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The cost of two weeks in an pediatric/infant ICU

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Re: The cost of two weeks in an pediatric/infant ICU

#181

Post by matthewmacleod »

marcinzm wrote: post #69
_huayra_ wrote: post #2

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.

I've heard a lot of negative stories about the British health system including people waiting 6+ months to see doctors (while in pain or having other symptoms that lower quality of life significantly). If you think an American universal health system will be somehow better than that then I suspect you're a lot more optimistic about the US government than most people. edit: I do love echo chambers, someone asks a ques…

It is worth noting for clarity that there is no "British health system" – the constituent nations of the UK have separate and distinct healthcare systems.

In reality, "negative stories" aren't much of a strong signal. There are likely as many "positive stories" that don't get as much traction, particularly because there is quite a lot of effort invested in the US into spreading FUD about single-payer healthcare systems. Though I do agree that this effort is effective on many people.

Re: The cost of two weeks in an pediatric/infant ICU

#182

Post by arethuza »

CountDrewku wrote: post #127
inglor wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Israel we have public healthcare. I was born at week 32 and spent about 6 weeks in the NICU - everything was free. It's not always great and I do pay for private insurance in case I need something urgent - but everything emergency is absolutely covered. I believe it's this state in most developed places that are not the US?

Everything was not free, you just didn't pay directly for it while you were at the hospital. I don't understand why the word free always gets thrown around for country's with socialized medicine. You are paying for it.

Free in this context clearly means "free at the point of delivery" - we all know we pay for it in our taxes.

Re: The cost of two weeks in an pediatric/infant ICU

#183

Post by Silhouette »

arethuza wrote: post #145
Silhouette wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in some cases it involves NHS facilities too. There are definitely some questionable aspects of our public/private healthcare. But again, this isn't always how it works, and the ethics involved are also complicated.

I know someone whose condition rapidly deteriorated while receiving treatment in a private hospital and when things were looking really bad they got transferred to an NHS hospital.

I hope the person you know was OK. That transfer is actually not surprising. Emergency/intensive care is almost always NHS here.

Private options tend to be better in situations like having multiple treatments available where one is significantly more effective or more reliable but also costs a lot more. Sometimes the NHS will only offer a cheaper but inferior alternative, which sounds horrible until you think that there is a huge but ultimately pooled budget and any time policy allows more spending on one treatment there is always someone losing out somewhere else.

Re: The cost of two weeks in an pediatric/infant ICU

#184

Post by cloudfifty »

Y_Y wrote: post #66
minikites wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm a big fan of universal healthcare, and have made great use of both public and private hospitals in Europe and the US. Everywhere I've lived (except the US) has had a totally free public system, and every time I've still paid for private insurance. I'm not rich by any means, and I don't have any particularly special requirements. I'm not even looking for better doctors or machines, since they are mostly shared or…

> On the private system, I can see a consultant in one month instead of six, or get a surgery in three months instead of three years. This is all for non-emergency care of course.

Have you considered that you are essentially jumping in line just because you have a larger wallet than other people?

Re: The cost of two weeks in an pediatric/infant ICU

#185

Post by lostcolony »

CountDrewku wrote: post #127
inglor wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Israel we have public healthcare. I was born at week 32 and spent about 6 weeks in the NICU - everything was free. It's not always great and I do pay for private insurance in case I need something urgent - but everything emergency is absolutely covered. I believe it's this state in most developed places that are not the US?

Everything was not free, you just didn't pay directly for it while you were at the hospital. I don't understand why the word free always gets thrown around for country's with socialized medicine. You are paying for it.

Nothing is free. Even if no money exchanged hands, someone put in some time and effort, which has a cost, even if it was just going and picking an apple for themselves to eat, from their own tree.

Pointing that out isn't helpful; it's not relevant to the point at hand, and everyone knows there is still a cost.

Re: The cost of two weeks in an pediatric/infant ICU

#186

Post by runako »

xienze wrote: post #56
_huayra_ wrote: post #2

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.

