US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums • Hacker News Board

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#531

Post by awful » Mon, Apr 15, 2019, 3:49 AM UTC

hazmazlaz wrote: post #460

abstractbarista wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't go to ER for a high fever.

High fevers in infants can be quite serious, even fatal, so yes you do go to the ER for a high fever in that case.

This old, but I was ridiculed at my ER visit w/ my >1 y.o - after waiting for many hours they mocked us since her temp was only 104.8, not the truly urgent at 105.1, or some such numbers, an arbitrary distinction at least to us non-pediatric physician types. The little thing was clearly in trouble and the creeps had no compassion.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#532

Post by conanbatt » Mon, Apr 15, 2019, 4:58 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #270

TallGuyShort wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't even find out what stuff costs beforehand either. I had to get a blood test. I had gotten burned before where my insurance said they covered a physical, but it turns out their definition of a physical didn't include the doctor's definition, which included blood tests. So before I had my blood drawn, I asked them to tell me what the tests would cost if my insurance didn't cover it. "It depends on how it's coded,…

'You should know the price before you agree to buy the product' seems like such an innocuous principle. Why isn't their broad-based support of it for medical care? If you need emergency care then sure, there isn't time. The vast majority of interactions with the medical system aren't that type of emergency though. People have time to choose the better of two options. They can't decide on better if they don't know the…

> You should know the price before you agree to buy the product' seems like such an innocuous principle. Why isn't their broad-based support of it for medical care?

This is not a probleam of health-care as much as it is of insurnace. If you paid doctors cash you will get straight up pricing.

Thing is the market is like 95% insurance.

I believe this will change in the near future. High-deductible plans and DPC's will bring back some sane price sensitivty into the system. But while patients with great PPO plans pay 20 bucks for a 300 dollar visit, its not going to get fixed itself by "posting prices somewhere"

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#533

Post by conanbatt » Mon, Apr 15, 2019, 4:59 AM UTC

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #424

Delfino wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this has baffled me before. I remember learning in my Family & Consumer Sciences class about the importance of being an informed consumer. Then, in college I had to get a dental procedure done and I called around to try to find out the price from different dentists and no one could give me any actual numbers. I ultimately just had to pick a place based on reviews and found out the price after the fact with no k…

The current federal administration has mandated the hospitals to publish their prices online since 2019. I have no illusions, a person without a degree in accounting probably won't be able to decipher these prices, but that could be a step in a proper direction.

List prices are not the whole information: you want to know for your insurance, how much you will get charged. And that is a completely different question.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#534

Post by conanbatt » Mon, Apr 15, 2019, 5:00 AM UTC

shados wrote: post #472

roenxi wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'You should know the price before you agree to buy the product' seems like such an innocuous principle. Why isn't their broad-based support of it for medical care? If you need emergency care then sure, there isn't time. The vast majority of interactions with the medical system aren't that type of emergency though. People have time to choose the better of two options. They can't decide on better if they don't know the…

Its even more absurd because your health, well being, and potentially life is held hostage. Like, if the choice is "you pay this or you die", it's not exactly a choice. They can charge whatever BECAUSE OTHERWISE YOU'RE DEAD. But the mere fact that you can go get a surgery, and not only will you not know what it will cost, you don't even know who you're doing business with: you're going to get bills from the doctor, f…

> They can charge whatever BECAUSE OTHERWISE YOU'RE DEAD.

Just like when you buy food! Or heating! Or water!