So a man posts his hospital bill online of $11,119.53 (with insurance). How do you feel about this?

I was thinking about posting a bill for a single chest Xray last month. No doctor involved. One single Xray. 685.00. Are they fricken crazy? I thought the problem was the insurance companies but I have now come to the conclusion that it is the medical providers. An Xray should cost you no more then 70.00. Luckily I had insurance that covered it but you get to see what they 'attempt' to bill you if you didn't have insurance.

Government needs to step in and stop this. We don't need free healthcare we need medical providers that do this slapped squarely across the face.

reply to post by jrod


But remember, there are people on this board who will tell you that if you make a decent middle class wage, you have no excuse not to be able to save or do those things and you should be paying more taxes.

It's Cloward-Piven. They are soaking us from the top and the bottom is envious and hungry to eat us up from the bottom because they think we have so much more than they do.

I have seen this somewhere else already a few days ago...

Just so much...there are PLENTY of people (here on the forum too) who complain about "socialism" and whatever changes would be required to correct your entirely screwed up system. As long as a LARGE number of people is still "fine" with the current status-quo and considers anything else as threatening socialism or "communism"...as long will you have insanity going on in your country such as a bills for an appendectomy for $45k Isn't this what you want? Free and unregulated capitalism where anyone, any corporate, any doctor, any hospital can scam others in such a way?

Obviously...this hospital bill has NOTHING to do with "having health-insurance or not"...since health-insurance would not change the entirely off-the-scale costs of this surgery..anesthesia for $4.5k? (lol) or a cat scan for almost $7k...or whatever other fantasy numbers they pulled out of their hat there.

On a related side-note, there was another post today somewhere of a woman who won "the biggest prize ever" on the prize is right, a $180k car. Problem only, she'll have to pay $40k tax once she gets her "prize". Needless to say, in other countries sweepstake-prizes are tax free.

One day I'll post a thread about the insanity in America I promise, it is a a long, long list...

reply to post by NoRulesAllowed


What part of government-run system = government run life do you not get?

I don't want the government completely controlling my access to any and all health care I will ever get. I don't trust them.

reply to post by CleanCare


Holy Molly!
$11,119.53
Is a Persons Health Coverage Cost?
Are they mad? whom can someone pay the health bills?
With that kind of charge?

ketsuko
reply to post by jrod

 

But remember, there are people on this board who will tell you that if you make a decent middle class wage, you have no excuse not to be able to save or do those things and you should be paying more taxes.

It's Cloward-Piven. They are soaking us from the top and the bottom is envious and hungry to eat us up from the bottom because they think we have so much more than they do.

WHAT??? No we'd just like to make enough to live on I mean Actually have enough to buy food, and keep a roof over our heads without getting our a** in a sling over those things.
Really??

I'd just like to be able to take home some money at the end of the day. After gas that's all but impossible nobody finds the middle class the root of the problem, now the ones we do find issue of are the ones who own your A** MY A** and any person below them the 1%.

I believe it has to do with the pay rates of the surgeons. When you have a surgeon earning $1,000,000 or so a year at one hospital and a surgeon earning 500,000 at another for the same operation, it's going to affect prices in the hospitals

ketsuko
reply to post by NoRulesAllowed

 

What part of government-run system = government run life do you not get?

I don't want the government completely controlling my access to any and all health care I will ever get. I don't trust them.

For a brief time, I was actually on a government run system as my youngest is Native American via Indian Health System.

Under Kaiser, doctors did not perform a simple measurement to ascertain cephalopelvic disproportion. I was pushed through a prolonged labor for more hours than anybody wants to know (days), my eldest was in fetal distress for 14 hours, and was found bone dry--they refilled it, had me on oxygen, and did everything they could to push me towards a natural childbirth when if they had taken that single measurement, they would've known that it wasn't going to happen. I ended up an emergency c-section and the hospital was very clear that it was miraculous that we were alive.

Under IHS, they took my report of what occurred with my eldest and decided that there was no way in hell that I was going to be allowed to go into labor. In fact, they scheduled the c-section a month before my due date, ordered cryo as my blood type was rare, performed tests before the procedure, and more. When I started to bleed out afterwards, they had expected that (bleeding time that morning was > 25 minutes to clot) and did everything they could to help me. Obviously I clotted. They also repaired the botched stitching job that the Kaiser doctor did on my first c-section that had left my abdomen pretty horribly scarred. When the swelling went down, that was an amazing bonus as I didn't have a deep hollowed out area and a nasty scar ridge anymore.

Hands down, IHS was way better.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


I've heard stories about IHS that would curl your toes. It's hit or miss much like your public school district.

We've all heard some horror stories about nationalized healthcare but then you look at the leading healthcare systems on the world, and realize even with their horror stories they are above US healthcare 36 of them are to be exact.

When will people stop tooting the capitalist horn? Apparently when anything that is beneficial is based on fiat money the only losers are the ones who don't own the games. It's like going into 1940's Las Vegas and betting on the roulette or craps table, even when you won, you'd lose in the end because you'd be beaten and left out in the desert to die. It's a rigged game the entire thing, that includes healthcare. There is nothing else more rigged for Americans than the healthcare system because they know there's only two constants in this world, death and taxes and that most people will try to avoid death at any cost, and they own the stakes. Insurance companies own the stakes.

If you ask me that is hardly fair. When they all know there is not enough jobs that pay high to go around even if every single American got a good education in a specified field that would still just mean more people going to apply for these high tech jobs and drive the wages down due to demand..
And we cannot win when idiots will still sit there an praise the almighty capitalistic overlords and their ponzi scheme.

