My wife recently had to go to the emergency room after a fall. We received bills from the Ambulance company, the laboratory, the x-ray outfit, the doctor who treated her...and finally a $3200 bill from a collection agency for the hospital. Who apparently lost our insurance info, never sent us a bill. When they realized it was over 90 days...went right to collection. I could
not figure out what the $3200 was for ...using their billing for an hour?

We got billed by all the people who did the work. It is simply put, another form of pillaging the people. President Elect Obama has made health care one of his priorities. Medicare and medicaid should be placed into a new health care system and placed under the Department of Health and Human services. I just don't see it as an effective stand alone agency.

If healthcare is to be legislated then lets get rid of part D and this time write it for the
people and not the drug companies. Use the buying power of the program to get deep discounts on prescription drugs. The people currently receiving Medicare/Medicaid can be placed under a new system where based on a sliding scale & reasonable premiums can be collected from those who are able to pay.

Another example of pillaging our government are all these little sweeteners that allow state governments to use Medicare to pay for resident placement and services for certain groups. It takes the burden off of the state. An example is the "Medicare based waiver" that pays for housing and staff to care for persons eligible to be placed in institutions, they have to be considered untreatable. As a result, you have a mini institution in a neighborhood near you
and you have no idea it is there ...but you are paying for it.

States need to step back up to the plate and stop relying on Federal funds to solve these problems. Get rid of the pork, I guess you would call it. States need to learn how to run
lean, mean government (so do the Feds), use cuts and not tax increases. A new health care system, needs to reign in separate billing by hospitals. Just like the grocery store you don't pay the butcher and the deli separate. You go to the register. So we have one bill, not 5 because they each have to pay for their Porsche that month.

Electronic records...as a veteran I can go to any Veterans facility in the country and my records are there. Create efficiencies in the system. As in the emrgency room...there appears to be 2 people treating patients and 40 people sitting at computers waiting to pounce on your insurance company. In many of our cities huge Medical facilities are taking over the skyline, gobbling
up block after block. It is a signature of the problem. If you analyzed the amount of space actually used to treat people. I would say is less than 25%. I would presume that most of the balance is for administration.

The cost of delivery is tied to the mortgages these facilities have. In the city of Portland Maine, which is nearby, the Medical facility is the most prominent landmark. It towers above and sprawls along the skyline. Gone are the shipbuilders, the fisherman, the foundries, the locomotive factory, the chandlers and all of the businesses that once marked a thriving vibrant city.

My great grandfather started a foundry in 1898. It went out of business in the 1980's. We could not compete with cheap foreign products. We had an efficient foundry. All our products were quality...not cheap. As we have gone over to a "service" economy health care has become
one of the largest economic sectors. The problem is ...it is not an industry...it is a symptom of our problem.