Blood Tests, Anyone?

With the recent survey of variations in charges for a Lipid Panel to measure your cholesterol, triglycerides, LDL, HDLs, etc. from $10 to $10,169, calls for more regulations of the laboratory industry  are everywhere. But these prices are the result of regulations. If we got the government, Medicare, Medicaid, and other middle men out of health care, just think what would happen. No patient in his right mind would pay those prices. In fact, sometimes some of my patients don’t think knowing their cholesterol is even worth $10. All those hospitals and labs that are charging more than $100 would go out of business within 30 days. What a neat way to trim health care costs. Permanently! Maybe that would also trim health insurance to only costly items. Remember the days when Blue Cross only covered expensive items like hospital admissions. Then Blue Shield was invented to cover surgery. Then we lost sight of what insurance was for. Now patients are asking for prescriptions to cover aspirin and vitamins.

What a back door approach to cover chump change!

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Has Medicare Made a Difference?

In 1964, a year before Medicare passed, seniors were paying 20% of their income on health care.³¹

In 2000, a study by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) found seniors paying about $2,510 per year – 19% of their income – on out-of-pocket costs.³⁰ This does not include home care or nursing home care.

Since our personal HealthCare costs are the same before and after Medicare, how do we extract ourselves from the high cost of Medicare?

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The Challenges of Yesteryear, Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow