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The Cost of Not Getting Tested for Coronavirus: A $10K ER Bill

thecity.nyc

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Re: The Cost of Not Getting Tested for Coronavirus: A $10K ER Bill

#21

Post by toomuchtodo »

smacktoward wrote: post #20
toomuchtodo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's politics as well. The Democratic candidate campaigning on maintaining the status quo is leading against the candidate who is campaigning on single payer. There's not much left to do when larger cohorts of voters prefer an inefficient, wasteful system (or a candidate who supports such a system). What we currently have is what people are voting for . I've tried to make everything stated above objective in keeping…

IMHO it’s not so much that they prefer the existing system as it is that they fear the unknown. No matter how bad their existing coverage is, they worry that some replacement would be even worse. It’s a downstream consequence of the collapse of faith in our institutions - as bad as things are, nobody trusts Congress to be able to design anything better. So they cling fearfully to whatever they’ve got. The Devil you k…

I am unsure how you cultivate courage and compassion at scale, but we have never needed it more as a society. Somehow we must get from "I've got mine, f___ you" to "I've got mine, how can I help you?" Otherwise, ruin awaits us.

Re: The Cost of Not Getting Tested for Coronavirus: A $10K ER Bill

#22

Post by anigbrowl »

solotronics wrote: post #5
thorwasdfasdf wrote: post #3

Definitely need to start cracking down on predatory hospital billing. 10K billed just for stepping into the ER Room without even getting tested is absolutely insane. AT point do we decide this is criminal and start taking actions against these guys? Normally, I would never be in favor of price ceilings but this is one industry that desperatly needs it.

I think once the dust has settled from COVID-19 the entire health system in America will be totally changed.

More than that. Governments are going to collapse over this, capitalism as we know it is done. After the financial crisis we [in the US] put far more effort into share buybacks and the like than into infrastructure, housing, economic stability etc. There was a partial attempt to reform the appallingly bad healthcare system but it failed, partly from a lack of vision and partly from sabotage by economic rent-seekers. This is the hangover.

Re: The Cost of Not Getting Tested for Coronavirus: A $10K ER Bill

#23

Post by lostgame »

munk-a wrote: post #8
lostgame wrote: post #2

As a Canadian who has also lived in America, I am consistently mortified by the costs of health care in the states. Are they intentionally designed to force the lower class into even more poverty (I’ve seen $50 being charged for a pill of Advil - first hand) - or is it just an unintended side effect? I find it harder to believe it’s accidental than intentional. EDIT: Due to jiveturkey’s pathetic and wholly inaccurate…

They are not - the effect these prices have on the poor is an unintended[1] consequence of the true aim. Extracting the most money possible from insurance payors - honestly, if hospitals could bill "You owe us 50$ or as much of that that your insurance would cover" then they would. Nobody actively wants to impoverish the poor (except for a small number of utterly terrible people) but payors force cost pass on to thei…

[flagged]

Re: The Cost of Not Getting Tested for Coronavirus: A $10K ER Bill

#24

Post by munk-a »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #14

The US healthcare system is best described as a pack of wolves negotiating about whose going to eat the sheep.

I think that's close to accurate, but a better description would be "A pack of wolves fighting over who is going to eat the sheep".

The different market players here, PBMs, Payors, Manufacturers, Providers, Special Interest Groups, Advisory Boards and others - all are trying to bankrupt one another much harder than they're trying to bankrupt customers because customers have nearly no money to take - most of the inflow into this market isn't coming from the consumers but from the employers of the consumers (that are paying truly staggering amounts of money) and a lot of the damage you see to customers ends up being, essentially, collateral damage from one market player trying to stick it to another market player.

Re: The Cost of Not Getting Tested for Coronavirus: A $10K ER Bill

#26

Post by godzillabrennus »

platetone wrote: post #15

We decided (slash "made the mistake") of going to the emergency room last summer. Spent less than two hours in an exam room before being dismissed with no conclusion and referral to another doctor. Got a $9500 bill about six months later and have been billed a 10% copay on that (insurance paid $5500 already at their negotiated rate). Still fighting it as absolutely absurd, but there's really no hope. This country is…

People take UBER to the hospital now instead of an ambulance. #Merica

Re: The Cost of Not Getting Tested for Coronavirus: A $10K ER Bill

#27

Post by swozey »

platetone wrote: post #15

We decided (slash "made the mistake") of going to the emergency room last summer. Spent less than two hours in an exam room before being dismissed with no conclusion and referral to another doctor. Got a $9500 bill about six months later and have been billed a 10% copay on that (insurance paid $5500 already at their negotiated rate). Still fighting it as absolutely absurd, but there's really no hope. This country is…

I paid something like $800 for one crutch when I sprained my ankle once. Think another $300 for ibuprofen. Now I know why there's a crutch market on craigslist/thrift stores. Not sure what my insurance paid for xrays, etc, but my tab was something like $1100 for that ER rendezvous. Thought I broke my leg.

I had a laparoscopic surgery a few years ago that was $35k.

Re: The Cost of Not Getting Tested for Coronavirus: A $10K ER Bill

#28

Post by halfmatthalfcat »

platetone wrote: post #15

We decided (slash "made the mistake") of going to the emergency room last summer. Spent less than two hours in an exam room before being dismissed with no conclusion and referral to another doctor. Got a $9500 bill about six months later and have been billed a 10% copay on that (insurance paid $5500 already at their negotiated rate). Still fighting it as absolutely absurd, but there's really no hope. This country is…

An opposite example, went to the ER last year and spent a couple hours there. Paid a $100 copay. Haven’t seen any other bills.

Re: The Cost of Not Getting Tested for Coronavirus: A $10K ER Bill

#29

Post by nimbix »

Just yesterday I was reading an interview with the CEO of a German company which produces coronavirus tests about how they charge 2.5EUR for a single testing kit and that reasonable cost for processing it should be around 10EUR. Where does the 1000x multiplier come from?

Re: The Cost of Not Getting Tested for Coronavirus: A $10K ER Bill

#30

Post by mrguyorama »

smacktoward wrote: post #16
solotronics wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think once the dust has settled from COVID-19 the entire health system in America will be totally changed.

I remember studying political science as an undergrad two decades ago. My professors all said the same thing about the Electoral College: “it’s a relic that has long since stopped serving a practical purpose, but people live with it because it never rocks the boat. If there’s ever an election where the winner of the popular vote doesn’t actually win because they lost in the Electoral College, there will be a huge mas…

It's not about inertia. Look at which party benefits from the electoral college, and then recognize their attempts at voter disenfranchisement.
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