February 30, 2010 journal, CNN reports only 4 percent of billing collected by hospitals and that is what needs to be fixed before any health care bill is passed. Most the people could pay 4% of what is billed but not a hundred percent as they are required to do now. They admit that the reason it is so outrageous is that many patients get treated for free. If they pass a bill and buy insurance policies for 50,000 more people it will break an already broke government a lot faster. The astronomical cost of medical treatment is beyond all comprehension. CNN's doctor explained what each item costs in the hospital's and that the government and insurance companies only pay 4 percent of what the hospital's bill so that is problem. The people pay a hundred percent if they pay themselves but most do not pay so we have all what they call socialized medicine already. If doctors & hospitals only collects 4% of their bills in order to survive, their robbery pricing needs to be fixed before Congress passes anything. If people own a home they pay the hospital or lose their home. There's no way for this system to continue because its not fair to the people trying to pay. Basically that 50 million poor people have free doctoring & hospitalization now already. Health insurance companies created this quagmire by being the third party paying the bill. We are rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic trying to pass health care when everything else is falling apart about this country, maybe its just trying to divert attention. Doctors are talking about quitting treating medicare patients when they cut payments. The outrageous prices hospitals are charging for simple supplies like plastic gloves at $43 a pair, the same gloves can be purchased at a pharmacy for 24¢. $1,000 for a toothbrush. A 10¢ Tylenol at $40 is too much for them to charge your insurance company for profit. 4 percent of these prices are still 20 times too high & is an assault to average intelligence. Fix it Mr. President before passing health care reform or it will still be broken as always. Members of Congress are quitting like rats leaving a sinking ship as we deteriorate daily. This state is advertising you will lose your license if you drive without insurance. I sympathize with you needing special treatment under a system so overpriced. A went to get her diabetes medicine and it cost $250 for one month's supply. Now that Avandia is condemned and recalled because it causes heart attacks. I ask her if she was going to stop taking it, she said not until I get something to replace it. By the way, when she screamed at the pharmacy saying she could not pay that much, some lady stepped up and pay it for her. a perfect stranger to pay for your medicine but she said she tried to not let her but she insisted any way. Some good things of mercy do happen and the people are most all good but oppressed. The dreadful medical authority is being exposed and will soon end There are natural cures for almost everything and Mexico has medical treatment for 1 to 10 percent of that of the U.S. or have had anyway in the past, getting there is not cheap. a public option is the only way I can see to go now for U.S. medicine but Congress is on the take from the insurance industry. This president should have a backbone and say public option or nothing but he knows it will not pass so he wants reform or bust. Hospitals markup their products 1,000 percent and discriminate in collecting their bills. Medicare is working and should be extended to every citizen regardless of age even if they do is scream that it is socialism. They think it's OK to have socialism for some and greedy capitalism for others. It would be simple for the government to put everybody under Medicare where they pay a little then those 50 million poor and uninsured people would not cost the government near so much to pay their insurance. This is my opinion. Hospitals are a bigger ripoff than the banks at 30% interest with their outrageous pricing.