Healthcare Costs
It's not the insurers who are the bad guys....
In August, I had to go to the Emergency Room because I had a serious sinus infection that had moved to my lungs and I couldn't breathe. Unfortunately, my personal insurance coverage had lapsed so I was uninsured.
I went to the hospital about 10 PM....a nurse took my vitals. Then they did x-rays of my lungs. I was put on oxygen. A few hours later I spoke with a doctor briefly and then a respiratory therapist came in and put me on an inhaler. Afterwards I was released.
The bill was $975.
By my calculations I used up:
1/2 hour nurse time
1/4 hour doctor time
1/2 hour respiratory therapist time
Perhaps $10 in oxygen
Perhaps $20 in medicines
Perhaps $10 for the x-ray paper and miscellaneous
I was in the hospital for 5 hours but most of that was waiting. After you subtract out the material costs, that stay cost me about $175 per hour or a gargantuan $700 per hour of professional services time.
That's 4 times what the best attorney in town would cost.
And that, my friends, is the real problem.
9 comments:
Totally agreed.
It is ridiculous.
That is also the result of for profit health care.
Medicine doesn't need to be socialized, it just needs to for the benefit of the people that use it, not the corporations that run it.
Wheredid you pull your calculations from? Somewhere low on your body? ;-)
So you don't count the expertise of the doctors and nurses who diagnosed, read xrays, etc. as part of the expense? Just their time?
rereading your post - you did account for expertise you just don't think you should have to pay for it.
You also don't account for the cost of keeping the hospital open so it's there when you need it.
No, Suze, I'll certainly pay for expertise. But at those rates? Also, why am I liable for keeping the hospital open?
Nephew, I don't think outrageous ER charges are solely because hospitals are "for profit". I think it's two other reasons: Hospitals are required to treat the indigent and what insurance companies are willing to bear in expense.
We could debate forever the root cause and who knows who is right? All I know is that everytime someone needs medical help someone else...the insurer or the individual..is fiscally raped.
There's the root of the healthcare problem.
under the current system, why shouldn't you pay for the costs of keeping the place open. You want it to be there, right? In your system, you'll just have to chip in.
Gonzo wrote: All I know is that everytime someone needs medical help someone else...the insurer or the individual..is fiscally raped.
fiscally "raped"? How Gonzo of you.
If our system was set up to offer preventive services to all, the amount of money spent on emergency room non-emergenices would go down a LOT. Lots of preventive care would be done at lower cost nurses and nurse-practitioners, leaving the doctors to do what only they can do. The costs of underwriting the indigent would be spread out much more than it is now. All individuals wouldn't have to reach into his pocket at all.
How is this to be paid for? Several possibilities - all the money that employers and individuals are already paying out would go into the system. It's a well known fact that the administrative costs of systems already in place - Medicare and the VA system - are billions less than the current private system of insurance. And, of course, the billions paid to the middleman would be gone.
Fraud? Abuse? Yes, there will be that - just as there is in the for-profit system - just read the NYT article on nursing homes I posted. But we can improve on catching the thugs that try it - and I mean doctors, hospitals and patients who would try to commit fraud.
Perfect? No. But when a company whose mandate it is to make money for investors can just lie about what's "experimental" treatment, or a functionary in a cubicle thousands of miles away can override your doctor's recommendations - that's f*ucked up.
Suzie, I agree with you 100% as to what the problems are - we just take different approaches.
The problem must be approached carefully and not radically. God forbid if things are made worse and/or more expensive.
Gonzo wrote: The problem must be approached carefully and not radically. God forbid if things are made worse and/or more expensive.
Don't see how they could be more expensive than they already are. I like John Edwards' plan the best so far. He'll let people keep what they have but offer a single payer option to those who want or need it.
That might work.
My take is that this is not a conservative or liberal issue - it's a people issue. I really don't care who solves the problem as long as it's done.
BTW, got a second bill for $245 from the physicians group. Sigh. I guess my calculations were wrong to begin with - it's even worse.
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