Medical laboratory expenses

Every once in a while I am reminded how screwed up our health care system really is.

In our family, we pay for BC/BS health insurance.

Recently, we needed a test done and the charge for that test shows as $419 on the "Laboratory Bill" that I received. In the next column headed "Adjustments", it shows -343.39. There is nothing under "Insurance Paid" or "Patient Paid" and a resulting "You Pay" of 75.61.

Of course, we are grateful for our insurance, but what I am reminded here is that the insurance company paid nothing, as far as I know. All they did was to put the force of their size to work and got the fee reduced to barely 20% of what it would otherwise be.

I am sure LabCorp makes this up somewhere, and the first place - based on what I was told on the phone when I called them - they do so is in what they charge people without insurance. That's the full 419 dollars.

So, this means that someone who does not have insurance for any reason would pay that amount. Ok, there are some wealthy individuals who may pay their own way, but I bet the vast majorit as in 95% of their customers don't have health insurance because they either are not entitled to any or cannot afford what they might purchase.

These are people who may be out of work, with very limited means, or facing some other crisis, and so the net effect of our insurance is to shift LabCorp's profit potential to them.

There is something very morally wrong with that picture.