Why medical is expensive:

[slugger43]

So every month I get a written statement from my HMO regarding my prescription drug expense.  Yes, I'm on medicare, but this is for everything.  Details, and more details!  Every month I get seven pages, typed both sides, with plan info, numbers, other info.  Mailed to my house, first class postage.  I don't want the information, don't need it, have asked by phone and in writing to make it go away.  (My total Rx drug expense first five months of 2016 is well under $100.  Medical premiums over $2,000. so far).

Get this:  The reporting information is required by the Affordable Care Act!  My HMO cannot legally stop sending it, nor can they go paperless with the information!  I'm fairly certain the stupid bastards who wrote the ACA will stop making the HMO send it at some point after I'm dead, but there is apparently no other way to stop it.  WTF???   Insanity!

Oh, and I can go online to the super HMO web site, and get all of my health info - tests, appointments, drug purchases, etc.  So far, that's 70+ pages to tell me about less than $100 in drug purchases.    I can't stand it!

[blue109]

I had to get a marketplace plan for my family since my work plan passed $800/mo. (I am uninsured now) I'm not taking any subsidies, but the plans were the only ones I could afford. Aside from loosing a pediatrician we loved as well as my wife's Dr, and now having to pay up front fees because nobody wants to take marketplace plans, I also get a fat packet of paperwork every month to show me I didn't use my overpriced and substandard insurance. Don't get me fckin started.

 

Either leave it alone...or go full on socialist crap and deal with it. This hybridization garbage is bad even for our government.

[planeflyer21]

Yup.  As soon as the law was passed our out-of-pocket insurance started creeping up $20-40 a pop every other month, so we went on the exchange.

And then that policy was cancelled, due to the company not liking the exchange.  So we got another insurance.  Which was cancelled.  And another, which was also cancelled.

4 insurance providers in 3 years.

[slugger43]

We're with GHC which is in the process of merging with another large HMO.  I'm a little edgy about that.  We've had good care - kind of expensive, but good care, so we'll see how the new thing works out.  So long as government dictates what I get, the cost will increase unreasonably.  My government thinks I am incapable of running my own life.  A pox on them!

 

[jtallen83]

Health insurance, providers, and government involvement are the problems. Simple statistics bear that out. Compare the rate of increase in the percentage of a family's income that goes to medical expenses with the percentage of families that have health insurance and you can see them go up together since the early 1950's. Government regulates the insurance companies to a certain profit margin based on their gross. They know if they started to profit 50% of the gross government would step in hard, most of the exchange providers are allowed a percent of the gross profit. The only way for them to make more money is for health care costs to increase so together the two industries have inflated the cost to all involved, except of course the free riders.......

I remember the first stitches I got, the Dr. came out to the farm on a sunday, fixed me up and Grandma paid the bill with a six dozen eggs. that would be an illegal transaction under today's regulations.

[Sisco]

My wife and son are $800 a month. My supplemental for Medicare is $200 a month. This on a retirees fixed income. It has caused me to be diagnosed with adult onset Tourettes Syndrome. Everytime I open the bill..%#€£¥<>!!{#%^+!!!!!

[slugger43]

5 hours ago, Sisco said:

My wife and son are $800 a month. My supplemental for Medicare is $200 a month. This on a retirees fixed income. It has caused me to be diagnosed with adult onset Tourettes Syndrome. Everytime I open the bill..%#€£¥<>!!{#%^+!!!!!

Just over $700 for wife and I, and our monthly vocabularies are probably also similar.   Plus I'm guessing Tourettes ain't covered under your plan......

[Sisco]

¥£€#%#^*+=¥£€><#}{#%right! It isn't!

[survivalshop]

   Those who voted to pass this ACA ( O'Butthead care ) should be tried for Treason , along with POTUS !

[DNP]

Get insurance and credit out of the mix. Go to a cash based system and the market will adjust itself to an affordable rate. Can't sell things for more than people can pay without insurance and credit. Those two things are what screws us. The fact that cash is essentially a credit program with nothing backing it...there's really no way out of this death spiral. 

[blue109]

I just had to open a "medical" credit card for my daughter's dental work. The fist bill came with a huge color brochure showing me all the fancy unnecessary medical procedures I can get with my shiny new card. Tummy tucks and boob job for the wife! Laser surgery. Cosmetic implants. Sky is the limit and we can all look like celebrities! Add that payment to the insurance premium I'm already paying that is suppose to cover me for that type of poop. This whole system has been transformed into an enslavement mechanism to convince the indebted population to beg for socialism. 

[unforgiven]

Every guy I know on the job that got his ol'lady new tit's, she left him shortly there after for another guy.

[DNP]

New tits is a mind/attitude altering deal. We lost some good friends when they got new tits. 

[survivalshop]

21 hours ago, DNP said:

Get insurance and credit out of the mix. Go to a cash based system and the market will adjust itself to an affordable rate. Can't sell things for more than people can pay without insurance and credit. Those two things are what screws us. The fact that cash is essentially a credit program with nothing backing it...there's really no way out of this death spiral. 

