Posted on 06/25/2009 6:41:22 PM PDT by caper gal 1
I’m old enough to remember when average people could go to their doctor and pay an easily affordable bill afterwards. People today don’t seem to believe this but I found a document among my mother’s papers recently when I emptied out her apartment and it is powerful ammo in the fight against this march to socialized health care rationing.
In 1968, just three short years after LBJ’s government got in the health care business, my father was attacked and beaten severely with a tire iron. He spent a week in ICU and had surgery to remove portions of his skull, and a second surgery to put plates in to replace those portions.
He worked as a maintenance man at a manufacturing plant, and my mother was a nurse. The document is a claim they filed against his attacker to be reimbursed for the medical expenses they had paid. The total bill for ambulance, two hospitalizations, surgeries and drugs? $1,168.52. They paid it out of pocket. They didn’t have health insurance. They didn’t need it because health care at that point was still market based. Adjusted for inflation to current dollars that bill would still be only $7,155.13, far less than you can rack up today in less than an hour in your local ER.
I have this doc saved as a .pdf doc but don't know how to post them here. If some one will let me know, I'll be MORE than glad to do so.
When my boys were little (in the 1980s) a visit to the pediatrician was about 25$. There was no co-pay, that’s what the doctor got. The last time I checked into how much a doctor visit was (to a GP) without insurance, it was over 100$ (I think it was 110$ but I am not positive).
Some of us remember those days, like you said we didn’t need insurance, doctor, and hospital visits were not expensive, we could afford them.
I believe it. My Dad died of cancer in June, 1965, after suffering from it for nine months. He had an operation in January, radiation treatment after the cancer proved inoperable, and spent the last month in the hospital. All this and he didn’t use up the $12,000 insurance policy he had. His private room in a good community hospital costs $20 a day. My mom and I only had to pay $300 to our doctor and part of that was for my grandmother who died about the same time.
I can remember going to the family doctor with my mom as a kid in the 60’s and there was a deli style “menu” in the office showing what it would cost for a school physical, general exam, flu shots, office visit, etc.
You are so right. In the late 70s the docs I worked for were setting fees higher routinely, because Medicare paid based on fees from prior years, can’t remember how long it was.
My doc charges $289.00 for a visit. I have limited options on my insurance, mostly UF docs. But I think I am going to find a doc who will charge less than $100.00 a visit just because now.
My son was in an accident, they “saw” something, gave him a total spine CT, $26,000.00 bill for less than 4 hours in ER.
My basic doctor visit runs over $200 with no insurance. I avoid going unless I absolutely have to, it’s outrageous. $200 for maybe 15 minutes.
My dad saved the bill from when I was born: Total was about $500 (1954) They had apparently paid something during the pregnancy for $35. The doctor owned the hospital and had a policy of delivering the 5th child FREE. I have the bill with a $35 CREDIT due my folks!
What we need to do is absolutely DEMAND of our representatives that as outrageous as it seems, what we need is less, not more, government intervention in the health care system in order to provide more affordable and better quality health care to Americans. In other words, we need to restore it to what it was before they screwed it up in the first place.
It is simple ECON 101 to see that private market and public sector intervention cannot co-exist competitively.
About the same time, government got involved in student loans, it got involved in the provision of health care. Look at what has happened to tuition and the cost of health care.
My first semester in college cost $100. The following semester it dropped to $75. I paid it all out of pocket.
By the time I graduated, LBJs great society had begun to kick in and I had to borrow $400 to finish.
You are being cheated....we go to our doc (once a year) and pay about $325 for 1 WHOLE hour. I can get 1/2 hour if I want...but he’s worth the hour. Plus, he’s a MD and a Naturapath who teaches others.....course...we pay cash...he doesn’t take insurance or medicare. But, then he’s not the kind of doc who sets bones or deals with the flu....he’s preventative.
I think we paid about $1000 for my son’s delivery in 1970. Paid cash. No insurance.
We’re all paying so much for unfunded federally mandated coverage, Medicare/Medicaid fraud, and tort escalated costs.
Of which the GP gets about $28.
The Dems have ruined healthcare.
The doctor delivered me at my house in 1945. Cost $55.
My point exactly. So why are we sitting by and just swallowing this? They are heading in exactly the wrong direction - we need LESS government to fix this mess, not more. More government is just throwing gas on the fire.
Bookmarking and bumping.
Obama and his librat cohorts are relying on people to not remember that far back. We need to remind them.
I do have to say that some of the price increase is because of a “sue happy” society. I know of a doctor that gave up his practice because he couldn’t afford the insurance premiums.
BINGO!!!!! We as Conservatives absolutely need to crusade for torte reform and make this as huge an issue as abortion because it is every bit as much a life and death issue.
In 1976, my first child, well baby ped office visits were $5.00. What are they now?
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