This is something that I can't emphasize enough. The US practices practically no preventative medicine. Unfortunately, it's only getting worse. I had a friend in the medical business tell me last week that Medicare is cutting reimbursements for certain procedures. There's nothing unusual in that, but this specific procedure is generally used pre-operation to prevent certain infections. Of course, they will still continue to do it, but there doesn't seem to be any real plan by the CMS to actually push preventative medicine. The US is a procedural system that rewards work done on a sick person, but it doesn't REWARD someone for remaining healthy.
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The $2.7 Trillion Medical Bill
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fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck
TacticalFox88
Banned
Jesus fuck @ that video.
Who needs lobbying when you have idiots like that?
Who needs lobbying when you have idiots like that?
Compassionate conservatives.
One of the more infuriating things about the Obama administration was when the ACA was being discussed and his answer to a single-payer system was that we couldn't do it, because we'd have to start from scratch. THEN LET'S START FROM SCRATCH!!
But no, we can't. You have to marvel at the grotesque shit storm that is the American health care system. Created purely by lobbyists and almost wholly without merit. And yet, I've had friends champion it as what DEFINES us as Americans and squeal and whine the moment anybody suggests improving it.
Lamel
Banned
This post made you sound really stupid just btw, do some research.
After 11+ years of schooling and an average debt of 200k, along with very high costs of practicing, I don't think doctors are the problem here.
MightyKAC
Member
Shit like that is why I laugh when ever my relatives ask why I left the US. And then I laugh even harder when they ask if I'll ever return.
DocTarHeel
Member
How does an angiogram cost $35 in Canada?
Messypandas
Member
tell them to stick the bills up their ass
Hari Seldon
Member
Dump their non-profit status unless they charge medicare prices for everyone and see how fast these fucking bastards get more efficient.
Rockandrollclown
lookwhatyou'vedone
This is why I feel ACA misses the mark. More important than having everyone insured, is to curb healthcare costs in the first place. You can find countless stories of hospitals charging 1000% markups on all kinds of shit. Tylenol pill that costs 1.5 cents, lets charge $1.50 a pill, $10 for the plastic cup your pills come in, each individual cup $10 each, $53 for each pair of gloves used in your treatment. Until shit like this stops, even with insurance, our medical system will continue to bankrupt an unacceptable amount of Americans.
JakkuFurosu
Member
Jesus that was fucking disgusting.
I can guarantee if I personally witnessed that type of behavior id be in jail.
This is done to offset the costs of people who can't afford to pay. I'm not saying its right (I think everyone should have to pay up for universal), but this is the reason those things cost so much. Heck, maybe you're saying the same thing, I might not be reading it right. Regardless, its not cheap to run a hospital.
AstroNut325
Member
In late march my mom got into a car accident (she wasn't at fault). She was hospitalized for approximately three hours. One CT scan, one pain killer and a prescription later... the total bill was dollars short of $5,000.00 USD.
It's scary that 90+% of this country is ONE medical emergency away from bankruptcy! But... who cares. FREEDOMZ!
It's scary that 90+% of this country is ONE medical emergency away from bankruptcy! But... who cares. FREEDOMZ!
BattleMonkey
Member
I just had to have surgery on a very large cyst that developed on my leg, it was too deep to drain so it had to be cut out and can't just take medicine for that. It was about 4-5 inches big and it was very painful to even sit.
The cost for the quick 45min out patient surgery was over $18,000 . With my insurance I still had to pay over 5k out of pocket and they told me I still might have other bills to take care of to come for various other fees....
This was something minor, I can't imagine what the costs would be if I had something serious happen. I'm supposed to just watch my life savings go poof? The system is complete bullshit.
The cost for the quick 45min out patient surgery was over $18,000 . With my insurance I still had to pay over 5k out of pocket and they told me I still might have other bills to take care of to come for various other fees....
This was something minor, I can't imagine what the costs would be if I had something serious happen. I'm supposed to just watch my life savings go poof? The system is complete bullshit.
Fragamemnon
Member
It misses the mark but it's a step in the right direction. First you get everyone insured because if you're not, then you are one hospital visit away from bankruptcy and that sucks.
Then you get progressive states to backdoor singlepayer measures and let its effectiveness metastasize across the rest of the country. Or you can just make the government-provided -program on the exchange get enough participants due to competition and clobber down the prices that way.
Either way, the health care business will have to change the way they do business, which is a good thing because the current implementations are totally FUBAR.
User 100115
Banned
I am having an issue right now where my options are: Drive myself even further into medical debt, or deal with severe pain. And I have insurance.
This country's medical system is so broken.
This country's medical system is so broken.
Warm Machine
Member
Thing is why does it cost that much? I understand MRI machines and so on cost a lot of money to buy but that cost is spread out over years and thousands of uses.
