Ding ding ding! It's not really health insurance, it's a protection racket based on the threat of price gouging and financial attack by billing computers spewing paperwork. But if you're just willing to pay this monthly fee, then they'll be so kind as to only require you to pay the actual cost of your services.
If healthcare reform was to fix anything, it should have mandated up-front all-inclusive pricing for well-defined services, set a percent-above-average cap on emergency services, and eliminated all of the parasitic billing middlemen that bring only opacity to the system. It needs to be reasonable for people to pay routine costs out of pocket, and only then can you have actual insurance for the unexpected. Instead, it just created a penalty for failing to patronize the existing protection racket! Although this wasn't too surprising - it's the expected fate for any grassroots movement that gains traction with professional lobbyists.
This Surgery Center of Oklahoma looks fantastic, but I'm nowhere near Oklahoma and it doesn't look like they do routine care etc. Is this one isolated voice, or perhaps part of a larger trend that I'm just out of touch with?
It's great that there's one surgery center in Oklahoma willing to compete on price. Unfortunately that's simply not reflective of the rest of the nation. I'm torn on this article because on one hand I don't like how embedded insurance companies are in the current system (it makes it difficult for a young, motivated person such as myself to find good doctors for my condition), but I also don't like the writer's tone - if he's making a legitimate point, why call it the 'Unaffordable care Act?'
You really need to follow Dr. Keith Smith - he has been writing about this topic for a long time. There is actually quite an interesting movement towards price transparency gaining traction in recent months, checkout for instance http://www.pricepain.com/why with a detailed reference list to articles/discussion on this topic from recent months
I ask because 474 doesn't sound so bad to be protected against 100k in medical bills.