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Using AI to negotiate a $195k hospital bill down to $33k

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Re: Using AI to negotiate a $195k hospital bill down to $33k

#591

Post by astrange »

dragonwriter wrote: post #257
astrange wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matt Stoller is properly described as an insane person who thinks every single problem in the world is caused by monopolies (yes, including whatever random problem you're thinking of now). His most notable attributes on Twitter are he constantly lies about everything and that he spends all his time promoting Republicans who are clearly not going to implement his anti-monopoly agenda.

I haven't paid a lot of attention to Stoller particularly, but the rest of that line of thinking frequently correlates with also believing that monopolies are exclusively a result of active government regulation, a belief which is naturally attracted to Republican deregulatory rhetoric.

Oh, I don't think that applies. He's part of a movement called "neo-Brandesian" aka "hipster antitrust", which basically thinks government should promote small businesses by explicitly bullying large businesses, and that the customer welfare standard was a cop out to give up on this.

So not only would they be against deregulation (they think painful regulations are good because pain for the sake of it is good), but the previous admin actually tried this with Lina Khan and it didn't really work.

The issue here is Democrats are "mainstream" coded, so all populist politics works by fighting them even when they're trying to do your own policy.

Re: Using AI to negotiate a $195k hospital bill down to $33k

#592

Post by GuinansEyebrows »

tptacek wrote: post #557
GuinansEyebrows wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think in this case, if you're at all familiar with what US hospitals charge for the small stuff, it's a safe assumption that when someone says aspirin costs $30 a dose, they're not talking about buying it at a CVS. of many folks on hacker news dot com i trust you to bridge that gap instead of nitpicking!

That's an odd argument to make in this thread, because whatever the drivers of burdensome consumer health spending are, they're not overpriced hospital aspirin.

maybe so; it's a symptom, not a cause.

Re: Using AI to negotiate a $195k hospital bill down to $33k

#593

Post by StackRanker3000 »

Aurornis wrote: post #438
kwanbix wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a non-american (from South America) who lived in both USA an Europe: Yes, in USA you get much more money, like you said 2x~5x, but then: University is expensive as fck. Health care is expensive as fck. You have 5 days of paid sick leave per year in most companies. You have 10 days of paid holidays per year in most companies. In contrast, in Europe: University was cheap or free. Healthcare is cheap and universal. I…

> University is expensive as fck. One thing that's hard to understand from the outside is that almost nobody actually pays those mind-blowing $60K/year tuition prices. US universities charge on a sliding scale based on the applicants' families' ability to pay. For an extreme example: Harvard's tuition is nominally $60K per year, but for families earning $200K or less it's $0. Many prestigious universities follow simi…

> For an extreme example: Harvard's tuition is nominally $60K per year, but for families earning $200K or less it's $0. Many prestigious universities follow similar patterns resulting in a large percentage of students paying no tuition, the middle ground of students paying some fraction, and a small number of students from wealthy families subsidizing everyone else.

As someone from a country (Sweden) that to a larger extent has decreased people’s reliance on their families, and grown the welfare state instead, it’s weird to think that your parents wealth or income should have any impact on things like tuition, once you’ve reached the age of majority

Once I finished high school, my parents had nothing to do with my business as far as any institutions were concerned, and vice versa. But uni was tax-funded and free at the point of use. And when they get too old to care for themselves, it will likely be the government supporting them financially, not me (unless I strike it rich first, in which case I suppose they’ll spend their sunset years in style)

Re: Using AI to negotiate a $195k hospital bill down to $33k

#594

Post by supertrope »

tpurves wrote: post #375
egorfine wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

America is trapped in a cycle where political parties have discovered that fear and anger drives voters whereas contentment with status quo does not motivate turnout. This leads to a scenario where parties will actively sabotage the resolution of painpoint issues such as immigration, healthcare, gun control etc. so long as it continues to create anger and fear that they can successfully blame on the other party. This…

Even for politicians who are not absorbed in wedge issues, meaningful reform is a long term task. It would require multiple elections in a row showing that there is a durable political coalition for universal healthcare.

Re: Using AI to negotiate a $195k hospital bill down to $33k

#595

Post by stuffn »

culebron21 wrote: post #111

Such a case when one must pay a good portion of a home price for a man dying in a hospital, is why I won't ever try to move to the US, and will retell story to everyone considering.

These wild cases aren't worth considering as far as "do I move to the US or not". They are exceedingly rare and while they can happen so can the wing falling off your plane on the trip here.

The bigger concern, IMO, is insurance is tied to employment. The time you get your massive bill is when you get very sick after being fired/laid off and your COBRA is up.

