lady-feral:
fullten:
withasmoothroundstone:
robstmartin:
titleknown:
Blogging this tweet because this explains SO MUCH about the mindset of pretty much all the folks I’ve known who’re against single-payer, it’s not even funny…
This….
This never occurred to me. Not once. That Americans are against Health Care because they think it actually costs tens of thousands of dollars for a broken arm, hundreds of thousands for a complicated birth, millions for cancer treatment.
Because they’ve never known anything different. The idea that a broken arm is only a couple hundred bucks; a complicated birth a couple thousand; cancer treatment only tens of thousands; all easily covered by existing tax structures.
This explains a lot. And it’s a good example of what I was talking about in my post on scarcity being used to prop up ableism – always question the idea that a resource is genuinely scarce. Even if it seems obvious that it is, quite often that’s the result of careful manipulation and misconceptions that you’re not even aware of.
And never think you’re too smart to be fooled by that kind of thing, it doesn’t work like that. Similarly, don’t think people who are fooled by something are stupid. Nobody can have all the information about everything, and nobody has the time and energy to investigate and put together conscious conclusions about every piece of information they’re given. It doesn’t take being stupid, or even just gullible, to believe something like this.
America also spends the most on administrative costs, which spikes up the bill
https://www.singlecare.com/blog/30-medical-bills-go-administrative-costs/
http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/11/news/economy/healthcare-administrative-costs-us-obamacare/index.html
People also don’t seem to realize that insurance companies artificially inflate the cost of healthcare and then offer “discounts” to get health care providers to accept or suggest their insurance brand.
Healthcare should not be a for-profit industry, but instead a universal right, and insurance companies are predatory con artists making billions of dollars off of human suffering and death.
This is not hyperbole.
Yeah all of this is true, and I’d never even thought of it that way.
After my wreck back in January, I was taken to the hospital. I was inside the ambulance for about 10 minutes, wherein the only treatment I received were the EMTs taking my vitals. At the hospital, I received an EKG and a chest x-ray. I think I saw my doctor for about 20 seconds. (That is NOT an exaggeration. She walked into the room, introduced herself, asked a couple questions, then left.) From being brought in the ER doors to walking out with my mom, I was in the hospital about 45 minutes.
My bill ended up being over $3000.
$30 was for my two prescriptions, one a muscle relaxant and the other a painkiller. They were my two best friends for about a week.
The x-ray cost $39, but it cost an additional $454 for them to read it and tell me nothing was wrong with me. The doctor who talked to me for 20 seconds? Her services cost $425. The 10 minute ambulance ride cost $930. The EKG cost $748.
The actual 45 minute stay in the emergency room? That alone cost $1565. That was JUST the use of the room. For comparison, the Ritz-Carlton in Dallas, the actual fuckdamn Ritz-Carlton has suite packages including an overnight stay in a suite, valet parking, breakfast, and all the other amenities for around $500. At the RITZ HOTEL. A night at the actual Ritz-fucking-Carlton is cheaper than an hour long stay in the emergency room. Where they did next to nothing to me.
I feel I need to emphasize that. I was hurt, but not badly. And I could have literally just called an Uber to take me from the scene, gotten a NICE hotel room, and called a doctor to make a house call at the hotel and gotten them to write me a scrip for my painkillers and it would have cost the same, maybe less than my treatment at the ER.
I also need to mention that I received a bill for $2767 from the hospital and it had nothing on it. They didn’t say what it was for. It just said that I was in the hospital and here’s my bill. I had to call them and demand an itemized bill. And not only did I want to know what the hell, but my insurance company refused to even pay it till they knew what it was for.
The thing is, hospitals expect negotiation for their bills. That’s why they high ball everything. Because they’re used to negotiating with insurance companies. Insurance companies aren’t the only ones at fault here, and mine, which was my car insurance company, has really been my closest ally here, because the driver who hit me wasn’t insured. But if you don’t have insurance or your insurance sucks, you’re screwed, and a lot of people pay way too much for medical bills, because they don’t think to haggle with this hospital. No way is Denton Regional getting all the money they billed me. And they shouldn’t.
But this isn’t a flea market. It’s people’s health. Sick and injured people and the families of sick and injured people should not have to haggle so they don’t have to pay stupidly high prices for medical care. And it never occurred to me that this could be clouding how people view universal healthcare.
The Paradox Machine 