Comments on: Is There No Shame In Medical Game?

By: Chuck Woods

Chuck Woods — Sat, 19 Apr 2014 01:26:51 +0000

It is amazing the downward spiral that these comments devolve into. You can’t blame the unbridled ambition that is St. Lukes on the Feds or on Obamacare. What you can do, regardless of your insurance or lack of it, is to shop for every medical service and to always ask the price. Make them go through the process of pricing. Always. There are options in Boise, and outside of Boise.

By: Casmir

Casmir — Wed, 02 Apr 2014 18:00:38 +0000

Rod – the market rigging behavior of the insurance industry was enabled by the Government in the first place. They have no intention of fixing anything meaningful. Obamacare was written by industry insiders for the benefit of industry insiders, and addresses only superficial issues, but cost shifts loads on to young people, and creates more costs and more collateral damage. As long as people believe that big Government and their friends (hospital corps, insurance, pharma) are the solution to what is fundamentally a lack of functioning health care markets – nothing positive (for the folks) will be accomplished. Which is why this whole mess is spiraling out of control, and getting rapidly worse. Oh well. We get what we vote for. And we are getting it….right up the doo dah. Phil says hi.

By: Rizo

Rizo — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 04:25:52 +0000

Sarah Palin has done more for Alaska misfits than many realize but she isn’t a part of this.
Blue Cross of Idaho has changed recently as well. Doctor’s agree to accept them however what my grief has been is that what they BC doesn’t cover I am sent a bill for remaining amount. It wasn’t like this prior. If St. Lukes is receiving additional funds for what insurance companies don’t pay then are they gaining double dipping?
I suggest we sent them a truck load of Monopoly toy money as see how they digest this and share the wealth. They can’t handle competitors of other services and want to control (profit) all medical – well it didn’t happen.

By: Rod in SE Boise

Rod in SE Boise — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 00:57:04 +0000

No, you are flat wrong. Just call your local death panel or Sarah Palin! LOL

By: Zippo

Zippo — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 20:37:14 +0000

Rod, you are flat wrong about Obummercare. It changes/restrict everything. And will eventuality ration your care.

By: Rod in SE Boise

Rod in SE Boise — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 17:43:18 +0000

St Lukes is a deplorable organization, but I have always received great care there.

And for all of you who think Obamacare had anything to do with this, you are, of course, totally wrong. Obamacare only attempts to fix problems with health INSURANCE – it has nothing to do with the quality of care you get nor how much doctors and hospitals charge you or how much nurses are paid.

Mergers, whether it be airlines, phone companies, cable TV companies, cell phone companies or hospitals. are ALWAYS bad for the consumer.

By: Casmir

Casmir — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 16:24:37 +0000

St. Lukes charges 3-4x as much for the same service/procedure, as your doctor would have charged in his/her private office. Insurance pays this difference; Government pays this difference. All the lobbying pays off ultimately (for them) and when markets are destroyed, care ultimately suffers and costs blow up. Should be no surprise really.

By: Brad

Brad — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 01:20:23 +0000

I have a different angle on the doctor thank you. I am a long-time patient of a specialist practice now owned by St. Luke’. I just got a voicemail from the appointment desk regarding confirming an appointment made four months ago. In the call, I was told that the practice is very busy and that if I did not call to confirm the appointment, it could be cancelled and someone else would move into my scheduled time.

Gee, should I say thank you for selling to a hospital that raised the price of lab work and office visits and ignores the long-time doctor / patient relationship? Perhaps, I spoke too quickly. For the same price of a doctor visit; I now get to see a Physician’s Assistant with much less training.

By: Zippo

Zippo — Tue, 25 Mar 2014 16:39:34 +0000

It’s a good thing Obamacare will fix this horribly broken system. I’m so pleased Great Leader chose to focus on all that was wrong and make it right with his new system of health care taxes placed on the low and middle wage workers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_error

Amazing isn’t it!

By: Porcupine

Porcupine — Tue, 25 Mar 2014 15:37:30 +0000

a person could go buy a nice thank you card and send it to your doctor without going through St Lukes foundation for “National Dr. Day”…. and it would probably mean more to your Doctor.

But of course why would St Lukes foundation want you to do that?

Just saying