Dear John: I saw the product in your Sunday column from the reader who wrote concerning the tax paid on a recent surgery at NYU hospital and wanted to supply you – as well as your readers – with a few additional information.
A 20-year-old New York law referred to as Health Care Reform Act (HCRA) imposes something known as the “patient services surcharge” on every inpatient and outpatient procedure. The surcharge – another word for tax – is 9.63 percent.
Another HCRA-imposed tax your readers might be interested to discover is the “covered lives assessment,” a tax on every health insurance policy sold in New York. In New York City it's currently $185 annually for a single policy and $611 a year for a family policy.
Most consumers never know about these healthcare taxes simply because they need to be included in the cost of your health insurance premiums. However these HCRA taxes together cost New Yorkers nearly $5 billion (yes, with a “b”) annually, and they are one of the reasons New York's health insurance costs more in most other states.
So you now as well as your readers know.
Leslie Moran, senior vice president, New York Health Plan Association
Dear Leslie Moran:
Thanks for that information as well as for making our day a little brighter.
Dear John: Do you really think you've figured it out?
Writing a prescription is the key to this whole health care debacle?
I'd passion for you to definitely ask the number of people think a doctor's visit is worthless unless they obtain a prescription.
Then I would like you to work out how a doctor actually sees a patient, pays his/her support staff salaries, taxes, health care insurance, workers comp insurance, rent, supplies, phone/Internet, utilities, professional, city, county and state licenses, and malpractice insurance for $300 an hour.
Oh, did I forget to mention the doctor is trying to create a living too?
Go pick a fight with someone your own size. B.B.C. (A very disheartened family practice doctor)
Dear B.B.C.: I am not selecting a fight with anyone.
I'm just sitting here minding my own business and someone writes to me about why healthcare cost is so high. Then I make some sarcastic remarks and (say “ah”) you're jumping down my throat.
Yes, doctors have lots of expenses. So that they – like everyone else in the usa – try to make as much as possible they are able to.
The solution will come when nobody wants to be a doctor anymore. And so the shortage will make Americans realize that the supply/demand balance in health care is off-kilter which something needs to be done.
Meanwhile I am going back to picking fights with rental car companies.
Dear John: As a doctor, B.M.'s Letter was extremely offensive. He's no clue what really adopts doctors' visits and fees.
Overall, doctors' fees are consistently less than 20 % from the total health care pie. A.G., MD
Dear A.G., MD:
I'm always sarcastic. It's a genetic defect.
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