Would you want IRS to take out your appendix?

[AngelinaCatHub]

Short story. I owe IRS many K's of bucks. I pay $400 a month. I was told, it will go to the oldest year automatically when I pay online. Nope, it went to the current year. One call, and they fixed it.

So, 2004 I owed $72.00 and the other years went up from there. December, not to screw up my bookkeeping, I paid the $72.00 and nothing more. Christmas and all that stuff I gambled to slip by and just pay the next month.

Received my monthly statement, and they credited my account into 2005, $400.00. Well, I don't think I'm obligated to inform them of their poor bookkeeping practices.

My thoughts are, if Govmint works this way with MY money, why would I trust the same with Health care? 'Hub

[frogger]

My thoughts are, if Govmint works this way with MY money, why would I trust the same with Health care? 'Hub

Because they are the gubmint and they are here to help you.....

[Faust]

How about:

"Would you want your surgical procedure determined by actuarial tables?"

Oh wait, they already are!

Don't forget, this guy has GOT to get paid!

http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/unitedhealth-groups-stephen-hemsley-ceo-compensation/2009-05-14

Hemsley still manages to make the cut for this list at No. 10. The UHG CEO's base salary was $1.3 million in 2008, to go along with a non-equity incentive plan compensation worth just over $1.8 million and "other compensation" amounting to slightly more than $119,000.

Hemsley's other compensation was a combination of the company matching his contributions under the 401(k) plan and the company matching contributions under his executive savings plan. According to the SEC, "in May 2006, the amount of Hemsley's supplemental retirement benefit was frozen based on his current age and average base salary and converted into a lump sum of $10,703,229." Because of this, "there was no increase in the benefit payable to Mr. Hemsley under his supplemental retirement benefit" in 2008.

Read more: http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/stor...#ixzz0dfjinytl

[WhatMoney]

My thoughts are, if Govmint works this way with MY money, why would I trust the same with Health care? 'Hub

All this tells me is that you probably don't want the IRS to manage your health insurance.

You are on Medicare I believe. You should cancel immediately and find a private insurance company to challenge your claims and screw up your billing.

I have had endless problems with private insurance companies and billing. Medicare however runs just like clockwork - never had any billing problems. They just pay claims without questions, unlike the private insurers who's profit depends on denying and delaying claims, just before they raise your premiums and/or drop you for getting sick. Yup, those private companies are just great...if you never make a claim.

[justbroke]

"Would you want your surgical procedure determined by actuarial tables?"

I might... if the tables are based on the "best procedure" for the amount of money. It's the same way emergency rooms save money by not running useless and costly tests. Sure they might miss something in 1/100th of 1%, but you can't MRI, Cat Scan, CBC, Chem-21, EKG, ECG, High Contrast X-Ray... everyone who comes in with a cold.

So, I'm not too afraid of procedures based on the most cost effective manner to cure. Example: would you rather just give anyone who walks in the door with a cold... some antibiotics of the Penicillin (PCN) family? Or, would you rather use a cost-based standard of care that works? I think people are angry no matter which approach an insurer would take. I mean, you give them PCN and the cold doesn't go away, so the insured complain that you're not giving them the "good stuff". On the other hand, you give people the "good stuff" and because colds are normally viral, the "good stuff" only relieves symptoms, and you still have the insured complain that you're not giving them PCN!

But, alas, the reason is... as you wrote... it's already here and has not affected my standard of care.

[Faust]

it's already here and has not affected my standard of care.

Cause everyone knows healthcare is all about you.

[justbroke]

it's already here and has not affected my standard of care.

Cause everyone knows healthcare is all about you.

I actually think that one-size-fits-all healthcare is wrong.

It is all about me... when it comes to me. And, it's about you... when it comes to you. Each, individually.

You can not have a system which caters to the masses. This is a long-since learned lesson in managed care. However, heuristics, statistics, and treatment results across different categories of patients and the effectiveness of said treatment, can be applied in a generic manner. In the end, it's still about individuality. You must ask, is your healthcare provider, system, standard... working for you.

To that end... I stand by what I wrote.

[LimpDisc]

Do they have to worry about billing issues in countries that provide health care to all citizens?

[justbroke]

Do they have to worry about billing issues in countries that provide health care to all citizens?

The answer depends on which type of national healthcare they have. If it's a single payer system, then the services are "billed" just like traditional insurance based systems. However, if it's a national healthcare system where the doctors, hospitals, and medical facilities are all government owned... there is no billing.

