Im interested how people feel about hacking the ER. I personally have never had to do it but I know quite a few people who will give fake names and social security numbers to avoid such situations. Obviously this makes it more expensive for everyone else and one could argue the Affordable Care Act is a way to fix this security whole as much as anything. Morally if you're stuck between lying to a doctor and losing your child's college fund what is the best choice really?
Greg Knauss's 10-year-old son's $23,800 bug bite
121–130 of 215 posts
Re: Greg Knauss's 10-year-old son's $23,800 bug bite
#122If he's still in the hospital and thinks the bill is $23K he's got a surprise coming. The bills will keep coming for months. Many items may be billed multiple times. Writer is going to have to invest several man-weeks in dealing with this, minimum. I talked to a friend of mine who received some treatment recently. He made sure the hospital was "in network", but apparently someone who came in to give a shot was "out o…
Anesthesiologists are the worst offenders. My experience is that none of them are in network. You think you have everything covered and along comes this bill that is as big as everything else. Woe to you if you are uninsured. I had minor heart surgery nearly two decades ago. The bill was something over $80K. The insurance company disallowed most of it, bringing it down to $20K of which I had to pay $2K. Except for th…
Why is it that you can't go to a medical facility and tell the intake nurse or admin person you're not agreeing to any procedure that's not covered by your insurance. Wouldn't that put the onus back on them? Anything not covered instantly becomes a freebie or a lawsuit?
Why do hospitals and clinic get away with this crap when auto mechanics and plumbers can't?
Re: Greg Knauss's 10-year-old son's $23,800 bug bite
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
sure, if you are using the "build a prototype, get investment, move from there" model... that's fine. Personally, I think bootstrapping, taking no outside investment at all is also a completely reasonable model (and often ends up with a more sustainable business, and can be executed by people that lack the sales skills to get investment) If you are bootstrapping? 18 months is not a reasonable period of time to get so…
My company bootstrapped and we just initiated a group policy 13 months after our doors opened. This is, of course, anecdotal, but I think it's very well in the realm of possibility. Regardless, even in states like CA high-deductible plans (i.e. catastrophic care plans) are very much attainable both by small businesses and by individuals. Contractors in the US get hit with a fairly sizable self-employment tax. This ta…
"we just initiated a group policy 13 months after our doors opened"
Doors opened means started development or launched? If after you started development, how long were you in development?
"Regardless, I don't see the need to 'scratch your entrepreneurial itch' as a valid reason to stick you neighbor with your medical bills."
What if you change your statement to:
-->I don't see the need to 'educate children' as a valid reason to stick your neighbor with your school bills.
-->I don't see the need to 'protect your life' as a valid reason to stick your neighbor with your police bills.
The reason the government provides these services is because it is in the common interest.
I'm sure if you think a little while you can come up with some reasons why having universal health care might be in our collective best interest.
Re: Greg Knauss's 10-year-old son's $23,800 bug bite
#124A young coworker had an ATV accident. It was ugly, but not so bad that they weren't on IM within days talking about work. Total bill: just shy of $100,000. A friend's son had appendicitis. Uneventful appendicitis. Total bill: neighborhood of $35,000. Add to this: tens of millions of people are, despite any debilitating medical conditions or even better-than-even likelihood of incurring anomalous medical expenses at a…
One solution (which obviously won't for everybody): live in Massachusetts. We have excellent health insurance plans available here: https://www.mahealthconnector.org/ I'm using one now.
That is, oddly enough, basically the model for the current guaranteed-issue reform (scheduled to become operational in January 2014), despite the fact that the governor who passed it doesn't want to take any credit for it.
Re: Greg Knauss's 10-year-old son's $23,800 bug bite
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a Canadian who owes tens of thousands because I had an emergency operation in a different province (BC) from where I have my health card (Ontario).
Curious. It seems either Canadian healthcare isn't the panacea we Americans think it is or there a number of Canadians who post here that don't know about their plans. My thought is the situation is analogous to each US state and their safety net medical programs. Means based? Is this correct?
As far as I can tell (some reading, some 2nd-hand stories) Canadian healthcare is not a good model at all. It may be better than the US, but that's faint praise. I'd look to the French, Swiss, or Scandinavian systems for better models.
