Hospitals didn't "lift curtain on prices." They were forced to do so. Accept no framing that allows them to appear heroic or selfless.
Hospitals lift curtain on prices, revealing giant swings in pricing by procedure
361–370 of 463 posts
Re: Hospitals lift curtain on prices, revealing giant swings in pricing by procedure
#362Earlier quoted context omitted.
You’re probably thinking of “healthcare ministries,” which are not insurance (they’re scams).
Scams? They paid for my $6000 colonoscopy which caught early cancer, my daughters stitches, my wife's allergy specialist, my son's rocky mountain spotted fever, etc. etc. $500/mo for our family of 5 and we've been on it for nearly 10 years. But yes, please tell me more how this service that is way cheaper than insurance, is a community of people helping each other, and covers way more than insurance, is a scam.
> $6000 colonoscopy
Six grand to shove a camera up your butt? That's the real scam!
Re: Hospitals lift curtain on prices, revealing giant swings in pricing by procedure
#363Earlier quoted context omitted.
When two pills coming from the same company are being made at the same time on the same machines, then they both cost the same. It's pretty obvious that the patient status changes nothing about that. However, the hospital's acquisition cost is variable because you're further down the supply chain and you're seeing the exact same kinds of arbitrary behind-the-scenes price swings that this article is talking about. It…
Not trying to be rude but he already told you the answer. You really should look up 340b. It's a federal program to rebate drug costs for certain types of patients and is a legal form of price discrimination. When you provide a drug in a healthcare setting, it can be a very different price depending on who receives it, because the federal government has the 340b program. Your argument about cost to manufacture isn't…
What's preventing the hospital from at least telling me the baseline price without 340b rebates and then listing those rebates separately? Does the hospital even know the baseline price without 340b rebates? If not, doesn't that strike you as a problem?
> Hospitals pay different prices for the same pharmaceuticals.
Right, that's exactly what I said:
> It sounds like within the industry, hospitals are facing the same problems as consumers, and they need more price transparency from their suppliers as well. Hopefully increased requirements towards hospitals to explain their pricing will lead to hospitals demanding slightly more transparency and slightly more consistency from the other companies they work with.
Re: Hospitals lift curtain on prices, revealing giant swings in pricing by procedure
#364I studied this years ago for years. My summary: - a mandated MLR of 85% means the insurance companies have zero incentive to reduce the cost of items. In fact, their toplines and real (non%) profits increase as healthcare gets more expensive. - industry profitability for insurance companies is around 3%. So, their overhead is around 15%-3% = 12%. They have an incentive to do their job cheaper. This pales in compariso…
The solution is to make the consumer participate in driving costs down. One employer I know of has an excellent solution to the problem: Make employees pay 100% of the bill up to a certain amount, such as $6000. That's a large amount, but the employer then contributes a large amount to your Health Savings Account (HSA), such as $4000. This amount is for you to keep regardless of whether you have any health bills or not. (This money can be used for medical expenses only, but can be used any time, including after retirement). So the maximum you will spend out of pocket per year is $2000. How does this encourage the consumer to scrutinize and control medical expenditure? Because the first $6000 of medical spending in a year is "your money". This is money you'd be able to keep in your HSA if you didn't have any medical expenses. This gives the consumer a strong incentive to reduce costs, question charges, avoid unnecessary services, and so on.
Re: Hospitals lift curtain on prices, revealing giant swings in pricing by procedure
#365I bet that this ends up resulting in higher prices. Once hospitals know what the others are charging, it is more likely to cause the cheaper ones to raise their prices than it is the more expensive ones to lower them. Medical care is a scarce good and (mostly) the end consumer is not footing the bill directly, either for the care or the insurance.
Re: Hospitals lift curtain on prices, revealing giant swings in pricing by procedure
#366It will be fun to watch people be positive on this until they are reminded who we have to thank for it. Edit: CNN hasn't forgotten, notice the obvious negative spin, with literally zero argument of how this may be beneficial: https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/04/politics/hospital-price-trans...
You mean Bill Clinton in the early 90's? It was part of the Clinton health care reform. But maybe you're not that old. ;-) Every president has pushed for this except Bush Jr. Glad it finally happened even if it was under who I consider to be the worst president* in the last 100 years of US history. Doesn't mean I need to thank him. If you were being tortured in a Mexican cartel prison, would you thank the torturer fo…
Thinking that trump is the worst president in the past 100 years just betrays either an insane privilege[1] or just ignorance. You realize the hundreds of thousands of lives lost directly or indirectly in the war on terror, a war almost completely engineered by the Bush administration, are actually real right? They were people with hopes, plans, dreams that were all wiped out, and for a lot of those who are still alive they are condemned to live in a cycle of violence caused again by the war on terror and it's ripple effects. If you compare that to what trump did in his 4 years and come up with the conclusion that hey, it wasn't as bad & Donald truly is the worst president... Then I don't even know what to tell you.
