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Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

latimes.com

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Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#231

Post by chillwaves »

lopmotr wrote: post #140
hurrdurr2 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lobby for insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and hospital chains spend ungodly amounts of money to influence our political process. Once all the politicians are bought and paid for everything becomes kosher.

For some reason, Americans keep complaining about the same problems with their government over and over again - particularly lobbying, and yet every election they nearly universally reject all their concerns in favor of tribalism and vote for the same two parties that are responsible for everything they don't want, or nobody at all, which has the same effect. Wouldn't it be fun if whenever somebody criticizes their g…

The people who are are paying attention are not the problem.

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#232

Post by chillwaves »

claudeganon wrote: post #215
danenania wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly support the Warren/Sanders universal healthcare plan, but in terms of optics, I don't actually see what the point is to making “duplicate coverage” private insurance illegal. It invites FUD and provides a convenient bogeyman while being entirely irrelevant in practical terms. If the government is providing comprehensive free healthcare to all, why would anyone need duplicate private health insurance? There…

Just FYI, Warren is backpedaling heavily on Medicare for All. She released her “healthcare plan” the other day and it its full of obvious outs and hedges away from M4A. Sanders is the only candidate still really fighting this fight.

Disappointing but expected.

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#233

Post by mdorazio »

kube-system wrote: post #77
mdorazio wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's where that analogy falls apart: If your 10K computer fails, your vendor will fix it under the support contract for free. If the hospital-provided sling falls apart and you go back to the hospital, they'll charge you again . In most cases, the product is the same one you can get yourself elsewhere, and it still doesn't come with a guarantee.

While that is absolutely true, there is a level of confidence in knowing that the one from a hospital was sourced from a legitimate supplier and that it likely meets some level of quality control standards, legal standards, and supply chain controls. But this is more of a criticism of Amazon than anything, as those things would be true for a drugstore as much as it would be for a hospital.

Agree on that - things sourced from Amazon are increasingly likely to be suspect quality these days.

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#234

Post by lumost »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #141
sjg007 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Federal law means your insurance has to pay for emergency room care. They do like to try to weasel out of it by saying you actually have a true emergency though. You can push back and get your state insurance regulator involved.

Isn't this why the costs are so outrageous? The guaranteed insurance coverage means hospitals know they can charge whatever they want. This is why I'm not psyched about single payer healthcare solutions: It's not solving the problem, and may just mean huge government waste. It'd be far more effective to aggressively regulate hospital billing, wouldn't it?

Depends on whether hospitals execute efficiently on the capital they raise from bad billing practices. If they are, regulating billing either won't change the final costs, or degrade service.

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#235

Post by nonymouse22 »

dawhizkid wrote: post #209
brink wrote: post #4

I just got an itemized bill today for a minor fall I took a couple months back.. On top of the nearly $6k in other charges from the hospital, they charged $531 for one dab of superglue or "liquid stitches" on my forehead for something that would have healed by itself. One of my friends died two years ago from pneumonia. He didn't go to the hospital when symptoms first started because he was afraid of the bills that w…

For whatever reason, the cost issue is completely missing from the dem primary debates on healthcare. Everything so far has been focused on health insurance coverage, and the candidates are really just debating what is the best way to cover more people. A world where 100% of Americans are covered under the existing healthcare system is still a disaster because everything still costs so much between premiums, deductib…

Thank you so much for bringing this up! This is one point that has really irked me in the current discussions. It should be about common sense access and lowered, transparent costs.

In the UK, I could walk into a Boots (pharmacy), speak to someone there and get prescription eyedrops for cheap for an infection vs the crap you have to wade through in the US. Same for other doctor/healthcare visits I've had around the rest of the world.

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#236

Post by jimmaswell »

repiret wrote: post #106
oppositelock wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to the ER with chest pains seeming like a heart attack. They did an EKG, determined it wasn't a heart attack, then a blood test, which determined it was low potassium, and did a chest x-ray just in case. I received a saline IV and potassium pills as treatment, and went home after a couple of hours. The bill was about $18,000 for this. The insurance negotiated rate was about $1,500, of which I had to pay about…

They’re not shell organizations, hospitals just outsource tons of stuff, frequently including physicians. (In fact, in California, hospitals may not legally employ physicians to practice medicine)

>in California, hospitals may not legally employ physicians to practice medicine

...why?

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#238

Post by jen_h »

brink wrote: post #4

I just got an itemized bill today for a minor fall I took a couple months back.. On top of the nearly $6k in other charges from the hospital, they charged $531 for one dab of superglue or "liquid stitches" on my forehead for something that would have healed by itself. One of my friends died two years ago from pneumonia. He didn't go to the hospital when symptoms first started because he was afraid of the bills that w…

Young and middle-aged people need to vote. I've been in and out of hospitals for the last few years, months, days, hours with relatives, and guess what they don't ever worry about: medical bills. Like never.

And guess what they won't ever vote for: Those of us younger than 65 ever having the same luxury. We may be visiting them in the hospital every day, but they don't really see us.

And it's hard, because our generation loves them and wants the best for them, but most of us know we won't ever get the same quality of care for ourselves unless something changes...and as a human, well, you know, you get kinda bitter counting up "Wow, this is awesome, but what would it cost if I had this happen to me?"

Vote, people, because if our elderly are getting state-of-the-art amazing life-saving care, why shouldn't our young people, upon which our economy depends, be getting the same great service?

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#239

Post by ben-schaaf »

lopmotr wrote: post #140
hurrdurr2 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lobby for insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and hospital chains spend ungodly amounts of money to influence our political process. Once all the politicians are bought and paid for everything becomes kosher.

For some reason, Americans keep complaining about the same problems with their government over and over again - particularly lobbying, and yet every election they nearly universally reject all their concerns in favor of tribalism and vote for the same two parties that are responsible for everything they don't want, or nobody at all, which has the same effect. Wouldn't it be fun if whenever somebody criticizes their g…

> People rationalize it by saying that voting for a 3rd party is "wasting" their vote

It's actually worse than what people say. First past the post voting systems have a lot of problems, one of which is called the spoiler effect. By not voting for the major party you prefer you are actually voting against said major party.

Take this simple example: Major party A has 51% of the votes, while major party B hast 49%. Party A wins the election. Next election party C makes a big campaign at party A voters and convinces 3% to vote for them. Now we have A 48%, B 49% and C 3%. Party B wins the election. And if we look at the paper trails it probably doesn't surprise who funded party C's campaign.

Assigning this well studied behaviour of rational voters to simple tribalism is trivialising the core issue in the US: Elected officials are not representing the people. The way to fix this issue is to fix their voting system.

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#240

Post by sparrish »

Reminds me of the brief hospital visit I had in Paraguay where I needed to have a friend or relative always with me because the hospital didn't stock anything. If ibuprofen, bandages, syringes, antibiotics, etc were needed, the hospital staff would tell me and I would have my friend or relative run across the street to buy the necessary supplies from one of the pharmacies so the doctor or nurse could treat me.

Cheap hospital bill, cheap pharmacy bill, pain in the butt for my friends and relatives.

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