I'm skeptical. $55,000.00 for an appendectomy seems awfully high.
I've had surgeries much more technical than this, and they didn't cost anywhere near that amount.

not only was i in severe pain recently, but because i blurted out what they technicaly call suicidal ideations while screaming in pain, they didn't give me anything more that ibuprofen, and put me in a psych ward. 3 weeks at $1000.00 plus a day. Luckily, well not really, ive been diagnosed and put on state insurance. But honestly my symptoms have been tolerable for over the last year mostly, and this hospital visit for me was a complete misdirection of money. All because doctors are a bunch of fear mongering money grabbers who love mis-diagnosing to make an extra buck.

ldyserenity
We've all heard some horror stories about nationalized healthcare but then you look at the leading healthcare systems on the world, and realize even with their horror stories they are above US healthcare 36 of them are to be exact.

Believe me, there are just as many horror stories from the private sector but we don't hear any because they tend to be settled quietly and under contractual confidentiality. Public medicine is, by definition, publicly accountable.

ketsuko
reply to post by NoRulesAllowed

 

What part of government-run system = government run life do you not get?

I don't want the government completely controlling my access to any and all health care I will ever get. I don't trust them.

What part of nationalised health care don't you understand? No country apart from North Korea has a entirely government run health system. All allow the choice to have private health insurance as well.

My wife needed an operation, nothing serious, nothing urgent. She could wait three months for a free-at-the-point-of-care op on the NHS or we could pay fifteen hundred pounds and get it done privately within a fortnight. One credit card transaction later, job done.

Even within the NHS there is flexibility. As in most other countries, you can choose your doctor and where to have treatment. There are informal ways too. My GP also has a private practice, specialising in breast surgery. When my sister found a lump, we schmoozed him into giving her an off-the-record examination and diagnosis.

We don't want private health insurance because the NHS is enough. If we want to jump the queue again, we 'll pay and go private again.

My best friend's dad, on the other hand, hasn't been near the NHS since 1969. Then again, he hasn't used public transport since then either.

CleanCare

Scared that I may become the next victim of America's presitigous health care system.

edit on 31-12-2013 by CleanCare because: fact editing

edit on 31-12-2013 by CleanCare because: (no reason given)

You have to watch out. Emergency Room visits or inpatient visits can easily dent you $11,000 or so and there is no easy way to pay that back as far as I know. That could set you back for life.

For me, this month I made a mistake and spent an extra $40 that I didn't have because of unexpected charges on my electric bill. That caused me stress and problems. $11,000 - 200x that.

reply to post by CleanCare


When you have insurance it's expensive and when you don't have insurance it's twice if not three times as expensive.

Our country is ridiculous when it comes to medical care. Many people have insurance but can't even afford to use the insurance they have!

My husband pays almost $500 a month for our insurance which is just insane and our deductibles are high and co-pays for everything of course. They nickel and dime you to death. I have had to cancel many appointments because I didn't have the co-pay. DO you think the doctor said come in anyway? HAHA no they said they need payment up front. They don't even ask your name when you sign in anymore, it's "oh mrs. jones we need your co-pay" and then you wait forever to be seen. It is insane. I was seeing a psychiatrist and was paying $30 a visit once a week! I wasn't even getting any treatment. All she talked about was pills and their side effects and I didn't even get the HOUR I was suppose to get per my payment amount. She never talked about anything i brought up it was ALWAYS about the meds, ALWAYS! I told her I didn't need her to tell me about the meds because I already knew about them and didn't need to look in a book like she did to now their side effects. It drove me nuts and I finally stopped going to her.

Recently I had a couple MRI's done and they wanted $400 upfront to do them well of course i didn't have $400 bucks so I had to find a way to make payments which took a month, all the while i'm still dealing with massive migraines for there last now 7mths. They don't care about the patients it's ALL about MONEY! It makes me sick. So we paid them for the MRIs and Im STILL waiting to be contacted about my results. Oh it's the holiday's I get told, so the holiday's are an excuse to slack off and not respond to patients phone calls over something important that we PAID for?! Ugh...this country sucks. I want out.

It is only going to get worse.. I hear that from every doctor I have been to. They are not looking forward to the new obamacare and what that will entail. Oh fun.


Our country is so backwards. It is unreal. We care more about fighting imaginary wars for profit than the people of our own country. We send money overseas to these so called war zones to help their people out and help every other country that has issues yet we can't help our own people. Something is seriously wrong with that picture.

antonia
reply to post by ColCurious

 

Because anything else is the socialisms. Nothing more need be said about the American mindset.

Im guessing for some of thesse Americans its only working if is hyper expensive and people drop down dead because of it.

reply to post by CleanCare


Last spring while fishing i got a fish hook buried in my finger
had to go to the ER.
Ten minutes in the room,a shot of novacaine and a pair of needle nose
pliers that looked like they came from the local Hardware store.
Bill $586.00 i have insurance.
My final bill was $59.00
What a freaking Joke.
Love Health Care we have.
NOT !!!!!

crazyewok

antonia
reply to post by ColCurious

 

Because anything else is the socialisms. Nothing more need be said about the American mindset.

Im guessing for some of thesse Americans its only working if is hyper expensive and people drop down dead because of it.

Crazyewok,

People *DO* drop down because of this. This is the reality. I had plenty of examples in the past with friends or relatives where any thought about a potential medical issue was FOREMOST centered about the money.

People DO consider going to the doctor or not because they cannot afford it. People do get and stay sick and die because they didn't go to a doctor or went too late.

People Do perform bizarre "self-surgeries" and harm themselves because they cannot afford a doctor.

This is going on right now, this is not science-fiction.

reply to post by bluesman1955


Oh and by the way.
I haven't even recieved the ER bill yet.