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I personally think it's kind of sick that there's a business that's profiting from other's illnesses. Just me.
Then your problem is with Dr's, hospitals, Rx companies, & medical device mfg's, not with insurance companies. Insurance companies make more money when you don't file claims.
I personally think it's kind of sick that there's a business that's profiting from other's illnesses. Just me.
What about car insurance or home insurance? Are they wrong also?
Insurance companies don't profit from illnesses. In fact, the illnesses are claims (losses) to insurance companies. Insurance companies profit from the insecurities of life. You're young but wait until you experience something and the only money you have to cover it comes from insurance.
Actually, the OP's idea isn't completely outrageous. I'm not saying paying cash for everything is plausible, but insurance does distort the market because it decreases the incentive of price when making medical decisions (i.e. people don't bargain shop and there is less competition). It's why doctors usually offer discounts for people that pay cash. Economists also believe that if health savings accounts were more common, prices would decrease since more people would bargain shop since they would be spending their own money.
Also, there are significant administrative costs to insurance that drive up the price.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kgordeeva
I personally think it's kind of sick that there's a business that's profiting from other's illnesses. Just me.
I guess doctors and nurses should work for free. And do you have a problem when the government profits from peoples' deaths (i.e. estate "death" tax)?
Insurance companies may be part of the problem, drug companies may be part of the problem but lawers are the worst of it. These ambulance chasers and the lawsuits they bring drive the cost up terribly. Why didn't Obamacare address the problem of lawyers and litigation? Maybe its the fact that politicians tend to be trial lawyers by trade. They didn't want to shoot the goose laying the golden egg. We pay for that egg everytime we go to the doctor.
Nobody, absolutely NOBODY thinks 0bamacare is free. A lot of us know, without question, that somebody is paying for it. Somebody else. Like me. Paying for you.
Free? Nothing 0bama has ever done in his pitiful little life has been free. Someone is paying for everything. It's called TAX!
Now you know.
What is this,the P and C forum?
Anyway,aren't you the one that claims people can "just walk in the hospital" and receive healthcare?
You do realize us(me) healthcare workers have to get paid too right?
Can you just show up to your car mechanic and expect your car to get fixed without paying? No
Hospitals should be the same. Don't have insurance? Can't pay the bill upfront?
No MRI machines,no IV's,no pain meds,no X rays,no blood work,nothing.
Let's make it just as it was(sarcasm)
An MRI machine alone costs 10,000.
A ventilator cost $10,000 alone.
Who do you expect to pay for it?
Half of the seniors over 65 won't even be on CD if it wasn't for technology.
Those x rays you took for your tooth,do you know how much that machine costs?
You can make payments. I believe hospitals are willing to work with you if you at least make an effort to pay something. They might even be willing to cut some of the costs.
Have you actually had an injury/illness that required hospitalization??? I recently had an occurrence that required an ambulance trip to the hospital. No insurance. Ambulance ride cost me $961. Emergency room physician cost: $1860. Lab tests run in hospital: $638. Another dr. bill (from a dr. I don't even remember treating me: $350. All these bills are due now. I haven't even received the actual bill from the hospital yet, but since I was in a week, I am anticipating a whopper of a bill. I may be able to work out a payment plan with them, but it is expensive to have health problems. Paying out of pocket is not the option it used to be.
I believe if you chose to self insure you would want to know upfront what these procedures would cost, and then go shopping for some of them. You would bring your own bandage instead of paying $1000 for a hospital bandage. How about bring your own bottle of aspirin instead of the $400 aspirin. You wouldn't have 20 tests for the same thing over and over again. You wouldn't run to the doctor for a cold and have the doctor tell you to get lots of rest and drink lots of fluids. Cha-ching!
It's called shopping for the best service at the best price. I don't have insurance for glasses and eye exams. You can bet I shopped around. If I had insurance,, who cares? I don't need to use a doctor they tell me I need to use. I choose.
I don't have a mortgage on my house. I have decided to self insure. I put that money away every month and if the dang thing burns down, I will pay to replace it to the best of my ability. If it doesn't burn down, I'll have a nice lump of money to use as I see fit. It will not be in the pocket of some insurance company.
