Selective Regulation
With all the craziness going on this week regarding healthcare, it got me thinking about how certain regulations that go through Congress are nitpicked to death, while other far more important matters, such as healthcare and surgical procedures, are allowed to proceed with almost no regulation whatsoever. Other than the forms the doctors and health insurers give you to sign, where they testify that, in keeping with privacy laws, they do not give or sell your personal data to anyone, when it comes to your data, who’s really minding the store here? As if this was the only area the health insurers think that disclosure is important to you! They certainly know enough to have you sign a disclosure every time you go to the doctor or to the hospital, where they “disclose” that if they do not get the money they want from your insurance company, you are responsible for it.
They also present you with a disclosure where they list a hundred different things that can go wrong with a surgical procedure while you are under, and they want you to sign a disclosure that you have read the list and were therefore “disclosed” of all problems that could happen.
So, why don’t they—in keeping with their attitudes regarding transparency—disclose the true costs of the thousands of drugs and procedures (some of which you might not need) before you commit to any of them? Don’t they think we’re interested in knowing how much it’s going to cost us before we decide to submit to it? Is it because we really need it (and they know we’ll agree to anything), so why bother? And what about all this garbage they’re fighting about in Congress? Don’t our politicians think we have a right to know what things are going to cost us in advance before proceeding further?
Another reason to get mad about this is that year after year, Congress adds one layer after another of regulations on the mortgage industry. Why is that? Do they think the mortgage industry is more life threatening than the medical industry? Is securing a mortgage more hazardous to one’s health? And when did it become more important to know the closing costs of your mortgage as opposed to knowing the costs of any surgical procedure you might need? Who decided all this—Congress?
When you get a mortgage today, there is a disclosure for everything! You sign one form stating you are interested in proceeding with a mortgage application after receiving a disclosure estimating the costs of getting the mortgage. Then there is another disclosure for how much the borrower’s estimated closing costs will be, which FYI needs to be accurate even though they call this an “estimated disclosure.” If the pricing changes for any reason because of a change of circumstances, such as the borrower wanting to take out more money or even take less money, the disclosures need be re-estimated and sent all over again throughout the entire process until the closing.
What does this say about the guys in Washington and what they’re hoping to achieve? Do they just pick and choose which industry to go all out and regulate to oblivion—or are they just trying to keep the health insurance companies happy, so they choose not to demand any public disclosure of rates of medical procedures? Mind you, this is after they have already contracted with the doctors and hospitals so the people can know what they are encountering when they have to consider not only going through with a medical procedure, but how much the procedure is going to cost them?
Anessa Cohen lives in Cedarhurst and is a Licensed Real Estate Broker (Anessa V Cohen Realty) with over 20 years of experience offering full service residential, management, and commercial real estate services in the Five Towns of Long Island as well as the tri-state area. She can be reached at 516-569-5007. Readers are encouraged to send any questions or scenarios by email to [email protected].
