It costs $125 in the Cornfields. It was $90-100 a few years ago in an immigrant part of Brooklyn.Originally Posted by CitizenCain
It costs $125 in the Cornfields. It was $90-100 a few years ago in an immigrant part of Brooklyn.
Hope is the denial of reality
Well, everything in NY costs more than in Ohio. Wages are also higher to compensate for that. And you could probably get a better deal if you shop around, or at least look for a physician who doesn't force everyone to pay the costs of insurance company red-tape. IIRC, my physician charges insured patients almost twice as much because of all the paperwork the insurance companies require... but then again, because they're insured, they only pay a small co-pay and don't care how much their insurance company gets billed.
Anyway, even at $125, a doctor's visit is not an unreasonable financial burden on anyone who's not a ward of the state already, and forcing or expecting health insurance to pay for every little thing is a big part of the problem in this country, not part of the solution.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson: American Founding Father, clairvoyant and seditious traitor.
How about paying $500 to use "specialized equipment" for a semi-routine ear infection?
Hope is the denial of reality
I think you can blame that on the obscene legal and regulatory environment we live in, where consenting adults are forced to get a note giving them permission to use certain chemicals (many of which are less dangerous or harmful than the chemicals contained in a cup of coffee), and other consenting adults can be litigated well beyond their assets for not being omniscient manifestations of perfect protection.
Which is to say that it wouldn't cost $500 if you could go buy the common drugs to treat that common ailment at the drug store, with all the other legal drugs and/or if the doctor and his malpractice insurance agent didn't have to worry about being on the hook for 10 million dollars on the 1 in 100,000 chance that the routine ear infection isn't actually something more dangerous. (Or for that matter, be on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees any time some whiny cunt has something bad happen and is looking for an excuse to file a bullshit lawsuit.)
Blame the legislators, and blame the lawyers... many of whom, incidentally, go on to become legislators anyway.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson: American Founding Father, clairvoyant and seditious traitor.
Eh, what you get is a large unnecessary market largely full of unnecessary cancer drugs (unnecessary but nevertheless very profitable for drug companies and various oncologists). And what's this about rationing scarce and expensive resources? The staple is still prevention. Get people to quit smoking, voila, resources suddenly less scarce.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
That might be true for lung cancer, but it doesn't hold true for cancer in general. It's been pointed out here before that cancer is the inevitable result of living "too long." If something doesn't kill you first, you will die of cancer eventually. So while some cancer is preventable, ultimately, the cure for cancer is inseparable from our need for physical, biological bodies. At its most basic, both cancer and aging exist for the simple reason that nothing is perfect and our cells develop "errors" (mutations) from environmental exposure to the very things required for life, as well as from the cell division process itself.
Not to mention that "prevention" doesn't really apply to the other expensive, chronic conditions GGT listed - auto-immune diseases, neuro-muscular disorders, genetic illness, etc. These are basic errors in the human "manufacturing" process, and the last time I checked, there's still no procedure for returning a defective body to its creator(s). In fact, at last check, even trying to send a defective human back to its maker is a crime punishable by death in this stupid country and not considered to be an acceptable "medical" technique.
Apparently, "return defective human to creator" is a good enough excuse for anyone in government, but not available for use to private citizens. Fascistic double standard, if you ask me.
Which would be a feasible option if governments hadn't become so dependent on "sin" taxes generated by the sale of dried tobacco plants. As things stand now, government is so dependent on those revenues that they've been passing laws to prevent people from using nicotine in a non-carcinogenic form... another example of how the actual health care needs of the populous are disregarded in favor of government-mandated, bureaucratic methods of delivering worse care at higher costs.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson: American Founding Father, clairvoyant and seditious traitor.
You're wrong. I've found a physician who was willing to negotiate with me, since my insurance is only in-patient "catastrophic" coverage, and will charge $40 for a quick level one diagnosis, $80 for a 30-min level two visit, etc. A gynecologist charges $200 for a simple non-complicated pelvic exam and PAP, with lab cytology another $185, extra costs for fitting diaphragms or inserting IUDs. A pediatrician charges $117 for that quick level one diagnostic, extra for each added "service" in a complete physical (hearing test, scoliosis screening, BMI, etc) that reaches $200.
