Snakebite victm charged $89,000 for 18 hour stay.

Hi there. I am new to ATS and was not going to post replies but this thread really speaks to me on many levels.
We live in the richest country in the world and it is obvious who is getting richer. The health care industry is. I feel so sorry for all of us Americans. We need better solutions than bake sales and other private fundraising efforts that fall way below the the bills these families have to pay. We deserve better than the crappy insurance options out there These fat cat hospitals are getting tax subsidies, gov't subsidies, insurance company money and medicare / medicaid . They have MULTIPLE income streams to pay their way Most regular American's only have one income stream. These hospitals have a lot of nerve expecting a working person making $10.00 an hour to pay a $100,000 bill. I think that these hospitals out there are just greedy.

Why do these jerks expect more than the 80% they get paid for a hospital stay by an insurance company. I know people that are getting harassed and their wages garnished to collect the small amounts that are left over from insurance coverage. Unfortunately, the small part not covered by insurance is usually a hardship for a regular working person to pay off.

I just get so darned steamed up over it all.

I wish they would ban applauds from these addresses...the shear arrogance of some of the people applauding is so transparent..

whooppppsssss wrong post

reply to post by kurthall


They will end up uncompensated by uninsured folks because there is NO way the average American has 89000.00 lying around for the one fluke situation they never expected. If they did, I'm sure it would be spent on paying off bills or purchasing a nicer home or vehicle and already spent. But years ago, even one to one and a half decades ago, the average ED visit MIGHT have reached a couple of thousand. HOW did it go from a couple thousand to many thousands?? I know there is a lot of technology that hospitals are purchasing and with increased costs due to HIPAA compliant software, that adds to healthcare costs, but does it really cost THAT MUCH? I would think that just a couple of people's visits to the hospital ED room would be enough to pay off the computers for the ED. Multiply that by the number of In-patient visits and number of computers in the hospital that are not physician owned and you would have thought they would have been paid for by just a few IP stays. So is it the cost of the software, licenses, IT staff plus benefits, that has really changed the cost of hospitals over the past decade?

All I know is that while the computers are nice and help save lives because their are fewer mistakes based on illegible provider handwriting, the costs we were trying to prevent (actual dollars, not life), seem far less back then than they do now. Couldn't we have created some way to reduce costs AND improve medical records without such HIGH costs of systems and legislation?

And what happens when the software and computers are paid off by the hospitals. Do they suddenly decrease their fees because now they have fewer costs? Something tells me NO!

I had to pay $15,000, for a morphine shot, an X-ray, a paper robe, and a small nap on a crappy bed. I could have taken a vacation in Hawaii, flying first class, staying at the best room, best food with an entire vat of morphine next to my luxury bed.


Health care is a greedy money scam.

Corporate Hospitals, big Insurance, and Big Pharma are all scams. An honest State Attorney should file RICO charges against them. Although he would need special protection of some kind.

kurthall
Wow, And some of you argue with healthcare reform, albeit it is FAR from perfect. Here is an interesting article and it kind of cover why we NEED health insurance. Those of you who say "I never go to the dr, well you never know when you will need to and it could save your life. Hope you have insurance if something like this happens to you.

"We are required to give Medicare one level of discount from list price, Medicaid another, and private insurers negotiate for still others," officials told the newspaper. "If we did not start with the list prices we have, we would not end up with enough revenue to remain in operation."

The hospital added: "Our costs for providing uncompensated care are partially covered by higher bills for other patients."

edit on 28-1-2014 by kurthall because: (no reason given)

edit on 28-1-2014 by kurthall because: link

news.yahoo.com...

edit on 28-1-2014 by kurthall because: link

edit on 28-1-2014 by kurthall because: fix

I don't know a single person who argues that healthcare reform is not needed. Nearly everyone does agree that mandatory government healthcare is a terrible idea and does not address any of the existing healthcare issues. The prices charged by hospitals for things are out of this world.

jjkenobi
Nearly everyone does agree that mandatory government healthcare is a terrible idea and does not address any of the existing healthcare issues.

Well, maybe in the U.S. The rest of the civilised world seems to have bought in. I'll say it again, threads like this are surreal to us non-Americans.

Tusks
Corporate Hospitals, big Insurance, and Big Pharma are all scams. An honest State Attorney should file RICO charges against them. Although he would need special protection of some kind.

Is there such a thing as an honest State Attorney?

Healthcare for profit will invariably fail the needs of the citizen. There are no morals and ethics when it comes to making a profit.

Something that is interesting about a lot of hospitals is there is such a things as VIP patients. For example a member of the France family(NASCAR) in Daytona Beach, FL are always considered VIP patients.

Are you suggesting we turn into a socialist hellhole like Sweden or Norway, OP?

This is the price we pay for FREEDOM. Healthcare is a privilege not a right!

muse7
Are you suggesting we turn into a socialist hellhole like Sweden or Norway, OP?

This is the price we pay for FREEDOM. Healthcare is a privilege not a right!

