This article should be readable by everyone.
But if not, the gist is the same as other reports on the shameful method of testing and treating Americans in the worst pandemic since 1918.
NYT is asking readers to send in medical bills that have Coronavirus tests or treatments. The variety so far is amazing. From a few hundred to six thousand for a test that is supposed to be covered by either insurance or the government.
And we have not really seen the impact of huge treatment bills and unemployed, uninsured patients.
We had a hugely complicated and ridiculously expensive, opaque system before the virus. This crisis has peeled back a scab that should get the attention of all Americans.
Affordable healthcare for all Americans is critical in a pandemic. We don’t have that.
To me, there should be no surprise that we lead the world in infections and deaths. And that the rest of the world is looking at the leader of the free world, the largest economy, the biggest military, and ssking “WTF is going on?”.
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
RE: “We had a hugely complicated and ridiculously expensive, opaque system before the virus. This crisis has peeled back a scab that should get the attention of all Americans.”
Getting their attention is one thing. Getting them to understand the nature of the problem is another. The NYT story hints at it:
“American medical billing is unlike that of any other developed country. The government does not regulate health care prices, but instead lets insurers and hospitals negotiate fees. Those deliberations happen in secret, and patients often do not learn the cost of their care until a bill shows up in the mail.”
The problem, in other words, is the health insurance industry or, more specifically, that relying on insurance to finance health care delivery is a fool’s business.
Nothing is going to change until Americans begin to appreciate that health insurance is a rip off.
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What do billing errors have to do with the quality of health care?
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1) If you have limited funds, why risk a very expensive trip to the doctor, clinic or ER to find out if you have the virus or not.
2) Billing errors are a huge problem. This article just touches on the issues with the pandemic.
3) Billing errors combined with the need for providers to have a huge staff just to code, re-code, interpret, file with dozens of companies.
4) The current mess is intertwined with the idea that the doctor cannot spend more than a few minutes with each patient. Billable hours is the phrase. Patient care suffers because we have a system that is so complicated, convoluted, fraught with errors and omissions.
If food markets ran like our healthcare, you would see no prices, the prices would vary from a few cents to thousands of dollars for produce, you could not budget or even safely buy food without risking high debt, and the billing would be indecipherable and 4 months late. Great food though.
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I don’t dispute that government has royally screwed up the financial side of health care. Remember I worked in that system for 40 years.
But the QUALITY of care in the US is excellent, except, of course, when government sticks its nose in there.
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Access to affordable, quality healthcare is just as important as the care itself if we are going to brag about our system.
A person’s or families financial situation can truly affect healthcare.
Of course, it is a model based on our legal system. Money equals justice.
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Well, you can find better healthcare, but you can’t pay more for it,.
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