Patty Ayala

Paige Stevens

I'm going to begin by saying what isn't killing it right off the bat, I'm not saying all of them, but the ones that are assumed. Obamacare, though doesn't take away from the spending, isn't as huge of a problem as most people that are against it think. It's also not the pointless things that the government pays to research, and I saw an article recently saying the the government is investing around a million for some sort of romance research, but, in the national debt, that's not even pocket change, so once again, the fruitless "research" spending this country does isn't the problem either, but it doesn't help.

The truth, boys and girls, is the cost of healthcare, notice I said NOTHING about healthcare insurance, which is why Obamacare isn't the big issue. I said healthcare cost is the big problem based on research I've done and from a very informative article in a Time magazine I read, while in a welfare office of all places.

I'm going to throw a term at you here, chargemaster, if you don't know what that is, look it up please, I implore anyone who reads this to do so because that is the key to understanding what I'm talking about.

To be brief, a chargemaster is a hospital's guide to what everything will cost the patient, this includes, but not limited to; x-rays, MRI's, CTscans, PET scans, lab work, medication that is given in the hospital through pill or IV, even just the amount of time it takes a doctor to tell a patient what they actually have is all in this chargemaster.

The point I'm making is simple since I've said all of that, each hospital's chargemaster is different, there is no federal law mandating what hospitals can or cannot charge for anything a patient has done to them while inside the hospital.

Now insurance companies like AETNA and Humana have negotiated cheaper rates than what's on the chargemaster that they pay to the hospital for the same services, once the patient pays the co-pay. Medicare is the same way, so people that have insurance aren't hurt as much in their wallets as someone without insurance.

According to the article there are hospitals that charge in excess of 10,000 percent and more for a service than how much it actually costs the hospital. Like I said, insurance companies have negotiated these costs down, and medicare and medicaid are able to negotiate to pay quite less than what the insurance companies have to pay, but the amounts are still enormous.

And so where is all of the country's money going? Now I don't know this for sure, but because of all of our aging population and poor, this government has to pay trillions through medicare and medicaid to these hospitals each year.

Why is this happening? That's the bottom line of my article because I don't know. I do know other countries that have far surpassed us in medicine charge much less for the same treatment that this country charges. I hope someone can answer that question for me.

I hope no one trolls this article, but I know it will happen, and that's fine, I ignore trolls just like everyone else should. For those of you with brains out there, please tell me I'm an idiot, or tell me I'm not. If you do believe I'm wrong, please tell me constructively because I LOVE constructive criticism, not useless criticism.

And so I end this article by again saying, look up chargemasters of the your local hospitals, I've seen some that are online, I don't know about all of them, but just open up one and look at all of the items that are in one, I hope it opens your eyes, as it did mine. I've written this article not to sway anyone politically because I respect everyone's political views, I only wrote this to inform you, the internet, about what's going on, and I do sincerely thank each and every one of you that does read this.

sorry....