Still Too Damn Expensive

A neighbor of mine suffered a health scare recently---heart attack symptoms that turned out to be a false alarm---and had to spend the night in a local hospital undergoing observation. When he received an itemized bill from the facility the next week, he almost suffered a real heart attack when he read the total: $14,500, of which his so-so insurance picked up two thirds and left him to handle the rest. It's kind-of the problem-in-microcosm with our insanely managed health-case system. Namely, everyone in the pipeline charges exorbitant prices, basically because they can. It's also the reason why the jury is going to be out on the Goldberg Act for some time into the future because it relies on the same "market forces" that created this problem to somehow correct themselves. Maybe they will and maybe they won't, but bottom line, you want to control health-care costs, you control health-care costs.

---Baron V