It’s not a fallacy, it’s real. I just checked my summary of charges for 2008. My total charges were $3,884. My insurance (Aetna) paid $1,972.91, and I paid $170. Providers (for this year, coincidentally, it was 100% Scripps Clinic) took a discount of $1,741.90 or 44.8%. For 2009, the numbers are similar (total of $2827, insurance paid $1606, i paid $90, net discount of $1131 or 40%).

You also did not include what you are paying per month for the insurance. What were the charges for? Your total is a lot higher than what I spent when I had ‘complications’.. you have kids?.. just trying to figure out how you incurred $3,884.

Those are mostly incurred regardless of cash payers or third party payers. (There would be some savings obviously if they didnt have to process all the insurance/medicare stuff.)

The insurance involves more than ‘some’ of the overhead. This is why several doctors are going cash pay.

If it was anywhere near 1, we wouldn’t need reform.

And people are falling for the same argument that was applied to no-fault auto insurance… if everybody was insured the costs would be lower. This proved to be untrue and the insurance commissioner position was created in California to try to address that.