None of what you will read here came as any surprise to me, because I’ve worked as an RN Case Manager in Home Health Care, and had ample opportunity to see how private business gouges the hell out of the taxpayer, by exploiting the illnesses of vulnerable and aging Americans in order to make the most profit possible.
But I have a brand new clear and current example to share to illustrate this, now that I am over 65, disabled, on very low income, thus qualifying for some services myself.
I qualify for an program in my state that uses a combo of federal and state money to help Elders remain in their home as long as possible. It will help pay for durable medical supplies and equipment, Home Health Aids, housekeeping support, meals: things Medicare doesn’t cover, for low income elders.
I have Seasonal Affective Disorder, (S.A,D), thus tend toward depression in the low light months here in Minnesota. I handle it nicely with light therapy, but my unit was broken in my last move. The Case Manager assigned said the grant would pay for another one for me, if Medicare wouldn’t.
She contacted a medical supply business the county has contracted with, who then called me to discuss the kind they could provide, and gave me a website to visit to see if it was acceptable to me. (note: I have researched these things extensively and know what I need) The one they would provide was only 5000 Lux, or half the power of all the other small units sold for the same price. (200.00: online pricing) So I gave her the URL for 10000 Lux unit, at the same price, for her to consider.
Yesterday, the Case Manager called me back with the news that the unit I wanted was over 425.00 and too costly. Whoa. I was looking at the online price of it as we spoke: $199.00.
So, bottom line: this medical supply Business would charge the Grant Fund (taxpayer monies) $ 425.00 for a Light Unit that could be purchased online for $200.00.
Over 100% profit.
This company, (one of several Medical Supply companies this county has awarded contracts to,) are the only places County Case Managers are allowed to use to purchase services and equipment.
Case Managers have no choice. They know full well the markups are as high as these companies can possible get by with. They are also painfully aware that Grant Funds like this are not nearly sufficient to meet the needs of so many Elders and people with chronic illness/disabilities who need this kind of help now.
THIS, people, is the inevitable outcome of privatization of our Health Care system, and turning it over to profit making business and “free market” principles.
How anyone could ever have thought this could EVER be a cheaper way to provide health care simply boggles my mind. Any fool knows private for profit business will strive to make as much profit as the market will bear.
I’ve been shouting this from the rooftops for so many years I’ve nearly lost my voice.
So many of us have.
And so few have listened.
THIS is why health care costs have sky rocketed beyond belief in this country!
And why, no matter how much tax payer money is dumped into this kind of for profit system, there will never be enough to go around to care for all the sick and the aged who deserve decent care. It goes into the pockets of businesses like this one, who has to make 100 plus percent profit off the fact I am old,poor and have S.A.D, and the fact they can get their hands on guaranteed easy money from sleeping taxpayers pockets.
MEDICARE IS NOT BROKEN!
It is simply being exploited all to hell and back by private Corporations, for as much profit as they can possible squeeze right out of it, in a million different “legal” and illegal ways. Each for-profit segment of it, through the whole health care delivery system tries to make the most possible profit it can.
I guarantee you, this is “business as usual” across the board, at all levels of the health care delivery system, and has been, for years and years. It is the reason I am so glad to be finally done with my professional insider role: I couldn’t bear watching the most vulnerable among us so go without the quality care they needed, so some damned corporate bottom line looked good for the shareholders.
Nor could I bear seeing my role as a skilled hands on RN caregiver in long term care settings morph totally into making me into a pill pushing, paper-shuffling, corporate clone with little to no time left for me to even be with my patients at all.
I entered this profession 35 years ago when it was still a patient centered healing profession that most of us were “called to”. I have had to watch it be systematically destroyed and changed into a profit centered business where the patient most often comes last. Watching from bedside, witnessing the unnecessary suffering and yes early deaths, this has caused to the most vulnerable among us literally broke my heart into so many pieces it will can never totally heal.