I'm Muslim and I've grown up my entire life with that war and its consequences in the background, especially since we mostly consumed arabic media. I've thankfully not been affected directly, but man do these takes completely discredit the side that keeps pushing them instantly for me.
We are at a point where even the notoriously neocon hawkish republican party and their voters are a lot more willing to acknowledge just how horrible those people were, yet democrats have no problem completely rehabilitating the old neocon crew because hey yeah they killed people but at least they were... Polite about it? I get that it's unhinged crusading politics and we just have to paint the adversary as the worst person ever to feel the rush of being morally superior but when you are at the point where you defend George W Bush to own the magahats, maybe take a step back and reflect on what you are doing.
The worst part is that now that bed has been made and apologism for those neocons became a mainstream talking point, everyone is just doubling down because admitting that trump isn't actually even close to being worst would be to admit that maybe the hysteria to score political points didn't warrant sweeping under the rug 2 enormously destructive wars.
[1] as in the privilege of not having ever been affected by the war on terror. Which in turn leads to pretty insignificant events like being concerned about the presidents tweets or feeling that you are part of some sort of feel good #resist movement for 4 years just registering as being more impactful than a region getting destabilized far away
Re: Hospitals lift curtain on prices, revealing giant swings in pricing by procedure
#367Earlier quoted context omitted.
>given them government-paid, universal healthcare This is meaningless if the quality of healthcare is not the same. There are numerous hurdles placed for various different people to get the healthcare, effectively restricting access to healthcare itself.
No doubt. I wasn't trying to comment on the quality or access, just a point on how we have "solved" the healthcare problem over time. Taxpayers cover the neediest, leaving the healthiest to for-profit insurers. The healthiest have no incentive to make sure the programs for the neediest actually work or are accessible.
Oh yes, I agree with you. I remember how pissed people were when ACA caused their premiums to go up, because they were now subsidizing everyone who used to simply not get healthcare.
Re: Hospitals lift curtain on prices, revealing giant swings in pricing by procedure
#368Earlier quoted context omitted.
Voters not wanting to pay for comprehensive care for everyone is a 4th head. The current system of healthcare is great for allocating different amounts of healthcare to different classes of people, so that it is great for 20 to 30% of people, okay for 20%, and not good for 50%, and that is why it persists. There is no reason Medicare should be restricted to those over 65, or why Medicaid is implemented differently (a…
> Voters not wanting to pay for comprehensive care for everyone is a 4th head. M4A is overwhelmingly popular, at points taking majorities of Republicans. Also, the US government already spends as much on healthcare as Britain and the NHS; US healthcare is just allowed to cost twice as much.
Maybe now, but it was not true in 2009/2010 when ACA was being hashed out. As I saw it, lots of people said they wanted everyone to get healthcare, but when the chips were down, there was lots of balking at costs.
Re: Hospitals lift curtain on prices, revealing giant swings in pricing by procedure
#369Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> They have a column called "Uninsured cash price." These prices are > And this can really cause issues for people who are insured because if an insurance company decides not to cover something (very very common, even in-network) then the inflated price is what you end up getting billed for. That doesn't sound like an "inflated" price? 25% of what insurance companies are billed for? I'm confused. I'm not sure y'all…
He’s saying if you go in as an insured patient and get denied for a procedure by the insurance company after it’s been performed, you’ll get a bill from the hospital for the insurance-negotiated rate, not the uninsured cash pay rate. You can generally talk the billing department down to the cash pay rate, but that requires having a lot of meta-knowledge of how American healthcare works.
omg, I see what you mean. Confusing as heck.
Re: Hospitals lift curtain on prices, revealing giant swings in pricing by procedure
#370Earlier quoted context omitted.
You mean Bill Clinton in the early 90's? It was part of the Clinton health care reform. But maybe you're not that old. ;-) Every president has pushed for this except Bush Jr. Glad it finally happened even if it was under who I consider to be the worst president* in the last 100 years of US history. Doesn't mean I need to thank him. If you were being tortured in a Mexican cartel prison, would you thank the torturer fo…
Thinking that trump is the worst president in the past 100 years just betrays either an insane privilege[1] or just ignorance. You realize the hundreds of thousands of lives lost directly or indirectly in the war on terror, a war almost completely engineered by the Bush administration, are actually real right? They were people with hopes, plans, dreams that were all wiped out, and for a lot of those who are still ali…
That's a fair criticism, although you really pulled out the big hyperbolic guns. Insane? Not really. And you continue to make personal attacks even in your footnote. But hey, it's an internet discussion board, I'm guilty of the same.
The guy broke democracy and started a trend that IMHO will inevitably break the US. There's no stopping the nihilistic-right's rise fueled by an uneducated white minority bent on revenge via politics for their oppression at the hands of those they vote for. This nihilism, meaning its not that side A is correct or side B is correct: there is no "correct". That's worse than two pointless wars, IMHO, and it springs directly from Trump. A fountainhead of corruption the likes of which modern democracy has never seen. And I stand by that.