Re: Greg Knauss's 10-year-old son's $23,800 bug bite
#126The question no one ever asks is "why is the bill $23,000?". The only question that ever gets asked is "who should pay this $23,000 bill?". I charge $200/hr for my time at a minimum. Did this child really receive an equivalent of 2.8 weeks of my time in services? Or did an unecessary middle man negotiate ridiculous prices with the provider, leaving the consumer out of the equation but responsible for the bill? And ye…
You can figure try to figure out the "why" for specific cases but it's tedious work and comes down to subjective opinions that can't be generalized to other cases. The theoretical worth of the shadowy middlemen (whether they gov't or insurance companies) and where the blame lies can be debated. All these arguments rely upon theoretical simplifications of very complex systems--meaning they are almost impossible to mod…
After 15min ER due to a strained wrist the bill was $4100 dollars. We demanded detailed itemized bills and send letters to the doctor (billed separately) and the hospital. The doctor dropped his bill from ridiculous $900 dollars (for saying everything was alright and taking 5 mins to open a tiff file on his computer) to $200 after our complaint. His bill and the hospital had up-coded our visit and tried to hide the costs of their ill-managed hospital by billing a piece of cloth (made in Guatemala) with $500, the price of an iPad.
Re: Greg Knauss's 10-year-old son's $23,800 bug bite
#127The US healthcare system combines everything that is bad about a state-run socialized system with everything that is bad about privately funded care. To add insult to injury, we do not pay substantially less taxes than, say, Canadians. If we paid Costa Rican taxes I'd be fine with it, but we don't.
This is why I think even if you are in favor of socialized health care, you really ought to be against the PPAFA. It's not "socialized health care", the glorious ideal you have in your head where everybody takes care of everybody and it's all smiles everywhere. It's an ungodly abomination of a thousand pages of hastily thrown together legislation with a bajillion moving parts, dozens of newly created agencies, what i…
I don't really support the outcome (I want real socialized healthcare), but as far as I can tell PPACA is at least better than the status quo. It seems like it'll make it possible to buy individual health insurance, which will actually cover healthcare, and won't be jacked up when you get sick. That's at least one improvement over the current system, which is completely broken unless you're in a quasi-socialized health-coverage pool, like those provided by large corporations' group plans.
Re: Greg Knauss's 10-year-old son's $23,800 bug bite
#128Reminds me of my kid's $6000 bump on the head. Or the time I had and knee operation and they took five minutes extra to clean out something they spotted and added $3500 to the bill. Or the eye operation where they took fifteen minutes extra because there was a detached retina adding $9000 to the bill. (Insurance wouldn't pay that one. They never said why either.) You are not exactly going to negotiate at moments like…
Insurance companies make more money if they refuse payment. I've always liked the old Chinese medicine system. You find a doctor who is willing to take you as a client. You pay the doctor money per month when you are well. If you are sick, you do not pay. Of course, refusing treatment is acceptable to get you disqualified, as are a few other things.
nice system! sounds like it has a market principle built into it...
Re: Greg Knauss's 10-year-old son's $23,800 bug bite
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most other industrialized countries have heavy government involvement and pay half what we do with the same outcomes. We just have a hybrid system with capitalism applied in the stupidest way..
This statement sounds totally odd to me on both ends. First, the US pays more in a lot of markets. By and large, that's because we can. Second, capitalism isn't applied. That sounds like it's some sort of regulatory tool that just isn't being used correctly. Capitalism is the absence of government force in an economic market with the notable exception of enforcing private property rights. You can say a lot about the…
...which goes to show that socialized health-care can even be worse.
Re: Greg Knauss's 10-year-old son's $23,800 bug bite
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most other industrialized countries have heavy government involvement and pay half what we do with the same outcomes. We just have a hybrid system with capitalism applied in the stupidest way..
> Most other industrialized countries have heavy government involvement and pay half what we do with the same outcomes. I lived in Canada for 10 years. I live in the US now. While living in Canada, I paid more to the government then I pay now. My health care costs for myself and my family are much cheaper. In fact, ignoring the costs of insurance (which was effectively the same) and taxes (which were 3 times higher i…
Well, if you want dueling anecdotes, I lived in the U.S. for years, and now live in Denmark, and I pay much less for healthcare coverage now. My sole healthcare expense now is 8% of my salary that goes to the flat health-system tax, whereas in the U.S. I not only had to pay Medicare taxes and general income taxes that supported various kinds of healthcare, but also had to pay a large copay. And, my coverage was tied to my employment, which it isn't anymore.