Doing Your Job Shouldn’t Land You in Court: Joey Norris and the Fight for Iowa’s Future

So one of at the end of the day, a lot of what we're going to have to fix what's broken is aside from just, you know, Medicare for all.

One of the key problems that we have now is that insurance specifically keeps us from actually knowing what the cost on certain things is.

Even speaking as a clinician and as a provider, the actual cost for different services that we provide, I can't really even tell you what the hard cost is now that I'm under a different medical system.

Back when we were independent, I could tell you that a standard nuclear scan, if you wanted to pay for it out of pocket to... $250 for a standard nuclear treadmill.

But now when you involve the cost of insurance, we have no idea where it goes because in a lot of cases, insurance will also inflate different costs.

And we will also see insurance play a game where they will specifically try to draw things out over months of time just to try and get a cheaper price for them.

So one of the harshest things to ask and one of the biggest things that I want to seriously do is not just start forming laws that actually force insurance to play by rules here in Iowa at the threat of very serious punishment.

Because right now, insurance agencies, if they just cancel cares for you, there's nothing we can do.

Um, but on top of that, we have to start saying that we need hard prices.

We need hard digits.

We're at an era now where the shortages are getting so extreme.

And so varied across the nation that we could have a patient come in for a nuclear scan.

And this actually could have happened today.

And we didn't have enough nuclear material to even run the scan.

So you had somebody potentially take all this time off, get pre-approved for everything.

And then you bring them in and you find out, oh, yeah, the cyclotron didn't work.

So we don't even have the nuclear meds to do it.

Like that kind of thing now is constant in American health care.

And it is pervasive in everything all the way from emergency medicine to the immediate all the way through ICU, through, you know, step down units all the way down to just family pharmacies in a small town.

Well, I'll let you go, Dr.

Bob.

Go ahead.

Well, I mean, do we need to get the private sector out of it? I mean, the private, I mean, the profit out of it, not the private sector so much.

But no, why is health care for profit? I just need to get rid of the for profit motive.

I genuinely think so.

So one of at the end of the day, a lot of what we're going to have to fix what's broken is aside from just, you know, Medicare for all.

One of the key problems that we have now is that insurance specifically keeps us from actually knowing what the cost on certain things is.

Even speaking as a clinician and as a provider, the actual cost for different services that we provide, I can't really even tell you what the hard cost is now that I'm under a different medical system.

Back when we were independent, I could tell you that a standard nuclear scan, if you wanted to pay for it out of pocket to... $250 for a standard nuclear treadmill.

But now when you involve the cost of insurance, we have no idea where it goes because in a lot of cases, insurance will also inflate different costs.

And we will also see insurance play a game where they will specifically try to draw things out over months of time just to try and get a cheaper price for them.

So one of the harshest things to ask and one of the biggest things that I want to seriously do is not just start forming laws that actually force insurance to play by rules here in Iowa at the threat of very serious punishment.

Because right now, insurance agencies, if they just cancel cares for you, there's nothing we can do.

Um, but on top of that, we have to start saying that we need hard prices.

We need hard digits.

We're at an era now where the shortages are getting so extreme.

And so varied across the nation that we could have a patient come in for a nuclear scan.

And this actually could have happened today.

And we didn't have enough nuclear material to even run the scan.

So you had somebody potentially take all this time off, get pre-approved for everything.

And then you bring them in and you find out, oh, yeah, the cyclotron didn't work.

So we don't even have the nuclear meds to do it.

Like that kind of thing now is constant in American health care.

And it is pervasive in everything all the way from emergency medicine to the immediate all the way through ICU, through, you know, step down units all the way down to just family pharmacies in a small town.

Well, I'll let you go, Dr.

Bob.

Go ahead.

Well, I mean, do we need to get the private sector out of it? I mean, the private, I mean, the profit out of it, not the private sector so much.

But no, why is health care for profit? I just need to get rid of the for profit motive.

I genuinely think so.