Food for Medical Cost Thought

First, I must write down what I've been talking to my Aunt about. She works as quality control for IHC hospitals, and has to implement government guidelines & such. We discussed her opinion on the cost of healthcare, and she stated that in all honesty, the stuff the insurance companies do to the hospitals comes in a far second to the costly requirements the government puts upon the hospitals. In fact, she says that the guidelines that Medicaid & Medicare put on hospitals to stay accredited is what usually drives up the cost of running the hospital, but that's not something advertised in the Media.

For example, it used to be there only had to be 30 checkpoints (ONLY) along the way, each of which require a person to be working there (adding more salaries needing to be paid, which drives up the cost of healthcare), but now, with the new laws taking effect, the government programs want to more than DOUBLE the number of checkpoints, which according to her (she's quality control, remember?) doesn't really increase the level of safety at the hospital, it just makes it harder for the hospital to get paid (each checkpoint must be satisfied for the hospital to stay accedited, or else the government programs don't have to pay out, but the hospital still has to provide the service). Basically, it's running hospitals out of business, unless they charge exhorbant amounts--and we want the government to fix the problem of rising healthcare? Hmmm. Maybe Universal Healthcare isn't such a good idea?

Another point: my aunt stated that most times, when an insurace company won't cover something, it's because Medicaid or Medicare made the exclusion first, and insurance companies just follow suit. USUALLY, she says that they jump through more government hoops than insurance company hoops.

Just food for thought.