Think Medicare/Medicaid versus the earlier HMO systems. The earlier HMO systems owned their own facilities, employed their own doctors and basically "managed" care. (Today, HMOs don't really "manage" care like they used to. This is actually the sad part, I think, about modern HMOs. Modern HMOs manage insurance claims. )

So, which system do you want? Medicare/Medicaid with both the potential and actual fraud that exists... or a traditional HMO system that is owned by the Federal Government? You choose.

[LimpDisc]

The answer depends on which type of national healthcare they have. If it's a single payer system, then the services are "billed" just like traditional insurance based systems. However, if it's a national healthcare system where the doctors, hospitals, and medical facilities are all government owned... there is no billing.

Think Medicare/Medicaid versus the earlier HMO systems. The earlier HMO systems owned their own facilities, employed their own doctors and basically "managed" care. (Today, HMOs don't really "manage" care like they used to. This is actually the sad part, I think, about modern HMOs. Modern HMOs manage insurance claims. )

So, which system do you want? Medicare/Medicaid with both the potential and actual fraud that exists... or a traditional HMO system that is owned by the Federal Government? You choose.

Do I really get to choose?

I was only curious to know how it worked. Thanks for your explanation.

[Tom_Mi]

First, sorry to hear the IRS has payment tracking problems.

The current healthcare proposals are:
-private insurers (we already have this)
-and maybe a public option (no payments, or billing involved).

I want to deal with the suggestion above that Doctors are always "going to get paid". ..They're like baseball players, I suppose. So, what do we do when Dr Happy expects 10million a year, and a signing bonus? Just hand it to him?

The conservative do-nothing crowd says pay them all they want, and throw a free-enterprise party for them at the same time. They also tell us that any attempt to make things better is 'socialism'....even when it's not. How long will we let fear trump our intellect?

[justbroke]

Do I really get to choose?

Yes, by demanding from your Congresscritter, that represents you, how they think Healthcare is going to work, and you adjusting your vote accordingly. They are scared now, so I think they'll listen.

I'm personally on the fence. I never liked the traditional HMOs and the power they wielded (complete medical facility and doctor control)... and I don't like the fraud and abuse in a Medicare/Medicaid system. At one time, someone asked me these two questions...

Would you like a Government that is large, bloated, nothing gets done, roads are terrible, unemployment at 10%, but they could tell you where every penny was spent?

Or, would you rather have a Government where Government is smaller, people are working, unemployment at 3%, people are healthy, roads and infrastructure are smooth and efficient, and people are happy, but they can't tell you where they spent the money?

Both spend the same amount of money... you choose.

[momisery]

No, but I don't want the Insurance CEO and shareholders doing it either.

[justbroke]

No, but I don't want the Insurance CEO and shareholders doing it either.

You don't want to choose? The insurance CEO salaries can be dealt with, but who do you think drives (has driven) the healthcare "reform" in Congress? Yep, the healthcare lobby.

This could be easily changed by keeping a single-payer like system (Medicaid/Medicare) and making "insurance" companies, not-for-profit or limited profit (limit profit to cost plus 3%).

[WhatMoney]

Do they have to worry about billing issues in countries that provide health care to all citizens?

See my signature - It has been the same for the last two years. It will answer your question.
Here is the main page link again:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...roundtheworld/

And a comparison of five democracies around the world:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...rld/countries/

And the four basic health care models - How many conservatives know what these are?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...es/models.html

Here is what the anti health care bill crowd wants to continue in the USA:

The Out-of-Pocket Model
Only the developed, industrialized countries -- perhaps 40 of the world's 200 countries -- have established health care systems. Most of the nations on the planet are too poor and too disorganized to provide any kind of mass medical care. The basic rule in such countries is that the rich get medical care; the poor stay sick or die.

In rural regions of Africa, India, China and South America, hundreds of millions of people go their whole lives without ever seeing a doctor. They may have access, though, to a village healer using home-brewed remedies that may or not be effective against disease.

In the poor world, patients can sometimes scratch together enough money to pay a doctor bill; otherwise, they pay in potatoes or goat's milk or child care or whatever else they may have to give. If they have nothing, they don't get medical care.

These four models should be fairly easy for Americans to understand because we have elements of all of them in our fragmented national health care apparatus. When it comes to treating veterans, we're Britain or Cuba. For Americans over the age of 65 on Medicare, we're Canada. For working Americans who get insurance on the job, we're Germany.

For the 15 percent of the population who have no health insurance, the United States is Cambodia or Burkina Faso or rural India, with access to a doctor available if you can pay the bill out-of-pocket at the time of treatment or if you're sick enough to be admitted to the emergency ward at the public hospital.

The United States is unlike every other country because it maintains so many separate systems for separate classes of people. All the other countries have settled on one model for everybody. This is much simpler than the U.S. system; it's fairer and cheaper, too.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...es/models.html