I canceled my request for the light box because I know myself: not once could I use that thing without getting furious all over again about how I was exploited once more, this time as a client myself, so some Medical Supply business could have their 100% profit margin.
Nor could I ever use it without thinking about how TWO people with S.A.D could have this needed and effective treatment, for what mine cost the grant alone. Or thinking about the other older folks I know who are going without equipment that could help them stay mobile or otherwise keep them active and well, if there were only enough monies to go around.
I need new scooter batteries soon. I know I can get them at Batteries Plus for 135.00. I can just about guess what they what they would cost if purchased though a contract business by my Case Manager.
But I simply cannot participate in what is, to me a criminal activity and still sleep nights. I’ll find my own way to get what I need, just as I always have and quite successfully, too.
Of course, I intend to write another letter to the Editor, and then start some research how this is grant is being administered on county/state levels. I want to know how these contracts are awarded, by whom, and by what criteria. I want to know how these companies can get by with gouging the taxpayers like this, by exploiting the illness and aging of most vulnerable among us. I can find no reason to feel proud of being a citizen of a country that operates like this.
Amen Scribe!
This is a topic that makes me a raving lunatic (or more so).
Idaho just installed it’s new Governor (another Republican of course). Last years legislature enacted a 1% increase in sales tax and since there has been a serious discussion and push to eliminate the sales tax on groceries and other life necessities. Yes, Idaho is one of about 9 states that taxes food. Our new Libertarian leaning gov says, oh no. . .but we will give you a little bit more of a state income tax deduction (currently $50 per person). That’s lovely, but some of the most needy folks, or on the lowest income scale, like me on SS do not have to file taxes. So this group of people that could use some help wherever we can find it will get no help at all.
The medical and everything else over charging of the taxpayers is so outrageous it drives me nuts.
The Post Office was a great microcosm of what goes on. When we had to replace carpeting or have the parking lot repaired, etc. the prices went up an incredible amount because it was the P. O. Example, John Q Citizen that needed his same sized parking lot at his business resurfaced, $10,000. The cost to my small sub-office $85,000. Nice.
Where it effects health care it is even more despicable!
It appears there is no relief from constantly writing letters to the state representatives, the governor’s office, our Senators and Congress people. Here in Idaho those letters seemed to be treated as. . .”Just another old bitchy woman with nothing else to do.”
Sometimes I wonder if we will ever get it all fixed. With what is absolutely thrown away in this country, and thrown to corporate thieves, would go a long way towards taking care of so many things that would help lift up our citizens.
Stay at it, and so will I!
Hugs
Shirl
I have no choice BUT to stay with it. About the time I find some peaceful detatched place, something else comes up like this to piss me off all OVER again! Not so much for its effects on me personally, because I always find my own ways to get whatever it is I need. But for all those who do not have those abilities or experience, and who have no voice at all: those are the real victims of all of of this crap, and they need all voice we can lend them.
But what else but this crap can be expected in a county where the wealth and power and rampant materialism are revered much more than any sense of shared humanity or common good?
Scribe, you should forward that info to AG Lori Swanson. She just announced a big suit against Allianz Life for selling defered annuities to seniors 70 and over. An with Hatch working there they’ve still got the healthcare companies in their sites too.
If you live in Hennepin County you should send that info on to Gail Dorfman and Peter McLaughlin on the Hennepin County Commission.
Perhaps something can be done.
I was just thinking about what my next move would be and this just may be the right one. Thanks, northcountry.
Absolutely abominable.
I sent you an email with a link to info about your county commissioner. She might be really interested in this considering the fact that she chairs the County Board’s Health Services committee and is a HUGE budget hawk.
Giver her a jingle.
Will do. Thanks.
Its not a trickle anymore, its a torrent. Here’s one example:
That ain’t all, folks, A top executive compensation list from Indiana companies places health care right at the top. (pdf file) Obscene!