 

  That would make sense , thing is my last Heart Stint cost $ 72,000.00 , not something I would ever be able to pay for , so I would be a dead man , because I would not of had it done. I don't see how it would adj. out too much cheaper if it was cash only  . Lucky my wife has me on her work insurance , the end of the year I go on Medicare & hope her's will cover part "B " .

[DNP]

Meditate on it long enough, you'll figure it out.  I didn't say it was bad if you use it.  It's there and you have to right now.  And in some cases, for higher end surgeries, some credit may be necessary. If no one could pay $72000...and that surgeon sat there with his thumb up his ass all day....you think the price would come down to a point he had work to do?  He might have to do it with a flashlight and a butter knife, but he'd get it done.

Remember the housing crisis?  The prices overly inflated because they gave EVERYONE credit. They increased the purchasing power of the public by giving away money that only existed on paper. When more people have access to more "money", you can charge more for a product. Credit causes inflation. That's why they lower the rates. That's the credit side. The insurance side is almost the same. Have you ever offered to pay cash for a procedure?  Many times you can get it down to 1/3 of what they would bill insurance. I know, you didn't have 24,000 in cash at the time. And I also know my statement is never possible. Banks and insurance companies rule the world. Good luck putting either back in the box. 

I missed one more reason medical is expensive.  Lawyers.  I can get the same $1800 dental procedure in Mexico...done by American dentists for less than a couple hundred dollars.  The reason, no mak-practice insurance.  Now, that could be a bad thing in some cases, but it shows what kind of cost increases get caused.

 

Edited May 29, 2016 by DNP

[planeflyer21]

Very good insight DNP.

And, off the record, sign a good waiver and you can get some very good dental work done in my carport. For less than $100.

[shepp]

Both my chiropractor and debits bills are cheaper when I paid cash than thru my insurance co. I was paying my chiro 70$ outta pocket pretty sure he charges the insurance co 90$ no that I have coverage. My dentist actually barters work for work. Buddy of mine painted his car for his kids to get work done, and he asked me if I'd be interested in work for work on the refrigeration on a deli he and his son own. 

I wish I could remember what Gary Johnson was sayin the other day about healthcare, to lower costs. It was about the only thing in the Joe rogan pod cast he said I agreed with

[jtallen83]

1 hour ago, DNP said:

Have you ever offered to pay cash for a procedure?  Many times you can get it down to 1/3 of what they would bill insurance. I know, you didn't have 24,000 in cash at the time.

 

I did that once, paid my share of a $36,000 surgery up front to save myself a few thousand dollars. The surgeon screwed up which led to more surgeries needed to fix what he broke. The total went to $130,000+ which my insurance and I had to pay for despite the deal we made up front

The surgeon was supposed to be the "best in the nation" with many other surgeons travelling there to learn from him, this and the fact that a perforated bowel was listed as a possible complication on the form I signed before hand scared all the lawyers away from taking my case. These surgeries spanned the end of the year so I had to pay all the deductibles twice plus all the little crap the insurance company said was not covered. I couldn't work for years afterwards so my retirement and savings both evaporated.

I did end up getting SS disability and about 30% of my college expenses paid but this took almost 4 years to happen and was a VERY frustrating process. SS disability said I was not disabled enough to get help and the Vocational rehab agency said I was too disabled for them to spend money on school. When a judge ruled I was due the disability then the rehab people had to send me to college by law. In the meantime I estimate the lawyers, rehab people, and bureaucrats bilked the taxpayers for a quarter million plus, one phd alone was paid $24,000 to "evaluate" me and write a report, said I would never work again  after spending a total of 1/2 hour in my presence hearing me tell them I WILL work again one way or another.

I would go to greater lengths to avoid hitting a squirrel crossing the road than I would for any of these people whose obligation was to help me..........

In the neck for all of them!

[survivalshop]

  Not sure where you guy's are going for Surgery or Dental work , but I've never heard of anyone around here or in Ohio, that has been able to do any kind of bartering for any medical work .  I have worked for major Hospitals for over thirty years. Not saying its a bad thing , not at all , its American , but just never heard of anyone being able to do that .

 The ACA is the largest Tax scheme in history , our medical bills are directly higher because of it  & will keep raising . We have all been through how it screws us all over , so I'm not going into it ,but this is why its so high .

  

[unforgiven]

The cost of my rehabs after surgery have been more than the actual procedure.

[392heminut]

On 5/29/2016 at 8:02 AM, DNP said:

 Have you ever offered to pay cash for a procedure?  Many times you can get it down to 1/3 of what they would bill insurance.

I missed one more reason medical is expensive.  Lawyers.  I can get the same $1800 dental procedure in Mexico...done by American dentists for less than a couple hundred dollars.  The reason, no mal-practice insurance.  Now, that could be a bad thing in some cases, but it shows what kind of cost increases get caused.

 

BOTH of those right there! My wife is a nurse administrator at our local hospital and has told me several times (under two different corporations' ownership of the hospital) that if a patient doesn't have insurance and is paying cash the costs get slashed, both with the hospital and with the local doctors.

As for the procedures done in Mexico, living here on the border and only an hour and a half from Juarez, I've had both dental and Lasik done in Mexico at a fraction of the cost! The Lasik was done by an American doctor based in El Paso. Everything but the actual procedure was done in El Paso (pre-exams and all followups)!