Urgent Care Centers are slightly more expensive, especially after regular doctor office hours. I've found one that was open to "negotiations" for self-pay cash OOP. But only after appealing to the physician first, and his recognition that it's better to get $50 cash on the spot, saving time/money by avoiding office insurance paperwork, and being reimbursed the same 50 bucks 90 days later.
Comparing the human body to a car, or prevention/wellness to an oil change is one of the stupidest things you've ever said.
The federal gov't didn't cause the escalating costs of modern medicine, people being priced out of affordable care, or the beginning of "Insurance" as the way to pay.You don't remember that correctly at all. I saw plenty wrong with it, but like most issues in this debate, it's not the employers or the insurance companies who are at fault, it's the federal government, for making health insurance the only tax-free benefit available to employers.
You're wrong, again. Many people pay thousands of dollars per month for Rx meds, even with help from employer Rx plans. Ask anyone with cardiovascular disease, hypertension, high lipids, arrhythmias, diabetes, hemophilia, valve repair/replacement, Parkinson's, MS....and/or things like oxygen or wheelchairs...Bull. Just because someone doesn't want to pay a few hundred dollars a month for prescription medications doesn't mean it's too expensive for most Americans.
It's not fighting premature death that's eating up the resources, but nice try. According to everything researched and published, it's the 5% of people using 50% of the resources at the end of their lives, prolonging death. Physicians and hospitals have a larger role in that, as do insurance companies, more than any rationing by the government.So? Everyone dies. That doesn't mean it's a worthwhile utilization of resources to pay for everyone to fight off death for another day. The fact that cancer (etc.) is an extremely expensive "chronic disease" to treat is an indication that it requires a lot of highly specialized care and particularly scarce resources. You can shift around the costs all you want, but at the end of the day, someone has to pay for it and there's not enough resources for everyone, so no matter what you do, someone's going to be left out in the cold to die "prematurely." When you let the market ration those resources, you at least end up incentivizing an increase of supply in those areas, leading to better technology and more doctors in the future. When you force the government to ration it, you add inefficiencies to the equation, effectively reducing the supply, as well preventing proper incentivization to increase supply in the future.
And when a new car is "defective," the insurance company doesn't pay to fix it, the manufacturer does. So, just as in that case, don't complain about defective products to your insurance company, bitch at your manufacturer for any sub-standard parts or defects in craftsmanship when it comes to your self as well. See if your auto-immune disease is still covered under warranty. If not, sue your parents and/or God for issuing a defective product, and write your congressman to insist that we ban people from manufacturing unsafe, sub-standard human beings in the future.Looks like you've spent your absence from the forum building your hatred for teh evil gummint, loathing people in general, and trying out new strawmen. Glad you weren't stuck in the hospital with broken bones or a head injury, or something "defective" like that.
And to you, this is obscenely expensive? Let's hope you never need the services of any other skilled professional labor, like a lawyer, or accountant, or mechanic, or plumber, or computer tech ... because you'll be in for a shock there too. They also <gasp> expect similar compensation for their time, as a result of it being similarly valuable.
So, what's your solution? Maybe we should install price ceilings on skilled professional labor, to make sure that only very stupid people are willing to throw away years of their lives and hundreds of thousands of dollars learning trades that won't pay well enough to be worth the investment?
It is profoundly stupid, but that was you, talking about how cars have warranties against defects in manufacturing. Maybe you shouldn't have bought a defective body "as is," with no warranty protection. Like I said, try getting a refund from the manufacturer.Comparing the human body to a car, or prevention/wellness to an oil change is one of the stupidest things you've ever said.
Except that they did, because insurance as the default way to pay for medical care is a result of this country's tax code, and last I checked, the government made the tax code.The federal gov't didn't cause the escalating costs of modern medicine, people being priced out of affordable care, or the beginning of "Insurance" as the way to pay.
So? Many people pay thousands of dollars a month to keep their car or house or addiction in order. What of it? We should force the government to pay for everyone's cars and homes and heroin because many people can't afford these things? For that matter, if the government just legalized recreational drugs, people with chronic pain could save untold fortunes on their medication by using a cheap, natural opiate instead of the less effective, more expensive synthetic ones that have been approved for use as painkillers.
It's not fighting death that's using up our resources, it's the 5% of people using 50% of the resources to try to live forever?