Doctors also earn a lot of money, but not that much. Even $100 an hour doesn't amount to that much for the actual time they spend on your individual health/case.
It is like the patient is being charged for the time they are using that other people could be using as well which is false economics.
Doctors also earn a lot of money, but not that much. Even $100 an hour doesn't amount to that much for the actual time they spend on your individual health/case.
It is like the patient is being charged for the time they are using that other people could be using as well which is false economics.
AstroNut325
Member
It's a combination of many things like:
-Private enterprise profit
-Covering the cost of unpaid bills
-Overuse/over-prescribe treatments or procedures
Among many other things. It's not a simple problem to tackle. Especially in a country that blindly adheres to the idea "Government is evil."
Rockandrollclown
lookwhatyou'vedone
You'll never convince me that there are enough uninsured people to warrant charging tens of thousands of percent markup on items like that. Besides, hospitals get to write off people who do not pay. I've taken advantage of it in the past, tax payers already subsidize them to an extent. If we saw simple 500% markups even I might buy that its to cover the uninsured, not markups that go beyond 20000% markup.
I'm not making excuses for anybody. I'm 100% certain that the insane level of markups are making somebody rich. Definitely not hospital staff though, not relative to the work they put in.
Rockandrollclown
lookwhatyou'vedone
You'll get no argument from me there, my mom is a nurse. I largely tend to think healthcare like everything else in this country the money probably settles largely with the top .1% involved.
Because your choice is to pay or die. Plain and simple.
They'll charge any amount they can get away with, and they can get away with a lot when you need their drugs and equipment to survive.
Snkfanatic
Banned
Wow....
As someone without insurance in their 30s I would hope that having the ridiculously expensive health care I can get would assure me piece of mind. It is so far from the truth it is not even funny. The kicker is now I will have to pay a fine soon since I am not insured.
Ugh, I hope it gets better for you Fiction.
Goro Majima
Kitty Genovese Member
Isn't malpractice insurance absurdly expensive? That probably doesn't help.
Omegasquash
Member
From what I've been told by folks in the medical field, that's one of the main reasons. Doctors are afraid to get sued, they have to pay for insurance against it, and the patients foot the bill.
Hari Seldon
Member
I'm convinced there is some shady crap going on. If you look at these large local monopoly health care hospital chains, they usually have some small cadre at the top with a handful of people making millions. Not like hundreds of millions, just millions. Not enough to justify the insane costs. I think we can all agree that like $2 million is kind of a reasonable salary for like the head neurosurgeon at a chain of hospitals, nothing too outlandish.
So where is all this money going? Well the gravy train seems to be the suppliers of all the crap. All the machines and supplies. I'd like an investigation to see what kind of churn goes on between the hospital executives and these companies. Just like in the government, retired congressmen who make good but not insane money, often end up working for a lobbyist. Or retired generals end up working in the military industry. I"m guessing that this is what is going on. Hospitals pay outlandish prices for stuff so it all looks on the up and up, with someone at the top having some agreement that they will get paid off later by some cushy and super high paying job.
Yup. Last year I racked up a huge amount medical debt and honestly I got insurance and an FSA account that's maxed out every year. I was really sad when the government set the cap on FSA accounts at $2.5k. I think I made it all the way to March, maybe april.
Funny thing is though all the conservatives are like "Run government like a business!" Yet they got this one so backwards. What would you do if you were a business? You negotiate with your suppliers and vendors to secure the best price possible. The US government is the biggest customer of pharmaceutical products in the world. You'd think if you had such immense stake with your vendors you'd totally use it to get a hugely discounted rate. Who voted that down? Oh yeah, conservatives. There's just a ton of stuff like that. Having worked in a lot of facets of the medical industry I'm amazed when people try to put "free market" principles on medical commodities. It just doesn't work that way at all. It's the reverse. The more supply there is the more demand there is. The medical industry all knows it. I think the best analogy I've heard is that medical care in America is like going to Best Buy going up to the front and saying "I need something. You need to tell me what I need to buy" And you could end up with anything from a set of batteries to a whole new entertainment system. And you're going to get it too. Because if you don't do it there you're just going to have to do it somewhere else.
There's so much stuff that can be done to alleviate and fix the healthcare problems. A small few have been started under the ACA. I can tell you the whole measuring payments based on readmissions has done A LOT to change the industry. Whenever I talk to a hospital manager it's like the first thing they talk about. That's a good thing. But it's a small step in an huge journey that will require much much bigger steps and steps I frankly don't feel America is mature enough to make.
Depends on your specialty and state of practice) - google average malpractice premiums for OB/GYNs or neurosurgeons in Illinois for a rough idea (6 figures on average).
DJ_Lae
Member
That's nuts.
I deal with these sort of things on a daily basis so it's crazy to think what the cost of equivalent procedures are in the US.
