La Pena Cultural Center
Yesterday, Margaret Flowers joined us on the stage at La Pena Cultural Center and will remain with us through Santa Barbara. As expected, the “standing room only” crowd was mostly the choir. One might ask, “What’s the point?” The choir is our best tool, but only if they get out of the choir pews. Only by giving them (you?) the intellectual tools, insights and confidence to speak with friends, neighbors and communities we will be be able to educate those who don’t yet understand the subtleties of the single payer solution and why PPACA didn’t fix it. We surely can’t count on Media to do this for us.
As an aside, en route to our morning event at Santa Clare Valley Medical Center, I visited a grade school friend and his wife, who recently underwent an outpatient “lumpectomy”. The hospital bill, not including physicians fees, was $50,000, which will be discounted substantially for her insurance carrier, possibly to as low as $15,00 Without insurance, she would be expected to pay the full bill. Of course, different carriers “settle” for different amounts. Are there ANY other “industries” where different customers pay such drastically different amounts for the same services? With everybody in the same risk pool, everybody would pay the same amount… and the average primary care provider would not have to spent more than $60,000 per year on billing services to navigate the chaos… as they do today.
