261–270 of 370 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which price and who determines it?
The hospital determines a price and offers it to all comers. Most businesses work that way.
Ah, but in the USA, there are a lot of uninsured people who end up paying cash for stuff. And there is a corruption problem in that individuals who pay for services and materials get ripped off compared to what insurance pays behalf of an insured patient.
I would expect that this will have an almost instant beneficial effect for some of the uninsured or under-insured. It will be harder to charge them $500 for something that insurance pays $250 for in plain view. People will go back and complain, asking for rebates even after paying.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could this backfire - similarly to how publicly traded companies' CEOs disclosing their pay caused their pay to skyrocket?
That's an odd way to look at it, as a "backfire." We're introducing more information into the market. If some prices went up as a result, isn't that an indication that the lack of pricing information was being used to artificially depress prices? If so.. this isn't a "backfire" so much as an "obvious and necessary correction?"
I could see something similar happening in healthcare in select locations to some degree, if some hospitals continue to charge more for a specific procedure because the communities they are in are less price conscious and if there's not good information on outcomes to link to the cost. There are plenty of other products out there which cost a premium based on name alone, and there are quite a few very famous hospitals. Usually they are famous for expertise, but that doesn't mean their fame in one area won't lead people to believe they are equally as good or above average in others where they aren't, even if they charge more.
> “What we’re learning from the hospital data is that insurers are really bad at negotiating” Do the insurers have any incentive to negotiate well? Since their customers are not very price-sensitive (since they aren't marketing directly to patients or doctors), I would imagine they don't have a huge incentive to do anything but apply a markup to whatever prices the hospital tells them it costs.
Insurers are incentivized to pay higher prices for claims. The Affordable Care Act enforced that insurance companies must have at least an 80% "medical loss ratio." Meaning that insurance companies must make at least 80% of their total spend on actually paying out medical claims. This law was put into place because insurance companies would spend huge amounts of money on advertising and giving execs bonuses, all paid…
If this perverse incentive were true, then you would expect the medical care costs to rapidly increase after the passage of ACA, but medical trend has actually slowed down since then[0] [1].
You can also look at the total dollar spend on hospital and medical expenses for the entire health insurance industry [2]. After the passage of ACA, there was a large increase in medical spend as more people obtained insurance coverage, but the increase in medical expenses year over year has settled back into the 5% range, which doesn't seem that perverse.
[0]https://www.statista.com/statistics/720767/medical-cost-tren...
[1]https://www.pwc.com/us/en/industries/health-industries/libra...
[2]https://content.naic.org/sites/default/files/2021-Annual-Hea...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I haven't gone on a distant vacation in many years, so not I'm not sure why you're bringing that up. But yes, a suburban-dwelling, daily commuter Expedition is absolutely a recreational choice, and an irresponsible one at that.
> But yes, a suburban-dwelling, daily commuter Expedition is absolutely a recreational choice, and an irresponsible one at that. Just like air travel. If making one unaffordable is positive, why not the other?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Health insurance customers are price sensitive
Not really? I'm pretty sure the vast majority of health insurance customers are part of group plans from their employer and so the individual customers have very little influence or choice in the matter, and basically just have to put up with whatever bullshit the insurance companies throw at them since the alternative is seeking individual coverage separate from their employer and paying double or even triple in pre…
Anecdote: I recently had my yearly glasses update. Cost was $188 to me + $20 of insurance copay, so the glasses provider charged $208 for the glasses. That's not too bad, so I asked how much it would be to replace/update the lenses on my old frames, entirely at my charge. It would've been $450. Just for the lenses. I passed. I find it scandalous how much they can charge when just before they were perfectly happy to a…
The reviewer at wirecutter sent them some cheap foldable reading glasses to put prescription lenses in, and ended up with a pretty unique pair of glasses.
I'm curious if this is a first step towards hospitals being required to charge the same prices to everyone, insured or otherwise.
This seems so sensible to me that I’m curious why the hell it wouldn’t work.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not that doctors resent people improving their health, it's that people are wary of their healthcare services existing in a for-profit system- these types of scams play to the paranoia and fear that people associate with medical establishments selling treatments rather than establishing preventative health. Basically it boils down to the sentiment people generally have that doctors benefit from sick people becau…
Yea, it appeals to the same brain matter that conspiracy theorists appeal to: "The mainstream is wrong, and only we few lucky people know the real truth! are lying to you with their awful _complexity_ and _nuance_ so they can take your money, and hate our truth because it is simple and doesn't let them take your money."