We are having the wrong conversation about healthcare (vanity)

03/21/2017 | Me, Wisconsin Lady

[Riflema]

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I wonder if there's anything out there analogous to Section 401(k) of IRS code - the one that was a tiny loophole for some way of deferring income that ballooned into a major industry and savings medium?

If someone could slip in a crafty amendment like that, maybe one, say, allowing health plan subscribers to buy Rx across borders, or making healthcare providers receiving govt $$ subject to anti-trust protections?

I would bet the market would destroy the need for health "insurance" on its own in a pretty short time.

[AzNASCARfan]

Exactly!

My son was recently in a relatively minor accident, could have been a lot worse. Not his fault, a lady came out of a parking lot the wrong way into oncoming traffic. Anyway his airbag hit him in the face and later that evening he started having a bad headache and since he went through a long period with some bad headaches after a go-ped accident years ago, he decided to go to the ER. He was only there 3 or 4 hours and left with over a 10,000 bill.

It broke down as follows:
$3800 Emergency Room
$2900 MRI (Head)
$3300 MRI (Body)
$170 Pharmacy

#1) he only had one MRI
#2) he only got one percoset in the ER which they billed him $170 for, then sent him home with a prescription for 12 more that he had filled at Walgreens for $16...
To charge him $170 for one should be criminal!

Its just my opinion, but nothing they could do in 5 hours, that the treatment was a few pain pills could be worth remotely close to $10K which is more than my taxable income for each of the past 3 years.

[Wisconsinlady]

Karl Denninger on his MarketTicker.org site has figured out the whole scam.

Yes. I follow Denninger on this also. So we know the answer, but is there absolutely no way to get it done? Do you think the Freedom Caucus members would listen? It sounds like, sadly, Trump is deferring this decision to RINOS.

[gathersnomoss]

These front air bags are dangerous. What the hell are the seat belts for? Also, at minimum, they cause severe ear damage. Sue the bastards. The politicians create this garbage, collect their checks and move along.

[Wisconsinlady]

#2) he only got one percoset in the ER which they billed him $170 for, then sent him home with a prescription for 12 more that he had filled at Walgreens for $16...
To charge him $170 for one should be criminal!

Right! One pill should have one price. Period. Everyone should know it, and everyone could afford it. The MRIs are insane.

[Wisconsinlady]

I don’t pretend to be an expert on insurance or health care but I do know when I was growing up health care was affordable even for those without insurance other than truly poor people and there were charity hospitals for them. Insurance rates were very reasonable then too.

Absolutely right. And I remember it was unusual for us to even go to the doctor. My mom fixed us up with Vaseline, aspirin or Mercurochrome. That was it. They used to also make deals with our family doctor because he would see three of us at one time and only charged one visit. Those were the good old days

[LostPassword]

Yep. One thing that would be a huge help is to get rid of monopolies. Every one of my 20+ trips to the emergency room with kids went something like this because of the AMA’s doctor monopoly:

1) Wait 60 minutes
2) Get general exam by a nurse - 2-3 minutes
3) Wait for doctor - 10-20 minutes
4) Get specific exam of problems by nurse (e.g. xrays) - 5-10 minutes
5) Nurse diagnoses problem (e.g. the arm is broken you need to go to a doctor who can fix it - not here) - 1-2 minutes
6) Wait for doctor - 10-20 minutes
7) Doctor agrees with nurse and signs referral/prescription/etc - 1 minute

So, I’m in the waiting room 60 minutes, the exam room another 60. All the “work” is done by a nurse in 10-15 minutes. And I wait for the doctor for 20-40 minutes. And the nurse is quite capable of doing it all. I’d be in/out in under 30 minutes if the doctor’s “advice” wasn’t mandated.

The AMA has a monopoly on reading x-rays and other things that nurses are capable of. They insist on a doctor’s approval even for something obvious. Having a doctor available in case the nurse doesn’t see the break is ok. But requiring the doctor when even I can see the break is ridiculous. The AMA will say that there’s a 1 in something chance that the nurse is wrong and BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN without a doctor. (Though, I have had doctors get things wrong). I know there is about a 1 in 2 chance that I tell my kid to deal with it for a day and see if it gets better because it’s not worth 2 hours at the emergency clinic for something that may be nothing.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s also the AMA’s fault that I have to go to the emergency clinic my insurance prefers before going to the big orthopedic clinic which repeats the x-ray and sets the arm. But I’ll blame the insurance company for that one.

