I see what you are saying, and it is correct at that level, but I think you have confused the listed price they are talking about with the Medicare/Medicaid schedules. They are being required to list the prices they actually charge at a hospital level, in an online format, not what Medicare is willing to pay out for patients (which may or may not be fully covered or relevant to patients covered by other insurers). The fee schedule IS the negotiated lower price and represents what they will pay out for a specific service. Those with other insurance plans, or no insurance at all, are often charged a different rate, that rate is the often listed price they are talking about or the insurance companies negotiated price.

Also, asking for evidence isn't calling someone a liar, it's just that, asking for evidence to support their claim. Especially if the other parties understand the situation differently.

And thanks for welcoming me to Hubski.

Wait, maybe I'm not understanding your claim correctly, but insurance companies and government medical programs regularly negotiate prices that are different and often much lower than the listed price. And I have yet to see any major medical procedures or items that weren't being sold at a profit, or, if they weren't being sold at a profit to the public, they were being subsidized by the government to make up for the discrepancy. Can you please direct me toward information that says otherwise? Or are you talking about something else?

The last update I heard about this, the police had used a genealogical site to track the DNA samples found at a crime scene to the suspects family and after he was arrested they matched it with his DNA. So it looks like they really did catch the guy.

"Medicare will require hospitals to post their standard prices online and make electronic medical records more readily available to patients, officials said Tuesday." - From the article.

As someone who has handled medical payments, the rate differentiation is extremely wide between what the standard pricing is and what Medicare recipients and others pay. And the article is about all patients and standard rates, not just Medicare recipients. Medicare is just pushing for more transparency industry wide to help people make more informed decisions.

It sounds like you and your wife have built and run an exceptional institution that is very morally and ethically centered, especially to insist on standardized pricing, but I know from experience that this isn't the norm in the United States. I'm glad that people like you are out there to do it.

The other top leader on that list is Kroger. They are in third place in the first three states listed and fourth on the list in the forth state listed, but apparently not bad enough to appear in Pennsylvania's top 10 (Dillion's, Fry's, and Fred Meyer are all Kroger owned companies).

This is so very true. Attaching things to identity is a tried-and-true methodology for propaganda and control that is, unfortunately, very effective with many people. It's this very reason that certain parties are so interested in linking political affiliation and lifestyle to people's internal sense of identity. It makes it so much easier to control discourse when everything is earmarked into what party you are affiliated with or what type of lifestyle you should be living.

It's this reason that discussions about capitalism become left vs right, rather than discussions about economics, culture, and society. Why some people can't believe in or discuss issues like Climate Change without it becoming a conservative vs liberal issue that somehow affronts them personally, rather than a scientific and social one. And why corporations franchise out identities to people, rather than products, targeting impressionable youth, retired biker daddies, tattooed bearded whisky sipping malcontents, house moms, and hipsters based on what values they should have, beliefs they should hold, behaviors they should adopt, the type of people they should associate with -- and, of course, what products and services should go along with that lifestyle. Wink. Wink.

Identities are big business these days. Data driven cash-cows. The present and the future of marketing, politics, and culture. And it is technology and science that are driving this beyond anything we could have predicted even a generation ago; which is probably one downside to having never been where we are as a society, today -- we don't yet understand the impacts and problems that come with this data driven, identity peddling world we have constructed around us. Nor do we have the regulation and the rules to properly regulate it the way it should be.

Very interesting read. One element I would like to add, which came to me during my time studying communication and the effects of propaganda, is the underlying concept of motivation and intent in regard to how someone might communicate during discussion and frame the delivery of their intended message, or guide it to the outcome they want.

As per your above argument, we tend to assume during most active discussions that the beliefs, opinions, and attitudes of those engaged in the activity are based on some sort of internal logic (whether or not that logic is substantiated through evidence and reason), and that, even though their reactions are guided by past experiences and beliefs, the responses you receive are generally spontaneous and in the moment, not planned or constructed or motivated before hand. Rarely do we give much thought to what active intentions and/or conscious or subconscious motivations may play a role in someone's ability or inability to accommodate the cognitive dissonance you mentioned above, or their willingness to adapt and change rather than retreat from, or intervene in, the flow of the conversation to alter its outcome.

We all harbor biases and experiences that create the individual realities you discussed, but we sometimes don't consider how unknowingly powerful those biases and experiences can be when they play into tough situations and/or uncomfortable discussion (or challenge something someone needs or wants to be true).

When these motivations come from knowingly, actively influencing discourse they can be even more powerful, especially if other members are unaware of its happening. Such influences don't necessarily have to be overtly malicious in nature, only an underlying motivation or need that guides someone's stance in a conversation for private reasons -- it is actually one of the fundamental aspects of critical discussion over passive sharing of opinion.

Intent and motivation are powerful forms of influence that can dictate, at a fundamental level, the very nature of communication and discussion. Sometimes, internal (and perhaps unknown) influences can interfere before a discussion becomes productive -- and make it difficult or impossible for some people to overcome even active, critical attempts to open themselves up to alternative view points (I've personally witnessed people completely give themselves over to an idea and accept it only to discard it in practice due to it challenging them on an emotional level, even when mentally they new the opposite to be true -- this is probably one of the hardest types of people to have critical discussion with)

I think this aspect of discussion is just as important as any other, being mindful of such influences. An effective member of a discussion has to spend equal if not more time in consideration of the positions of other group members, and other peoples reactions to the conversation, as they do their own. Only then will they be mindful of barriers that are going up or aware of other intentions that may be influencing the outcome of the conversation (or know when to walk away). This is probably more important than any concrete, fact-only based arguments: the flexibility to know when and how to step forward (or back) and lean more on emotion, or reason, or fact, without being dishonest in what you want to accomplish, or letting other vent or retreat when necessary, in an effort to keep a beneficial dialogue moving forward.

So I guess my, hopeful, contribution to this conversation, is that most successful discussions don't really come from defending your own personal beliefs and opinions, but by actively understanding those of the people you engage. Only then can you truly construct an argument that they will accept, or successfully challenge their beliefs (You know, if that is the intent that motivates you to engage in discussion with them).