Tag: Bob Hertz

A Full-Scale Assault on Medical Debt, Part 3

Mar 10, 2020

By BOB HERTZ

The only way to fully eliminate medical debt would be a comprehensive single payer plan, which allowed no fees at the point of service.

However, such a plan would require setting all prices for all doctors, hospitals, labs, and drug companies. All providers would have to be satisfied – in advance — with what the government is going to pay them on each procedure.

Countries like Germany accomplish this through collective bargaining. Japan, France, Taiwan, Israel and Scandinavia also have national fee schedules. However, I do not think you could get all the providers in Toledo to agree on one schedule, much less every provider group in America.

Single payer would also require new income and payroll taxes of at least ten per cent more than we pay now, if we want first-dollar coverage.

A Full-Scale Assault on Medical Debt, Part 2

Mar 9, 2020• 3

By BOB HERTZ

The first section of this article stated that many forms of medical debt can be reduced or cancelled by stronger enforcement of consumer protection laws. These debts are not inevitable and are not due to poverty. It would not require trillions of federal dollars to cancel them, either – just the willingness to go against lobbyists.

Therefore I advocate the following attacks on medical debt:

Phase One

We must cancel balance bills and surprise bills if there was no prior disclosure.

In most cases, providers will not have the right to collect anything more than what the insurers pay them.

Phase Two

We must cancel the older, inactive “zombie debts” that are being purchased by collection agencies.

This line of business must terminate. Providers throughout the country are selling uncollected medical debt for pennies on the dollar to collection agencies, who aggressively attempt to force patients to pay the full amount due. These debt collectors harass patients at work and at home, deploying unscrupulous tactics even after the statute of limitations on the debt has expired.

$2 Trillion+ in New Taxes for Single Payer, or $50 Billion to Strengthen ObamaCare? Next Question, Please

Oct 23, 2019• 2

By BOB HERTZ

It is not wise for Democrats to spend all their energy debating Single Payer health care solutions.

None of their single player plans has much chance to pass in 2020, especially under the limited reconciliation process. In the words of Ezra Klein, “If Democrats don’t have a plan for the filibuster, they don’t really have a plan for ambitious health care reform.”

Yet while we debate Single Payer – or, even if it somehow passed, wait for it to be installed — millions of persons are still hurting under our current system.

We can help these people now!

Here are six practical programs to create a better ACA.

Taken all together they should not cost more than $50 billion a year. This is a tiny fraction of the new taxes that would be needed for full single payer. This is at least negotiable, especially if Democrats can take the White House and the Senate.

Health Reform Job One: Stop the Gouging! | Part 3

Jul 26, 2019• 3

By BOB HERTZ

We Need Legal Assaults On The Greediest Providers!

When a patient is hospitalized, or diagnosed with a deadly disease, they often have no choice about the cost of their treatment.

They are legally helpless, and vulnerable to price gouging.

We need more legal protection of patients. In some cases we need price controls.

In the final part of this series, I discuss how we need to empower patients by allowing them to challenge their medical bills in courts.

Assault Phase Four – Binding Arbitration of Medical Bills

We must allow patients to challenge their medical bills in expanded ‘Health courts.’

Patients should be able to contest any bill over $250, especially if they have not given ‘informed financial consent’ to the provider.

Such ‘consent’ would require that if a procedure can be scheduled in advance, it can also be quoted in advance. If the patient requests an estimate, they must be notified in writing at least seven days in advance. This would allow the patient to request a different provider, or to investigate other alternatives. If an estimate is requested but never produced, the patient has no liability. (That will shake up the providers rather quickly.)

Health Reform Job One: Stop the Gouging! | Part 1

Jul 24, 2019

By BOB HERTZ

We Need Legal Assaults On The Greediest Providers!

When a patient is hospitalized, or diagnosed with a deadly disease, they often have no choice about the cost of their treatment.

They are legally helpless, and vulnerable to price gouging.

Medicare offers decent protection — i.e. limits on balance billing, and no patient liability if a claim is denied.

But under age 65, it is a Wild West — especially for emergency care, and drugs and devices. The more they charge, the more they make. Even good health insurance does not offer complete financial insulation.

We need more legal protection of patients. In some cases we need price controls.

‘Charging what the market will bear’ is inadequate, even childish, when ‘the market’ consists of desperate patients. Where contracts are impossible and there is no chance for informed financial consent, government can and should step in.

This series describes the new laws that we need. Very little is required in tax dollars….but we do require a strong will to protect.

How to Cut Medicare Spending: Attack Large Claims!!

Sep 26, 2013• 4

By Bob Hertz

Medicare reform thus far has been focused on $79 office visits, co-payments for home health care, hospital readmissions, Miami infusion clinics, the price paid for scooters, $45 resting EKG’s, the Plan B deductible, etc. These are important areas to pursue — but they are not where the real money is.

While we are debating the ‘doc fix’, the drug companies, device companies and hospitals are backing up the truck and cleaning out the store!

Consider the following paid claims paid by Medicare in Indiana in 2011:

113 Heart Transplants: average payment was $773,877 a piece
96 Bone Marrow Transplants: average payout was $509,637 apiece
129 Liver Transplants: average payout was $367,000 apiece
2,200 Tracheostomies: average payout was $376,103 apiece
1,517 Open Heart Surgeries: average payout was $185,000 apiece

Altogether, the 12,000 largest claims in one state totalled $2.4 billion in Medicare spending. If the other states are consistent, then large claims like these ate up $120 billion of Medicare’s total spending of $545 billion. And when you factor in sepsis treatments, defribillator-implants, and similar claims that cost “only” $75,000 each and so did not make the above list…….. then almost two-thirds of Medicare spending — over $300 billion a year — is focused on just ten percent of beneficiaries.