Trump Promises Universal Health Care Coverage

Do you want to know why the high cost of medical services was never addressed or fixed? It is the government and health insurance companies that determine the real cost for those billing codes for all those people that are covered under government or private insurance. Those cost are already well controlled in the medical sector that provide those services.
The increases in everybody's premium rates was primarily covering all those new revenues that had to be paid to the IRS to finance the ACA. The increase in deductibles was for the benefit of the health insurance companies profit margins.

 

GOOD LUCK!!! You'll have plenty of competition for that $174,000 salary and the inevitable offers of lucrative "under the table" deals.

 

Healthy young people are also very often broke, so... Yeah, there's no winning solution at current health care prices, which are horribly and unfairly inflated.

 

You are very naïve if you truly BELIEVE that the medical sector is controlling costs. In America, is it credibly possible for ANY segment of society having omnipotent secular authority over life and death to restrain itself AT ALL LEVELS from fully exploiting the lucrative potential of that power?

Most doctors and workers involved with patient care are honest, empathetic individuals, but those in positions of power and high authority become obsessed with maximizing the bottom line, the same as their counterparts in other corporate industries.

Are pharmaceutical companies justified by their own financial investment to charge 1000 times as much for a cancer pill as they do for an antihistamine?. . . . Which is more profitable: Treating the underlying cause, therefore performing a cure, or treating the symptoms, and exploiting the infirmity as a chronic condition? Would a healthy nation provide job security for ALL workers in our present medical community?

This isn't your doctor's fault. If you want to learn more, you can order a used copy of Kenny Ausubel's When Healing Becomes a Crime from Amazon for about $6, including shipping.

 

Single Payer; it is time to PUSH politically for the same.

 

I know that and you know that, but as I said in the OP the problem is that the GOP has made repealing Obamacare a priority, and now they have their flag carrier saying it's not going to happen.
Complicating the issue is the new CBO report predicting that 50 million additional Americans could wind up without coverage in the next 10 years if the ACA goes away.

 

Have you ever received an explanation of benefits from a medical service you received from your insurance company? If you have, look at it, you will see the billed charged, the allowable (determined by the fee schedule of your insured), The provider adjustment (this is what the provider of care must write off), your responsibility (balance of what is billed to you).
It doesn't matter what the provider of care charges for their services because they are only going to receive what is allowable by the insured. Services that are going to be applied to the deductible, the insured allows a higher allowable because it is going to paid by the consumer. Most people seldom reach their deductible from year to year so this works for the insured since this is paid by the consumer. It also works for the provider of service since they are being paid more when those services are applied to the deductible verses not getting paid as much from the insurance company.

This is also why many health insurance companies will not have those expensive pharmaceuticals on their formulary list of allowable drugs that are reimbursed by them. The ones that are not on the list are paid by the consumer or are allowed but the consumer is paying for most of the fees charged due to the deductible. It is a model that all insurers use including Medicare to reduce their cost by shifting it to the consumer.
I am not naïve for I have worked in this industry most of my life, perhaps you should do more research.

 

Never mind that that is exactly what the man said.

I have no idea what Trump is going to propose. Most likely, it will be some pretense at adressing the issue that falls way short of keeping his commitment.

After all this is Trump, and commitments are not his thing.

 

I apologize if I offended you, but those in the healthcare field, including doctors, are not often aware of the mechanisms that the hierarchy is using to drive costs up. I have been deeply enmeshed in analyzing healthcare trends and abuses since the mid-sixties, when evidence of potential problems emerged.

Healthcare insurance, which I consider to be part of the medical sector, became more popular as costs became unaffordable, but costs further escalated with the insurance companies' increased ability to pay.

Insurance contracts are individually written with providers with varying terms negotiated to the satisfaction of both parties to gain acceptance as a PPO provider, and Medicare is being used by more and more insurance companies as a template in order to minimize costs and maximize profits.

Typically, negotiated prices apply regardless of whether deductible has been met; this is for the benefit of the insurer, as it maximizes longevity of the deductible. Pharmaceuticals are overpriced, non-negotiable, and a BIG problem.

Certainly, insurance and drug companies are the biggest bandits HERE, but that wasn't my WHOLE point.