Illinois passes law that requires hospitals to adjust bills of uninsured patients

This is awesome. As many of you probably don't know, most hospitals have Byzantine payment systems. For example, Mary, who is uninsured, goes to have her cholesterol levels checked at the local hospital. She is charged $250. Lucy, who is insured, also has her cholesterol levels checked at the same local hospital. She is billed $250. But then her insurance company tells the hospital "No you can't charge Lucy that much. That's above the 'allowed amount'. Instead, the hospital only asks Lucy to pay $100. So, the uninsured woman pays $250 out-of-pocket, the insured woman pays $100 out-of-pocket, the insurance company pays nothing, and the hospital profits greatly off of the uninsured woman.

In most industries this would be called price discrimination and would be considered illegal, but not in the health care industry. So, the uninsured, often the least able to pay, have to pay more out-of-pocket as individuals.

Well, at least in Illinois there is some relief. According to the Wall Street Journal Hospitals can now only charge the uninsured cost plus 35%. Not exactly a great deal, but it is something. Usually hospitals charge patients cost plus 150% and they accept as payment cost plus 2% from Medicare and cost plus 10%-15% from insurance companies and their policy holders.

things are moving and shaking

My letter to the editor of Boise Weekly was published on July 9 and on July 13th the Idaho Statesman did an article on where the profits of the not-for-profits of the Treasure Valley go. I like to think My letter was the inspiration, but either way there is dialog about what should be expected of not-for-profit hospitals and questions about their generous mark ups on services rendered. Its sort of a split article. The article is pretty defensive of St. Luke's and St. Al's, but there is a box of additional information to the side of the main article, which contains some pretty incriminating stats and great links.

I especially found the link to hospitalvictims.org very informative and HELPFUL. The website is run by the Fairness Foundation and provides free information about every hospital in the United States and how much each individual hospital marks up the bill from its actual costs. The website provides tools for negotiating fair prices for the uninsured and under-insured, since they are often charged at least 2.5 times more than the insurance companies and the insured for the very same procedure. Righteous site, indeed.