Health Care: "They are marking up the prices because no one is telling them they can't." [View all]

[phantom power]

The Supreme Court may be preparing to flunk the Affordable Care Act as a typing test. In honor of this scenario, we get a reminder of just how great things were in our for-profit system before all the tyrannical Kenyan Muslim jackboots stomped it flat.

All but one of the these facilities is owned by for-profit entities, and by far the largest number of hospitals — 20 — are in Florida. For the most part, researchers said, the hospitals with the highest markups are not in pricey neighborhoods or big cities, where the market might explain the higher prices. Topping the list of the most expensive hospitals is North Okaloosa Medical Center, a 110-bed facility in the Florida Panhandle about an hour outside of Pensacola. Uninsured patients are charged 12.6 times the actual cost of patient care.

(Yes, the epicenter of this profiteering of human misery is Florida, which last fall re-elected Governor Batboy, who's spent most of this term monkeywrenching any effort to provide his poorer constituents decent health-care. )

"They are price-gouging because they can," said Gerard Anderson, a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, co-author of the study in Health Affairs. "They are marking up the prices because no one is telling them they can't."

Because...freedom!

Make no mistake. If the Supreme Court does its mischief, this is what health-care in this country will devolve to again.

Researchers said the main factors leading to overcharging are the lack of market competition and the fact that the federal government does not regulate the prices that health-care providers can charge. Only two states, Maryland and West Virginia, set hospital rates.

As it is currently practiced in this country, capitalism cannot keep people healthy. It's like depending on a hammer to cure your headache.

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a35582/people-and-profits-in-american-health-care/