341–350 of 389 posts
Walked into a clinic for a weekly shot. Paid 60 dollar co-pay each week. One day I asked how much go get shot without insurance. It was $15. I was paying 4x to use insurance. And insurance was getting billed on top of that.
I asked how much it would be without insurance and they quoted me $350.
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For folks who don’t believe in universal medical coverage, this is part of the reason why it’s so inefficient for it not to exist. The uninsured person going to the hospital at 1AM that requires an MRI because slipped a disc in their back still ends up getting that MRI. When they fail to pay that bill, which would be 5%-10% of their annual earnings, we all still pay for it. We just decided to layer in debt collection…
Also a fiscal conservative, I completely agree single-payer would be much better than what we have now. What I think would be best though, is to eliminate medicare/medicaid, hand people cash, and get out of the way. The high-order problem with medicine isn't coverage or insurance. It's price. There are only two ways to get price under control: meaningful competition, or government price controls (e.g. single payer).…
However, any emergency service essentially has a captive audience. Most people who need an appendectomy or are having a heart attack are not in a position to price-shop. They need close, immediate care. Hell, quality probably doesn't even matter in these situations... not dying is the goal. This is where the free market doesn't work because there's no true consumer choice.
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The better, and simpler option is to remove employers from the equation entirely. Either go with taxpayer funded healthcare, or force everyone to buy from healthcare.gov where they can choose whichever insurance company they want.
In terms of moderate tweaks to an enormous problem, AHP reform for small businesses is comparatively low-hanging fruit that could help businesses today meet the minimum requirements for attracting talent - health insurance. Your proposal may be better in the long term, but the journey there is not simple by any means.
Either way, it’s all just a matter of changing regulation. The real problem is big business will lobby against it because it gives them an advantage over small business, and a leash on employees.
I think something else that would be of interest would be doing this for drug prescriptions: compare the cost that my employer, the NHS, pay for a compound and those that Americans pay for the exact same compound. This is easy on my end at least -- prices and prescription guidance are released in the BNF / British National Formulary annually and are all made available in public. I have never understood the US system…
£9.15 per item [independent of its cost] That's basically what a copay is.
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Would the general public of other developed nations be happier if their healthcare systems were more like the US's?
I've lived in the US, and now live in Canada. Despite right-wing propaganda that we're all flocking to the states for care (never met a single person who has even considered that), or that we're all dying on years long wait lists (there is an element of truth to that, but it's a triage system. So cancer patients get priority for surgery before the skier who blew his ACL). I still have yet to meet a single person who…
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// Having the freedom from health care costs is more freedom for more people than the "freedom" to not pay health insurance or taxes to cover it. This is not how freedom works. Your argument is akin to saying "freedom from hearing uncomfortable opinions" benefits more people than "freedom of expression" does. On the broader level, I got to experience healthcare in the US both as a broke-ass immigrant child and as a w…
Would the general public of other developed nations be happier if their healthcare systems were more like the US's?
In any case we have public and private hospitals. Paying an insurance for assuring a "premium" service with better rooms or faster treatments (closer to the US system) is also an option.
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Norway, Poland. I'm a UK citizen, resident in Norway, who has visited Poland on business many time. I stayed a night in the Krakow Neurological Institute somewhere between fifteen and twenty years ago, cost me about 100 USD. The ambulance that took me there was free.
Wow, you might already know this but in the USA people decline ambulance trips because the cost out of pocket can break them financially. A ambulance helicopter trip (which people are usually not in a position to decline) costs roughly 40,000 last time I read about it, a lot of people crowdfund to pay for this.
A few minutes later we saw the helicopter lift from the hospital and head straight towards us. Down came the rescue equipment and Dr Bruno, who told us not to worry because "We do this all the time!". 10 minutes later he was ascending with the patient.
I learned two things: Doctors in Switzerland really do do this stuff all the time, and always have hiking accidents near well-equipped medical facilities that aren't trying to totally screw people over.
I'm pretty sure it was the best $2500 that guy ever spent.
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Employer based health insurance should be abolished. There should be one risk pool either nation or state wide and within that everybody can get insurance for the same price. It would reduce a lot of administrative effort in companies (why does my employer have to worry about my health insurance but not my car insurance?) and allow people to change jobs without worrying about health care. Religious employers also cou…
it should be, and it needs to be if we ever want to fix this problem, but it'll be political suicide for anyone that even says this out loud. corporations would be all for it to. (majority of) people with jobs have no idea how bad/expensive healthcare really is. they have excellent insurance coverage and they pay very little for it. if we make them responsible for buying their own it'll be impossibly expensive. but t…
That belief is the problem. You pay for it with reduced salary. Problem is that this fact is being hidden. Then you also have your employer choose insurance plans for you but their selection criteria are most likely for their own benefit.
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Out of curiosity, how much will this reduce the cost of health care? The idea, as it's been explained to me, is that visibility into the cost of medical care will result in downward price pressure. How much?
Personal opinion (as a health economist) is that this is a nice policy, but probably not going to do that much. You as a consumer now have the ability to search, but do you have an incentive to do so? Do the savings come to you? Some of it, perhaps. But it's likely not that much and only under some circumstances. E.g., if you are just faced w/ a copay on a visit, your copay is going to be the same at two facilities.…
I think something else that would be of interest would be doing this for drug prescriptions: compare the cost that my employer, the NHS, pay for a compound and those that Americans pay for the exact same compound. This is easy on my end at least -- prices and prescription guidance are released in the BNF / British National Formulary annually and are all made available in public. I have never understood the US system…
For comparison of terminology, this is what we would call a co-pay in the US.
You pay 9.15, your health coverage pays the rest. Thus you are “co”paying.