With all the talk about health care reform is there really room for reform without first looking at the billing and charges and they way the government contracts service?:

A patient with insurance is billed $500 for a procedure. The insurance company pays $250, the balance is written off because that is just “what insurance and medicare will pay”.
A patient without insurance is billed $500 for a procedure and is expected to pay the full $500.
The reason… medicare hasn’t accepted the test as “normal practice”. Despite the fact that the diagnosis from this one test saves approximately $1500-$3000 by not having to administer other tests.

Another example…. A water main is “uncovered” during a road widening project. The project is halted… the contractors and subs are being paid while VDOT comes up with a solution. The General Contractor recommends solving the problem by taking the line and burying it a little deeper. Ahhh… but this requires approval because it didn’t fall within the scope of the project. 12 weeks later VDOT comes up with a solution! Bury the line 12″ deeper so that the road surface can be laid over top of the line. The contractor made money, the sub-contractors made money, ALL of the VDOT employees made money. Where did the funds come from? US!

A very old wood gymnasium floor in poor condition was in need of replacement on a local military base. Someone was needed to do the work. A minority contractor in a hub zone was hired. First off it was recommended by some engineer to throw a thin layer of concrete over what was already a poor slab to start off with. Next the general contractor hired another inexperienced, non-qualified sub-contractor, who in turn was a mason by trade. Not a concrete contractor. He hired a sub-contractor who pours driveways, not large slabs. Especially not thin slabs intended as a topping. What happened? The topping slab curled at joints, cracks formed where joints weren’t added, and thousands of dollars were spent correcting the issues because money was “set aside”

This is the way our government thinks on many levels…. until we can have the government thinking on the terms of the way modern business functions, not on the good ol’ boy (I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine) mentality we are always going to have every last penny sucked out of us in taxes and “government funds”!