Topic: Private enterprise bankrupting America? - page 8. (Read 10970 times)

Could it be because, taking marketing into consideration, hospitals are just much better at business and making a profit than that clinic? Why didn't your mother go to the clinic to begin with? Was there an assumption that the hospital would be better? And did she pay for that until you knew better?

Related. Went to an after-hours clinic yesterday after getting some methanol-containing shellac in my eye. Mom drove me. She sprained her ankle a few weeks ago and had her ankle x-ray'd. They billed her $1400 just for the x-ray.

Asked the doctor @ the clinic about it. They are equipped to do the same x-ray and would've charged $50. To have my eye examined under UV, and some other basic tests, cost me $40 (and I'm fine, btw). Pretty darn reasonable. I also waited a much shorter time in the clinic than my mom did in ER (granted, they were at different times, so somewhat non-comparable). He also prescribed me an antibiotic for bronchitis -- $10 for a full prescription, no gov't subsidization.

So, why do hospitals charge 28x more for the same procedure than an apparently-profitable clinic? Valet services? Subsidizing those who can't afford to pay the extreme prices?


ETA: Uncle's home insurance is covering my $40 cost to have eye examined (+having bronchitis looked at in the same visit), so total out-of-pocket cost for me - being uninsured myself - between bronchitis, a prescription, and having my eyes examined for damage after a can of shellac exploded, is $10. 

So the numbers they present mean nothing on their own... I don't see where there is room for misunderstanding then.

I agreed its puzzling how it lists $800 for the angiogram in the Kaiser Permanente hospitals and $23 for Canada.  Both are impossibly low.  Perhaps its for the materials only.

Huh, you just agreed with me earlier...

Ah - so when you said "The numbers they present do not actually support it though" you haven't found the numbers that are "wrong" yet.

Isn't that sort of "you keep your facts and I keep my opinions" approach exactly what ineededausername was talking about?

In good time. This is worthwhile to be informed about.

If they have published numbers that don't support their point, show them.  Its the willingness to accept what they mean that is a problem.

No, the very nature of any "media" is to indoctrinate. I thought I wouldn't have to explain that here. My bad.

edit: I'm not saying that is "bad", it is just how it has to be because most people don't care about details. If you want real information you need to find it for yourself. The prices for various medical procedures are an example of this. I get that they were trying to illustrate their point with those numbers, and their point may be correct. The numbers they present do not actually support it though.

There, in a nutshell, you have summarised the problem with idealists.

So you refuse to accept facts that do not conform to your political views?  The facts have to be false, and if they don't appear to be false, you are being "indoctrinated?"

Well, it might be a bit extreme to say that you don't accept them.  Perhaps you reluctantly concede.

This is the reason why debates change nobody's minds.  Because you already assume the opponent is wrong and because you give your own position a "second chance," you can always find a rational retort after a while. 

I dunno, I work at a VA hospital (biomed research, not healthcare) but my lab is also part of a nearby private hospital so sometimes we have a choice of who to order through. It is common for supplies to be cheaper when ordered through the private hospital (although this is not always true and sometimes works in reverse). Some things are twice as expensive. This is due to the way the government grants contracts and approves vendors. There is usually a way to get your preferred vendor approved but depending on the scenario this could take months. No one has time to sit around and wait (you never really know how long the wait will be or the final price) so we just spend more, this is going on all over the country and just gets included in the cost of doing business and thus NIH grants, etc. The net effect is rising prices and siphoning money from the granting agencies (often taxpayers) to the overpriced suppliers.

I'm not saying this is the way it has to play out, just that single-, thirdparty-payer systems can be and are gamed. Large vendors will usually have entire departments devoted to dealing with the government.

Please read the article.  None of those is a significant factor.

You missed the most important reason, which is that Americans don't know the actual cost of healthcare because they are "shielded" from it by our insurance policies. Specifically, most of insurance is paid by employers, so, if the total cost of covering you is $400 a month, your employer takes $325 of that out of your paycheck without you even knowing about it, and charges you only the remaining $75 a month. I guarantee you that if the law allowing employers to provide group coverage and get a big tax break on it was repealed, and people were forced to pay that entire $400 out of pocket, people would be forced to be choosy in their insurance plans, and demand the costs get reduced.

Out of curiosity, who here, who lives in USA, even knew that your employer pays about 75% of your medical insurance, takes that money out of your income, and doesn't even tell or report it to you? I only found out because my employer started offering insurance for same sex couples, and had to disclose that since the Federal Government doesn't consider same sex couples as married, the entire portion paid by the company for the spouse would have to be reported as extra income and taxed as such. (I.e. if I was married, I would pay an extra $60 a month for my spouse, and that's it, but since I'm not legally married, I pay the $60, the state discloses that they paid the other $340, that $340 gets treated as extra income I earned, a come tax time I have to pay an extra $80 out of pocket for every month I had insurance on my spouse).

Three reasons US healthcare is expensive:

1.  People are allowed to sue doctors, hospitals, and drug companies for hundreds of millions of dollars.  I mean, come on, does hundreds of millions really compensate a person better than a few million would?  Either way, they're set for life.

2.  Because the US takes a free and capitalist approach to the medical world, companies pour tens of billions of dollars into R&D for innovative new treatments and techniques.  So, the US has the latest and greatest treatments, but it costs a lot to recover those R&D expenditures.

3.  Because people are allowed to be treated without paying for it.  Illegals included.  Hospitals have to recover costs from people who don't pay somehow...

So, if you really want to fix US healthcare costs, stop allowing people to get $200M judgments when someone is maimed for life, learn to deal with a decrease in innovation of new medical technologies and treatments, and stop treating people who can't pay for it.

Good find.  The American one is ridulously low too.  My guess is that its the materials; not the full procedure.

The overall point is correct though.  Americans are being overcharged and its the lack of a national price negotiation that causes it.  

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/business/high-cost-of-medical-procedures-in-the-us/?hpid=z2

There is no way these numbers mean what you are supposed to think they mean. $35 for an angiogram in canada? That is the total cost of the procedure? No way.

The regular price for Aspirin 40pc at I think 320mg each is 15€ around here, current EUR/USD is 1.3something.
So no not just 2 but 20 bucks for that.

p.s.
Could be this is the only example working this way.

Africa  = innocent people sacraficed to lack of food.
 

KP is a fine organisation.  But its not a health system - its just a small part.  According to wikipedia, the NHS copied KP in the some of the parts that are comparable.  However, the NHS takes all comers - KP cherry picks patients.

However, can I suggest you read the WaPo article?  It doesn't compare the US to the NHS.  The issue is not quality of care - its the over-charging for it.