Med Info

Congrats, Minute Clinic, you got it right. This is the way it should be - prices right there in the open. I got onto this topic because I'm trying to find out if it would be cheaper to have future poison ivy breakouts examined by a doctor's office or something like Minute Clinic.

So here's the soapbox of the day - costs of medical care should be open to all prospective patients. It is ridiculous how hard it is for people to find out how much it costs for a particular procedure at a typical doctor's office or hospital. Even for procedures that are somewhat complicated and may have a range of cost (ie, surgeries), medical facilities should at least make the cost range available.

Ok, you get a deal, two soapboxes of the day. Soapbox #2 - nationalized health care. People don't understand that it's important to know the costs of medical procedures because you pay the whole amount until you meet your deductible. With this in mind, some people like myself will shop around to get the best deal. However, if politicians such as Hillary Clinton get their way, the federal government will supply all your health care. If that happens, do you think I or anyone else would go to the trouble of looking for good deals? No, we'll just take the easiest, quickest, and probably most expensive option. I'll go to the ER or an Urgent Care center for my poison ivy. Why not? I'm not paying for it out of pocket. This will serve to drive the cost of the program up and will decrease the availability and quality of health care all over the nation.

I'm not saying we have a perfect health care system in this country right now, but who in their right mind thinks that a nationalized health care would be a good thing in the long run? Just look at Canada and the UK (both with nationalized health care). Scores of them are traveling to the U.S. and other places because either there are enormously long waiting periods at doctors' offices or they simply cannot get quality health care in their country.