41–50 of 339 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
$400 still sounds high, to be honest.
Yes, and it would be even more expensive in Germany. But in both countries the insurance covers normally 50% of it, wherever you go. If not all. (Other sickness are covered normally 80% if not entirely whatever insurance you have)
My mother is on Enbrel for her rheumatoid arthritis. The price? $6,500 per month.
Can someone make a coherent case for public healthcare to be a for-profit endeavour?
My monthly contribution is 350 Euro, my employer has to pay 350 Euro per month, too. Hence, I am paying approx. 7500 Euro for my insurance per year. Assuming I work 35 years plus some inflation, then I will pay over 300.000 Euro for my insurance. This excludes contribution before 25 (where my parents paid for me) and my contribution after I retire.
What I want to say: public insurance is NOT free, but also comes with high cost.
I'm in my mid 30s and have left fixing up some damaged teeth and my large wisdom teeth impacted for 17 years too long, this Monday I'm going to get them removed under general anaesthetic at a private hospital. The Australian government covers hardly any dental unless your teeth have completely rotted through and are chasing other issues. So far my costs are: - $4500 in fillings and general dental. - $1800 for a crown…
I have no idea on the reasons or specifics but I needed pretty serious dental work here (AU), dental quotes were around $7-8k (“maybe more” they said), went to my GP and he wrote the referrals etc and it cost me $200 out of pocket, mostly for the prescriptions. Sure you wait a while for our public health stuff if it’s not life threatening, and if you’ve got the cash available then private is faster/fancier, but the p…
This was after I had referrals from my dentist and a second opinion.
I do have some complications with a major nerve running about 1mm from one of the largest tooth's roots and I was told when there's some risk of damage to facial nerves you should make sure you get a good surgeon.
> So even though she was deliriously ill, she hit the road in search of cheaper treatment.
USA #1! Freedom!
This is absurd. Even in a country with liberal economics and "free choice" health system (however with universal care, and state regulation), the same stitches in a world-class private clinic in Santiago, Chile would cost 400 USD, before insurance . The clinics there are not the ones Americans imagine from a middle-income country, most of them have better infrastructure and doctors than the ones I know in Europe. And…
Now contrast that with going to a hospital for a procedure where you have time to shop around. Can you get a price? No. Can you easily get appointments with doctors to get their opinions on your case? Maybe. Can you get other patient references? Unlikely (but maybe).
What’s the difference? One insurance covers (thus the patients is cut out of price conversations) and one insurance doesn’t cover (this patient is the end payer). The big problem is more and more costs are being shifted to patients as deductibles and co-insurance, but hospitals treat it like it was 1990 and the patient pays some token amount so “who cares”?
And sure, an emergency doesn’t leave you much time to shop around, but something like 80% of healthcare procedures aren’t emergent.
My daughter here in France had a bike accident two months ago which requires 14 stitches in her foot. We received 3 follow-up visits from nurses to clean and redress her wounds -- We pay about 100€ a month for supplemental private insurance on top of the public health insurance here -- Total cost for us? about 40€. We would have had to pay about 100€ more for the nurses' visits, but the mutuelle covered it. These are…
Somehow everybody in this system claims they're not the ones making bank on this swindling. The doctors say they're underpaid. The hospital admin says they're underpaid. The insurance companies say they're barely covering their payouts. So who is lying?
Some people somewhere, with cigars, in $5,000 suits. "Look at all those schmucks! $400 per shot and $1,000 per stitch." The whole healthcare system needs to be regulated by the government end-to-end. All procurement must be transparent. Every cent traced. Pharma mafia dismantled - on a federal level.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
$400 still sounds high, to be honest.
Yes, and it would be even more expensive in Germany. But in both countries the insurance covers normally 50% of it, wherever you go. If not all. (Other sickness are covered normally 80% if not entirely whatever insurance you have)
You pay nothing for ER, 10eur/day for the hospital and a few eur for medication - but nothing even in the range for 50% or 80%
dental is also covered to a large degree but if you want state of the art you have to pay the difference yourself - but you can also add a private insureance for that for 100 to 300eur/year to have everything covered.
you can still fall through if you can't pay the monthly fee - but emergencies are also free even if you don't pay.
private insurance can be expensive but should usally cover also everything.
Somehow everybody in this system claims they're not the ones making bank on this swindling. The doctors say they're underpaid. The hospital admin says they're underpaid. The insurance companies say they're barely covering their payouts. So who is lying?
My understanding is that the ER system is especially expensive because paying customers are subsidizing non-paying customers (homeless) who use the ER as primary care. That said, I don't think this excludes the possibility that the insurance companies and the hospitals are also not telling the full truth.
America somehow spends far more than any other country on healthcare and yet patients still have some of the highest out of pocket costs even when they have expensive private insurance schemes, something is clearly broken to anyone looking and it's not the homeless causing it.