My wife and I are both in wheelchairs and the same happened to me on my last w/c replacement. I could buy the chair on the open market for $1700. Medicare cost was $4300. I had no choice in the matter, after Medicare paid I still had a little over $800 in co-pays. The real kicker is I had private ins. that would not pay for the chair. I have since dropped them.
My wife needed a new cushion for her chair. Medicare would not approve a cushion because they did not buy the chair. It was given to her from one of her girlfriends who is the same size as her. We will end up getting her a new chair, paid for by Medicare, so she can get a new cushion.
The real problem is that there is no flexibility in the rules that allow the end user any input into their prosthetic equipment. Either purchasing or choosing the right product. I have had dealers try to steer me into chairs that were not right for me, just because they had some deal with the manufacturer and could make more money. Sunrise Medical is the worst. We have had their wheel chairs, shower chairs, and crutches. I refuse to buy any of their products anymore as they don’t last and are overpriced. I had a Quickie w/c that fell apart under me in 2 years. We have since turned to other smaller manufacturers with much better products. Why then won’t they let us choose what’s best for us? Why, if we find the same or equal product on the open market for less, isn’t there a check valve that allows outside purchases at less than the contract price? I have asked this question right to their face and they looked at me like I was the crazy one. I fought with Humana for an entire year over a chair they said was not approved by Medicare when I had a letter in my hand from the company with the approval numbers on it. They were more interested in giving me a piece of crap that was cheaper than something that would last even though I said I would pay the difference.
Smedley Butler said, “war is a racket”. Same goes in the health care industry, only it is some kind of protectionist racket, where government protects the outrageous prices of these predators.
I have had two friends who worked for two different Medical supply companies who told me why. Those businesses will little to no concern for quality, only profits, contract with whichever manufacturers them the deepest discount. That then are the products they will offer to their medicare/medicate customers, good quality or not.
(Which explains the company that I am dealing with telling me a bald faced lie. (ie..that their light box was 10000 lux, according to the call they said they made to thier manufacturer) However that manufacturers own website lists that light at 5000 Lux.
Profits rule, period.
As a Home Care RN, I have personally had to fight Medical supply houses tooth and nail to get the proper equipment for my home care clients and often I failed because they had more power than I did. It’s a “don’t ask, don’t tell scenario” top to bottom..nobody wants the status quo disrupted: not those making obscene profits, and not those who earn a living distributing tax payer money, because their livelihood depends on shutting up and doing their jobs without making waves.
And without fail…the client/patients are the ones who sustain the painful damage done by this totally corrupt system. The most vulnerable among us, those without any voice at all, the very people who all of this entire system was created to serve, are the ones who end up paying for all of it with their quality of life, and often the quantity as well, of life.
As I’ve posted before, my son is paraplegic. His (relatively good) insurance only paid for physical therapy long enough to teach him how to get back in a wheelchair if he fell out.
A wheelchair wheel is $300. It is virtually identical to a bicycle wheel, so we order them at the bike shop and save $200. That’s a fancy bike shop. You can get most of what he needs, including wheelchairs, on eBay but if they catch you they pull the post.
Anything labeled “medical” is ten times what it’s worth!
Correct. I can buy batteries for my electric scooter at Batteries Plus for 135.0, for two of them Through a medical supply company they run anywhere from 100 to 150 bucks each. It goes on and on and on.
As Home Care RN for a privately owned company I made 17.00 an hour. They billed Medicaid at 98.00 an hour for my time. I once worked for a group home company doing regular mandated visits to their group homes where 4 developmentally delayed clients lived in each home. Most of these folks were totally healthy, physiclly, so it was just routine health checks only, 15 minutes or less for each guy. The government was billed for four skilled RN visits as 90 bucks a crack: I received a flat house visit rate of, if I an remembering correctly,under 40.00.
Nice racket.
…and the little cups that go under a walker are 35 cents at Home Depot, and 3 dollars at a medical supply store…
When do we stand up and say “No?” Remember, Bush is going to veto the drug bill next week.