that, the government dictates to doctors & hospitals how much they will pay them for specific procedures that are billed to medicare/medicaid....who do you think the additional costs get passed on to in order to offset those losses by the doctors & hospitals? Yep - you & me, in the form of ever-increasing healthcare costs. Which means that for those of us who do have insurance, when we submit a claim, our claims are higher because medical costs are higher, which means more out of pocket for the insurance companies which means, yep, you guessed it....higher premiums, which means more out of pocket for the consumer. It's a vicious cycle. No amount of "reform" of the healthcare system or private sector insurance cost regulation is going to help one iota until the root of the problem is addressed....and Obamacare does none of the above. "Entitlements" have GOT to be addressed & reformed before anything else can change. shaggydave | 7.25.09 @ 10:13PM re sputnik 4) I go back to the reception and make an appointment for the blood tests the next morning at 8.30 am. (I can have the blood tests done by the resident nurse.) I'm not going to argue the merits (or lack thereof) of U.K. healthcare because I know nothing about it. I am pretty sure however that nurses aren't the ones doing the testing. I am a medical laboratory technician and it seems to me that a lot of people have no idea that there are