Congratulations on successfully repeating what I said earlier. Now, what if we made those 5% of people personally responsible for deciding what that limited extra time is worth for them, instead of spending trillions of dollars trying to let them live forever? I suspect this would save us trillions of dollars in government spending and free up resources for the other 95% of us, but that's probably silly.
I'm sure the actual solution to this problem is for lawyers in D.C. to write 1,000 pages worth of rules, right?
Not my fault that the average person is as dumb as a primate and that government is bound to the will of this mob of stupid, myopic feces-flingers... but one could argue it's your fault, given that every problem ever is met with calls for government to do magiks to conjure a solution from the ether, instead of allowing people to be faced with the consequences of their stupidity.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson: American Founding Father, clairvoyant and seditious traitor.
1) I didn't say the costs I negotiated were obscenely expensive. I said costs had become damn expensive for basic things, and even Loki agreed. Most people with employer-based insurance just wave their co-pay card and don't think twice, and most uninsured don't try to negotiate for fees--or if they have they're refused, like the Gyn in my example.And to you, this is obscenely expensive?
So, what's your solution?
It is profoundly stupid, but that was you, talking about how cars have warranties against defects in manufacturing. Maybe you shouldn't have bought a defective body "as is," with no warranty protection. Like I said, try getting a refund from the manufacturer.
2) My "solution" would be unacceptable to anyone in the insurance industry, and it would mean physicians getting more involved in cost-containment, so I won't even bother.
3) I didn't bring up the car insurance analogy, that was probably Lewk, but I'm not going back in the thread to check. The oil change comparison you made is still stupid as hell, as is the "defective body" metaphor.
Sorry, you can't use the gummint is teh evil angle for everything. Maybe you should go back several decades and look at the history of hospitalizations (especially giving birth in a hospital) and when private insurance made its debut on the scene. It had nothing to do with taxes.Except that they did, because insurance as the default way to pay for medical care is a result of this country's tax code, and last I checked, the government made the tax code.
So escalating costs matter, especially now that meds are the most common form of treatment. I never said we should force the gov't to pay for everything, stop adding words to my posts. And your dramatic commentary is funny sometimes, but not when you go overboard.So? Many people pay thousands of dollars a month to keep their car or house or addiction in order. What of it? We should force the government to pay for everyone's cars and homes and heroin because many people can't afford these things? For that matter, if the government just legalized recreational drugs, people with chronic pain could save untold fortunes on their medication by using a cheap, natural opiate instead of the less effective, more expensive synthetic ones that have been approved for use as painkillers.
Premature death isn't the same as prolonging death, don't be a twit about this.It's not fighting death that's using up our resources, it's the 5% of people using 50% of the resources to try to live forever?
You're the only one saying that.I'm sure the actual solution to this problem is for lawyers in D.C. to write 1,000 pages worth of rules, right?
One day back and you're already obnoxious and filled with bile, so ready to pounce on anything and blame stupid people and stupid government....when none of that's even been the topic here. Get a grip.Not my fault that the average person is as dumb as a primate and that government is bound to the will of this mob of stupid, myopic feces-flingers... but one could argue it's your fault, given that every problem ever is met with calls for government to do magiks to conjure a solution from the ether, instead of allowing people to be faced with the consequences of their stupidity.
See, but that's the trade off you get for using skilled professionals to treat your health instead of relying steam powered vibrators, opium solutions, prayer and leeches. If you want cheap health care, nothing's stopping you from getting cheap health care at olde-tyme pricing. Just sit on your favorite sex toy, quaff a bunch of opium, slap some leeches on the arm and invite the priest over to pray for you.
Of course, that's probably only going to work as well as it did before medical technology, but that's the trade off. Use the latest and greatest and pay through the nose, or use something older and pay less. And you don't even have to go back to before modern technology, either - you can use generics and older drugs, see fewer specialists, or even just do what people have done for free since the beginning of time, though it sounds like this option won't appeal to you either, because instead of getting everything for free, it involves getting nothing, albeit at the same low, low price.
Unless you're talking about the rising administrative and legal costs of health care, but there's a solution to that too, which you won't like, because it doesn't involve blaming insurance companies and still involves paying skilled professionals a fair wage for their products and services.
