The insanity of our current healthcare system

My wife just had a knee replacement done. Just got the letter from our health insurance with the coverage amounts,our co pays etc…

total bill just from the hospital 85k
discounts because they were in network 70k
net bill 15k of which insurance paid 12k

this was just the hospital portion. the bills for the doctor,the anesthesiologist etc had similar discounts

in other words the hospital agreed to take 83% less from the insurance company then they would have charged an uninsured person. In addition this was for a 2 hour surgery and a 1 night stay in the hospital

hospitals should no be allowed to charge individuals more than what they charge insurance companies especially since the majority of hospitals are non profit…

in the rest of the world that same knee replacement would cost under 20k pretty much anywhere in the world.

Here the way you need to look at it.

Cost for the knee replacement when they KNOW they will get paid is 15k.

Now if no insurance, what guarantee does the hospital have they will collect the entire 15K. If the person who doesn’t have insurance and is billed at 85K, how much would the hospital get from a collection agency they sale the account to? 10 20 centa on the dollar? So the hospital STILL gets the same amount of money.

If you didn’t have insurance AND could demonstrate you have the ability to pay, they would probably negotiate a savings with you.

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Snow is correct.
Hospital is reimbursed from four different sources.

  1. Medicare is designed to pay the cost of the care.
  2. Medicaid reimburses about 90% of the cost of care.
  3. Uninsured/Self Pay - hospitals collect about 20% the cost of the care, writing off the majority of accounts.
  4. Commercial Insurance subsidizes the other three buckets. Paying about 20 base points higher than the cost of care.

Most non profit hospitals loose money on the first three sources. The for profit hospitals are able to turn profits on Medicare. Our system is flawed. The best option is to insure more people to limit the insane subsidizing those of us with insurance have to endure.

my mom just got a kidney in France. 6 hour surgery, 1 week in hospital plus post surgery care at her house.

she paid total about 12 euros for the internet use at hospital and about 30 for TV.

that is it.

bloody edit. i have not seen the total cost of operation and hospital care though

I hope all went well and that her therapy gets her going again…pain free.

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Pure fiction. She has been paying her entire working life in the form of a compulsory 5.25% government run healthcare insurance. Now I don’t know about you, but I would certainly not come out ahead on that deal.

where do you get that from?

they might get 10 or 20 cents after bankrupting the patient.

google ten character

This is a good article to read through on hospital costs with some links to other informative articles

As far as what they charge individuals, there are so many that don’t pay no matter what the cost. The rest of us have to make up for that in addition to subsidizing those who quality for ACA insurance.

nothing on google so ill assume you made that up

Lol

from https://www.nyu.edu/projects/rodwin/french.html

Health care financing. To finance benefits under French national health insurance for the 80 percent of the population covered by the CNAMTS, employers pay 12.8 percent of the wage bill, and employees pay 6.9 percent of their full salary, bringing the total payroll tax for health insurance to 19.7 percent of all wages.24

I mean, did you think nobody was paying for it or what?

we arent france. you said she was pahying 5.25% her whole life. still waiting for that evidence. unless you made it up

Anyone who thinks our health insurance system is better than the rest of western democracies has rocks for brains.

I have fantastic insurance that costs us a measly $400 a month for a family no matter it’s size (with a $1k decductible - that we’ve never had to meet since all doctors and hospitals where I live are in network,) but I still get how our health insurance system sucks.

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Uninsured? Obamacare took care of that.

“Affordable” Health Care Act.:rofl:

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Yep this is exactly correct

I’m in that same boat and pay around the same with no deductible. That works for me.

That’s the difference between us (and between me and every Republican/Conservative I’ve ever known - not everything is about me or what’s good for my family.

It cost about 5,000 for a dog to get knee replacement surgery. Because, it’s a free market.

“Total knee replacement is expensive, costing around $5,000, but Kim said UF is currently offering about a $1,000 discount — the cost of the implants, which are being provided free of charge — to owners of all dogs qualified to receive the procedure.Oct 18, 2012”