Alot of great, well thought out posts - thank you very much! I do know that in all the hospitals in my state they have signs up that they cannot turn away anybody for lack of insurance, money, ethinicity, sexual preference, etc.....

One of the problems the hospitals are running into is that people aren't paying money owed and the hospitals are getting more and more nervous about it. I know this year they tried to pass a bill where the hospital would try to get copays from the patient and if after several attempts they couldn't, they would bill the health insurer a percentage of the amount. I think this one got vetoed.

It's all a viscious cycle - I've heard arguements from the average joe citizen, the insurers, and the doctors and they all have valid points of where there are issues - but how to solve it? Who knows.

For instance, the docs have to cover verryyy high malpractice costs because everybody sues for everything. Then they see more patients in a day than humanely possible because of low reimbursement rates by the insurer.

The insurer has lower reimbursement rates to try not to drive the premiums up that their customers have to pay. The customers (average joe citizen) get it in the end. I do have to say though, that with technology docs are more apt to schedule all these exensive tests even if they don't really have to (sometimes its because of malpractice).

I know now if a doc wants to send me for a test I want to know why and if anything else can be done instead of incurring that big cost. I also try to go a with a more holistic approach by doing chiro, massage, and hypnosis which comes out of my pocket not my insurers.

The other thing that drives costs up are all the legislative mandates! Holy cow - there is a law, or two or three, for almost everything and it takes employees to make sure you are compliant to the laws. The legislatures see a problem and they just throw another law out and don't stop to think how much that law is going to end up costing the consumers.

It's such a big issue.

I really appreciate all your responses!
Tranquility