ACA/Obamacare: The Alternative Cash-only, No Insurance, Price-displaying Business Model of Health-Care

“How does Clinica Mi Pueblo offer these medial services at the “most affordable prices possible”? Here’s how: the clinic operates on a cash-only basis, with transparent prices that are listed both on the clinic’s website and on the wall at each clinic. Further, the clinic accepts no insurance, and it will not submit insurance claims on patients’ behalf. If patients have insurance, they can easily take the paperwork the clinic provides and file an insurance claim on their own. Reducing the costly, time-consuming mountain of paperwork associated with insurance, Medicare and Medicaid is one of the main reasons that cash-only medical clinics can keep their costs down and prices so low and affordable. That’s the same business model that keeps surgery costs so low/affordable at the Surgery Center of Oklahoma, the “free market-loving, price-displaying, state-of-the-art, AAAHC accredited, doctor owned, multi-specialty surgical facility in central OK” that has been featured on CD many times over the years.

So how does the cash-only, no insurance, price-displaying business model of the Clinica Mi Pueblo compare to medical coverage under Obamacare? Well, deductibles for individuals enrolled in the lowest-priced Obamacare health plans will average more than $6,000 in 2017, and families enrolled in bronze plans will have average deductibles of more than $12,000. Importantly, the deductible is the amount of money patients must personally pay out of pocket for health services before Obamacare insurance policies cover any medical costs. And what about the monthly Obamacare premiums? A 40-year-old unsubsidized bronze Obamacare plan patient will pay slightly more than $350 per month this year for their “health coverage” with a deductible of more than $6,000. And that’s supposed to somehow be “affordable” health care? In contrast, spending $350 per month out-of-pocket at Clinica Mi Pueblo, instead of going toward an Obamacare plan that provides almost no actual medical care, would actually purchase quite a lot of actual medical services.

Bottom Line: For routine medical care (annual physicals, flu shots, routine office visits, X-Rays, ultrasounds, MRIs, blood tests, etc.) most Americans, especially younger, healthier patients, would be much better off with a cash-only medical clinic like Clinica Mi Pueblo than with Obamacare, no? Under Obamacare, a 40-year-old American pays more than $4,200 per year in premiums. The out-of-pocket limit for an Obamacare plan is $7,150 this year but that doesn’t include the monthly premiums, so an individual could pay more than $11,000 out-of-pocket this year before his or her health plan would start to pay 100% of the costs of covered benefits. Only in some fantasy world of Big Government progressives and collectivists would that ever be considered an “affordable” health care system!” - An antidote for Obamacare: Cash only medicine with transparent pricing and no insurance — the future of medicine?, AEI, 03/26/2017

Link to the entire article appears below:

https://www.aei.org/publication/an-antidote-for-obamacare-cash-only-medicine-with-transparent-pricing-and-no-insurance-the-future-of-medicine/