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Cancer Complications: Confusing Bills, Maddening Errors And Endless Phone Calls

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Re: Cancer Complications: Confusing Bills, Maddening Errors And Endless Phone Calls

#281

Post by ams6110 »

tzs wrote: post #279
chimeracoder wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. The data you posted is 20 years old. It's from a study published 10 years ago. The study was repeated more recently and republished less than a year ago, reaffirming the original results. > 2. The data is talking about 5 year survival rates and not actual survival. The US Healthcare system is great at keeping people alive who should have stopped treatment long ago. There is no such thing as "actual survival". 5-…

Aren't those 5 year survival rates from time of diagnosis? If so, it is possible for two countries that have the same survival rate measured from actual onset of the cancer to have a different 5 year survival rate.

I think it's always from time of diagnosis. Determining the "actual onset" of cancer would be little more than a guessing game.

Re: Cancer Complications: Confusing Bills, Maddening Errors And Endless Phone Calls

#282

Post by moduspol »

bubbleRefuge wrote: post #190
onetimemanytime wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If health care for all reduces prices and total cost, then yeah. Otherwise, the cost will cripple the government, and by extension taxpayers. Right now they can declare bankruptcy and just don't pay (at a great cost, no doubt) but the government will have to pay. Cancer is a fact of life,38.4% will get it in their life https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/understanding/statistics and unless costs are dramatically lowe…

The federal government cannot be crippled because it can issue currency ad-infinitem. As AOC is wonderfully publicizing, the notion that government finance works like household and business finance is finally starting to be debunked and at least talked about openly. There maybe other problems with universal healthcare, but financing it is not one of them.

It's truly worrying that comments like these are made unironically.

Is there any amount of currency printing that you believe might be problematic? Or is the sky the limit?

Perhaps most importantly: What happens if we accept your claim, spend and print money ad infinitem, and then you're wrong?

Re: Cancer Complications: Confusing Bills, Maddening Errors And Endless Phone Calls

#283

Post by sbov »

madeofpalk wrote: post #235
throwaway5752 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know. To elaborate (and reply indirectly to will_brown) I think it's impossible to say how egregious $14k is for billing without knowing how severe a sprain it is and how much they had to do to diagnose it. Maybe he walked out with a bandage, but maybe he got an x-ray or mri? And ERs are expensive because they have to handle anything from a MI, stroke, poisoning, massive trauma, or ID case. If you go to one, you ha…

> I think it's impossible to say how egregious $14k is I live (well, lived. currently in the UK) in Australia, and the concept of a $14k bill for a sprained thumb is so out of my world. I cannot fathom how anyone would find that even remotely acceptable.

In the USA, what a hospital charges does not necessarily have any correlation with the cost of servicing your problem. In the same city, the price of a procedure from hospital to hospital can vary by up to 10x.

Re: Cancer Complications: Confusing Bills, Maddening Errors And Endless Phone Calls

#284

Post by tzs »

mywittyname wrote: post #256
EliRivers wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if, even with a reduction in new drug development, cheaper healthcare would nonetheless work out as a net win. If all the drugs that currently exist getting much cheaper would improve people's lives (both now and into the future) to a degree that outweighed the benefits of continuing R&D at the current pace.

We can supplement this by improving funding for research in public universities. This will probably provide a better bang for the buck than our current method anyway.

Why specifically public universities? Why not also universities such as Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Caltech, etc.?

Re: Cancer Complications: Confusing Bills, Maddening Errors And Endless Phone Calls

#285

Post by triplewipeass »

komali2 wrote: post #113
triplewipeass wrote: post #13

When I was in my early 20s, I got myself a beefy life insurance policy that covers suicide after some waiting period that has expired many years ago. I know that in case of crippling illness I can always take the easy way out while preserving my assets plus the life insurance payout. My family would be taken care of.

>My family would be taken care of. And possibly traumatized that you killed yourself so they could have money.

In case of being stricken by an incurable disease, I'm going to die anyway. I'm sure my people will understand my choice to make a graceful exit before illness takes away any shred of my dignity.

