Is this an accurate depiction of how the medical system in the USA works?

[Beefbisquit]

Have other Americans ran into issues like this? $55,000 for your apendix to be removed seems insane! Look at some of those costs.... $4800 for a room for a single night in a hospital? $4500 for anesthesia? $7500 for being in the recovery room for two hours? I can't understand how anyone could possibly deal/pay with this, if this is accurate.

It's mind boggling, and scary....

Even with insurance it still cost him $11,000 to get an unavoidable illness?

 

[nitro harley]

Have other Americans ran into issues like this? $55,000 for your apendix to be removed seems insane! Look at some of those costs.... $4800 for a room for a single night in a hospital? $4500 for anesthesia? I can't understand how anyone could possibly deal/pay with this, if this is accurate.

It's mind boggling, and scary....

Even with insurance it still cost him $11,000 to get an unavoidable illness?

My wife went through the same deal awhile back maybe four years ago..I think she was in the hospital for about 3-4 days and the bill was around 24k. We had insurance but are part of the bill was about the same as this bill, we paid around 12k out of pocket. Are deductible was 5k..I feel their pain..

 

[bird mcbride]

I live in Canada. We get free health care. Other than a broken bone or something similar i found doctors to be useless. I almost died a few years ago from a blood infection that all the pills the doc gave me did nothing for. Now after doing extensive studying I have taken matters into my own hands. I would be dead if I would have continued to rely on doctors. I must be on the condemned list as they keep sending me bills for thier inadiquite services.

 

[bird mcbride]

Oh ya, I got the blood infection from surgery when I lobbed of the tip of my left index finger. I decided to have doctors cut the bone back and sew it up because the other procedure mean't I would've been off work for six months with my finger sewn into my gut. Loose loose situation.

 

[Beefbisquit]

I live in Canada. We get free health care. Other than a broken bone or something similar i found doctors to be useless. I almost died a few years ago from a blood infection that all the pills the doc gave me did nothing for. Now after doing extensive studying I have taken matters into my own hands. I would be dead if I would have continued to rely on doctors. I must be on the condemned list as they keep sending me bills for thier inadiquite services.

I'm Canadian too.

I've been injured many times and the care was always top notch. Could be my location....

I was almost in your situation, but with a bone infection. Options were another 8 weeks of even stronger anti-biotics that were pretty much guaranteed to fuck up my GI tract and cause me gut problems for an undetermined amount of time, or wait and see if it went away. Luckily the infection went away.

I had to have bone scans done, and was into the Dr. twice a week for checkups. The entire time I continued working as a granite installer/fabricator. Not easy work, and it was my leg that was fucked up, and smashed open.

NOTE: Don't remove stitches yourself.

 

[insid33]

I live in Canada. We get free health care. Other than a broken bone or something similar i found doctors to be useless. I almost died a few years ago from a blood infection that all the pills the doc gave me did nothing for. Now after doing extensive studying I have taken matters into my own hands. I would be dead if I would have continued to rely on doctors. I must be on the condemned list as they keep sending me bills for thier inadiquite services.

Would you say it was just bad luck on you part? Or is this common

 

[Moldy]

Have other Americans ran into issues like this? $55,000 for your apendix to be removed seems insane! Look at some of those costs.... $4800 for a room for a single night in a hospital? $4500 for anesthesia? $7500 for being in the recovery room for two hours? I can't understand how anyone could possibly deal/pay with this, if this is accurate.

It's mind boggling, and scary....

Even with insurance it still cost him $11,000 to get an unavoidable illness?

This is what insurance companies have done to the health system. It sucks. The medical field has it's own economy. CEO's of health care insurance companies receive millions in bonuses and all equipment is marked up 1000% of it's own value. Sure, docs make good money but hardware and shit is all inflated, not to pay for the non payers but to pad the pockets of corporations and shareholder. Even though I'm fairly progressive Obamacare is a fucking sell out to insurance companies. I checked my costs on the "site" and it was 1700 bucks a month! Fucking vampires. And that's before the hospital bankrupts you just from the co-pays. This shit still needs fixing. It's not a fun thing to look forward to when you're over 60 and you know if you get sick your house and all your money is gone. Best thing I can do is preventive medicine... where's the bong?

