Seriously, America: how is ANYONE still arguing against universal, single-payer health care?
The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills
181–190 of 481 posts
Re: The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills
#182Canadian here. Had a pain in my right side for about 3 weeks (thinking muscle pull). Called Doctor's office at 10am had appointment at 11am, had exam and referred electronically to local hospital for X-Ray, had X-Ray at 11:45am, out the door at 12pm. Doctor called me personally the next day to say it's probably a muscle pull and call back in a couple of weeks if still sore. $0 out of pocket, just showed my government…
My family lives in Canada. My grandfather had a heart attack when he was 84. My dad drove him to the ER, he got surgery, a stent implanted, a prescription, and follow-up appointments and care.
$0 out of pocket for the hospital work, a small co-pay for the prescription.
He also spent a few months on a waiting list for surgery. Cataracts surgery. They fixed him, he can now see better. Out of pocket cost? $0.
The system works. If the trade-off for free life-saving treatment is waiting on non-critical surgery, it's a good trade-off. When you're ill, the last thing you want to weigh is whether you will put pay the heating bill, or the ER bill, or whether you should go to some other hospital, because this one will gouge you, even though you're in-network.
The whole point of health insurance is that the healthy pay for the sick. We will all eventually be sick.
Re: The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can someone knowledgeable on the subject comment on whether the "Obamacare movement" has been up front in acknowledging this aspect of the problem with health care in the US? My perception is that the problem is typically framed as a lack of insurance problem for financially challenged people, but the "abuse" on the billing side to me seems like at least as big of a problem. And if this is being conveniently ignored,…
Well the progressives including President Obama pushed for single payer (or a public option) which would eliminate abuse on the billing side, at least to the insured.
The single-payer option was quickly dropped by the Democrats in Congress. Their sponsors (the health-"care" industry) did not like it.
Re: The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well the progressives including President Obama pushed for single payer (or a public option) which would eliminate abuse on the billing side, at least to the insured.
The single-payer option was quickly dropped by the Democrats in Congress. Their sponsors (the health-"care" industry) did not like it.
It was dropped because it was politically impossible and it wasn't worth burning political capital on it. Even just the public option wasn't able to gain traction; single payer was never going to happen in 2009.
Re: The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills
#185I am having problems with my insurer at this very moment. I went to an in-network hospital for an ER visit, which turned into an 8-day stay (yes, it was serious). Evidently, none of the doctors at the hospital are in-network, however, (claims from various technicians are still "in processing", so I don't know how they will turn out) despite the fact that the hospital itself is definitely in-network. I had no choice a…
vote for candidates who will support single payer.
Ask Charlie Gard how single payer is working out for him.
Re: The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
Changing things so all taxpayers are getting robbed rather than just the individual being treated seems like a sub-optimal solution.
Yeah, it won't work. It works in every other developed nation in the world, and they all pay less money for better healthcare outcomes, but hey, the US is Totally Special.
The US already has single payer for a good fraction of the population and we still spend more than other nations on that fraction. The NHS in the UK can decide that certain treatments are not cost effective but in the US we have people raising the cry of "Death panels! Death panels!" at even vague gestures in that direction. And the US had never had a particularly high level of bureaucratic efficiency compared to most countries.
Which isn't to say that single payer wouldn't be an improvement on the current system. Just don't get your hopes up for how much money it'll save.
Re: The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had this same thing happen. My daughter was admitted via ER and it turned into a 6 day stay. At the end we received a bill for 40k for being out of network. Luckily I have friends in the industry and it turns out if they fail to inform you within 48 hours that you're not in network you don't have to pay the out of network cost. We ended up paying just our deductible after a letter was drafted. Do not take what the…
Can someone knowledgeable on the subject comment on whether the "Obamacare movement" has been up front in acknowledging this aspect of the problem with health care in the US? My perception is that the problem is typically framed as a lack of insurance problem for financially challenged people, but the "abuse" on the billing side to me seems like at least as big of a problem. And if this is being conveniently ignored,…
Re: The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the other hand, patient satisfaction correlates with increased rates of hospitalization, higher expenses, and increased mortality. You'd want to dig a little deeper than patient satisfaction before drawing any conclusions regarding medicare vs. medicare advantage, I would think.
> On the other hand, patient satisfaction correlates with increased rates of hospitalization, higher expenses, and increased mortality. You'd want to dig a little deeper than patient satisfaction before drawing any conclusions regarding medicare vs. medicare advantage, I would think. I didn't in my previous comment, because we were talking about the overall public perception, which may or may not be connected to the…
> Medicaid options vary much more (and they're different in every state, because Medicaid is administered at the state level), but the equivalent private plans for Medicaid coverage also typically perform much better than the public ones.
I'd be interested to see these findings. Do you have links?
As far as Medicare Advantage is concerned, it's not the least bit surprising that patient satisfaction is higher. But I wouldn't go treating that as some kind of referendum on Government-run healthcare:
"Many private [Medicare] plans require no additional monthly premiums, yet the government pays an average of $849.90 in monthly subsidies to insurance companies for a person on Medicare Advantage, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. That is about 14 percent more than the government spends on people with standard Medicare, according to the nonpartisan Medicare Payment Advisory Commission."
MA was supposed to demonstrate that private insurers could deliver care at lower costs than Medicare, and it hasn't done that. Basically, for every $1.00 the gov spends on a medicare patient, it pays $1.14 in subsidies for an MA patient, with the evidence indicating a lot of that goes straight into the pockets of insurers as profit [2]
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10... [2] http://theincidentaleconomist.com/medicare-advantage-cuts-on...
Re: The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills
#189Dear NYT, Spokane is not rural. It may not be the metropolis you're accustomed to, but rural it is not.
Re: The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can someone knowledgeable on the subject comment on whether the "Obamacare movement" has been up front in acknowledging this aspect of the problem with health care in the US? My perception is that the problem is typically framed as a lack of insurance problem for financially challenged people, but the "abuse" on the billing side to me seems like at least as big of a problem. And if this is being conveniently ignored,…
> My perception is that the problem is typically framed as a lack of insurance problem for financially challenged people, but the "abuse" on the billing side to me seems like at least as big of a problem. If anything, the billing abuse is a much, much larger problem than lack of insurance. At least, that has generally been true since the ACA/"Obamacare" changes passed.
It was a problem before ACA; it's a problem now. The law didn't really change that aspect of the system.