Re: Cancer Complications: Confusing Bills, Maddening Errors And Endless Phone Calls

#286

Post by xkcd-sucks »

duxup wrote: post #64

>Cancer Complications: Confusing Bills, Maddening Errors And Endless Phone Calls Hell that's just insurance in America... if you just use it. I've been dealing with a bill where the insurance company decided that my kid's pediatrician was out of network all of a sudden. All the other visits to the same pediatrician have been covered, but they can't seem to fix this one bill.... There's no incentive for the company to…

A cynical viewpoint might add that if the patient has a terminal illness, and if they are overcharged, then the process can be dragged out past the patient's lifespan and their estate just might not get around to it.

Re: Cancer Complications: Confusing Bills, Maddening Errors And Endless Phone Calls

#287

Post by refurb »

mywittyname wrote: post #254
nostromo wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is flawed thinking. But it's very popular flawed thinking, so you're certainly not alone. :) If marketing has a return on investment (and it does) then marketing spend also increases money available for R&D . Marketing and R&D are not pieces of a fixed pie. Marketing spend grows the entire pie and provides additional dollars for the company to spend on R&D.

It does provide a perverse incentive to research drugs with high market potential over those with live saving potential.

Of course it does. But until you can find trees that grow money, you need to invest in R&D that pays for itself.

Re: Cancer Complications: Confusing Bills, Maddening Errors And Endless Phone Calls

#288

Post by refurb »

rndgermandude wrote: post #76
JamesBarney wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for universal coverage too. But reducing the profits of pharmaceutical companies well reduce the money they have for r&d dramatically. This will slow down the speed of pharmaceutical development. So I think it needs to be paired with reforms to the FDA to reduce the go to market costs for drugs.

What kind of evidence do you have for this claim?

Orphan drugs are a great example. Back in the 1970's, there was no research into orphan diseases because the return on investment wasn't there. The Orphan Drug Act (in the US), combined with a tolerance for very high prices (hundreds of thousands of dollar per year) resulted in an explosion of research into orphan drugs.

Re: Cancer Complications: Confusing Bills, Maddening Errors And Endless Phone Calls

#289

Post by koolba »

graedus wrote: post #276
sbov wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't go to the ER for a sprained thumb. Unless its an actual emergency, go to urgent care. I live in a pretty expensive area of California and they still only charge $95 per person they see. And our insurance covers it completely. And rightly so, they would much prefer a $95 bill to a $14,000 one. With kids we go a couple times per year. They definitely have saved us a lot of money and time.

Urgent care might be a good option where it's available. Even here though, I've been told I just need to pay my copay, which I did up front, then been billed a couple months later for some additional amount. I was lucky that the amount wasn't high so I just paid it rather than dig in, but it's very unclear how or why I was billed extra. This happens all the time.

If you have a deductible you’ll be on the hook for the whole cost which could be $100-150. The bill would need to round trip to the insurance company first.

In contrast if you have not met your deductible and say you’re paying cash, it’s often cheaper as the cash price is something like $75.

I got in an argument once at an urgent care on this topic. I asked how much they would bill my insurance (“We can’t/won’t tell you) vs not having insurance and paying cash price ($75). They then proceeded to insist I give them my insurance information as “Sir- you must use your insurance. That’s illegal!”.

Re: Cancer Complications: Confusing Bills, Maddening Errors And Endless Phone Calls

#290

Post by sbov »

koolba wrote: post #289
graedus wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Urgent care might be a good option where it's available. Even here though, I've been told I just need to pay my copay, which I did up front, then been billed a couple months later for some additional amount. I was lucky that the amount wasn't high so I just paid it rather than dig in, but it's very unclear how or why I was billed extra. This happens all the time.

If you have a deductible you’ll be on the hook for the whole cost which could be $100-150. The bill would need to round trip to the insurance company first. In contrast if you have not met your deductible and say you’re paying cash, it’s often cheaper as the cash price is something like $75. I got in an argument once at an urgent care on this topic. I asked how much they would bill my insurance (“ We can’t/won’t tell…

I had a hospital pull this on me when I was looking to get something done. They said we can't get the cash price because you can only get that if you don't have insurance, even if you know your insurance doesn't cover it, and it's illegal to not have insurance so we must have it, so no cash price.
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