 

[Beefbisquit]

This is what insurance companies have done to the health system. It sucks. The medical field has it's own economy. CEO's of health care insurance companies receive millions in bonuses and all equipment is marked up 1000% of it's own value. Sure, docs make good money but hardware and shit is all inflated, not to pay for the non payers but to pad the pockets of corporations and shareholder. Even though I'm fairly progressive Obamacare is a fucking sell out to insurance companies. I checked my costs on the "site" and it was 1700 bucks a month! Fucking vampires. And that's before the hospital bankrupts you just from the co-pays. This shit still needs fixing. It's not a fun thing to look forward to when you're over 60 and you know if you get sick your house and all your money is gone. Best thing I can do is preventive medicine... where's the bong?

Whatever is causing it, it's nuts.... I mean, realistically Dr.'s should be well paid, it takes a lot of time/energy/money/debt to become a Dr., so the benefits should be worth while.

However, these types of costs are fucking ridiculous.

I was told (not sure how accurate it is because I'm not American or a health professional) that American Dr.'s need to make a ton opf money because the malpractice laws are nuts in the states. You can get sued over things that you would be protected against in most countries. Is there any truth to this?

 

[beenthere]

This is what insurance companies have done to the health system. It sucks. The medical field has it's own economy. CEO's of health care insurance companies receive millions in bonuses and all equipment is marked up 1000% of it's own value. Sure, docs make good money but hardware and shit is all inflated, not to pay for the non payers but to pad the pockets of corporations and shareholder. Even though I'm fairly progressive Obamacare is a fucking sell out to insurance companies. I checked my costs on the "site" and it was 1700 bucks a month! Fucking vampires. And that's before the hospital bankrupts you just from the co-pays. This shit still needs fixing. It's not a fun thing to look forward to when you're over 60 and you know if you get sick your house and all your money is gone. Best thing I can do is preventive medicine... where's the bong?

Sorry bro, insurance companies do not set the prices of our healthcare, they just provide a service to cover all or part of the cost of it.
And this is exactly why Obamacare will not bring down the cost of healthcare insurance.

 

[beenthere]

Whatever is causing it, it's nuts.... I mean, realistically Dr.'s should be well paid, it takes a lot of time/energy/money/debt to become a Dr., so the benefits should be worth while.

However, these types of costs are fucking ridiculous.

I was told (not sure how accurate it is because I'm not American or a health professional) that American Dr.'s need to make a ton opf money because the malpractice laws are nuts in the states. You can get sued over things that you would be protected against in most countries. Is there any truth to this?

This is absolutely true, malpractice suits drive up our healthcare costs, significantly.

 

[see4]

This is what insurance companies have done to the health system. It sucks. The medical field has it's own economy. CEO's of health care insurance companies receive millions in bonuses and all equipment is marked up 1000% of it's own value. Sure, docs make good money but hardware and shit is all inflated, not to pay for the non payers but to pad the pockets of corporations and shareholder. Even though I'm fairly progressive Obamacare is a fucking sell out to insurance companies. I checked my costs on the "site" and it was 1700 bucks a month! Fucking vampires. And that's before the hospital bankrupts you just from the co-pays. This shit still needs fixing. It's not a fun thing to look forward to when you're over 60 and you know if you get sick your house and all your money is gone. Best thing I can do is preventive medicine... where's the bong?

I disagree. This has been an ongoing rising issue independent of insurance, and completely independent of Obamacare.

Hospitals are now a business, capitalist in nature. They should not be. End of story.

 

[see4]

This is absolutely true, malpractice suits drive up our healthcare costs, significantly.

Yea, this is a big issue and I agree that more attention need to be paid to fixing our judicial system. Its really a big impact on healthcare costs, indirectly.

 

[canndo]

Sorry bro, insurance companies do not set the prices of our healthcare, they just provide a service to cover all or part of the cost of it.
And this is exactly why Obamacare will not bring down the cost of healthcare insurance.

Bullshit - you never heard of "negotiated rate"? You never wondered why some providers are within an insurer's network and some are not? Do you really think that an insurance company will pay $8.00 for an aspirin or $55 for a bag of sterile saline solution?

You got to pay attention to these things if you want to comment.


But! when it comes to your second statement - no, it is unlikely that as it stands, Obamacare will not bring down the cost of HEALTHCARE, nor the cost of insurance.

