Hospitals lift curtain on prices, reveals giant swings for hips, knees and more • Hacker News Board

Re: Hospitals lift curtain on prices, reveals giant swings for hips, knees and more

#161

Post by aantix » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 4:59 AM UTC

gregsq wrote: post #154

primitivesuave wrote: post #114

I'm the technical cofounder of a mid-sized healthcare startup, and when I start explaining hospital administration to people, I start with this - every person working in your hospital or clinic has no incentive whatsoever for you to emerge healthier. The only goal is to maximize the ratio between the amount your insurance is willing to pay, and the amount of care that is provided. In the case of joint replacement, ea…

My mother lives in country australia and had pancreatitis it seemed. Hospital, cat and mri’s, spent a week in hospital, sent home, returned after pain returned. More tests, it was decided she should be sent to a larger regional hospital for biopsy. Flew by Lear jet, drove by road home I guess about three hundred miles. Advise was a Whipple procedure. I wasn’t inclined to agree for reasons I won’t go into. I declined…

“Total cost zero”.

The cost is never zero. Doctors, nurses, don’t work for free. Infrastructure isn’t maintained without money. It comes from somewhere.

Re: Hospitals lift curtain on prices, reveals giant swings for hips, knees and more

#162

Post by toomuchtodo » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 5:04 AM UTC

aantix wrote: post #161

gregsq wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mother lives in country australia and had pancreatitis it seemed. Hospital, cat and mri’s, spent a week in hospital, sent home, returned after pain returned. More tests, it was decided she should be sent to a larger regional hospital for biopsy. Flew by Lear jet, drove by road home I guess about three hundred miles. Advise was a Whipple procedure. I wasn’t inclined to agree for reasons I won’t go into. I declined…

“Total cost zero”. The cost is never zero. Doctors, nurses, don’t work for free. Infrastructure isn’t maintained without money. It comes from somewhere.

“Total out of pocket cost zero, with taxes funding a functioning care driven universal healthcare system.”

We’re not arguing that funding is required, simply how it flows and to whom.

Disclosure: I too have first hand experience with Australia’s healthcare system. It’s very good.

Re: Hospitals lift curtain on prices, reveals giant swings for hips, knees and more

#163

Post by xtian » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 5:08 AM UTC

aantix wrote: post #161

gregsq wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mother lives in country australia and had pancreatitis it seemed. Hospital, cat and mri’s, spent a week in hospital, sent home, returned after pain returned. More tests, it was decided she should be sent to a larger regional hospital for biopsy. Flew by Lear jet, drove by road home I guess about three hundred miles. Advise was a Whipple procedure. I wasn’t inclined to agree for reasons I won’t go into. I declined…

“Total cost zero”. The cost is never zero. Doctors, nurses, don’t work for free. Infrastructure isn’t maintained without money. It comes from somewhere.

What is the cost of an unhealthy population that defers or forgoes medical treatment? Where is that price exacted? In a 2019 Gallup poll, 25% of US adults said they or a family member had delayed treatment for a serious medical condition that year for financial reasons.

Re: Hospitals lift curtain on prices, reveals giant swings for hips, knees and more

#164

Post by mbg721 » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 5:12 AM UTC

zie wrote: post #133

bane wrote: post #125

The U.S. healthcare system cannot be fixed. Period. Full-stop. The only solution is to nuke it from orbit, pave it over, and start again. It's very easy to point the finger at the conservative party as the one who's screwed it all up, but the other parties are not really putting forward models for successful healthcare systems. If one were to sit down and try to create the most absurd approach to healthcare that guar…

Senators and congresspeople get their own very high quality insurance. They have no incentive to fix it, their own health care is world-class.

Having high-quality insurance doesn't really fix the issues with US healthcare; you can still go broke with decent insurance, and the billing only gets screwier the more middlemen are involved. (Congresscritters' real insurance is that if their particular claims were denied, it would be newsworthy.) We know that our healthcare system is messed-up, but we're wary of socialized medicine because we've seen failures everywhere that Washington has been involved so far. The middle-class expects a result not like some well-run Nordic paradise, but more like what we already have, only with more forms and longer waits.

