health care

[ely]

i did not want to hijack furbys thread on the economy. it seems to be going well, the thread not the economy.
what do you guys think about the new deal they have going at the hospitals. any time you go in for surgery or testing they have you sign some papers which as i understand it for all intents and purpose is nothing more than a mastercard app.
apparently if you do not pay it up in full within a year or whatever they hit you with 20 something % interest rate.
does someone out there know what this is called and if its really legal or not.

i ask because i had a heated discussion with the clerks at the hospital when i refused to sign those papers. i told them if what my insurance paid was not enough to tide them over then rain on them. i then told them all they had to do was refuse me service, i dared them. after the folks had a meeting they said my ins. would be fine. go figure.

whats yalls opinions on it. not my deal in particular i am speaking of the plan altogether.

[Mooseherder]

That was a great heads up if it ever happens to me I would do the same thing you did.  Another story in the news this week about an insurance company saying a transplant was "experimental".  (Doctors say there is a 65% survival rate.)  The procedure was going to cost a million dollars. (why)  Anyhow, the insurance company finally gave in the attention givin' this case and decided to approve.  The patient died shortly thereafter.  Turns out the CEO is gonna make 400 million this year. (why)

[Greg]

That was a great heads up if it ever happens to me I would do the same thing you did.  Another story in the news this week about an insurance company saying a transplant was "experimental".  (Doctors say there is a 65% survival rate.)  The procedure was going to cost a million dollars. (why)  Anyhow, the insurance company finally gave in the attention givin' this case and decided to approve.  The patient died shortly thereafter.  Turns out the CEO is gonna make 400 million this year. (why)

Alot of presidential politics being discussed right now is what to do/not do about health care.

What boggles my mind is the folks are who are promising more and government sponsored/universal health care, when the US government is already up to its ears in current entitlement programs due to be paid in the future to the tune of trillions of $$$. I feel for the family who lost their loved one in the above scenario, but insurance companies have to make tough decisions about what they can/cannot pay for. The only reason they can stay in business and therefore provide health care to any of us is by attracting new/healthy patients and carefully controlling the amounts they spend out. All insurance policies have a lifetime maximum benefit, so why all the controversy I dunno....

CEO pay has zilch to do with it.

I wish I had better/cheaper health care like everyone else. But I also recognize that the demand for it will *always* exceed the supply, especially in an aging population such as ours. Therefore the price goes up and up and up. Even further Federal meddling/new benefit schemes will just guarantee our bankruptcy sooner. Let the states handle it, or not, as they choose.

Greg

[ely]

it is a bad deal when you have the folks that are making the laws holding hands so to speak with the folks who are making the drugs that we as consumers need.

it is an equally bad deal when the directors of the corporations recieve exhorbant amounts of money for their wages. at our work we use the caremark company as our drug provider. last year we were dinking around on the computer and i believe forbes had a list of what the different ceo's had made for that year. seems like the caremark guy had brought home way up in the millions for his wages. i want to say 63 but i am uncertain now of the number. point i was making though would be the same if it was 23 mill. how does a person justify that sort of wages.
i guess it is sort of like the oil comp. profits.

[jim king]

One of the benifits of living at the end of the world such as the Upper Amazon is that if you have some money your health care is excellent but if you are poor your health care is generally terrible.  I have a recent example where I had about identical dental work done here that my sisterinlaw had done in the States.  A couple of permanent bridges, several root canals, 3 1/2 hours in surgery in the hospital, all teeth capped for a total of $3,000.  She paid in Minneapolis $80,000 for the same work without the surgery.  My wife and I have no health insurance.
Whatever medicines cost a small % here for the same thing that you buy in the States and you dont need a perscription to get it.  In these places you learn to become self diagnosing  unless it appears quite serious and a doctor is needed. It is surprising when you dont have an abundance of doctors available for everything how much less you get sick.

[Patty]

What is also amazing is that with someone else paying the bill, most don't know nor care just what that bill is. It is a completely different story when you pay your own way...just as Jim pointed out. I am guessing his s45ister would never have had the $80,000 in dental work done if she was covering that bill herself.

I am a good example of that. My former dentist pushed big and bad for $50,000 implants. When he learned I was hesitant due to the pain and cost required, he decided I was a patient he no longer needed.....his way or the highway so to speak. I finally found a dentist who would listen to my needs and understand my pocketbook...since I choose to self insure my dental work..he decided maybe $5000 in work was more what was needed instead of $50,000. I paid the $5,000, and he did the job.

I have a feeling if more folks actually paid attention to what they were being charged, they would shop around for a better deal until they found one.

[Ron Wenrich]

I've heard this analogy used for universal healthcare.  Let's say we had universal food insurance.  It would come about by you or your employer paying for insurance so that you could buy whatever is needed from the store.  Would you eat filet or spaghetti?