 

[canndo]

This is absolutely true, malpractice suits drive up our healthcare costs, significantly.

Not really. Even if those huge malpractice awards were all actually settled (few are), they would represent only a tiny fraction of the total health care cost in Amerrica. The rising premiums for malpractice is more a function of the insurance companies failure to turn a profit on investments rather than their payouts. Look at that list of costs - the hospital, the anestesiologist and the doctors pay premiums, but the other costs have nothing to do with legal protection or premiums. The only thing medical tort reform will do is limit consumer remedies - and of course put government in the middle of a lawyer's business. Strange how the right has a big problem with limiting doctor's pay but lawyers? not so much.

 

[Antidisestablishmentarian]

But I thought that was one of its main goals....

Back to the drawing board I guess.

edit: referring to cutting costs of insurance and healthcare

 

[beenthere]

Bullshit - you never heard of "negotiated rate"? You never wondered why some providers are within an insurer's network and some are not? Do you really think that an insurance company will pay $8.00 for an aspirin or $55 for a bag of sterile saline solution?

You got to pay attention to these things if you want to comment.


But! when it comes to your second statement - no, it is unlikely that as it stands, Obamacare will not bring down the cost of HEALTHCARE, nor the cost of insurance.

Speaking of paying attention to things, tell me who the insurance companies negotiate the price with and who sets those prices?
If anything, the insurance companies are trying to bring down the costs of healthcare, and yes for their own self interest but it also lowers the shared cost incurred by the patient.

I've yet to hear of any incidences where an insurance company negotiated for higher costs, have you?

 

[canndo]

I disagree. This has been an ongoing rising issue independent of insurance, and completely independent of Obamacare.

Hospitals are now a business, capitalist in nature. They should not be. End of story.

Now we have a problem - why shouldn't hospitals be a business? They have to purchase expensive machines, pay a variety of employees, and they provide a genuine service. Of course they should be regulated in one way or another. Hell, even the non-profits are taking in gobs of money they should not be and paying their presidents and CEOs huge sums - but still, there is a synergy between insurance companies (which, by the way provide NOTHING, and now, with obamacare, provide less than nothing) and hospitals.

 

[beenthere]

I disagree. This has been an ongoing rising issue independent of insurance, and completely independent of Obamacare.

Hospitals are now a business, capitalist in nature. They should not be. End of story.

Then we'd be having doctors and surgeons with the same incentives as government employees, gotta love the DMV.

 

[canndo]

Speaking of paying attention to things, tell me who the insurance companies negotiate the price with and who sets those prices?
If anything, the insurance companies are trying to bring down the costs of healthcare, and yes for their own self interest but it also lowers the shared cost incurred by the patient.

I've yet to hear of any incidences where an insurance company negotiated for higher costs, have you?

"Sorry bro, insurance companies do not set the prices of our healthcare, they just provide a service to cover all or part of the cost of it.
And this is exactly why Obamacare will not bring down the cost of healthcare insurance."


So which is it? do they set the price or not? Now in actuality, it is a negotiation but last I heard, the results of negoatiotions were set prices. Insurance companies do try to bring down the cost TO THEMSELVES, if it brings down the cost to the consumer, great, but I assure you, you will not get the insurance company's negotiated price if you are not a member of that insurance plan. you MIGHT, if you are tough enough, get your price down some. What it does is lower THEIR cost.

As an example.

I had some blood work done some time ago - the book rate for that work was $600. I paid 20 percent of $300 dollars, which was the negotiated rate.

HOWEVER. The next time I needed that work done I was out of network. I simply shopped around and found I could get the exact same work for $45 bucks if I was willilng to bring the results to my doctor myself.

So what is that insurance company really doing? they are paying prices that are simply LESS over inflated.

Or how about this Beenthere? I have a $15 dollar copay for tier one drugs. I pay $15 to my pharmacy for my statins (well, not any more thank God). I asked how much the pills were if i were not insured - generic statins would have cost me $11 for 30 pills.

My wife's generic alprazolam? $15, actual retail from the same pharmacy? $9.

 

[NLXSK1]

The title of this thread is completely misleading

There was no complaint about the care, the medical system worked perfectly in this case.

What the poster is complaining about is the cost.