Hammering Those Without Insurance
The numbers in this cartoon are not exaggerated. Dr. Stuart’s recent column here inspired me.
Hospitals and clinics charge high prices for services. Medicare or insurance knock that down to a tiny fraction. Yet, the patient without insurance gets hammered the most.
Also, if the particular medical center does not take your insurance, you are going to pay the insane high price tag.
When people complain about such a discrepancy, the “10% cash discount” argument is the answer. How do they even keep a straight face when they say that?
Example: At a tertiary medical center, our daughter always got a scoliosis spine xray. The bill would come to our home for $1100.00. The bill would also go to our insurance, which would pay $60. We would pay $20 as our copay. ….And the bill was considered settled.
Really?!?!?!?
How does a $1100 bill turn into $80? How does this make sense?
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So what is the “real” price for the x-ray? Certainly not Medicare’s administratively set prices.The problem is not that “The health care industry has become an unethical profit-driven corporate wasteland” as Dr. Stuart writes in the piece linked to above. The problem is the lack of a functioning market for prices in healthcare. The solution is to get back to market prices.
In many cases, cash prices are much lower. Ask around. See http://www.jpands.org/vol23no2/pinder.pdf
I makes cents for the hospitals, not for the consumers.