 So I want to talk about this new report from the New York Times which details the prices that hospitals charge private insurance companies For various health care procedures now if you are one of my viewers who have been listening to me branched about health care for years Now you're not gonna be too surprised by this But still I think that the findings here are really fascinating because it basically proves What we've been saying on this show for years that health care in the United States of America is a total scam and I think that once you see these numbers, there's no way you don't get radicalized because We're getting taken advantage of here We are getting screwed over and all you have to do is look at a couple of examples of What people in America are charged for health care and how arbitrary those prices are depending on who their insurance provider is So let's get to this So this is from Sarah Cliff and Josh Katz who report this year the federal government ordered hospitals to begin publishing a prized secret a Complete list of the prices they negotiate with private insurers the insurers trade Association had called the rule Unconstitutional and said it would undermine competitive negotiations for hospital associations jointly sued the government to block it and Appealed when they lost they lost again and seven months later many hospitals are simply ignoring the requirement and posting nothing But data from the hospitals that have complied hints at why the powerful industries wanted this information to remain hidden It shows hospitals are charging patients wildly different amounts for the same basic services Procedures as simple as an x-ray or a pregnancy test and it provides numerous examples of major health insurers Some of the world's largest companies with billions in annual profits Negotiating surprisingly unfavorable rates for their customers in many cases insured patients are getting prices that are higher than they would If they pretended to have no coverage at all The secrecy has allowed hospitals to tell patients that they are getting steep discounts while still charging them many times What a public program like Medicare is willing to pay and it has left insurers with little incentive to negotiate Well the peculiar economics of health insurance also help keep prices high now They provide us with a couple of examples that really showcase the absurdity of this system So when it comes to the cost of a colonoscopy at the University, Mississippi medical center Well, if you have sigma, it's gonna cost you 1463 dollars if you have etna you're gonna be paying more than $2100. However, if you have no insurance, you'll be paying $782 this is Bunkers, I don't know what to say about this if you want a pregnancy test at the hospital of the University Of Pennsylvania. Well, if you have blue cross blue shield, it's gonna be $18 But if you're a blue cross HMO patient in New Jersey That is going to cost $58 $93 for blue cross PPO patients in New Jersey and with no insurance $10 at Aurora St. Luke's in Milwaukee and MRI is going to cost $1093 if they have United's HMO plan and $4029 if they have United's PPO plan that is a gigantic difference now at hospitals in the Erlinger health system in Tennessee If you want a flu vaccine, that's gonna cost $54 if you have a sigma plan $104 if you have blue cross and $201 if you have a United plan at Memorial Regional Hospital in Florida and MRI is going to run you $1827 if you have sigma $2148 if you have humana $2,455 if you have blue cross and $262 with Medicare that is a giant difference. So that is just a little bit of insight into this Insanity and that's only the hospitals who actually complied most hospitals the article states did not comply and They're going so far to hide the prices that they charge to separate insurance companies that they're willing to spend $109,000 per year in the fines to hide this information because they know it's that incriminating I Mean if this doesn't tell you why we need Medicare for all then nothing else is gonna get the point across But Medicare for all is a single-payer system, which means all of these insurance companies would go the way of the dodo Right we regulate them out of existence and we have the government be the sole insurance provider for all of Americans And that's why you can see that you know Medicare gets better costs than these insurance companies, but what this also I think Tells us is that we really should move the goalpost when it comes to health care And we have to acknowledge that Medicare for all single-payer This is really a compromised position what I would like to see is a nationalized health care system where Hospitals are actually nationalized because I'm of the belief that health care should not be an industry Health care should not be commodified health care should be free at the point of service And so long as you have these for-profit privately owned companies in the mix they're going to do things like this and single-payer would drastically improve our health care system, but they're still gonna be these private hospitals that care at the end of the day about their bottom line and They're going to make decisions on the basis of what makes them money because these are businesses So I think that progressives should continue to advocate for Medicare for all single-payer But on top of that we also have to start educating people about The benefits of nationalizing hospitals in America making our system reflect the UK system, which is imperfect, right? It's not it's not the end all be all it's at risk of being further privatized by Tories, but if we don't start talking about totally removing the Cost incentive from these systems then I think that we failed as leftists because sure insurance companies They are the lowest common denominator when it comes to most of the insane Costs that Americans have to pay, but it's also hospitals too, right? They're part of the problem I think that we also have to have a conversation about their role and and us needing to get rid of these private companies in all of health care because This this is just this is ridiculous. I Mean imagine if you went to a store and you wanted to purchase a video game Elden ring The cost of that game is going to be 60 70 dollars, but imagine if they said actually you have to spend 150 dollars on this game because you're from New Jersey. Well, that wouldn't make sense, right? Just because you're from a different state. Why would you have to pay more for this video game than other people? It's it's totally arbitrary, right? Well, they would only be able to get away with this if people didn't know that that was happening like if you were from New Jersey and You just always assumed that video games were 150 dollars Well, you wouldn't necessarily worry about that But if you learned that other people are only paying 60 to 70 for games like Elden Ring then You might get angry you might want to change the system itself And that's why they're willing to pay that fine every single year If it means that they can hide this information from the public. It's truly It's it's fascinating and it speaks to how Reprehensible these businesses in health care are there shouldn't be a health care industry There should just be health care period because that's what's achievable in the richest country on the planet Nationalized these bloodsuckers abolish all private insurance companies. Let's have a health care system That's actually centered on human need not human greed