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It would be nice if we could see what all medical care costs us so we could shop around for the best price.
There's a rather large difference between shopping around for the best price on a new nose or those silicone DDs you just gotta have and needing emergency care like the snake-bite victim recently billed $189K for emergency treatment.
As usual, the more the government subsidizes something, the more expensive it gets. One of the reasons that socialized healthcare is such a stupid idea.
Interesting. Your statement is only relevant in the manner to which it applies to the U.S. alone.
Tacking the "socialized" onto the word healthcare and referring to that as a "stupid idea" implies that every other first world developed country out there must be "stupid".
Kinda controversial when you consider all those others are covering everyone equally, doing it cheaper, performing better, not wanting anything whatsoever to do with what approximates "healthcare in America", never having to consider a question like the one posed in the O/P nor ever even having to consider costs of any of their pre-emptive or necessary healthcare at all.
Who is it that should be deemed really "stupid" in this comparative scenario?
There's a rather large difference between shopping around for the best price on a new nose or those silicone DDs you just gotta have and needing emergency care like the snake-bite victim recently billed $189K for emergency treatment.
Exactly. Competition on medical care only works for the person who holds the power. When you want breast augmentation, YOU hold the power. When you are sick or dying, they hold all the power.
I'm not sure why people can't think through this and think that it will work like buying toothpaste or something.
Exactly. Competition on medical care only works for the person who holds the power. When you want breast augmentation, YOU hold the power. When you are sick or dying, they hold all the power.
I'm not sure why people can't think through this and think that it will work like buying toothpaste or something.
It's a mystery to me as well.
You shatter your hip, you want the best ortho doc around, not the cheapest.
Conceivably you can shop around for the cheapest blood work, x-rays, mammograms and so forth. But the big stuff just has too many details for anyone but an accountant to make sense of them.
07-31-2017, 09:14 AM
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n/a posts
Quote:
Originally Posted by ChristineVA
It's a lot easier for this model to work when the treatment required is optional.
No one needs cosmetic surgery, teeth whitening, or Lasik. You are not in a dire situation when you need any of these, you can take your time, save your money, and shop around.
See how well that works when you appendix bursts, your unknown cancer decides to show itself with extensive bleeding, or you break your leg. Let's see how much you feel like getting on the phone and calling around to find the best price.
Exactly.
I seeriously doubt the people pushing this nonsense are actually so dumb as to not understand the difference between an entirely elective procedure and essential medical care. They're just so committed to pushing their anti-government nonsense that they'll say anything, no matter how absurd.
It's a lot easier for this model to work when the treatment required is optional.
No one needs cosmetic surgery, teeth whitening, or Lasik. You are not in a dire situation when you need any of these, you can take your time, save your money, and shop around.
See how well that works when you appendix bursts, your unknown cancer decides to show itself with extensive bleeding, or you break your leg. Let's see how much you feel like getting on the phone and calling around to find the best price.
Then an out of network e room doc in an IN-network E room bills you $1300 for 15 minutes of work and an out of network radiology company patrolling the same E room bills you $3000.
The blunt answer is bureaucracy and inefficiency. Here are some excerpts I shared years ago from a column by Robert Samuelson.
There are 9 times more clerical workers in health care than there are physicians, and twice as many clerical workers as registered nurses. This investment has not paid off in superior outcomes or better customer service, however. …Every analysis of medical care that has been done highlights the significant waste of resources in providing care. Consider a few examples: one study found that physicians spent on average of 142 hours annually interacting with health plans, at an estimated cost to practices of $68,274 per physician (Casalino et al., 2009). Another study found that 35 percent of nurses’ time in medical/surgical units of hospitals was spent on documentation (Hendrich et al., 2008).
When I broke my wrist the orthopedic surgeon wasn't going to see me right away so I had time to check around, at least my husband did. I was in pain but we checked around.
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