Hospitals: Is the Price Right?

President Bush is pushing a "Medical Savings Account" as a subsitute for regular health insurance, but according to a report on 60 Minutes "Hospitals: Is the Price Right? - CBS News", hospitals charge you up to 10 times as much if don't have insurance. Several weeks ago, I mentioned this fact in a previous post. In it I discuss how Bush's plan is bad. Medical Savings Accounts are rip-off's to begin with. The cheapest one I found has a deductable of $10,000 dollars, and then covers next to nothing, and still costs $200/month. Then you have the fact that people don't have the knowledge that the insurance companies do on the real fair market value of medical services.

Doctors simply won't give you this information ahead of time.

Can you image if you went to Walmart and they charged you $50/pound for Catfish if you paid cash or $5/pound if you paid with a credit card? This kind of price gouging should be banned, and health care providers should have to publish prices that apply to everyone equally.

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