Years ago in a pinch, I used this library to isolate data in OCR results. Looking for phone numbers or tax IDs, it would return values with a B in it and you could correct to an 8 or other similar transforms. Probably much better tools for this now, but at the time it was extremely useful.
Might seem backwards, but the goal here would be to turn patients back into customers. Right now, there is no visibility for the individual into prices for services. Without it there is no competition at all to find common, realistic prices for services.
Lower prices should reduce premiums for everyone, since insurance companies have strict margins per the ACA. Lower premiums should increase those that are covered by insurance, hopefully.
Nothing wrong with turning patients into customers. Lower prices will only happen for the young and healthy. Higher prices will be the only possible future for the old and those with pre-existing conditions. The insurance companies are not going to cover a particular class at a loss. They'll just walk away, as they should.
The ACA is going away. Please don't use it as a crutch.
Lower premiums mean higher deductables. We see that now and we saw it before the ACA. Healthcare costs $18,000 per person this year regardless of how you divide the premium and deductable. Take away the young and the price goes up for everyone else. And this is with a cap in place by the ACA. Only going to get worse with the regulations removed.
As I understand the current system, medical institutions negotiate different prices with every insurance company. They start high and the size of the insurance company's patient pool helps them get better price per service.
It seems weird, because it is weird. I can not think of another industry that works like this, where prices can be unknown until it goes to billing. Forcing them to fix a price and publish it to a government registry could possibly allow market forces to drive lower prices than even the largest insurance companies can negotiate.
That "eventually" word is killing me. When we leave these sorts of issues up to the forces in power, they never seem to get done. What we get instead are watered-down, doomed-to-fail, design-by-political-committee "solutions" such as the ACA.
I think we need an official roadmap. I think the public deserves a direct voice in guiding the direction of the country. At the very least, I think we need to set in stone a clear vision of what milestones we want to achieve as a nation.
My entire lifetime, our leadership has repeatedly demonstrated it is incapable of moving us in any single direction long enough and far enough to be meaningful (aside from war, perhaps). Let us choose the direction; let them work-out the implementation.
/end rant
I'm just speaking my mind. What do you all think? Is this even a "good" idea? How could we even begin to make this happen?
I think we need an official roadmap. I think the public deserves a direct voice in guiding the direction of the country. At the very least, I think we need to set in stone a clear vision of what milestones we want to achieve as a nation.
My entire lifetime, our leadership has repeatedly demonstrated it is incapable of moving us in any single direction long enough and far enough to be meaningful (aside from war, perhaps). Let us choose the direction; let them work-out the implementation.
To some extent the back and forth you talk about is evidence that the public doesn't agree on the direction to take.
Sure, there's never going to be unanimous agreement. Put it to a vote. I'm mainly just talking about letting the public choose which issues the leaders should focus on, and holding them accountable if they don't.
How would that be different than what we have now?
I think there are things that would be incremental improvements (like having more members in the House of Representatives) and maybe better districts, but most elections have the candidates crafting a message based at least partly on what they hear from people and pretty high desire to get reelected (so they have to at least appear to follow through on their message).
There's a lot of things I see people proposing that end up boiling down to wishing that others would 'vote better'. That's a tough problem to solve.
