Re: Florida State Seminoles
Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2015 11:45 pm
Author Steven Brill, who has spent the past two years immersing himself in the subject, has come out with a new book, "America's Bitter Pill," that takes a comprehensive look at what the new law does and doesn't do. Brill argues that Obamacare is the product of what he calls an "orgy of lobbying" and backroom deals in which just about everyone with a stake in the $3-trillion-a-year health industry came out ahead - except the taxpayers.
Steven Brill says that the outrage is what the Affordable Care Act doesn't do.
Steven Brill: It doesn't do anything on medical malpractice reform. It doesn't do anything to control drug prices. It doesn't do anything to control hospital profits.
Lesley Stahl: So all the cost controlling side of this just went by the wayside?
Steven Brill: 99 percent of it.
Steven Brill: If you go after costs, you're never going to get anything passed because the lobbyists will just not allow it to be passed.
Lesley Stahl: So let's go through what each entity won.
Steven Brill: The drug companies they were going to get $200-plus billion worth of new customers able to pay for drugs. They were going to avoid the calamity of the real reforms that they were worried about: price controls generally.
Lesley Stahl: Canada.
Steven Brill: You and I being able to buy drugs from Canada. That would have cost them hundreds of billions.
The hospital lobby did agree to cuts in how much the federal government compensates them for Medicare patients, but Brill says overall the trade off in new paying patients would more than make up for that. And the hospitals managed to keep other cost controls completely off the table, allowing them to charge whatever they can get for hospital stays and greatly mark up drug and test prices.
The charges add up - over the single-spaced 18 pages of the bill. Independent hospital economists say these are all greatly inflated over their actual costs:
Like a PET scan for $5,453 - a 400 percent mark up.
Three CT scans for $9,685 - an 1,100 percent mark up.
The charge for his room was $10,746 for six days. That comes to $1,791 a day.
Steven Brill: You and I need to get into this business. It's a really good-- They call it nonprofit, but it's a good business.
The single largest charge was for his cancer drug, Rituxan: for one dose, the hospital billed him $13,702.
Steven Brill: The hospital paid $3,500 for that drug. OK?
Lesley Stahl: How many times - that's for--
Steven Brill: That's a 400 percent mark up.
Lesley Stahl: This is a nonprofit hospital. What does nonprofit mean?
Steven Brill: It means they don't pay taxes, that's the first thing it means.
Lesley Stahl: They don't pay any taxes?
Steven Brill: They've created in health care an alternate universe economy, where everybody except the doctors and the nurses, makes a ton of money. And nobody is holding them accountable and Obamacare does zero to change any of that.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-obamac ... 0-minutes/
Steven Brill says that the outrage is what the Affordable Care Act doesn't do.
Steven Brill: It doesn't do anything on medical malpractice reform. It doesn't do anything to control drug prices. It doesn't do anything to control hospital profits.
Lesley Stahl: So all the cost controlling side of this just went by the wayside?
Steven Brill: 99 percent of it.
Steven Brill: If you go after costs, you're never going to get anything passed because the lobbyists will just not allow it to be passed.
Lesley Stahl: So let's go through what each entity won.
Steven Brill: The drug companies they were going to get $200-plus billion worth of new customers able to pay for drugs. They were going to avoid the calamity of the real reforms that they were worried about: price controls generally.
Lesley Stahl: Canada.
Steven Brill: You and I being able to buy drugs from Canada. That would have cost them hundreds of billions.
The hospital lobby did agree to cuts in how much the federal government compensates them for Medicare patients, but Brill says overall the trade off in new paying patients would more than make up for that. And the hospitals managed to keep other cost controls completely off the table, allowing them to charge whatever they can get for hospital stays and greatly mark up drug and test prices.
The charges add up - over the single-spaced 18 pages of the bill. Independent hospital economists say these are all greatly inflated over their actual costs:
Like a PET scan for $5,453 - a 400 percent mark up.
Three CT scans for $9,685 - an 1,100 percent mark up.
The charge for his room was $10,746 for six days. That comes to $1,791 a day.
Steven Brill: You and I need to get into this business. It's a really good-- They call it nonprofit, but it's a good business.
The single largest charge was for his cancer drug, Rituxan: for one dose, the hospital billed him $13,702.
Steven Brill: The hospital paid $3,500 for that drug. OK?
Lesley Stahl: How many times - that's for--
Steven Brill: That's a 400 percent mark up.
Lesley Stahl: This is a nonprofit hospital. What does nonprofit mean?
Steven Brill: It means they don't pay taxes, that's the first thing it means.
Lesley Stahl: They don't pay any taxes?
Steven Brill: They've created in health care an alternate universe economy, where everybody except the doctors and the nurses, makes a ton of money. And nobody is holding them accountable and Obamacare does zero to change any of that.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-obamac ... 0-minutes/