HEALTH CARE COSTS

Let's encourage doctors and hospitals to publish the costs of basic medical procedures.

If you are uninsured, or only have catastrophic insurance, there is no easy way to find out what price you will be charged for a standard medical procedure.

To encourage competition, and fairness to those without insurance, we need a menu of procedures with prices available to choose from.

I have heard that the insurance companies and some doctors do not want this level of disclosure. But information is critical if we are to be a competitive society and to keep health care costs down.

Let me offer this example: Some on Medicare complain that local doctors won't see them. Medicare is only one option. How about cash or credit? If you just need to see a doctor, and he has his price posted – for instance, $60.00 for a 20 minute visit - then you may wish to take this option and forget about all the Medicare headaches and restrictions.

Or how about the fellow who needs to have a mole removed. If he has no insurance the medical profession seems confused. What about the other option of just paying for it? If we encourage doctors to post their prices he would be able to shop around. He might find that he can have the procedure done for less then $200.00, about as much as it costs to get your brakes fixed.

Of course the base cost may rise after the doctor finds that your condition is more serious then initially thought, but this happens at the transmission shop as well, but the shop owner doesn’t  use that as a reason not to give any pricing at all.

In this debate, and in the search for fair solutions, Council can provide leadership.

Publishing prices, the free availability of costs, especially for those without insurance, is the right thing to do. We may find we’d rather buy catastrophic insurance and make the less costly medical purchases ourselves. The mindset we have now is not one of competition and posting costs but of getting everyone insured. Where we don’t mind buying a new car or suit or paying a Gym membership ourselves, we seem to have decided that we should not pay for our own heath care. One reason for this is we have no idea how much it will cost!

Terence Wehle  

Candidate for City Council

Here is an excellent comment on this subject published in today's (4/24/08) Last Word in the Virginia Gazette:

Medical issues
I read with interest about the difficulty ascertaining
the cost of medical services in the United
States. I am from the United Kingdom, have a second
home in Williamsburg, and live here about
four months out of the year. One of my greatest
concerns is not requiring health care while in the
states. I have lived all over the world in my 70-plus
years, and I can say that only here is the first question
about insurance and personal information
before your problem is asked about. Who cares if I
am Mickey Mouse from Disney World? Are you a
doctor or a KGB interrogator? Does the hospital or
insurance company own your practice? You are
going to render a service and I am going to pay
you cash, which is more than you will get from an
insurance carrier. While in Wuhan, China, in the
fall, I had the flu. I was treated without any questions,
and paid about $10 on the way out. I was
never asked for identification, not even my passport.
This was in a communist country. By any reasonable
standard, the U.S. health care system is
beyond broke and borders on the criminal.
Americans are quick to condemn the rest of the
world which enjoys universal health care, but by
life expectancy, infant mortality, cost per patient
and a host of other statistics, you are way down the
list next to Third World countries.

My comment: We can help our system immediately by bringing back competition. We can't have competition with hidden pricing. Clear pricing and competition would put control back into the hands of the consumer where it belongs.