> I don't understand how people can be so anti-universal healthcare in the US. Because I have zero faith that it will end up costing me less, and have a similar level of quality. I’m in tech. Combined HHI is something in the $200s. I pay about $300 per month for the entire family, $5K out of pocket max. So in a worst case scenario, let’s say healthcare costs me $9K per year. That’s what, 4% of my HHI? Will a universa…

For non-Americans reading this: $300/month is not a health insurance cost for a family anywhere in the United States. Either a) the employer is eating most of the cost or b) this is not what you have in mind when you think "health insurance".

A typical health insurance plan for a family of 4 costs closer to $1,500-$2,500 per month in the US if you are looking for something close(r) to the level of coverage available in socialized medicine countries (or in the parts of the US medical system that are socialized). That cost is on top of the automatic taxes we pay to cover Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA medical system (these 3 together account for a majority of US healthcare spending).

Re: The cost of two weeks in an pediatric/infant ICU

#187

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

arethuza wrote: post #160
skeletal88 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obligatory comment about how crazy this is on many levels. 1. You are being charged prices that you are not expected to pay, but need to negotiate on 2. When you go to a doctor to have a procedure or have an emergency then you don't know what you are paying. In normal countries there is A price list, which is THE price list for all hospitals that are part of the national health care system. If they want to have a…

"In normal countries there is A price list" I've never even heard of such a thing in the UK NHS - i guess some kind of cost accounting must occur but I don't think it goes anywhere near patients or care givers.

In Romania there is a price list on display at my public insurance general practitioner which applies if you're uninsured but private practices also have pricelists on display.

In Austria I've also never seen a pricelist in the public system as the system assumes everyone must be insured if they live here but you do get a bill at the end of a hospital stay to pay for food and such things. Ironically, many private practices here also have a scummy system where they don't share their pricelist publicly neither online, neither by phone, you only know the prices after a "talk with the doctor" (that you also pay for), presumably to keep their competitors and their customers, sorry, I meant patients, in the dark about the market prices.

Re: The cost of two weeks in an pediatric/infant ICU

#188

Post by nanis »

This might sound pedantic, but as an economist, I feel duty bound to point out that "charge", "cost", "value", and "price" are different things.

In this case, the amount being charged is the provider's starting position in the negotiation process. It is not relevant to how much it actually cost to provide the service.

We are stuck with this system as a consequence of another attempt by government to try to control prices. Because companies were prohibited by government from paying workers above certain amounts, they tried to compete on other dimensions which were not covered by the wage controls. Then, the malady remained endemic long after the wage controls were lifted.

There are no rational prices in the U.S. healthcare system. The largest component of the system is Medicare, and it reimburses doctors using RVUs[1] which, if you squint enough, are based on labor theory of value[2] (the "value" of something is determined by how much work went into it rather than how useful it is to the recipient).

[1]: https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Medicare-Fee-for-Service-Paymen...

[2]: https://labor.alaska.gov/wc/med-serv-comm/CMS_RVU_Calculatio...

Re: The cost of two weeks in an pediatric/infant ICU

#189

Post by [deleted] »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #49
axiosgunnar wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> That's fraud. Yes, exactly, which is why it doesn’t actually happen. I’m not sure where the OP got this idea, but this isn’t how insurance billing works in the United States.

[deleted]

Re: The cost of two weeks in an pediatric/infant ICU

#190

Post by runako »

boopboopbadoop wrote: post #97
xienze wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand how people can be so anti-universal healthcare in the US. Because I have zero faith that it will end up costing me less, and have a similar level of quality. I’m in tech. Combined HHI is something in the $200s. I pay about $300 per month for the entire family, $5K out of pocket max. So in a worst case scenario, let’s say healthcare costs me $9K per year. That’s what, 4% of my HHI? Will a universa…

Do you plan to retire? What will happen then? Do your family and friends have the same insurance plan? What will happen to them if they don’t? Seems short-sighted, yet telling, to talk only about the present time, and only about yourself.

> Do you plan to retire? What will happen then?

When people retire, they are automatically covered by the socialized Medicare insurance program. Medicare is extremely popular among its recipients, many of whom nonetheless oppose socialized medicine for the general populace.

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