US citizens must be lower than dog crap

[tardfarmer]

Or so the insurance companies are telling me....




Uninsured get more discounts
Controversy prompts area hospitals to offer lower rates
By GUY BOULTON
gboulton@journalsentinel.com
Posted: May 15, 2005
At Covenant Healthcare System, an uninsured family of four with an income of $43,000 a year now can get an 80% discount on its hospital bills.


Since March 2004, several health care systems in the Milwaukee area have changed the formulas they use to determine eligibility for charitable care or discounts.

The formulas vary from one health care system to another. They also are complex, taking into account a family's household income, its assets, its debts, the size of its medical bills and other factors. In addition, hospital rates vary.

Sources: Covenant Healthcare System, Froedtert & Community Health, Aurora Health Care, Columbia St. Mary's and ProHealth Care.

If its income is $38,000 a year, the family may never get a bill.

Those are just two examples of the changes in how some hospitals now bill people with limited assets and no health insurance.

In the past 14 months, three health care systems in the Milwaukee area have broadened the discounts offered to the uninsured and made it easier to qualify for free care.



Aurora, for instance, printed brochures in Spanish and Hmong.

[Tazman]

The very reason my insurance company would pay $50 dollars if I was in the hospital and given 2 aspirin!

[Deleted User]

[Deleted by Admins]

[tardfarmer]

What gets me, is the fact that EVERYONE's insurance premiums around here will go up and I don't doubt that stupid policies like this could eventually produce layoffs due to skyrocketing costs.

[kevin1]

The only real answer would be to halt all indigent care period and make eveyone pay for all of their own medical bills on their own . What do you figure the chance of that being ?

[DougMD]

let's all stop working for a living and coddle the teet of big gubment until it runs dry. What incentive is there for people to continue working hard to support their families and end up with less than those who are given these huge discounts for healthcare?

[burniegoeasily]

Well, I need to drop my policy. That would be cheaper than trying to meet my deductable.[:'(]

[Rebel Hog]

You pay for 20 or 30yrs without a claim and when you do they want to
go up because you made a claim. You can't win for loosing!

[usens]

thats right and the *******s get there medacal free because bush singed a 1 billon for them to get it free dont make sence to me

[Coastie]

I wonder how much of the increased cost of health care can be laid at the feet of another part of the insurance industry, the medical malpractice insurers. This also includes the attorneys involved in medical malpractice and the court system that allows ridiculous settlements and jury awards for "Pain and suffering". I support malpractice suits in cases of clear neglect and or incompetence but draw the line at those suits and out-of-court settlements that drive medical malpractice premiums to a point where an MD, and hospitals are paying rates that drive the cost of their service ever upward.
Add to that the cost of treating the indigent and you have a system out of control, just the situation politicians look for when they want to take over yet another section of a free society.