[lit-ideas] Re: Guess where the USA ranks in terms of health care

Julie: It is going to be increasingly difficult for people who have Medicare to get medical care. Medicare will soon become useless because providers simply cannot exist w/ its remuneration.
My understanding of the topic is quite limited, just enough to sense how truly complex the health-care problem is. Yet I would venture that if a business meets certain standards of fiscal transparency, or is affiliated with an FQHC, Medicare offers a higher rate of reimbursement. The trick is to qualify for that higher rate.
Plus, as in the case of your husband's business, a patient's oxygen saturation levels may vary depending on the testing equipment and the daily-variable condition of that patient. So one must ask if the source of the reported info is reliable and accurate.
Conversely, weeks ago I gave the example of cardiac-cath labs -- expensive but profitable facilities in hospitals. In hospitals with these facilities, patient stress test results seem to inordinately favor ... you guessed it! ... the need for cardiac caths.
Which is merely to say that to a medical cash cow, everybody looks like a milkmaid. Again, the human condition. Provider greed drives up cost. Regulation drives up costs. Law and lawyers drive up cost. Uninsured patients going to ERs drive up costs. The Hydra itself never seems to get sick though... 
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