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>>Focusing on the corrupt practices is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Reform is needed a decade ago and every month that goes by imposes additional hundreds of millions of dollars of liability on "somebody."
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>Employer-provided health care costs have skyrocketed over the past 20 years.
>http://www.ehow.com/about_7319135_average-private-health-insurance-usa.html
>This link shows that the cost to insure an employee doubled from 1999 to 2009.
>You can't blame all that on old people, since most of them transfer to Medicare as they age.
>Something else is ballooning those costs.
>A couple of years ago I spent a week in a hospital recovering from pneumonia.
>The billing to medicare for that stay was more than I'd have spent in a month at the best hotel in Monte Carlo.
>During my stay I was regularly visited by a patient advocate, a social worker, a privacy officer, a nutritionist, a quality control specialist, and now and then even a nurse stopped by.
>The political hacks who run the hospital never stopped by, though. They were out on the golf course.
>I got several surveys asking me about my stay in the mail after leaving.
>I wonder who paid for them?
>That hospital is the largest single spender of advertising dollars in Mercer County, and is looking for more ways to spend advertising dollars.
>
>
>You can't keep doing stupid things indefinitely.
>Sooner of later a tipping point is reached.

Our first child was born in a private hospital. I remember seeing the itemised bill, eyewatering amounts for everything and my wife being asked mid labour what shat she'd like for lunch the next day. Food wasn't up to much though :-). My father was in a French hospital after a heart attack while driving to the South of France and the food there was excellent (never saw their itemised bill though)