Quote:Insurance will always try and copy what Medicare does. Look at when Medicare said they would no longer pay for certain "hospital acquired infections," all the insurances followed suit. They copy big time, which is annoying, because they claim they are superior and yet play follow the leader to the government all the time.

Well, I can certainly see that when a for-profit company can use a 'Medicare did it' justification to cut costs they might be on that like catnip, but I meant the relationship of all other charges to Medicare. I am not sure I am reading it right, but it looks like there might be a 2.5X average excess compared to medicare rates as opposed to other charges in this JAMA article, and I have seen elsewhere reports of standard 500% markups in different specialties compared to Medicare schedules. I am not an expert on this stuff, and find it rather confusing. I remember back in the dark ages I worked for a truckine. Tariffs had to be published(I believe with the ICC). It seems a shame that there doesn't seem to be any transparency regarding health care rates. 

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