Posted on 01/12/2015 11:27:20 AM PST by Brad from Tennessee
From article:
“Thanks to federal intervention in the health care system—Medicare, Medicaid, and the employer tax exclusion—hospitals have been able to charge whatever they want for their services, knowing that the average consumer has no idea how much he’s paying, because he’s paying mostly through taxes and other indirect means.
“In 2013, U.S. government entities—i.e., taxpayers—spent a half-trillion dollars subsidizing American hospitals. By 2021, thanks in part to Obamacare, that will grow to $800 billion a year. . .”
Doctor’s and hospitals and affiliated labs have a real racket going on. They do not have to tell you what they will charge when they get your signature agreeing to pay (while you are of course desperately ill...). Then they send you a gigantic bill about a week later when all of a sudden they remembered their pricing.
bmp
There is NO WAY a chest x-ray is going to cost $20. The cost of the film, developing, the tech's time, the radiologist to review it, storage in a PACS system, amortizing the cost of the equipment, all that would cause the cost to run well into three figures.
Heck, haven’t seen a REAL X-Ray in years...they’re all DIGITAL now...
Two ankle breaks in 2 years and they give out a CD with your x-rays to take to your Dr. They email them to insurance provider...
COST of an email and digital file?
They have to charge us more so we can see what’s being billed.....what, what?
What does he want Obama to do? Set price controls? Look at the empty shelves of Venezuela super markets to see how well that works. Shall we cut the pay of doctors, nurses, technicians or other hospital workers? Health care costs a lot for a number of reasons. New technologies cost money. Pharmaceutical research cost money, Liability insurance costs money. A high level of health care costs money, and you just can't wish that away. Businesses involved with health care are incentivized to provide quality care in large part because of the money involved. You tamper with that at your peril.
Sure, there are things that can improved efficiency and lead to trimming of costs at the margins, but I just don't believe that a government bureaucracy is the mechanism to achieve these efficiencies.
Yeah, the office my doctor practices in has a deal with some 3rd party Lab, and every time he orders lab work for me, I get bills for each test a couple of weeks later, usually totaling around $75.... and I have insurance! They are real assholes too. If you don’t pay them immediately, they’ll send your ass to collections, and on your credit report it goes!
I can go to the hospital across the street and use their “Lab Direct” service(you can just walk in and request certain tests and pay cash), and pay only about $20 for the same tests. Every time he wants to do Labs, I tell him that I’ll just have them done myself and send him the results.
What is this “film” of which you speak? A new system?
Cost of the hardware, network infrastructure, storage, backup and data retention (7 years? 10 years? I don't know HIPPA reqs), redundant data center power, redundant data center cooling, plus smart people to do all that stuff? Somewhat more than Nil.
Plus, smart people to look at the Xrays and say "Yep, it's broken" or "Yep, it's broken but HERE is a larger issue" ... more than Nil, as well.
Don't get get me wrong - I'm not a fan of hospitals charging $50 for an asprin. But, I think that it's inaccurate for people to assume that all of the behind the scenes stuff that happens should be free, too.
Medicine is a large segment in the economy where by and large, due to the nature of it, there really isn’t competition and that is the problem. You go to who you like and in case of emergency perhaps who is closest. Even when possible, there is no mechanism to shop around on price.
Last Sunday I was home alone and had what turned out to be a sudden kidney stone attack. I wound up calling the ambulance for the first time in my life.
They got me to the ER and scanned and drugged.
I am dreading the bills. At least I was released that evening.
My local lib was complaining about this this morning. Yeah, I was unsympathetic and laughed in her face.
My husband went to the doctor’s last Monday, Jan. 5 for the flu. He was charged $75.00 for the visit because they said he had to cover his deductible. We have NEVER had a deductible with our insurance plan like this.
I had a kidney stone attack a few years ago. The list price on the CAT scan was $6K, but my group insurance negotiated it down to $3K. I paid 1K to satisfy the deductible. I was able to pass the stones so there were no other big ticket items..
Hardly any film anymore as it’s all gone digital, but your correct just the same - tech and radiologist alone will run you in the 100s.
That’s what amuses me about many “conservative” criticisms of Obamacare. At their core, they seem to be that it isn’t socialist enough.
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