moda0306 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 01, 2018 5:57 pm
Xan wrote: ↑Wed Aug 01, 2018 1:00 pm
flyingpylon wrote: ↑Wed Aug 01, 2018 11:19 am
Perhaps we should be asking why we allow the health care industry to operate like a giant cartel instead of debating the best way to pay their exorbitant prices.
Besides, I thought this thread was about Trump?
As my earlier anecdote noted, by opting out of the insurance system, you can save 90% off the sticker price, no questions asked. That sounds like a way to get around the exorbitant prices.
I grazed back... where is this anecdote? Are you really saying that you think folks can regularly offer care providers 10% of their insurance-reimbursed rates with cash and they'll accept your offer?
I think I must be misinterpreting.
I think it was back when he talked about having an elbow re-set for around $300 instead of circa $3000.
I would like to add a couple of points, though:
One, you will basically never get 90% off the price an insurer (BCBS, Medicare, etc) would pay...the 90% he got off was likely off the ridiculous "chargemaster" price which is a pie in the sky price that only the uninsured get soaked with.
Two, the plural of anecdote is not data; just because Xan got a good price as a cash-paying patient does not mean most people will; in fact, as per the chargemaster example noted above, the uninsured usually get hit with the WORST prices. The local hospital system in my city has essentially a monopoly and their charges to uninsured patients are as follows: If you make the poverty level or less, free or nominal; if you make from 100% of the FPl to 200% of FPL, prices are based on a sliding scale from almost nothing to roughly what BCBS of Georgia would pay; if you make one cent above that you pay the
FULL chargemaster rate, no ifs, ands, or buts (with the singular exception that certain imaging services get 10% or 15% off the chargemaster price). oh, and even if the hospital does discount its prices due to your being poor enough, the doctors who work on you can (and generally do) still charge the full amount.
Three, every other country that has health care prices lower than ours (which is pretty much....all of them) has the government directly or indirectly negotiate prices; this is true whether the system in single provider (UK, Spain, New Zealand, plus Hong Kong as far as hospital care is concerned); single-payer (Canada, Taiwan, South Korea), or some form of private or nonprofit universal coverage (Germany, Netherlands, Japan, Israel, Switzerland, etc) or a hybrid of single-payer and private non-profit (France). Strangely enough, none of them rely on patients acting as cost-control kamikazes and trying to negotiate rates with providers themselves. They all have lower prices (see the IFHP reports if you don't believe me) as a result. Funny how that works.