April 7, 2004
HELP IS COMING:
Medical care paid for in cash - and cheaper: More doctors are opting out of the insurance system, billing patients directly and passing on the paperwork savings. (Alexandra Marks, 4/07/04, CS Monitor)
The founders of SimpleCare believe it's "the future of health care." Its goal: to restore the "soul" of America's medical practice.This loose network of doctors and patients believe they can do it by opting out of the expensive, complex, and bureaucratic world of insurance and managed care. Instead, they're trading in simple dollars and, they argue, common sense.
Unlike the Park Avenue cash-only doctors who cater to the rich, these providers serve moderate- and low-income people - those without insurance or with a high-deductible plan. The goal is to give the same quality of care, but with a discount by passing along the paperwork savings.
That's made visiting a doctor's office possible for thousands of people who otherwise couldn't afford it - people like Aleata Leete, a semiretired nurse on a fixed income. And it's given more than 1,500 doctors a new sense of freedom in their practice as they lower the cost of services. Some analysts believe that if the trend continues, allowing many of the 43 million uninsured Americans access to affordable healthcare, the overall cost of healthcare could come down.
This meshes perfectly with HSA's George W. Bush slipped past Democrats and is the necessary future of health care. Posted by Orrin Judd at April 7, 2004 9:00 AM
We've been paying cash for our doc since I got out of the house (early 80s)...We've been self-employed since the mid-80s...we've been without health insurance for a decade...we moved back to New Jersey and whaddya know--our legislators "fixed" all our health insurance problems by outlawing Jerseyites from going to companies outside the Garden State for health insurance. They sent us a nice brochure all about the situation and they sent us a grid which listed the choices we could make for carriers...the cheapest was prohibitively expensive...some of the plans cost as much as $5,000 a month (that's not a typo)...Thanks, Trenton!!
We've been predicting a revolution in health care for some time--a necessary component of which would be good ol' cash. It's here...unless the boneheads in Trenton and Pierre and Jackson and Tallahassee think there's a "problem."
Posted by: Brian McKim at April 7, 2004 11:28 AMWe've been paying cash for our doc since I got out of the house (early 80s)...We've been self-employed since the mid-80s...we've been without health insurance for a decade...we moved back to New Jersey and whaddya know--our legislators "fixed" all our health insurance problems by outlawing Jerseyites from going to companies outside the Garden State for health insurance. They sent us a nice brochure all about the situation and they sent us a grid which listed the choices we could make for carriers...the cheapest was prohibitively expensive...some of the plans cost as much as $5,000 a month (that's not a typo)...Thanks, Trenton!!
We've been predicting a revolution in health care for some time--a necessary component of which would be good ol' cash. It's here...unless the boneheads in Trenton and Pierre and Jackson and Tallahassee think there's a "problem."
Posted by: Brian McKim at April 7, 2004 11:30 AMThe next step in this powerful development is to force the insurance companies to reimburse the individuals who pay out of pocket.
This will allow for insurance with the paper work pushed down to a level where it can be managed by those who should be responsible for managing it.
Frankly, the fastest way to "reform" the system is to simply ban group insurance entirely and force companies to allocate the savings directly to salary increases.
The idea that you get "Benefits" from your employer are rapidly becoming a myth. The case can be made that any savings drived from "aggregating" paperwork functions were realized long ago, and are now actually a drain on resources.
It is probable that if we took our "benefits" in cash (salary increases), we could manage our affairs better than our respective HR departments and the bureaucratic counterparts at Kaiser and Blue Cross.
We (the self-employed) figured this out long ago.
Posted by: BB at April 7, 2004 11:53 AMBB --
The problem is that many employees, particularly young employees, would pocket that salary increase and not buy their own insurance. The news shows would be filled with stories about workers who suddenly had to face financially crippling medical care without insurance and government would not stand for it.
Posted by: David Cohen at April 9, 2004 9:21 AM