[b4me]

yup! it’s about price, everybody else wants a piece of pie and we get nothing when we show up for care.

We pay a bunch up front (premiums, copays) and get sometimes substandard care, and it’s not fully or sometimes even partly covered. (deductible or get a bill from doctor or medical business afterwards that it wasn’t fully covered and more is owed.

I’m about ready to bail on my insurance. This trump care ain’t looking any better.

[Wisconsinlady]

I’m about ready to bail on my insurance. This trump care ain’t looking any better.

Yes, this “new” plan is just putting lipstick on a pig.

[NorthMountain]

Please cite to me the specific section of the Constitution that gives Congress the authority to create a healthcare program of any kind.

Please cite to me the specific section of the Constitution that gives Congress the authority to create an old-age retirement pension plan.

Please cite to me the specific section of the Constitution that gives Congress the authority to create a disability pension plan.

Please cite to me the specific section of the Constitution that gives Congress the authority to create sustenance plan for women, infants and children.

Please cite to me the specific section of the Constitution that gives Congress the authority to create a sustenance plan for temporary aid to needy families.

Please cite to me the specific section of the Constitution that gives Congress the authority to create a supplemental nutrition assistance program.

Obviously, the Congress has no authority to create any of these. They must ALL be abolished.

[MeganC]

I agree.

[NorthMountain]

I agree.

I thought you would.

"We" let the camel get his nose in the tent back with Franklin Deficit Roosevelt ... 0bama, Pelosi, and Reid finally got the whole stinking beast inside.

[Ray76]

I agree, 100%!

[subterfuge]

Damn right. Took a spill last month, went to the emergency room, CT scan and a tetanus shot = $6,632.00.

I was in the CT machine for 15 seconds. Charge?

$2,024 to scan head
$2,024 to scan face

Emergency room fee = $1,834

Tetanus shot = $550

My deductible? $2600 so I get off “lucky” paying $2,532.00. And I supposedly have GOOD INSURANCE! I may not pay them a dime just for stealing from me and colluding with the insurance company.

Spit!

[Sgt_Schultze]

The biggest problem is that cutting the costs of healthcare will necessarily trigger a depression. By cutting some 15% of the economy (GDP) it will be a technical depression. At least in that case the unspent money could be quickly deployed elsewhere, but many HC jobs would disappear. Any administration that caused that condition would be thrown aside along with much of their party.

Sadly, things will have to implode before corrective measures.

[FrankR]

If Trump lets Ryancare go thru, and signs it, I will stay home in 2020.

[Drago]

The average government reimbursement (Medicaid/Medicare) is 15-25%, thus a $3000. MRI charge becomes a reasonable $500. charge. (http://www.mripathways.com & http://northwestmri.com). “Insurance” companies tie their reimbursement closely to the government schedule but average a bit higher reimbursement rate (20-30%). The actual cost of healthcare services is about 70-80% less than what is being billed and the only way to get back to reasonable pricing is to get the government out of healthcare and reintroduce capitalism/competition into the system. (i.e. a posted price list & “shopping around”). Doctors & hospitals aren’t the problem.

[backwoods-engineer]

THE FIX IS IN.

There will be no free-market solution. It is all about "coverage" and how many illegal alien criminals will be "covered" by RyanCare, and how much will will be forced to pay to cover it.

[WVMnteer]

If you propose that people pay back even 0 interest loans on hospital bills for hundreds of thousands of dollars, there will be a revolution. People are freaking out about $5000 deductibles. Where do you see them accepting the equivalent of a house payment for the rest of their lives?

One thing we need to do is separate physician and hospital bills (which ironically are now more related than ever in modern hospital accounting systems).

No one is filing bankruptcy because of office visits.

It’s the 10 day ICU stays that destroy finances.

[polymuser]

See, that’s the real issue here is that Congress has no business creating a health care bureaucracy.

THANK YOU!

Nor in a food and drug bureaucracy.
Nor in an education bureaucracy.
Nor in a pollution control bureaucracy.
Nor in an energy bureaucracy.
Nor in a taxation bureaucracy.
Nor in a welfare bureaucracy.