When you are on your own and not getting insurance as part of a pay package incentive (and thus a nice tax break) you would be much more careful how you spend your dollars. Insurance is a bet, it's gambling. They offer you "insurance" that if you get sick and they will cover the fees. If you don't get sick- they keep the money.
With insurance, who asks how much the procedure will cost? That xray? that pill? No one does, then they are shocked when the bills arrive.
To see how silly what you're saying sounds, you're saying that if we lower the price of auto insurance or home insurance, then the price of autos and homes will drop by 50%.
If we did away with insurance all together, they would indeed drop because people would be forced to stop taking on more than they could afford... If your home or car is wiped out in an accident and it's up to the owner to replace it, people would purchase significantly smaller less expensive cars and homes.
I have no health insurance. From birth to age 30, I had the best one could get 100% company paid. Except for a few months here and there, I've not had any form of health insurance for the past 18 years. When I have to go to the emergency room for something, I only go if it's serious, which is very rare. I get a huge discount right at the door because I am self pay. What that means I do not know, but on more than one occasion my 1,500 - 2000 dollar bill was halved right at the door. If I called up and complained about the price, I sometimes was cut additional breaks.
Back when I had 100% paid Blue Cross/Shield, eye, dental and prescription, the doctor would perform procedures that weren't needed just because my insurance paid for it.
When I was about seven (early 70s), I once asked the dentist why he did everything under the sun to me. I'd watched in horror as he handled the woman ahead of me. To my surprise he didn't do most of what he did to me. He gave her advice on how to handle something and got her out the door. Then I walk in and he starts giving me x-rays, special things, he's yelling instructions to his assistent who wasn't even present for the previous patient, and when he was done I asked him why he always does so many things to me and he didn't to the woman ahead of me. He said, "Son, your dad works for the Bethlehem Steel, he's got the best insurance money can buy so they pay for all sorts of procedures, I bill the insurance, and they pay. The woman ahead of you is poor, she pays in cash, and I cut her a break.
Insurance drives the cost up because there is money to be milked from a huge fat teat. Pharmaceuticals and attorneys also drive the cost up as well as intrusive government restrictions. What you're witnessing is the bureaucracy of socialism and corporate greed.
Isn't it odd how we have so much cancer today, yet everybody's saying how back in the day people died at 65! How the hell do you know? Is it because the gubment public schooling told you so? If a childhood disease didn't get you by age 10, and you didn't have to work in a coal mine or dangerous job, 100 years ago, people lived longer than they do today. Every one of my relatives lived well into their 90s because they were business owners and survived childhood. In each of the generations, they talked about 1 or 2 siblings our of every ten children that died before age 10. Of the people who mined or worked around a lot of carcinogens, yes, most died between 60 - 70, but that was the job and lack of wearing a respirator, the company didn't ventilate work space, and a bunch of other reasons, but it wasn't due to lack of decent health care! Our life expectancy is going down, probably due to the diet and drugs they're pumping us full, but how ironic that we are now having socialized health care in a litigious society run by corporate moguls and we have cancer rates that are 20 or more times higher today than we did in 1950.
We're not Europe, we can't afford national health care because unlike Europe, I've watched this nation go down the drain since adults began bringing it to my attention in 1970 when I was five, and from the statistical and anecdotal evidence all around me, it began in the late 50s. Along with corporate welfare, 1/3 - 1/2 the nation on some 100% form of public assistance and the entire nation on the partial dole for government, infrastructure, agriculture, suburban sprawl, and the military, you mean to tell me you actually want to add another bloated teat for 310 million to suckle on the great milch cow called the US Gubment? Let's print some more money we don't have to pay for programs we don't need and can't afford.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jerseygal4u
I guess maybe the OP is right.
If you want it cheap,make it cheap.
No MRI machines,no IV's,no pain meds,no X rays,no blood work,nothing.
Let's make it just as it was(sarcasm)
An MRI machine alone costs 10,000.
A ventilator cost $10,000 alone.
Who do you expect to pay for it?
Half of the seniors over 65 won't even be on CD if it wasn't for technology.
Those x rays you took for your tooth,do you know how much that machine costs?
