Bush Says Americans don't know about Health Care Costs

According to an article in Reuters.com, [United States] President Bush, while giving a speech at Wendy's headquarters, said:

"Most Americans have no idea what their actual cost of treatment is," Bush said. "There's no reason at all to worry about price. Somebody else is paying the bill. ... There's no pressure for an industry to lower prices."

President Bush is trying to push HSA's [Health Savings Accounts] as a cure to our health insurance problems. While I agree on the face of it that this isn't a completely bad idea, the truth of the matter is something completely different. After losing my last job due to a chronic job induced shoulder injury, I also lost my health insurance. So I looked into finding some cheap insurance, and what I found shocked me. These HSA plans, for just me and my wife, the cheapest one was almost $200/month. This plan has a $10,000 deductible, and even after it has been met covers practically nothing and has a restrictive list of doctors I can see. To me this isn't worth it, I decided just to go without insurance for the time being. There is another problem with these plans, Doctors don't post their prices like Best Buy. If you tried to do price shopping, about the best you would get would be the cost of the office visit. They won't tell you how much an X-Ray costs or some blood test until after the Doctor examines you. At this point you already spent anywhere from $75 to $250 just to find out what an cost. Further more if pay in cash, they charge you more than if the insurance company paid. Insurance companies have teams of experts that know all about what procedures should cost, you don't. Price Comparison Shopping for Health Care will never work until Health Care providers post all their prices!

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