Of course, you would eat the steak, since you're not paying for it.  I wonder what the butcher would be charging for the steak if his customers didn't have to pay?

When I was a kid, it was not uncommon not to have health insurance.  But, the average single earner family was able to afford a hospital birth, and they used to keep mom and child in the hospital for a week.  What's changed?

Must be the Libertarian in me coming out.   ;)

[thedeeredude]

I'm really lucky to have the health insurance I do.  I know people and am related to people that get a cough and are at the doctor and on medication.  I just ride it out if its nothing serious.  But now I have a fractured foot and looks like a chance of being out of work for 4 weeks.  Insurance don't cover lost wages as far as I know.   :(

[Furby]

Thedeeredude, do you have short term disability?
If you hurt your foot at work, workers comp may be possible as well.

[SwampDonkey]

I don't have any rant here. But, health care seems like a good career if your so inclined. The new hospital here that opened this fall is still understaffed. Need to fill 45 positions I think. I don't know why, unless it's the pay. But a lot of it is government saying they have jobs and not actually hiring anyone regardless if they are waiting in the line up. Well I guess they were looking to take on staff from closures of older hospitals, a couple of those were not closed after all. There are going to be a lot more vacancies as retirees exit the scene. Some retirees are even called in to work a couple days a week because of shortages. Maybe potential workers are holding the Government to ransom so to speak, don't know. We live in an area that $60,000 is almost twice as much as the average wage earner. I guess you can't please some people.

[jrokusek]

It is expensive, I agree.  However, medical advances are simply amazing to me.  A few years ago I tore the ACL in my right knee.  Instead of filleting my knee open as they would have 15 years ago they were able to "scope" my knee and send me home the same day.  I was able to walk immediately with crutches and on my own in a few weeks.  At one time the recovery was months, not weeks. 

Remember back surgery 20 years ago?  Someone would have 2 disks fused and they had to lay flat on their back for 6 weeks.  That just doesn't happen anymore.  The Dr's now keep the patient in the hospital for a day or two and then send the patient home with orders to take it easy for a while.

Last week my dad thought he was having a heart attack.  After an ambulance ride and visit to the hospital it was determined that it wasn't a heart attack, but there were other heart issues.  7 days later he was at a specialty heart hospital and had an angiogram.  A physician was able to immediately determine there was some modetate blockages but he didn't need surgery, he could be treated with drugs.  One pill to lower cholesterol, an aspirin a day to thin the blood and some other over the counter pill (an herbal or other similar thing). 

This stuff blows my mind.  The technological advances in medicine are sometimes hard to grasp!  The cost is outrageous, I agree.  From my understanding it isn't necessarily the medical procedures that are so expensive but the insurance that hospitals, clinics and physicians need to carry in order cover potential litigation.

[thedeeredude]

Thedeeredude, do you have short term disability?
If you hurt your foot at work, workers comp may be possible as well.

No it didn't technically happen at work.  It is a stress fracture from walking and moving around so much and I'm lactose intolerant so I don't get as much calcium as I should.  I don't think our insurance company has short term disability but I'm gonna check.  I'm still working but the doc didn't recommend it.  Bills don't stop coming.

[Jeff]

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[DanG]

Certain sectors of the political community keep saying there are 47 million people without "health care."  That is simply not true.  There are 47 million people without health INSURANCE.  There is a huge difference in that little conflict of semantics.  Those people have health care, they just don't have someone to pay the bill for them.  Most of them, like me, have chosen that arrangement because of the exhorbitant rates the insurance companies charge.  So, why is insurance so expensive?  Well, that million dollar transplant operation is a good place to start.  A million bucks for WHAT?  It ain't like they had to go out and find the organ, or even pay for it.  What you end up with is a few people standing in a room for a few hours and doing a little plumbing work.  Most of those folks are making less than 20 bucks an hour!  There will be a couple or three Doctors who will get a few thousand each.  The main Doc will get more than a few thousand, but I still can't add it all up and come up with a million.  Oh yeah, there is the hospital's CEO that has to have 10 million a year, and his henchmen get a sizable sum, too.  Then there is the hospital itself, who seems to think it has to be the aesthetic equivilant of the Ritz Carlton.  The entrance atrium of the Tallahassee hospital contain's enough volume to house at least 500 more beds, while the $10,000,000 CEO wrings his hands over how they can expand with no more land available. ???  Of course, you have to pay for the endless queue of welfare cases coming into the ER for their sniffles because they don't have HEALTH CARE!  By the way, they NEVER pay the bill, so the hospital tacks the tab onto the bills of those who have insurance, and their insurance premium continue to go up, making it impossible for many of us to have insurance.

This may, or may not be the end of this rant. ;)