OMG!!! Have you ever seen the movie Bruebaker? The inmates had to give blood to pay for EXTREMELY substandard care. Except when the warden would show up, then anyone telling tghe doctor they can't afford more care would be told to shut up. So, bascally the average joe out there is being relegated to a hospital system that is being run like a plantation prison.... The governor and political types all just look the other way and get SUPER angry at anyone suggesting reform because after all ...."As long as the prison is making a profit we can't change the system that is making everyone rich around there. You can't change tradition."

So as long as all the "right people" are profiting, then we should just shut up and pay for whatever crappy level of care our status gets us.

Sheeeesh!!! Freedom. I get sick of people using freedom as an excuse to rob everyone. We all know an aspirin isn't $200. TPTB are just worried that the whole economy would collapse if the gov't got out of medical care. All the nurses and techs and doctors would lose their houses and stuff. Face it we already pay for healthcare out of our taxes. Why not do it right? Like I had said before the hospitals have MULTIPLE income streams ranging from private insurance to public insurance. They got greedy when the gov't started Medicare. Basically saw the gov't as a blank check.

muse7
Are you suggesting we turn into a socialist hellhole like Sweden or Norway, OP?

This is the price we pay for FREEDOM. Healthcare is a privilege not a right!

It is a right.


Love the people who squeal about freedom and are the ones to know the least about it.

""We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men [people] are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

To have your life and health, be dictated by ability to pay and the discretion of those who wield it, is against everything that the US stands for. Much less be dictated by a for profit company or entity, where your health and happiness is based on your ability to pay.

To claim that healthcare is a right means you are nothing more than a corporate communist.

reply to post by muse7


I think healthcare is a right in a first world country. Healthcare for profit has failed the people. Even basic and common surgeries like an appendectomy are billed for more than the majority make a year.

That is not the price of freedom, that is extortion!

jrod
reply to post by muse7

 

I think healthcare is a right in a first world country. Healthcare for profit has failed the people. Even basic and common surgeries like an appendectomy are billed for more than the majority make a year.

That is not the price of freedom, that is extortion!

edit on 29-1-2014 by jrod because:

I agree. Unfortunately the hospitals have gotten really fat and bloated from all the blank check opportunities for income sources like public insurance or government insurance. If we tried to reset the whole system it would lead to economic collapse, but, the prices would start to fall into line with what real people make. There must be a way to wean all these hospitals off the tits and get real life prices that reflect income regular people get.

reply to post by Kissyface


Every other industrialized country in the world has a universal type of health care system. Some are better than others. All have a higher standard of healthcare for the common citizen.

The biggest reason the US can not do this is because of the insurance companies lobbying for themselves with big money, while we the common citizen only have a vote that can be manipulated. It is a rigged game. We need a complete overhaul of healthcare in the US.

As long as profits are more important than one's health then we will having a failing healthcare system.

mithrawept
Here in the UK, the cost of the treatment would have been free.

The irony is that we have no indigenous poisonous snakes.

Actually we do have poisonous snakes, they are called adders or vipers.

Every time I read about US healthcare I have to shake my head at the narrow minded ideological mindset that seems to think that the mythical "free market" will solve the problem. It is precisely because the apparent free market has failed miserably that most european countries have some kind of universal healthcare/insurance. The UK just happens to have it's insurance broker called "the government". Thus NOBODY is excluded, NOBODY is ripped off, NOBODY has limits applied. There are no "no claims bonus" discounts (which are just an insurance companies method of making it too expensive to claim !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

I actually live in Scotland where our HNS is managed differently to the rest of the UK. Here, not only do I get free heathcare (well actually pre-paid via national insurance premiums), I also get free dental check-ups, free amalgam fillings (although I pay to get the white ones.....about £20), free prescriptions , even if they are for the rest of my life ( I'm on three drugs).

To all you US folks look at this equation :

Net houshold income available for spending = gross income - tax - health insurance paid to private company
Net houshold income available for spending = gross income - tax - national insurance for NHS

DUH!!!! (but our national insurance is considerably cheaper)

The NHS has its flaws by Oh my god what a dream compared to the nightmare the US has !

reply to post by yorkshirelad



OMG...this sounds like a better deal than what we have here. In the US it is possible to owe $50K or more AFTER insurance pays it's share. So, national healthcare = no more bake sales to raise funds to cover medical bills for children with cancer anymore...

Sounds good to me. Yay!!

yorkshirelad

To all you US folks look at this equation :

Net houshold income available for spending = gross income - tax - health insurance paid to private company
Net houshold income available for spending = gross income - tax - national insurance for NHS

DUH!!!! (but our national insurance is considerably cheaper)

The NHS has its flaws by Oh my god what a dream compared to the nightmare the US has !

Anyone in the US on a payroll also pays for medicare. So we pay for medicare + private health insurance.

I will likely be chastised for writing this, but medicare is ran much more efficiently than any of the private insurance companies, very little overhead for admin costs, while the private health insurance spend an incredible amount on admin fees and CEO salaries.

For some weird reason a single payer option to a national insurance program is demonized in the US. Too many people believe universal health care cause the US to become a full socialist country.