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from the there-should-be-an-app-for-that dept.
Fountain Valley resident Jennifer Moore makes a really good point.
"When you take your car to the mechanic, they give you a written estimate before they touch it," she told me.
"So why is it that when you go to the hospital, you have no idea how much something will cost until the bill arrives?"
Moreover, why are prices so completely different from one healthcare provider to another?
And why is it that when patients try to find out in advance how much something will cost, they're treated like unwelcome guests rather than equal partners in their own treatment?
[...] The near-total lack of transparency in healthcare pricing is a key reason we have the highest costs in the world — roughly twice what people in other developed countries pay.
Simply put, drugmakers, hospitals, labs and other medical providers face no accountability for their frequently obscene charges because it's often impossible for patients to know how badly they're being ripped off.
[...] Moore's insurer, Cigna, was charged $2,758 by the medical center for the two ultrasounds. However, Cigna gets a contractual discount of just over $1,000 because it's, well, Cigna. All insurers cut such sweetheart deals with medical providers.
That lowered the bill to $1,739. Cigna paid $500. That left a balance of $1,239, for which Mika was entirely responsible because she hadn't met her $1,250 deductible for the year.
Moore quickly ascertained online that the average cost for a pair of ultrasounds is about $500 — meaning the medical center's original $2,758 charge represented a more than 400% markup.
Cigna's lower contractual charge of $1,739 still meant the bill had been marked up more than 200%.
And the $1,239 Mika had to pay was more than twice the national average.
Wait, it gets even worse.
Moore said that after working her way through various levels of customer service in the medical center's billing department, she learned that the cash price for the two ultrasounds was $521.
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-07-29/column-could-our-healthcare-system-be-any-dumber
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 03 2019, @05:44AM (6 children)
Ah yes, anecdotal bullshit.
The assumption that systems can not be fixed is ridiculoys. The real problem is the health insurance. Insurance operatives are bean counters by role, the very definition of pain in the ass burearacracy.
For profit is the major problem. Some sectors of human society should not be profit motivated, and should extend service to all. Humanity can support this, thus it is a moral imperstive.
Wait there's more, the literal examples abound of successful social healthcare systems. Everything else is FUD in the worst way, where the death panels are everyday insurance auditors, undoubtedly with their employment tied to performance metrics and unwavering "guide lines." And here is our resident bird brain shrilly bleating their cheers.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 03 2019, @12:56PM (5 children)
He asked for anecdotal, dumbass.
No, dumbass, it can't support this. Available care and advancements at the pace the US has set cannot be maintained without paying a whopping fuckload more than the US government takes in in taxes every year. Oh, sure, if your little nation is willing to be a parasite and sponge off US innovation you'll be able to get by for a while with slow, mediocre care. If we do it the science of medicine slows to a trickle and you're all fucked though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 03 2019, @01:10PM (1 child)
I'm pretty sure the Chinese disagree with you and will eat the USA's lunch within 5-10 years.
Being able to buy the same meds from Canada for much much cheaper than they can be purchased in the US clearly demonstrates that the US consumer is getting screwed. The existence of "medical destination" countries also prove this fact.
Your "We are the US and fuck you for not being the US" attitude leads to you paying a lot more, and getting a lot less, than the rest of the civilized world. Complacency leads to downfall. Just ask ... oh, wait, you can't because they are already extinct.
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 03 2019, @02:11PM
No, it doesn't. And your ability to reason is clearly suspect if you believe it does. Now we are getting screwed but you are wrong in your proof of how and don't comprehend the why.
It's not an attitude. We objectively, empirically are the shit when it comes to advancing medicine. Deal with it or start pulling your weight.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday August 03 2019, @03:57PM
Oh, woe is Big Pharma! They will certainly DIE if we had a reasonable payment system for most people.**
No, they wouldn't. Be rational. You don't outlaw private insurance. This is where we make the huge amount of inequality in the U.S. work for everyone! It's all simple -- rich people will continue to pay ridiculous sums just to live a little longer. Let them. They can subsidize Big Pharma and "innovation." Capitalism at work.
Meanwhile, give everyone at least an OPTION for reasonable healthcare. Maybe it's 5 years behind what the rich get (or whatever is worked out), so you can't get the latest experimental treatment that will cost you a million dollars a year. But Big Pharma gets its stupid profits to "innovate" (as well as pay its CEOs, which is where a huge amount of this is going too), the average American gets healthcare, and money is siphoned out of the rich to decrease inequality maybe just a little in the name of improving society overall. Win-win for everyone!
Oh, but wait -- you object that the rich should pay more? Nope, that's capitalism for you. The idea of a "fixed price" is a socialist construct come up by Quakers and other liberals, forced on the population in the late 19th century. Before that, most goods had to be negotiated for, and if a seller sensed you had more money to pay, chances are you'd be offered a higher price. We return to the roots of capitalism to save "innovation" -- isn't that what you want?!
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**Not to mention that the current state of medicine is high enough that the average lifespan has been extended well beyond what many people could expect a few generations ago. I'd be happy if I continued to have access to the current level of medical care for the remainder of my life, if it were offered at reasonable cost.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 03 2019, @04:07PM
Sounds like US is a 3rd world country. And the "advancements" are not made by the last-mile of the healthcare system but mostly by the publicly funded researchers. And "available care" is not available, unless you can pay. Like in 3rd world country.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Health_care_cost_rise.svg [wikimedia.org]
You are doing something really fucked up when you start at same place and are the only outlier. And not only that, on this group you are the ONLY country without a universal healthcare system.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 03 2019, @04:35PM
Ah, there's muh R&D.