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What I learned from reading a thousand emergency room bills

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Re: What I learned from reading a thousand emergency room bills

#361

Post by jessaustin »

chimeracoder wrote: post #312
arethuza wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had emergency dental treatment in an NHS hospital in the UK for an extremely painful dental abscess - was treated first thing on a Sunday morning.

> I've had emergency dental treatment in an NHS hospital in the UK for an extremely painful dental abscess - was treated first thing on a Sunday morning. Emergency dental care is provided in the US as well. Filling a cavity is not considered an emergency.

Very few oral problems are emergent. GP's abscess would have been visible on examination for months, and certainly was uncomfortable before it was extremely painful. In many cases the first treatment is a course of antibiotics, which any USA ER could administer perfectly well.

Re: What I learned from reading a thousand emergency room bills

#362

Post by 6t6t6t6 »

wmil wrote: post #109
andrei_says_ wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What blows my mind is how a nurse costs $5k for the duration of a surgery. Surely the nurse did not make $5k. Where does this money go?

Hospitals are required to treat the uninsured, but the government doesn't actually compensate them for that. So they jack up everyone else's bills in the hopes that enough people will pay that they'll make a profit. Insurance companies will usually push back, so (sometimes partially) uninsured people with decent credit hit with huge charges.

> Hospitals are required to treat the uninsured, but the government doesn't actually compensate them for that.

How many patiens are uninsured? 10%? 20%?

This still does not explain how the hospital can bill $5k for one hour of a nurse that may be making herself $50 per hour at most.

Re: What I learned from reading a thousand emergency room bills

#363

Post by ThomPete »

fencepost wrote: post #333
ThomPete wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How on earth can can i get downvoted for saying what is true?

You can get downvoted by sounding like a knee jerk racist. Go spend a little time looking into where healthcare money is actually being spent and written off as bad debt in the US then come back with numbers and sources. If you can back up that illegal immigrants are the source of healthcare cost issues in pretty sure we'll all be impressed.

Huh?

That's not what I said at all. I was explaining how the US system is very different than the Scandinavian system. That's all. You can't compare them at all.

Whatever racist undertone you heard there was your doing not mine.

Re: What I learned from reading a thousand emergency room bills

#364

Post by veb »

newyankee wrote: post #330
james_s_tayler wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fantastic here too. I had a scare recently and called the ambulance, was at the hospital pretty quickly, got an x-ray, stayed overnight, turned out not to be a serious thing but finally figured out what was causing it. No drama and no crazy $100,000 bills. Just healthcare of an acceptable quality when you need it. There is just no way that any perceived marginal improvement in the quality of care on an individua…

Indeed. I am surprised though because the income taxes in NZ seem to be lower than the quality of healthcare then. Wondering what the catch is.

I've sadly been to hospital via ambulance quite a lot for seizure activity and that kinda carrying on. The biggest bill was when I received my $54 bill for the ambulance! Oh no. (St John is a volunteer ambulance service). So, I went and paid it and then paid them $80 for an annual househould membership - meaning if anyone in my house ever needs an ambulance, it's free!

I'm aware however, with the rescue helicopters there can sometimes be complications because at the end of the day, someone needs to pay - but as an accident, everything's covered under ACC anyways. (and: http://www.police.govt.nz/faq/if-i-get-lost-and-need-search-...)

Re: What I learned from reading a thousand emergency room bills

#366

Post by gammateam »

ddebernardy wrote: post #139
y-c-o-m-b wrote: post #28

I was a victim of the surprise out of network bill in the Portland, OR area. I did all my research before hand: hospital in network, surgeon in network, etc. but ONE person in that operating room was not in network and SURPRISE i'm out thousands of dollars. The worst part about this is my state passed a bill to stop this prior to my surgery, but the bill's effective date was roughly 3 months later. Talk about bad tim…