Checking here (ballpark so I don't get in trouble) a colonoscopy looks like it costs roughly $400 as far as fixed hospital costs and labour costs go.
And that's nothing compared to the priciest procedures (extensive burns/skin grafts, heart/lung/liver transplants, heart-related surgeries on newborns, etc), which can easily top $100-150k including hospital stay.
I deal with these sort of things on a daily basis so it's crazy to think what the cost of equivalent procedures are in the US.
Checking here (ballpark so I don't get in trouble) a colonoscopy looks like it costs roughly $400 as far as fixed hospital costs and labour costs go.
And that's nothing compared to the priciest procedures (extensive burns/skin grafts, heart/lung/liver transplants, heart-related surgeries on newborns, etc), which can easily top $100-150k including hospital stay.
PepsimanVsJoe
Member
Less than two months ago I racked up over $25,000 in debt over 3-4 hospital visits to deal with a kidney stone.
The system is absolutely insane.
EDIT: Three more bills just arrived. For fuck's sake.
The system is absolutely insane.
EDIT: Three more bills just arrived. For fuck's sake.
Yikes, I assume you had no insurance coverage.
My wife had one of these, and I had liquit nitrogen on my verrucas every 2 weeks for 2 years and my dad had a gastric sleeve, and has had kidney stones, and my nan has two titanium knees, and my grandad now has new lenses in his eyes that were even made to his prescription (had cateracts).
I know we pay for it in taxes, but thank fuck for the NHS.
I know we pay for it in taxes, but thank fuck for the NHS.
PepsimanVsJoe
Member
Nope. My job stopped offering insurance awhile back.
Currently I have 10 separate bills. It's like that Bugs Bunny cartoon where Bugs dresses up as all these different guys to cheat money from a mobster.
"And me boss?"
"And me boss?"
"And me boss?"
poppabk
Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
? What is the downside you are trying to highlight?
I... You have $25,000+ in debt just for a kidney stone? That makes me physically sick to my stomach.
The state of health care in the United States is the main reason why I will never live there. I'll visit you guys plenty, but never live there.
Yeah it dose have some downsides, but it's nothing compared to the downsides of a privatized health system. If my tax money goes to an extra 10% of C-Sections, I'm okay with that. I'd rather that happen than to have a mother go bankrupt because she needed a c-section.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/03/hospital-chains-keep-getting-bigger/
No. Hospitals having more bargaining power against the insurance companies and government is a bad idea
No. Hospitals having more bargaining power against the insurance companies and government is a bad idea
But isn't that the fault of the insurance companies. This attitude to abandon even the idea of searching for a better price? This is why i don't understand the love affair with obamacare. We currently have a system where an insurance company or hospital can run up a bill as high as they want, and the consumer is boned. We need to move away from insurance as much as possible, and get more people to pay out of pocket. Not move more and more people into this bureaucracy.
Earthstrike
Member
The canadian healthcare system is better than what the american healthcare system was, or now is under Obamacare. Have the government run health insurance, period.
if the government is also willing to subsidize medical education (ie pay for) and change the current tort climate in the united states and pay a decent salary to all the nationalized physicians, i would consider it.
none of this will happen, however.
hospitals have more bargaining power than insurance companies usually because of greater marketshare/monopolies, etc. As for price, the customer doesnt know the price, and most of the time, neither does the doctor. How the hell can we shop for a better price if we don't find out until we get the bill?
A no insurance, out of pocket system would definitely make health care cheaper, but what would you do for people who can't afford healthcare or get a serious health complication that they go bankrupt from it? Its not going to get cheap to the point where its an MRI, CAT scan, and some surgery is going to cost 100 bucks
Personally, I think it makes a lot more sense to go single payer so we don't have to worry about people becoming bankrupt due to health care costs or have an extreme finanacial burden placed on them just because they were unlucky enough to get sick or injured.
As for the truly poor, well, those people are just going to go to the ER, which will still be more expensive than regular care, won't be able to pay for it, and then the bill will have to be picked up by the tax payer. No insurance doesnt solve that
Be that as it may, in your case, the colonoscopies are probably justified
frankie_baby
Member
I just don't get why America cant go for socialised medicine, you have socialised education ffs and its a lot easier to teach kids yourself than it is to perform open heart surgery on them
Let's not forget that when babies are born in the hospital, that the hospital actually charges the -baby-.
We are also a nation that is trying its damnedest to teach children that Creationism is actually a valid belief.
We are also a nation that is trying its damnedest to teach children that Creationism is actually a valid belief.
frankie_baby
Member
seriously???
Yep. When my friend had her baby two years ago, she not only had to pay for herself, the hospital visit, and all of the other costs associated with having a child, but she her child also got charged. She is -still- paying it off two years later and she even had insurance. Shitty insurance, but insurance.
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