The last insurance policy I owned had a $5000 deductible and as 20% co-payment of the next $10,000. That means if that policy was in force at the time of my wife’s heart attack, I would have owed $7000 for the procedure.

My friend in the insurance business informed me that the insurance companies demand a 85% discount on the procedure preformed on my wife. Doing the math, $50,000 x .85= $7500. That is right, exactly what I paid. So I would have paid $7000 and the insurance company would have paid $500 which should infuriate everyone, however, on paper they make it look like I would have paid $7000 and they picked up the other $43,000. Everyone is fooled by the scam.

Insurance companies as a whole have better statisticians and number crunchers working for them than any Las Vegas casino. They know what a procedure costs and most likely who will need them and they need to start using this in a way to help consumers.

One way to do this is indemnifying customers which means instead of having customers just send them the bill and using the method described above, give the consumer a check for what a procedure will cost and have them shop around., like car repairs after an accident. This will not work on life threatening emergency procedures but will cover the vast numbers of other medical procedures and give the consumer more control.