I'm at a loss as to why the US is still dead set to have no meaningful health coverage. I got burned by this in California a decade ago. A dentist charged me $4,500 to fix a broken tooth (panic!) and fill in a cavity on a Sunday. Had I known then what it might have cost I'd have simply flown back to Europe in the next flight ($600-800 at the time) and get the same thing done for under $100-200 with a full refund from…

Alot of people do ‘simply’ fly back to Europe

Re: What I learned from reading a thousand emergency room bills

#367

Post by WalterBright »

xenadu02 wrote: post #318
crasch4 wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Price discovery is indeed difficult in the current market. However, the current healthcare market is no where close to a free market. For example, suppose you wanted to start a hospital that offered price transparency, like the Surgery Center of Oklahoma does. (1) In thirty-five states and the District of Columbia, you'd first have to acquire a certificate-of-need (CON) from the state healthcare regulators. In order…

Price discovery requires pricing some people out of the market. Period. There is no "free market" healthcare system that can or ever will deliver required health services to everyone. Furthermore when the alternative is death or debilitation, the price a "consumer" is willing to pay is effectively everything they possess and can borrow. That is both a massive distortion and non-optimal for the economy as a whole. The…

> Price discovery requires pricing some people out of the market.

I don't see the connection between posting prices and pricing people out of the market.

Re: What I learned from reading a thousand emergency room bills

#368

Post by thinkloop »

xenadu02 wrote: post #318
crasch4 wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Price discovery is indeed difficult in the current market. However, the current healthcare market is no where close to a free market. For example, suppose you wanted to start a hospital that offered price transparency, like the Surgery Center of Oklahoma does. (1) In thirty-five states and the District of Columbia, you'd first have to acquire a certificate-of-need (CON) from the state healthcare regulators. In order…

Price discovery requires pricing some people out of the market. Period. There is no "free market" healthcare system that can or ever will deliver required health services to everyone. Furthermore when the alternative is death or debilitation, the price a "consumer" is willing to pay is effectively everything they possess and can borrow. That is both a massive distortion and non-optimal for the economy as a whole. The…

> There are certainly regulatory inefficiencies and other inefficiencies in healthcare markets, but a truly "free market" in healthcare not morally justifiable

Socialized healthcare has its own "immoral" trade-offs. We essentially reduce per capita quality in favor of all-inclusive coverage. Proponents of free-market healthcare would argue that the inefficient allocation of resources inherent to socialization is immoral. Libertarians would argue that forcing money from one person to give to another for medical care is immoral. It's not really a question of morality, more of preferred philosophy and practicality. Framing it around morality makes the other side seem abhorrent and the situation difficult to find common ground.

Re: What I learned from reading a thousand emergency room bills

#369

Post by ttoinou »

jopsen wrote: post #346
ip26 wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without their offer, the market value of the property is zero. Who is going to buy a house that has no fire insurance and is currently on fire ? Is a steeply discounted price really outrageous? They might perish in the fire, they might fail to save it. Firefighting back then was no sure thing. Now, if two crews showed up and bid against each other, things start to get interesting.

If two crews have to show up for a fire... That means higher prices because most of the time there is no fire, so they just sit around waiting -- more people higher cost. It also means it might be that nobody shows up, because it's a holiday, so nobody was on duty.

> It also means it might be that nobody shows up, because it's a holiday, so nobody was on duty.

Well surely public services are more incentivized to display this behavior

Re: What I learned from reading a thousand emergency room bills

#370

Post by randyrand »

vec wrote: post #14

Exhibit A for why "free market healthcare" is an oxymoron. I have yet to hear a coherent explanation for how anyone can reasonably expect for price discovery to even pretend to function in a market where the consumers can't even guess the prices until after they've already purchased and frequently couldn't reasonably be expected to refuse service even if they did believe it was overpriced.

Emergency situations require regulation.

But as others say, healthcare is the most regulated industry in the USA. It’s the opposite of a free market.

It’s actually a great example why regulations often suck.

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