THIS TAX IS SICK
Hidden health care surcharges
Dear John: I saw the item in your Sunday column from the reader who wrote about the tax paid on a recent surgery at NYU hospital and wanted to provide you — and your readers — with some additional information.
A 20-year-old New York law known as the Health Care Reform Act (HCRA) imposes something called 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 learn about is the “covered lives assessment,” a tax on every health insurance policy sold in New York. In New York City it’s currently $185 a year for a single policy and $611 a year for a family policy.
Most consumers never know about these health care taxes because they have to be built into the cost of your health insurance premiums. But these HCRA taxes together cost New Yorkers nearly $5 billion (yes, with a “b”) a year, and they are one of the reasons New York’s health insurance costs more than that in most other states.
So now you and your readers know.
Leslie Moran, senior vice president, New York Health Plan Association Dear Leslie Moran: Thanks for the information and 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 love for you to ask how many people think a doctor’s visit is worthless unless they get a prescription.
Then I’d like you to figure out how a doctor actually sees a patient, pays his/her support staff salaries, taxes, medical insurance, worker’s compensation 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 make a living too?
Go pick a fight with some- one your own size. B.B.C. (A very disheartened family practice doctor)
Dear B.B.C.: I’m not picking a fight with anyone.
I’m just sitting here minding my own business and someone writes to me about why health care costs are so high. Then I make some sarcastic remarks and (say “ah”) you’re jumping down my throat.
Yes, doctors have lots of expenses. So they — like everyone else in America — try to make the most money they can.
The solution will come when nobody wants to be a doctor anymore. And then the shortage will make Americans realize that the supply/demand balance in health care is off-kilter and that something needs to be done.
Meanwhile I’m going back to picking fights with car rental companies. Dear John: As a doctor, B.M.’s Letter was extremely offensive. He has no idea what really goes into doctors’ visits and fees.
Overall, doctors’ fees are consistently less than 20 percent of 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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