I don't see how mandating clear pricing is supposed to address medical inefficiency. If it threatens your life, you're going to pay no matter what, or in other words, demand is inelastic. Insulin is often used as an example of an inelastic good in Economics 101. I'm not sure how people are supposed to comparison shop for hospitals in an emergency situation and even for elective procedures, lots of hospitals in an area are often owned by the same overarching company and it's not difficult to collude. For "the market" to work, we would need to let people die, which is not very popular among society at large.
Insured price $2,758, cash price $521
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Re: Insured price $2,758, cash price $521
#22My understanding is the insured patients are subsidizing all the others covered by medicare, medicaid or those uninsured.
But god forbid we make that official with some sort of oversight and functional standard system.
Re: Insured price $2,758, cash price $521
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why? Why are insurance companies not demanding cash price and reducing premiums? There should be lawsuits against hospitals, this seems like something which is generally considered highly illegal at this sort of scale... charging different customers different prices -- especially when the ones paying more are more than capable of taking hospitals to court.
Hospitals could also be charging insurance companies more, but not for subsidizing cash patients but for greater profit.
For-profit hospitals, maybe, but what about the non-profit ones?
Re: Insured price $2,758, cash price $521
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why? Why are insurance companies not demanding cash price and reducing premiums? There should be lawsuits against hospitals, this seems like something which is generally considered highly illegal at this sort of scale... charging different customers different prices -- especially when the ones paying more are more than capable of taking hospitals to court.
I'm a generally anti-legislation kind of person, but as long as breaking up big tech is a hot topic, why not pass a bill requiring cash prices for any not-for-profit insurance providers and co-pay networks? There's a lot of interesting competition happening in those spaces, and making not-for-profit insurance a better deal seems like a great way to get capitalism grinding at the issue of overpriced healthcare.
That doesn’t work for emergency care - where the patient really doesn’t have the time to go window-shopping while having a cardiac arrest.
And while greater transparency is good - not everyone in the public is able - or willing - to understand a medical price-sheet and might opt for a cheaper but medically-inappropriate procedure with similar-sounding-name to the procedure they actually need.
Re: Insured price $2,758, cash price $521
#25I took my 4 year old to the ER because he had a 103 fever. The doctor put an ear thermometer to him and told me to give him some childrens ibuprofen. The visit lasted all of 5 minutes. The cost: $756.00.
I refused to pay it. It was the first time I did not pay a debt and the first time I was sent to collections. I refused based on principle, and not because I couldn’t afford it. Collections called me for about 3 months, and every time someone called and said, “is this John Wheeler”, I would never confirm and then go about asking why they are calling for John Wheeler. Eventually, the calls stopped and the collection agency wrote it off to their unpaid reserves (I’m assuming), I never received a ding on my credit report.
Everyone is always asking why US healthcare is so expensive. People blame it on the insurance companies and the hospitals, but my theory is it’s the providers.
I worked at Vanderbilt on their payroll system, and I would regularly see general practitioners making $350,000 a year, and this was 15 years ago! It wasn’t uncommon to see teaching doctors getting paid a million dollars.
Re: Insured price $2,758, cash price $521
#26Beyond opaque and variable pricing for the same service, there is also the question of whether something simpler would do the trick. Some years ago, I thought I might have broken my finger. I went to the doctor and it was actually the physician's assistant who saw me. I'd explained at the front desk that I had a high-deductible policy and I would be paying in full for the visit. The PA said "Usually we would send som…
great anecdote
and when you're having heart arrhythmia, since it is too expensive to send you to a specialist and hook you up to one of those EKG devices, why not just do a series of 20 pushups and 20 squats and see if you'll collapse?
alternatively, we could have a system where patients are entitled to some basic care, but hey..
Re: Insured price $2,758, cash price $521
#27Wouldn't it be nice to have an ultrasound and not know the price, nor care? That's what countries with single-payer are like. America needs to give up on this nonsense. There should be riots.
Except you often have to wait weeks for non-life threatening issues. In the US you can get imaging done same or next day.
>Except you often have to wait weeks for non-life threatening issues.
So it's preferable to have a system where people go bankrupt for routine care?
https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2018.3049...
Re: Insured price $2,758, cash price $521
#28The "insured price" contributes to your annual out-of-pocket maximum. Care providers want insured patients to hit their cap as soon as possible so that the patients' marginal cost of care drops to zero. Once this happens, they can get patients to keep getting expensive treatments "for free" while the care providers can continue to bill insurance companies whatever they can get away with.
Re: Insured price $2,758, cash price $521
#29Wouldn't it be nice to have an ultrasound and not know the price, nor care? That's what countries with single-payer are like. America needs to give up on this nonsense. There should be riots.
As mentioned below, the price doesn't matter when nobody is available to see you.
Also, the opportunity cost of sitting around with a broken hip waiting to be seen can be higher than going to a privatized country/province and paying for the surgery, in which case you're a super-sucker who paid extra taxes for decades just to end up paying out of pocket for surgery anyways.
Anyways, the US system is probably worse overall but it can work quite well (better than socialized medicine) for upper-middle-class people and above which is why it's still around.
Re: Insured price $2,758, cash price $521
#30I took my 4 year old to the ER because he had a 103 fever. The doctor put an ear thermometer to him and told me to give him some childrens ibuprofen. The visit lasted all of 5 minutes. The cost: $756.00. I refused to pay it. It was the first time I did not pay a debt and the first time I was sent to collections. I refused based on principle, and not because I couldn’t afford it. Collections called me for about 3 mont…
Wait till they sue you, I successfully fought off an almost 4 year old sub $2000 medical debt when I was sued for it.