REFORM HEALTH CARE!

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Written by Jim McGrath Wednesday, 24 June 2009 18:57

HOW ABOUT REFORMING: 

$13,000 FOR A ONE-NIGHT HOSPITAL STAY  

June 18, 2009

Mr. Jonathan Blum, Director

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

7500 Security Boulevard

Baltimore, MD  21244

Dear Mr. Blum:

            The enclosed $13,686 bill for a one-day stay at George Washington University Hospital (GWUH) in Washington, D.C., illustrates the kind of absurd costs Americans are billed by most major U.S. Hospitals, whether they are "for profit" or otherwise.  It is graphic evidence of the kind of surrealistic charges for medical care which is hemorrhaging the Federal Medicare Program, and threatening to kill it.  Absent serious corrective action, Medicare will become a corpse, reposing in the morgues connected to U.S. Hospital pathology departments, but probably not before it bankrupts the entire country.    

            There is no way a single overnight stay at GWUH should add to costs of this magnitude, emergency care notwithstanding, except by an exponential increase in cost for virtually every service and procedure.   $13,686, for one day of hospital care is a mind-boggling sum, especially since that there were no surgeries, no intensive-care or surgical teams required, or no prolonged "hands-on" treatment involved.  Aside from brief interviews by emergency room doctors and technicians, totaling about one hour, the overwhelming amount of time and cost at GWUH came from medical or laboratory tests or down time in a room on the ward. 

            I do not accuse GWUH of fraud or malpractice.  Medical personnel involved in treatment were very competent and very likely gifted practitioners.  I would rate the quality of care as "very good," but the cost of care, "preposterous.   The problem lies not with the practitioners, but with the "billers," hospital administrators whose philosophy of cost and billing, especially with Medicare, seems to be that "the sky is the limit."   If Medicare pays even 50 percent of this bill, it will be condoning and perpetuating the enormous spiral in the cost of American health care, the consequences of which will be catastrophic, the bankruptcy of Medicare, being only the first.  There should be no such thing as "for profit" in medicine!  There should be no such thing as getting rich on human suffering and pain!  

            In the Battle of Britain in 1941, Winston Churchill paid tribute to the handful of British pilots who defeated the Nazi Luftwaffe in daytime aerial warfare over the English Channel:  "Never was so much owed by so many to so few."  The cost of American health care, on the other hand, invites a different comparison:  "Never was so much paid by so many for so little."    

Sincerely,

James P. McGrath

1701 Massachusetts Avenue, NW  #705

Washington, DC  20036

(202) 387-1893

cc:    White House Office of Health Reform

         Hon. Edward Kennedy, Chairman, Senate Education, Labor & Welfare Committee

         Hon. Max Baucus, Chairman Senate Finance Committee

         Hon. Charles B. Rangel, Chairman, Ways and Means Committee

         Hon. George Miller, Chairman, House Education and Labor Committee

         Hon. Henry Waxman, Chairman, House Energy and Commerce Committee

         George Washington University Hospital

Enclosure:  GWUH Hospital Bill, dated 02/08/09