said by elray:said by DataRiker:So we can spend money on this ridiculous shit, but god forbid we have affordable healthcare.
Healthcare
is affordable.
No, on the contrary, it's certainly not, and that's actually a fact.
said by elray:When you expect someone else to pay the bill in your name, and you intentionally mislabel it "health insurance", you enable the cost the skyrocket.
Exactly!
You have true premises that explain exactly why healthcare in the US is not affordable, yet your argument is invalid, because your conclusion doesn't follow from your premises.
Have you ever tried going to a private lab with a prescription for some kind of blood test for which the materials cost way under 10–20 dollar range? (I.e. probably most blood tests, in fact.)
How much are they going to charge you?
Why would they charge you 200$ if you pay cash up front, when they would only charge an insurance company something like the actual cost to draw blood and perform the test, e.g. 50$?
There should be regulations for the cash prices to be comparable to how much insurance companies would be charged for the same services. Cash costs shouldn't be 4× of what the heath insurance companies are charged.
I shouldn't have to find a "fake" bulk doctor online who can offer a pre-paid voucher for the very same service at the same private lab (e.g. Quest), if my actual real doctor from another network (e.g. Kaiser) already gave me a prescription (that my network's lab doesn't offer, and for which I want to pay cash directly at another private lab, since it cannot be billed directly to my doctor).
Costs should reflect the service, not how much leverage you have on the negotiating table.And, for the record, RomneyCare/ObamaCare don't seem to be addressing the health insurance industry corruption at all, other than creating more revenue and even more leverage for the private sector health insurance companies.