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I don't understand how people can be so anti-universal healthcare in the US. When you have an $8k deductible, your insurance is basically a gift to the CEO's yacht fund.
A complete scam.
I don't understand how people can be so anti-universal healthcare in the US. When you have an $8k deductible, your insurance is basically a gift to the CEO's yacht fund.
A quarter million US dollars. Of course the hospital never expects to receive this amount of money. Either they will negotiate it down for uninsured patients, or they will accept a lesser amount from the insurance company. Insurance companies like this over representation of costs because: 1. If you have a percentage copay (edit: "coinsurance"), say 10%, they will tell you to pay $25k because it's 10%, but they might…
I think this is coinsurance, not copay. Copay is the $50 (or whatever) flat fee you pay every time you see a specialist. Coinsurance is a percentage of costs that you share with the insurance company, up to some maximum out of pocket amount. I believe that this percentage is always on the negotiated rate, not on the original charge.
5k on sildenafil citrate? That's better known as Viagra.
[0] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070727182359.h...
A quarter million US dollars. Of course the hospital never expects to receive this amount of money. Either they will negotiate it down for uninsured patients, or they will accept a lesser amount from the insurance company. Insurance companies like this over representation of costs because: 1. If you have a percentage copay (edit: "coinsurance"), say 10%, they will tell you to pay $25k because it's 10%, but they might…
My 1 week old was in a neonatal ICU for 2 weeks. This included an ambulance run from one city to another one 1 hour away because they original NICU didn't have the right equipment.
Total bill was $97,000, insurance bumped it down to $68,000.
A quarter million US dollars. Of course the hospital never expects to receive this amount of money. Either they will negotiate it down for uninsured patients, or they will accept a lesser amount from the insurance company. Insurance companies like this over representation of costs because: 1. If you have a percentage copay (edit: "coinsurance"), say 10%, they will tell you to pay $25k because it's 10%, but they might…
> If you have a percentage copay, say 10%, they will tell you to pay $25k because it's 10% [of $250k], but they might only pay $75k [after negotiating the $250k down to $75k]. That's fraud.
It took almost 2 years of back and forth with my insurance provider and the hospital to clear up that bill. The hospital kept sending to to debt collectors too which was particularly annoying.
And to make it even more annoying, the hospital later changed it's policy on newborns on antibiotics - if they are otherwise healthy they don't need to stay in the NICU anymore. It would have saved us a lot of trouble.
I don't understand how people can be so anti-universal healthcare in the US. When you have an $8k deductible, your insurance is basically a gift to the CEO's yacht fund.
The people who are against universal healthcare usually pitch it as an argument for "choice", as if I'm going to compare prices when I have a ruptured appendix. It's also usually couched in anti-government sentiment, where they draw comparisons to "lines at the DMV", as if other countries with universal healthcare have people dying while waiting in line for care, something that also doesn't happen.
This absolutely does happen in the UK, although I'd pick our health over the US's any day of the week.
> Why am I sharing one of her (pre-insurance) bills?
Insurance companies have negotiated maximum allowed prices for every line item on this bill. Different insurance companies will have different negotiated rates.
The insurance companies will pay either the minimum of their negotiated rate for each service or the hospital’s biller charge, whichever is lower. As such, the hospitals will greatly inflate their costs presented to insurance companies to avoid leaving any money on the table. This bill would go through a round of price reductions with the insurance company that can be very significant (I’ve seen $1000+ pre-insurance bills turn into less than $100 after insurance negotiated rates were applied).
I’m not defending the system — Obviously it’s not great. However, it’s a mistake to look at these pre-insurance bills and assume that anyone is actually paying those amounts.
Also, US insurance policies have what’s known as an “out of pocket maximum” that is the upper ceiling on how much you can pay for medical services in a year before insurance covers 100%.
Also keep in mind that about half of US births are paid for by Medicaid, which is one of our socialized healthcare programs. The issue is often misrepresented as the US not having socialized medicine, but the reality is that a lot of US citizens are already covered by our socialized medicine programs in one way or another. The issue is the people who fall through the cracks by either not qualifying for these programs/subsidies, not being covered by their employers, and not buying a subsidized insurance plan on the ACA market.
Again, not defending the system, but I think it’s important to know how these systems work to understand why Americans aren’t actually paying these multi-million dollar pre-insurance bills, which is why the voting public is often so complacent about exploring other options.