Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 481 posts

Re: The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills

#201

Post by [deleted] »

mistermann wrote: post #105
ydt wrote: post #70

Earlier 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,…

[deleted]

Re: The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills

#202

Post by et-al »

narrator wrote: post #127
coreyp_1 wrote: post #22

I 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…

When I had back surgery, there were all these therapists coming in the moment I got out of surgery trying to get their 1 minute in. It was throughly ridiculous. One of them was attempting to do physical therapy and pulled on my leg a little and put me into so much pain I went into shock. She probably got her $600 bucks. I am with Kaiser now and it is the most BS free medical experience I have ever had. To fix healthc…

Everyone in the Bay Area loves talking down on Kaiser, but financially they've been the most worry-free experience. Had ringing in my ear for a week, went to the doctor, and she referred me to both an audiologist and MRI. Paid $20 for both of those other visits.

If I had been on Blue Cross Blue Shield, I probably would've sucked it up given my super high deductible and navigating the in-network maze.

Re: The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills

#203

Post by joe_the_user »

dankohn1 wrote: post #192
jazzyk wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The single-payer option was quickly dropped by the Democrats in Congress. Their sponsors (the health-"care" industry) did not like it.

Joe Lieberman single-handedly killed the public option. He was able to do so because he was the 60th vote the Democrats needed. Source: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/12/the_deat...

If the democrats were serious, they could have deployed the "nuclear option" on this (suspend Senate rules). But of course there was more than one person's objection going on.

Re: The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills

#204

Post by abritinthebay »

rwmj wrote: post #4

Over here (in Europe) we get the impression that US has such a crazy healthcare system. Why aren't people marching in the streets? Is it not as crazy as it sounds for most users? If you're taken to ER how are you supposed to know if the doctors are all part of "your network" (whatever that even means)?

UK but live in the US now - simply because to them this is always how it has been.

The UK cried and moaned when the NHS was introduced but now (aside from Conservative efforts to "starve the beast" on it) most wouldn't go back for the world (though it could be improved, obviously).

The US has a mentality that it's the best in the world for everything. Even when it's objectively not true (like in healthcare) this colors the debate.

Re: The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills

#205

Post by albinofrenchy »

jazzyk wrote: post #193
albinofrenchy wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Strictly speaking, it was politically possible - the Democrats had majority in both the Congress and the Senate. Public option is a great solution, because it does not prevent the people who prefer (and can afford) to pay for private services from doing so.

Not really, they only had a filibuster proof majority for a very short period of time -- http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/did-the-democrats-ever-real....

And that is counting Lieberman as a D; a person who backed McCain for president and who later personally killed the public option.

I do think we will get to the public option at some point. It just makes too much sense not to and would strengthen the healthcare as a whole while allowing people more choice.

Re: The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills

#206

Post by chimeracoder »

dragonwriter wrote: post #171
chimeracoder wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're pretty good at dealing with pregnancies, cancers, and emergencies I agree with everything you say, except the part about cancer. Even by European standards, the NHS is actually quite terrible at dealing with cancers - even "routine" cancers (like breast cancer and prostate cancer), let alone rare cancers. The five-year survival rate for prostate cancer in the UK is 55%, whereas in the US it's upwards of 90%…

> The five-year survival rate for prostate cancer in the UK is 55%, whereas in the US it's upwards of 90%. Such survival rates are from date of diagnosis; IIRC, because prostate cancer detected early usually doesn't have interventions that are less harmful than the cancer is likely to be, there's considerable debate about the utility of screening; there has been considerable argument that the US tends to overscreen a…

> Such survival rates are from date of diagnosis; IIRC, because prostate cancer detected early usually doesn't have interventions that are less harmful than the cancer is likely to be, there's considerable debate about the utility of screening; there has been considerable argument that the US tends to overscreen and over-intervene for prostate cancer.

Over-intervention and over-screening are two different problems, particularly for prostate cancer, where screening is low-cost and low-risk. In the US, most cases of prostate cancer do not require invasive intervention if detected early, but they will begin treatment, as well as more regular monitoring of the cancer. When screening costs are low, overscreening is not particularly problematic as long as it doesn't result in overtreatment (which is demonstrably true for prostate cancer in the US)

Again, this is not limited to prostate cancer. The difference is the most stark there because the screening costs and risks are both low, but the UK still does a much worse job at treating breast cancer, colorectal cancer, lymphoma and leukemia, which are the other deadly common cancers.

For all cancers, not just prostate cancer, the US over-screens a small amount, but the UK underscreens by a massive amount, resulting in many people detecting cancer when the window of optimal treatment has long passed. That's the reason that the UK is close to last place among developed countries for five-year cancer survival across all common forms of cancer, not just prostate cancer.

Re: The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills

#207

Post by joe_the_user »

albinofrenchy wrote: post #184
jazzyk wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I would just note that "...it was politically impossible" and "the Democrats were never serious in saying they wanted it" are two ways to frame the same reality. Both are true. Take your pick.

Re: The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills

#208

Post by protomyth »

jazzyk wrote: post #183
heartbreak wrote: post #114

Earlier 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.

Well, if it works anything like IHS[1], then the system would run out of money before the end of the fiscal year and then you end up paying for it anyway or not getting the treatment. I find people who say "but it will be different for us" to need some proof from the US and not other countries.

1) Indian Health Service - the US agency tasked with providing and paying for Native American health care on reservations or "health service areas". http://www.richheape.com/american-indian-healthcare.htm

Re: The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills

#209

Post by chimeracoder »

mazelife wrote: post #188
chimeracoder wrote: post #108

Earlier 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. 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 w…

> 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 might be a reasonable comparison if Medicare's claims rates were self-sustaining, but they're not. As I explained in another comment on this thread, private insurers subsidize Original Medicare with their own payouts in claims, and that comes out a few orders of magnitude larger than 14% per Original Medicare patient.

Re: The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills

#210

Post by albinofrenchy »

joe_the_user wrote: post #207
albinofrenchy wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I would just note that "...it was politically impossible" and "the Democrats were never serious in saying they wanted it" are two ways to frame the same reality. Both are true. Take your pick.

I'm not saying any democrats at the time were willing to go all in on it, but the two statements would only be two ways to frame the same reality if democrats had the ability to make unilateral decisions in the senate. They never did.
Post reply on HN