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Highway robbery turns out to be legal after all by Herb Ruhs, MD, July 12, 2005 One of the reasons that essentially all "real news," events that are important for people to understand in order to protect their liberty, is automatically Unknown News is that such events are uniformly buried in a blizzard of false news and propaganda, and when they are reported they are wrapped in the distortions of a twisted perspective. Hence the irony that such sources as obscure professional journals (and UnknownNews) are the more likely places to find actual important information than any mass market source. It is in this spirit that I encourage the reader to consider the recent court case in North Carolina that will be uniformly put forth as a "win" for health care providers and mostly ignored by the mass media. Of course it is not a "win." It is a loss for all of us, even the "winners," because it promotes a fundamental injustice that adds to the forces tearing our society apart. "Health Insurance" should always be placed in quotes as it has virtually nothing to do with promoting health (quite the opposite) and even less to do with any concept of "insurance" that is based on a common sense understanding of what the word insurance means. The "health insurance industry" is really a very glorified extortion racket. The message is "pay up or you will regret it." One of the ways that people are increasingly regretting not paying off these extortionists is that, if you lack a "Health Insurance Coverage" your bills for necessary, even life saving attention, are massively higher than the charges to the "Insurance Companies" for exactly the same services. A third of bankruptcies are attributable to "health care bills" (extortion payments). Basically the "Insurance Companies" force providers to shift costs of providing care to "covered" patients to private payers. Ironically, or at a deeper level of understanding, predictably, those with the least ability to pay are enormously over charged in order to benefit the "profits" (ill-gotten gains) of an industry that is terminally corrupt. Hence the often heard canard, "I can't afford to get sick." Now for the "news." In an attempt to address this economic injustice, a suit was brought against Duke Medical Center on behalf of patients gruesomely overcharged relative to rates paid by "insurance" companies. Big surprise, the "Court" (gangster buddies) found that hospitals can charge anything they want to private payers. What the article fails to say is that the opposite is illegal. I know, it does not make sense. Less and less of what we call "law" (rules arranged for the benefit of gangsters) makes any sense. Maybe a concrete example will help. If I try to charge someone in the office LESS than the amount I charge the "insurance company" (who will, in the end, only pay me only a small percentage of my actual charge due to "discounts" BTW), that is "breach of contract" according to them and they WILL come after me. OTOH, if I charge cash patients more in order to make up for losses on "insurance" patients that is just fine with them. The more the better. The attitude is. "That'll teach them to sign up and pay their "premiums" (protection money)." If this sounds rotten, it is. Very rotten. Very, very rotten, and the fact that your so-called "elected representatives" do nothing about this injustice lets you know how deep the fix is in. Very, very deep. Herb Ruhs, MD Thanks, Dr. Herb. And as it happens, I've had a pertinent experience, first hand, just a few days ago. Finally got in to see a doctor a few weeks back, at a local clinic that doctors' offices all over the county recommended for folks like me, who have no insurance. So it's a clinic that, presumably, specializes in care for the un-insured, but they couldn't or wouldn't tell me what their prices would be, before or during my office visit.
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