The next biggest concern is the ACA which is the greatest scam ever pulled on Americans. It started out as, what would've been, universal healthcare. Instead, it simply played into the insurance company profit centers by forcing people (now by law) to hold some kind of insurance or pay a large tax fine. So you're stuck paying $1,500 for sub-par care on a bronze plan with a massive deductible and no limit. So much for "increasing the competitiveness of the market".

Healthcare spends more money on lobbying than any other sector in America. The solution isn't to start breaking it down with crap like the ACA. That will get gutted by the bought and paid for politicians (which it did). What we need to do is begin by repealing citizen's united, limiting campaign contributions to 0 from industry professionals (in both their professional and personal capacity), and fire the congressmen taking the most money from them.

They don't have hearts. They have large wallets. Hit them where it hurts.

Re: Using AI to negotiate a $195k hospital bill down to $33k

#596

Post by like_any_other »

bmurphy1976 wrote: post #420
chrisgeleven wrote: post #245

I fought insurance over this past summer after they declined covering a life saving surgery for my 6-year-old child at the last minute. We were in despair that my child's life was at risk each day we waited because of insurance incompetence. ChatGPT literally guided me through the whole external appeal process, who to contact outside of normal channels to ask for help / apply pressure, researched questions I had, hel…

How comfortable are you with naming and shaming the company? I don't think things are going to change if we don't call this stuff out loudly and publicly. That's awful but I'm glad you were able to figure this out. I've had my own problems with insurance companies, but nothing to this level. I can't imagine the frustration, especially with YOUR CHILD'S HEALTH on the line. Five years back I ended up getting surgery fo…

> How comfortable are you with naming and shaming the company?

Don't forget about the individuals responsible. Both the ones that made the denial decision, and the ones that instituted the internal system that incentivizes such denials.

Re: Using AI to negotiate a $195k hospital bill down to $33k

#597

Post by maxerickson »

lesuorac wrote: post #510
throwway120385 wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends a lot on your insurance. For example, our out of pocket for my son's birth was somewhere in the neighborhood of $10k after insurance. I've met tons of people who would be bankrupted by that amount. What you're describing isn't true for people on High Deductible Health Plans, and those plans are a bit of a racket because they're frequently paired with HSAs where the employer gets to pocket anything left i…

FSA's not HSA's are use-it-or-lose-it. If you have a FSA I strongly suggest that you get an HSA instead. https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/smart-money/hsa-vs-...

A lot of people with FSAs will have insurance that disqualifies having an HSA.

I have the paranoid idea that they designed FSAs in such a goofy way for budget scoring and it drives me nuts.

Re: Using AI to negotiate a $195k hospital bill down to $33k

#598

Post by nmz »

chrisgeleven wrote: post #245

I fought insurance over this past summer after they declined covering a life saving surgery for my 6-year-old child at the last minute. We were in despair that my child's life was at risk each day we waited because of insurance incompetence. ChatGPT literally guided me through the whole external appeal process, who to contact outside of normal channels to ask for help / apply pressure, researched questions I had, hel…

> incompetence

No, that's the goal. Denying coverage is how insurance companies make money. The less money they give, the more money they keep.

Re: Using AI to negotiate a $195k hospital bill down to $33k

#599

Post by frogperson »

egorfine wrote: post #253
chrisgeleven wrote: post #245

I fought insurance over this past summer after they declined covering a life saving surgery for my 6-year-old child at the last minute. We were in despair that my child's life was at risk each day we waited because of insurance incompetence. ChatGPT literally guided me through the whole external appeal process, who to contact outside of normal channels to ask for help / apply pressure, researched questions I had, hel…

[flagged]

The are advertised as a democracy, but ever since Citizens United was passed we became an Oligarchy. Money now takes the place of votes since the rich can donate unlimited funds to a candidate. Candidates have zero incentive to serve the public.

Re: Using AI to negotiate a $195k hospital bill down to $33k

#600

Post by msla »

egorfine wrote: post #253
chrisgeleven wrote: post #245

I fought insurance over this past summer after they declined covering a life saving surgery for my 6-year-old child at the last minute. We were in despair that my child's life was at risk each day we waited because of insurance incompetence. ChatGPT literally guided me through the whole external appeal process, who to contact outside of normal channels to ask for help / apply pressure, researched questions I had, hel…

[flagged]

The same way European people put up with the insane NHS and its refusal to care for the people who support it financially and supposedly support it politically.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/13/uk/england-nhs-puberty-bl...

The NHS and its bizarre political agenda is an example of what can happen when a government controls access to health care.

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