A $55,00 hospital bill for appendicitis has gone viral (illegal, Afghanistan, soldier)
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I'm confused here.....are you saying the pill fell out of the sky, and the drug company hired a haz-mat team to recover the pill and so $150 to $250 is fair?
No, I am saying pills that cost $84,000 dollars for treatment are unsustainable. The article doesn't claim that $150-$250 is a fair price to charge either. It claims that is roughly the cost for the pills and is asking how $84,000 then becomes a "fair" price.
It's a conversation we refuse to have and it isn't even one that single payers are willing to have. Insurance allows for something like this. They would be unable to charge that much if not for some insurance company picking up the tab.
A 25 year old shouldn't have to pay budget busting insurance costs because someone else is being charged (after other charges) $100k for pills. So there are two options. 1. We address costs. 2. We don't pay for stuff like this.
That was 10 year ago. Given the horrible state of Canada's healthcare you'd think there'd be a plethora or more recent examples.
There are many examples. In the comparisons between the two countries Canada is small time. Last I checked the population of the entire country didn't equal the population of California alone.
This isn't a knock on Canada, it's just the way it is. You are going to have fewer examples when you have fewer people spread out over such a large distance.
That is a way to note that Canada does ration health care. Whenever that is mentioned here heads explode and nobody wants to have an honest conversation about it. Either some get health care while others do without or everyone gets it but gets less of it overall.
I go to my cancer center next Tuesday to have bloodwork, a scan, and my follow up appointment with my oncologist. Just ONE DAY that does not include any form of treatment or require a room will cost close to $30,000. Luckily, I have "Cadillac insurance" so I will only be responsible for a few hundred dollars in copays, but plenty of people are not so lucky. I need these scans several times a year, though down from my high of 4 times a year. I'm early in my career- $30,000 is 3/4 of my take-home yearly income. When going through treatment, I saw my oncologist sometimes twice a week with each appointment alone costing more than a week's salary. Each infusion was almost my yearly income at the time. I had 2 infusions a month for 6 months. What killed me though was the cost of prescription medications. Even with insurance and generics, my scripts cost thousands of dollars a month during treatment and are still a few hundred dollars a month today.
That money goes not only toward supplies and personnel, but also paying for the expensive equipment needed for the scans. The amount is high, but I obviously think that all those involved need to be paid a salary in line with their skills. That said, the average American has no means to pay it off. $10,000 is HALF of the average American's take-home. Half. And probably more than that for the average 20 year old. Half of your income AFTER INSURANCE. That's simply not sustainable as a society.
Sure, we have great doctors. But we also have people being bankrupted because they have the misfortune of getting sick before hitting Medicare age.
And what we are willing to do about that is something no one will discuss.
It is amazing they can charge whatever they want. My wife laid on a bed in the hallway for three days waiting for an MRI, and the bill was $15 000 for the bed.
Viral because foreigners are astounded that Americans pay insurance premiums and still get a $11,000 bill.
What they should be astounded over is what led to that bill in the first place.
Lawsuits. People believe that any mistake at all should mean they never have to work again.
Did a search on Google for malpractice lawyers
About 5,410,000 results(0.31 seconds)
Can you say WOW!!!
Because of this, everything is double and triple checked, tests, even if not needed are done, "just in case".
THEN, everyone has to have malpractice insurance, who do you think pays for that?
Did some research, (google is my friend), in 2009, the average insurance cost for an Anesthesiologist, was $21,000. That was 2009, I am sure it's gone up. Every Doctor, MANY nurses, and various other entities, including the hospital itself, has to have malpractice insurance.
We live in a world here in the U.S. where someone buys hot coffee,, spills it on themselves, and sues Macdonalds for selling them coffee that's hot. Wanna see a sharp drop in medical costs? Limit lawsuits.
Its not an entitlement. EVERYONE should be granted the right to healthcare, regardless of pay, just like everyone is granted the right to have police and justice system serve them, even if they have no money. Healthcare is one of THE ONLY THINGS that are a true necessity. Hell even if you run out of food, you can resort to begging, and heck even trapping food in the wild. But I cant learn to radiate myself if I come down with cancer or develop a steroid to relieve my chronic pain because I have Chrons disease. I will say that someone who supports single payer, Im not stupid enough to assume that's its free, and in fact, it irks me when I hear single payer proponents say free healthcare. I know that it comes out of our pockets via taxes, but it is free at the time of services. And by all other estimates, its saving other countries money and it covers EVERYONE. IT DOES work but the right is stubborn to change and so is the left, because if they had the cajones to pass single payer, they could have when they had super majority. Instead we get a right wing plan that helps but does not solve the issue of covering every one.
No, with the right we wouldn't have any plan and there was no one on the left willing to do or say what was needed said because winning was more important than doing what needed done.
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Did you not read my PS part. I WAS BEING SARCASTIC. Of course soldiers should receive healthcare, but so should every other american. And you say dork flipping patties at BK. While there may be slackers, anytime I roll through fast food with my friends (I refuse to intentionally poison myself, but I still go with them to hang out) , more and more of the people are of middle age who lost jobs because as a nation, we lost our way by outsourcing and losing our manufacture base. But that's for another debate.
No, it's a part of the big picture discussion that we are refusing to have.
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AND NO its not fine when ANY president put this nation at risk by the continuation of foreign policies which has led us into where we are today. The blow back that we have seen due to our belief that we must be world police will haunt this nation if we continue down this path, and it does pain me to see BOTH sides be hypocritical as they both perpetuate the cycle that we are on.
Which is the conversation those who argue for single payer refuse to have. I am for pulling our troops home from places they have absolutely no business being in the first place and using that money for health care here. I am for simplifying our tax code so it's more fair overall. Fair is where some like Warren Buffet would pay more and some paying nothing now or even getting back more than they pay in would pay something to be invested into the system.
On the other side I would take up Obama's discarded argument about making the tax code encourage investment here.
We are getting nowhere because we do not have honest politicians willing to honestly discuss the issues. They want to lie and hope that enough will accept those lies. If you want single payer you are going to have to quit accepting those lies.
Yep, there's not a dam bit of "Health care" reform in Obamacare.
Again, who benefits from a law that does does nothing to bring down the costs of medical treatment but forces everyone to buy health insurance?
As usual...follow the money.
Yep. In the end, the providers are still going to be "made whole" and have all their expenses and salaries covered. The only difference is that they will be picking more peoples pockets to pay them.
I guess these readers didn't see the article in Time a year or so ago documenting the same thing.
One of the laws a government truly interested in its citizens' welfare could pass, is one that requires transparent and up-front pricing from hospitals.
But our current government isn't interested in this.
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