A lot of it's misinformation and unneeded. For example, this past summer I was involved in a flash explosion. My entire head, face, lips, ears, both arms and legs had the first few layers of skin burned off and I had second degree burns all over me. I was lucky enough to see it coming and I closed my eyes, held my breath and jumped away. My basic USMC first aid training told me I didn't need to go to the E.R. because I knew I didn't inhale the flame and I just had pretty bad flash burns, but people in my family flipped out, so just to stop their complaining, I went. Moreover, I was in a fair amount of pain, so I figured that a shot of morphine and some perks would help me get through the first two days.
Since I pay cash and can't afford it, I had to tell people to get away from me. They wanted to take blood, do this test, that test, and the other. Finally a doctor who was from a foreign country came in. I said look doc, clean me up, shoot me up, write me an RX for 3 nights of pain killers and I'll just white knuckle it through the non sleeping hours, and send me home. I don't need the insurance raping tests, they're simple 2nd degree burns, you can't do anything for them other than protect from infection, and I do not need to be helo lifted to the Lehigh Valley Burn Unit!
The doctor told me that I'd be ok, I was right, he did what I asked and he assured my mom that I wasn't going to die and the only reason why they wanted to do the tests was for the reasons I stated. To milk insurance, it's the law, to cover the hospital's legal responsibility and I didn't need to be helolifted one of the finest burn units on the east coast. However, I did have to sign out AMA and the doctor again had to explain to my indoctrinated mother that it was just to cover the hospital and staff from being sued.
My bill was nearly 2,000 dollars of which the hospital only made me pay just under 1,200 because I paid early and was doing so with cash. Moreover, imagine all the money I saved because I halted them from putting me on oxygen, tests to look at my lungs, blood, and all the other things I can't remember they wanted to do, but I wouldn't let them. The flippin' nurse argued with me about how I needed an I.V. because I'm dehydrated and burns dehydrate you. I told her Yea I know that, but I am not dehydrated right now because I just took a whiz, when you came in, I was coming out of the bathroom right? I am aware of hydration from the USMC force marches in the desert and sub tropic environments, I worked in the heat my entire life, I'm a cyclist, and I hike/bushcraft, so I check my urine each time I go even when I'm not active and it was crystal clear, so I am fully hydrated and I don't need your IV. I could have patched myself up and a 10 dollar bottle of rot gut Vodka would have stood in for the 150 - 200 dollar shot of morphine.
If I'd have had insurance, I bet that bill would have been more than 100,000 dollars. The helo lift to the burn unit would have had to have been in excess of 20,000 - 30,000 right there and the burn unit would have milked my insurance for as long as it could have.
Cheers,
bolillo
P/S before one feels the need to tell me that no doctor would say that, I was paraphrasing ok? He said that, but used even more words that I have in this post.
Last edited by bolillo_loco; 11-18-2013 at 05:05 AM..
Reason: No Rhodes scholar here
OH for crying out loud.. here we go with the same tired argument about how those of us that advocate for Obamacare are not subjected to the same things that those who advocate against it are.
For one.. any person whether for or against Obamacare that meets the elegability requirements will receive a subsidy or tax break. That means YOU.. if you qualify, YOU will also get a tax break or a subsidy.. which means a portion of your health insurance premiums will be PAID FOR by tax dollars - dollars you pay in.. dollars i pay in.
Just because you are against Obamacare doesn't mean you don't get the benefits.
By the same token, just because I advocate FOR obamacare does not make me immune from any of its negatives that you may deem to be a negative about it.
The difference - I understand that this is neccesary to get insurance to many that are underinsured or uninsured so that NO ONE has to hold the risk of getting sick and having to default to medical care via bankruptcy.
You act as if it's free for some, but not for others.. Pfft.. no such animal. I don't need to know, but apparently you think that Obamacare is free for me. NOPE.. not free healthcare for me.. I'll have to buy insurance, pay premiums and deductibles just like you.
I ask nothing of someone else I don't also expect from myself. I'm subject to all its good points and its bad points. But to me, it's negatives are worth knowing that it will help my fellow citizens.
I agree. Since I have an excellent plan through my employer, I'm not all that impacted by the ACA. However, my tax dollars will go to help pay for the subsidies for others to get health insurance, which I don't have problem with.
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