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Well, this is not a medicare ise because a medicare physician, i guess their very limited and cop strained about what constrained about what they can charge, so i guess its more of a question about private insurance. You want to talk that, lou . Yeah. The question reflects, again, the desire to have greater and Greater Transparency in all aspects of health care, including what providers charge. Two things. First, even though theres no national requirement, i know at least in massachusetts if theres anyone here from massachusetts, there is a new law that requires exactly what you suggest, which is the posting of prices. So thatll be an interesting experiment to see what impact that has. There may be other states, im just not aware of it. Well hear from the Consumer Panel after us, i think what Consumers Want to know ....
Coverage for example in one market where we are the narrower provider we found they had no access to pet scans. Another glitch we found as their exclusive Network Provider they had not contracted with any Lamp Services or radiation therapy. We can provide these services but frankly getting Outpatient Lab testing at your hospital may not be as convenient as some of the labs that are available with better parking and hours. Finally id like to reemphasize the reality of the marketplace is that price dominates. Premiums is what people are most likely to look at. Those with low income still leave outofpocket medical expenses that are unaffordable below this operation. As a result, even modest out pocket costs create affordability programs. This is from one of our markets. A married couple. Income 48,000 a year. They chose a ....
That somebody can be get to in tough numbers and types in a reasonable amount of team states can look at the networks to make sure that that definition of reasonable is reasonable. When you look at the time it takes people to get to them, any waiting periods, any distance issues that you make sure that everybody can get to somebody in a sufficient way. If not, if there is an insufficient network the carrier makes sure the patient can go to another doctor or provider and that they would be not charged more for going to them. They require the carriers to file an access plan with the commissioner prior to offering the new managed care plan. What goes in that is a description of the network and also say how they are going to monitor the network on an ongoing basis. What their egregious procedures will be if somebody has a problem or question about the network. Notification. How do they notify if theres a change. Also, the continuity of care if somebody is dropped how are you going to make ....
I think this will move it forward. If youre a patient, you care about your metric. Its wonderful were monitoring if doctors give quit smoking advice to patients. Im not a smoker so it doesnt matter to me. What you want to know is i know somebody whos about to have heart valve surgery. They want to know which doctor in their city performs the most heart valve cities and how many patients are alive a year after that. The fact we cannot answer that for that patient today or tomorrow or even next year, like, thats the question we want to answer. Its not like, do your diabetics have their a1c under control . Im not a diabetic, but if im diabetic and its under control for me, i dont care if your other patients are, i care about me. Were a me culture but we have to make sure the data releases can be customizable so the person interested in their own health and their own situation can get some answers from it. Charlie, at the same time, patients are complaining all the time about high copays, ....
Begin. Ice cold in the snow. How could it be so . It came without thanks. It came without packages, boxes or bags. It look like the grinch stole christmas. Retail sales down 1 . Not having a positive impact on the stock market. Down 183 points. How about the price of oil. Where are we now . That is within shouting distance of a six year low. Here is the story. Commodity prices are falling. Copper is leading the way. The price of gas continues to fall. Down another penny overnight. 338 year ago. Down 128 gallons. Here is the key indicator. Interest rates. It bounced back. Historically, a very low level. Our go to guy on commodities. Eric, i want to stay away from technical details. What is your evidence that prices are falling . I am not claiming deflation is in play. Prices fall too hard, too fast. Hearing people talk about deflation. Leading in some air out of the bubble. That is a good thing. The grinch as the analogy. I look at it this way. The grinch comes around at the end of the ....