It is common practice for hospitals and other health care providers to have two or more prices for the same service or procedure. For instance, a MRI might cost $1000 cash for someone with no heath insurance, but if you have insurance, the same exact MRI will be billed at a much higher price. The insurance co and the HCP usually have a contracted price that they go by.

Here is a scenario:

A normally heathy person requires a MRI and has insurance with a $2500 annual deductable. The contracted price is $2700. The patient would have to pay $2500 as well as a portion of the $200 balance.

The hospital offers the same procedure to the uninsured for $1000 cash.

Now if you are normally healthy and willing to risk a little, it would make good sense to pay the $1000 cash even though you have insurance. But wait, they won't let you do that!

Why is this legal ??? It actually discriminates against those who are insured. When people on public assistance get food stampss, they don't adjust the price of the food as well, now do they?

Opinions , please.

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Mr. Obama, please release the UFO files!

My opinion - get government out of the health care industry and let market forces correct the problem. When I take my dog to the vet, I don't pay as much for xrays as I'd pay a hospital to take xrays of my arm, and the vet doesn't charge different prices for them depending on what kind of insurance is involved.

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-Eric

"For whoever habitually suppresses the truth in the interests of tact will produce a deformity from the womb of his thought." -Sir Basil H. Liddel-Hart

Self-composed.com

I'm not familiar with the particulars or that practice, but if accurate, that seems like a load of bullshit to me.

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

IMO, it is punishment for worrking or having financial means.

I work and part of the taxes I pay covers treatment of the uninsured. Then, I get to pay again thru inflated rates to cover the hospitals loss via treating the uninsured /indigents.

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Mr. Obama, please release the UFO files!

Reason number 4,711 that the health care system is completely fubar.

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"Anyone that needs what they want, and doesn’t want what they need
I want nothing to do with
And to do what I want
And to do what I please
Is first on my to-do list"
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I assure you that it is standard operating procedure. If you have insurance, next time (and i hope you don't have to) you get an expensive test done, check out what your carrier was billed. Then call the hospital and tell them you doctor has ordered that same test and explain you have no health insurance. They will quote you a cash price. Wait till you see the difference in cost!!!!!!!!!

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Mr. Obama, please release the UFO files!

I don't know where that comes from. I am insured. Within the last three months, I've had x-rays, a CT scan, and an MRI and it didn't cost me a dime.

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"Compassionate Conservatism"?!?! That is a stupid phrase. Conservatism is inherently compassionate. It is liberalism that is cruel for the sake of maintaining a constituency.

I doubt this is illegal at all, as a matter of fact it is common practice throughout the business world.
We may have 4-5 prices for the same product, all depends on overall volume of the client, and yes - their proven/unproven ability to pay.

From my (admittedly limited) understanding, it is legal to charge different prices depending on quantity ordered, or to offer certain discounts for certain reasons. As far as I'm aware, it's generally illegal to determine price based on customer's ability to pay in a lot of instances. I remember working retail in a Radio Shack and learning something about that, though the details escape me.

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

I'll have to check it out if the circumstances arise. My health insurance through work is actually pretty good - I get HRA with a decently low deductible, rollover, and my insurance covers a lot of stuff. Of course, I rarely get sick or visit the doctor, and I have no prescriptions, so I don't exactly tax the system. Most of what I know/understand is from reading the insurance literature as opposed to actual experience.

I can say that the health insurance and healthcare plan seems unbelievably and needlessly convoluted to me. I consider myself an educated man, but even after reading through it a few times, I'm not sure I fully understand all the loopholes, exceptions, etc.

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

ook, they don’t advertise it…but it happens….isn't really the way it is advertised.....at least in my practical experience....in NYC, a person I know who may or may not be a family member, who has, lets say an in income of dubious nature, his wife has an on the books job and insurance but doesn’t want to pay for a monthly coverage ..this person needs an mri....so, he goes to the office, speaks with the practitioner there who learns he doesn’t at this moment have insurance they come to an amicable agreemtn for the mri, cash- $750.00....the billable price to Aetna however is 1250….why is it a bargain to just take the 750 right then and there? If you have any experience with insurance co’s etc….billing bureaucracies etc…you’d know….

This is against the law, at least here in Cali..I have a great dentist…had a tooth crack one day…we got to talking afterward, I made a joke that my whole family, wife 2 kids had been coming here for years..how about knocking out the co-pay or something as a favor whatever…he explained that he can’t by law do that..IF he did, the applicable insurance and medicare/caid agencies would then lower his billing price. If he can do it for me, he can do it for others…that’s their mindset.
.....

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No individual can plan his own existence in their view.

So the state planners must arrogate to themselves the right to manipulate any sector of the economic system if the good of “society” or the “general welfare” is paramount.

Ipso- if the rights of the individual get in the way, the rights of the individual must be sublimated.

The Road to Serfdom
FA Hayek (interpretation)


Mortgage Backed Security survivor

I was under the impression that this was often the other way around. Under the notion that insurance companies were able to negotiate a better price, the rates for uninsured patients was usually higher. I guess it may depend on the hospital and service but it is certainly done. It is problematic because it reduces the likelihood for people to buy insurance policies that don't cover minor things like this. I expect that self-insuring would have people make better choices.

While charging less for uninsured can not be justified economically. Charging more for uninsured can. It would in a sense be the same as a discount for frequent patronage or high volumes, something that companies are able to do under the current law.

I cautiously support regulation that would force a common price, though I recognize that it may make collusion easier.

Certainly you don't think that all people who have heath insurance have or can afford that level of coverage, do you? You must be a UAW member. Obviously you don't pay for that yourself.

If you think I am kidding you, see what your insurance paid the hospital and then call for that cash price. I would say you would be shocked, but seeing as you have the rolls royce plan, I guess you wouldn't care either way.

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Mr. Obama, please release the UFO files!

Then wouldn't the price the insurance company pays be consistently lower?

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Mr. Obama, please release the UFO files!

No. You also can't sue your vet for much beyond the market value of your animal, if they screw up. Additionally, your vet works longer hours for considerably less pay than your average human doctor, and probably dosen't have an MRI, unless you are going to a university associated teaching hospital.

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