If a test costs 100 with a 3% profit (what a non profit is allowed to earn) and the insurer will only pay 90 then a 10 dollar loss has occured. Then the patient has to pay his 20% plus 10 dollars. Sometimes the patient notices that his portion is more than 20% and calls the insurer. Who blames the hospital, who drops the added on charge and starts calling it the price for drawing the blood or filling out the paper work (since when do shoe salesmen charge you to for filling out the sales slip?). No matter how you look at it, the hospital needs to make 100 to pay for the test and to keep the doors open. So, either you pay for it on the initial bill or after they do some creative billing.

And each and every company does this because they are all under government regulation that restricts their billing practices. Thus, there will always be hidden costs. Just because you tell the electric company it can only charge x dollars for x amt of elcetricity does not mean that is feasible. Thus you have fuel charges and dozens of other charges on the bill. If you call my elec co it will tell you that the charge for a yard light is 5/mo. However, when you get the bill it actually is 15/mo due to extra charges that "we are not responsible for." Of course, this causes grief for consumers even though the regulations were put in place to prevent clients from getting gouged. It sounds good but does not work.

Anyone old enough to remember when you got a postcard from the utility companies? Torn in half you had 1/2 for a receipt and 1/2 for the company. Now we kill many more trees by having dozens of pages of paper in the average bill. Ridiculous. No matter what they call the charges, it is us who pay it.

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