Re: Hospitals lift curtain on prices, reveals giant swings for hips, knees and more

#165

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 5:24 AM UTC

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #142

missedthecue wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is making the profits? Most health insurance orgs, mine included, are not for profit. BCBS, Kaiser, Wellmark, etc

The administration & C suite. Non for profit is a nice smokescreen. Nonprofit status is a nice little windfall fir the permanent bureaucrat class at payors and hospitals. Starting from cancer children's hospitals that do all kinds of tricks to energize fundraisers and draw donations.. which amount to a paltry 30% of their CEO's salary.... To payors colluding with hospitals to raise "gross" prices in order to get more…

[deleted]

Re: Hospitals lift curtain on prices, reveals giant swings for hips, knees and more

#166

Post by gregsq » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 5:25 AM UTC

aantix wrote: post #161

gregsq wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mother lives in country australia and had pancreatitis it seemed. Hospital, cat and mri’s, spent a week in hospital, sent home, returned after pain returned. More tests, it was decided she should be sent to a larger regional hospital for biopsy. Flew by Lear jet, drove by road home I guess about three hundred miles. Advise was a Whipple procedure. I wasn’t inclined to agree for reasons I won’t go into. I declined…

“Total cost zero”. The cost is never zero. Doctors, nurses, don’t work for free. Infrastructure isn’t maintained without money. It comes from somewhere.

Yes I should have said zero to her at the various points of delivery. There’s a different method of accounting at play. Till recently a volunteer firefighter in an environment somewhat like California’s. You might call it socialism light. The tangible benefits to the wider community, and there are many she and her ancestors have brought, are also accounted for. The working population agree to pay a fixed proportion of their taxes for this very purpose. A community based insurance. This is an approach proven to not be very appealing in the USA. I think mores the pity.

Re: Hospitals lift curtain on prices, reveals giant swings for hips, knees and more

#167

Post by sanp » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 5:28 AM UTC

JamesBarney wrote: post #88

0xmohit wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mess is by design. Goldman Sachs asks in biotech research report: ‘Is curing patients a sustainable business model?’ https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/11/goldman-asks-is-curing-patie... >

Should we be upset that people can't afford to provide cures we don't want to pay for? When I work, I get paid. I expect pharmaceutical companies feel the same way. And if you look at how the world dealt with the hep c cure, it was pretty much trying as hard as possible to pay as little for a cure because the cost was front loaded.

People hiring you have a choice (usual not life threatening). People who need medical attention do not.

Re: Hospitals lift curtain on prices, reveals giant swings for hips, knees and more

#168

Post by fractionalhare » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 5:32 AM UTC

Rickasaurus wrote: post #42

avgDev wrote: post #11

The US healthcare system is just a completely broken mess. When things go smooth, you are lucky! However, when you have a major procedure, life event or sickness things can get messy quick. We had a child 10 months ago, billing was screwed up by the hospital, then by insurance and we are still in process of getting it resolved. I have now spent at least 8 hours on the phone. I had a surgery, called insurance and veri…

Similar here. Had a baby 9 months ago, the doctor took the insurance, but it turned out later the hospital didn't. Bill was over 100K and it wasn't covered at all.

Holy shit. Did you pay it? What the fuck...

Re: Hospitals lift curtain on prices, reveals giant swings for hips, knees and more

#169

Post by uoaei » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 5:35 AM UTC

aantix wrote: post #161

gregsq wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mother lives in country australia and had pancreatitis it seemed. Hospital, cat and mri’s, spent a week in hospital, sent home, returned after pain returned. More tests, it was decided she should be sent to a larger regional hospital for biopsy. Flew by Lear jet, drove by road home I guess about three hundred miles. Advise was a Whipple procedure. I wasn’t inclined to agree for reasons I won’t go into. I declined…

“Total cost zero”. The cost is never zero. Doctors, nurses, don’t work for free. Infrastructure isn’t maintained without money. It comes from somewhere.

Paying for healthcare via taxes would look very, very similar to how it is now. Because that's how insurance works: you are paying into a pool now to get access to help later.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastically libertarian or deliberately antagonistic.

Re: Hospitals lift curtain on prices, reveals giant swings for hips, knees and more

#170

Post by xzel » Sat, Mar 13, 2021, 5:40 AM UTC

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #142

missedthecue wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is making the profits? Most health insurance orgs, mine included, are not for profit. BCBS, Kaiser, Wellmark, etc

The administration & C suite. Non for profit is a nice smokescreen. Nonprofit status is a nice little windfall fir the permanent bureaucrat class at payors and hospitals. Starting from cancer children's hospitals that do all kinds of tricks to energize fundraisers and draw donations.. which amount to a paltry 30% of their CEO's salary.... To payors colluding with hospitals to raise "gross" prices in order to get more…

I've come to the conclusion the past couple years is we need to get rid of non-profit status. There is too much room for grift and I'm afraid narrowing requirements would just make more loop holes and continue the process. I don't think that would be a popular opinion but I really don't see another solution to the problems caused by non profits.