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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

#481

Post by pasabagi »

tokyodude wrote: post #402
cogman10 wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Don't let The Perfect be the enemy of The Good." We are overspending on the quality of health care we get today. Further there is a lot of fear mongering about socialized medicine. I've experienced medicine in both the UK and the US. I can tell you, there isn't a difference in quality. Further, when I got a cold and went in, wait time wasn't 6 hours or whatever other BS people claim. Wait time was ~10 minutes. In fa…

I've had different experiences from you. My experience in the UK was wait 90 minutes in a waiting room and when it was finally close to my turn I was told I could only see a nurse and she wasn't allowed to proscribe any medicine so if I wanted to see a doctor I should go down the street to the private doctor. This was in London near Soho. In Japan the first time I went to a doctor it was for stomach pain. He gave me…

When were you in the UK system? I've noticed a lot of variance between people's opinions based on the fact that there's been a sort of sabotage campaign against the NHS in recent years (it's dropped ten places in the worldwide healthcare rankings in the last five years). So people that had experiences with the UK system in the early 2000's generally had a good time, whereas later, it became a lot more mixed.

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

#482

Post by ptaipale »

jopsen wrote: post #343
bjelkeman-again wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is because the culture is quite different in DK compared to the US. There is an expectation of how it will work which is very different by everyone involved.

No, it's because ambulance service in Denmark is a public contract. Private citizen don't pay out of pocket. Essentially, the state (or region) contracts a company to deliver ambulance services. The contracts usually last a few years and are limited to a region. Furthermore, the company that wins the contract (usually lowest bidder) is held accountable is too many responses are too slow, etc.. usually with hefty fine…

And public contract it is in many other places, like where I live (Finland). Local government pays ambulances, I pay a sum to the local government out of my pocket after I have used ambulance.

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

#483

Post by ams6110 »

gambiting wrote: post #468
geezerjay wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really should get the facts on how those systems actually operate. I'm currently living in an european country that has a national health service that supposedly ticks all the socialist talking points, including free (in theory) access to emergency care, but not only is the service largely inoperational with year-long waiting periods for surgeries, including cancer treatments, but also has a disgruntle workforce…

While I also come from a country like the one you described, there is a very simple fact that cannot be ignored - when my dad got cancer 8 years ago, every single one of his operations and all the drugs(including incredibly expensive Glivec) were 100% free. He was even reimbursed for the cost of travelling to the hospital for his monthly check-up. If he had the same disease in US, he would die much earlier than he di…

You have gone from a hypothetical to concluding that people in the US die because they can't afford cancer drugs.

If your dad was over 65, he would be on Medicare. If he was younger than 65 and impoverished (income between 0 - ~150% of poverty level) he would be on Medicaid or another state plan for low income people. If he's above 150% of poverty level he probably has health insurance available at work or thru ACA. In fact is legally obligated to.

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

#484

Post by OliverJones »

This "ED is too expensive" situation has been going on for decades.

Is it possible the fairly new walk-in clinics could help?

Could there be a big red sign on the ED door saying, "Hey we are very expensive and if your condition isn't serious you will wait a long time! Consider using the walk-in clinic at 123 Main Street."

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

#485

Post by eftychis »

vkou wrote: post #192
mondo9000 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile the EMTs make $12/hr :(

Where is all the money going? Does the ambulance have a solid-gold steering wheel?

You pay for the people that are not insured, can or do not pay, and also for the profit margin.

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

#486

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

cogman10 wrote: post #354
nordsieck wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. There is no economic system that can deliver all of the health care to everyone who wants it. Fundamentally, health care resources are limited: doctors, beds, MRI machines, etc. Desire for health care is much less limited. The questio…

"Don't let The Perfect be the enemy of The Good." We are overspending on the quality of health care we get today. Further there is a lot of fear mongering about socialized medicine. I've experienced medicine in both the UK and the US. I can tell you, there isn't a difference in quality. Further, when I got a cold and went in, wait time wasn't 6 hours or whatever other BS people claim. Wait time was ~10 minutes. In fa…

>> The only people that lose with socialized medicine are admin and insurance.

Presumably they too need healthcare, so even they win, in the long run.

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

#487

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

credit_guy wrote: post #469
cogman10 wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Don't let The Perfect be the enemy of The Good." We are overspending on the quality of health care we get today. Further there is a lot of fear mongering about socialized medicine. I've experienced medicine in both the UK and the US. I can tell you, there isn't a difference in quality. Further, when I got a cold and went in, wait time wasn't 6 hours or whatever other BS people claim. Wait time was ~10 minutes. In fa…

> I've experienced medicine in both the UK and the US. I can tell you, there isn't a difference in quality. My experience was very different. In January-February this year I had to visit (unfortunately) both the Emergency Room in NYC and the A&E in London. While the quality of the medical equipment in London matches the one in NYC, the understaffing is much more severe. In neither place was my wait time only 10 minut…

>> I talked with other people in London about my experience that the medical system is severely understaffed, and all agreed.

That is because NHS spending is being slashed viciously. Obviously, if socialised medicine is being dismantled, it can't be expected to work all that well anymore.

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

#488

Post by orf »

credit_guy wrote: post #469
cogman10 wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Don't let The Perfect be the enemy of The Good." We are overspending on the quality of health care we get today. Further there is a lot of fear mongering about socialized medicine. I've experienced medicine in both the UK and the US. I can tell you, there isn't a difference in quality. Further, when I got a cold and went in, wait time wasn't 6 hours or whatever other BS people claim. Wait time was ~10 minutes. In fa…

> I've experienced medicine in both the UK and the US. I can tell you, there isn't a difference in quality. My experience was very different. In January-February this year I had to visit (unfortunately) both the Emergency Room in NYC and the A&E in London. While the quality of the medical equipment in London matches the one in NYC, the understaffing is much more severe. In neither place was my wait time only 10 minut…

My Girlfriend managed to stick her finger in a blender in January. We went to a London hospital, got seen by a doctor within 1 hour (she had stitches within 20 minutes of arriving) and she had plastic surgery on her finger that evening. For free.

Different A&E departments have different problems. The NHS is the largest employer in Europe, and it's reductive to say "all London hospitals are understaffed". They are not. Part of the problem is seasonal and even daily shifts in A&E visits, you can't staff for the worst case all the time. And January/Feb is known to be a busy couple of months.

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

#490

Post by nkrisc »

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.

The concept of free market healthcare basically expects consumers to bargain with their own lives. No rational person would do that.

We agree to service and pay even if it would bankrupt us because at least we'd still be alive.

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