, including those in counties of Haywood, Watauga, Jackson, Transylvania and Yancey/Mitchell. Combined, those counties have a white population of 95.7 percent, a black population of 1.8 percent. White and black members say the organization is transcending its original mission, especially in North Carolina where the state organization’s popular Moral Monday gatherings have spawned renewed interest in the NAACP’s mission. “My understanding is we’re all people of color,” said Joy Boothe, vice president of the Yancey-Mitchell chapter of the NAACP, which already has 168 members and is “overwhelmingly” white. “There had been some talk about whether the name should be changed, but the thinking was we’re all people of color.”]

“We’re all people of color.” That’s an interesting statement coming from a white person, particularly a white person in Western NC.

So maybe Ms. Dolezal is saying I have mitochondrial DNA from the Afrikan mother of humanity, so I’m returning to my roots. Of course, DNA is one thing, the actual Afrikan historical experience in America is something different. Perhaps she’s getting a little taste of that experience right now. In the Turner Diaries, white supremacists have a particular hatred for white integrationists and miscegenationists. A white woman passing for Black probably has William Pierce spinning in his grave.

BigDonOne said...

In reality, the parents listed on the birth certificate, are not always the actual biological parents. Many people find this out during testing for organ transplant matches.
Momma may have been screwing 75z....

CNu said...

lol, it's not humanly possible for me to be mad at her on any level. They say "you bend the sapling, you bend the tree" -well - MVD has furnished nice insight into what happened here. The only villains I spy at this moment are her parents and the chorus of folks who cant stand or understand her reassignment motions.

Michael Varian Daly said...

And that chorus has been a big chunk of the Internet and the Media. They've been on her like a pack of wild dogs.


I do find the timing interesting, this shit hitting the fan right upon the eve of the TPP vote.

Michael Varian Daly said...

Giving the she's a Creationist loon, gawd knows what kind of hanky panky she got up too. Those folks get pretty freaky behind closed doors.

Constructive_Feedback said...

Dear Makheru Bradley:

These are the points where you and Dr Ron Daniels are stripped naked of your "Faux Afro-Centric Bonafides" as you are proven to be mere AMERICANS.

If you had to choose between the "White American Lady In The NAACP" OR "The Black Africans Being Raped As They Traverse Libya, Toward The Coast To Set Sail For Italy" - I NEED NOT ASK YOU "WHICH WOULD YOU CHOOSE".

Your interests and YOUR BLOG already tells me.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-89t-IzRTqxM/VXtyPUmLVMI/AAAAAAABM1U/LU31FHNKT1s/s640/Libyan%2BMigrants.png

Michael Varian Daly said...

WTF ARE YOU GOING ON ABOUT SPUD!?!?!?

39) CAPSLOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL
40) EVEN WITH CRUISE CONTROL YOU STILL HAVE TO STEER

Michael Varian Daly said...

As for the rest of that...whatever.

Constructive_Feedback said...

And you no doubt believe that LIFE came from INANIMATE ELEMENTS, as time was added and shaped us into our present form.

Who is the Loon?

Constructive_Feedback said...

You see sir, enough though you no doubt self-promote yourself as a "Slave To Scientific Reasoning" - the bat shit that you are posting shows that you ONLY need to draw upon the latent bigotry and ignorance of your audience as you are confident that THEY will link "CREATIONISM' to "FREAKY SEX".

Are you sure you have any credibility that you aspire to live up to, Sir?

Dale Asberry said...

Priceless.Comedy.Gold.

Michael Varian Daly said...

As I said to a friend earlier today, "There's *always* a failure on the internet." ;-)

Michael Varian Daly said...

https://youtu.be/Z1Q_XHw1ofk

Dale Asberry said...

Donnie catchin' up to the grown folk... less the 75z comment. Remember one thing Donnie, cheat UP. They go for the better genetic material...

Vic78 said...

If she doesn't fuck with 5 Heartbeats, then it isn't real.

http://youtu.be/4lWA-3oRDWI

BigDonOne said...

Actually, there some awesome reader comments on this situation over on SBPDL e.g. " If her family did adopt blacks, the adopted 'siblings' may have sexually abused her as a child, in which case this woman may be an extreme example of Stockholm Syndrome...." https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=3890530692790573387&postID=6642900426601749036

rohan said...

You an extreme example of Stockholm Syndrome, daily spreading your wrinkled up old cakes and backing into the glory hole wishing, hoping, and praying somebody will sexually abuse you!

Master Arbitrageur Nancy Pelosi Is At It Again....,

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