Take your own advice. As in, you're complaining that "paying" for health care with an-employer provided insurance card and a minuscule co-pay has become the norm, and is a huge problem. (It is, and it is.) This becoming the norm has nothing to do with when private [health] insurance first arrived on scene, and even less to do with medical technology and hospitalization for giving birth.
It does, however, have everything to do with the structure of the tax law and one particular way that both individual consumers and corporations (employers) have attempted to reduce the annual bill they get from the tax man for almost half their economic output. We've had this discussion before, and back then, just as now, you couldn't refute that basic fact and ostensibly just wanted to continue blaming some vague scapegoat instead of accepting, or even thinking about techniques to actually make matters better.
So, what should we do? Why don't you forward a solution, instead of ragging on me for my suggestion?
If you don't like me pointing out that making lawyers put words to paper doesn't work, propose an alternative. Because making the government "fix it" with more red tape is exactly the predominant opinion in our society about the solution to health care expenses. And while certain, specific legislative changes could help a lot, none of those specific changes are being talked about or considered, and every "reform" Washington comes out with in response to public pressure for the government to do something is an obscenely long set of rules and rule changes that only make things worse, and divert more and more of the costs to government social programs which have already cost us tens of trillions of dollars for low quality care and spiraling costs.
Yes it is. It shouldn't be, but that's how the public perceives it. Any death that can be prevented or prolonged by 12 million dollars worth of health care is a premature death caused by greedy fat-cat Wall Street sociopaths who put money before lives.
What country have you been living in? There were 100 million people saying that at one point in time.I'm sure the actual solution to this problem is for lawyers in D.C. to write 1,000 pages worth of rules, right?
For that matter, what solution do you think you're actually helping get implemented when you blame everyone in private industry and suggest the government "do something about it?" That's the something. 1,000 pages of shit that raises administrative overhead and further entrenches the bureaucracy you have so many problems with.
Well, you haven't changed either. The real problem is the Wall Street-Madison Avenue-TV commercial conspiracy that's somehow secretly robbing people too stupid to hold onto their money in the first place, right? Compliance costs, bureaucratic overhead and inefficient central planners fucking up the natural supply-and-demand relationship couldn't possibly have everything to do with it.One day back and you're already obnoxious and filled with bile, so ready to pounce on anything and blame stupid people and stupid government....when none of that's even been the topic here. Get a grip.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson: American Founding Father, clairvoyant and seditious traitor.
No, you show me where I've said the government "should do something about it". Or where I've said it's some "conspiracy" from Wall Street. Stop jackin' around simply to post more of your dramatic commentary that has nothing to do with anything.
To address relevant parts of your post:
The only reason negotiating was available to me (personally) is because I have enough knowledge about coding, billing, third party payers, admin overhead, and how the game works. Plus knowing enough people in the medical community from my past employment. That's not something most people have or can utilize, to get skilled care at an affordable price without insurance.
Tort reform takes a portion of medical malpractice insurance costs away, but doesn't really change the CYA-order-every-test-under-the-sun style of medicine. And it doesn't do a damn thing to make expensive, new technology more affordable or contain those costs.
Administrative costs will go down with things like digital medical records, software that can multi-task all the duplicities we now have in paper work and office personnel.
Premature death is NOT the same thing as prolonging death and you damn well know it. Unless you think life-saving care [treating traumatic injuries, childhood cancers with high success rates, or a ruptured appendix with surgery and antibiotics] is the same thing as <giving gramps a $93,000 course of chemo for his end-stage prostate cancer, to eek out another 3 weeks> stretching death.
Whoever said I share the predominant opinion in our society, or that Washington has the answers?So, what should we do? Why don't you forward a solution, instead of ragging on me for my suggestion?
If you don't like me pointing out that making lawyers put words to paper doesn't work, propose an alternative. Because making the government "fix it" with more red tape is exactly the predominant opinion in our society about the solution to health care expenses. And while certain, specific legislative changes could help a lot, none of those specific changes are being talked about or considered, and every "reform" Washington comes out with in response to public pressure for the government to do something is an obscenely long set of rules and rule changes that only make things worse, and divert more and more of the costs to government social programs which have already cost us tens of trillions of dollars for low quality care and spiraling costs.You don't even read what I write, so not sure why that would change now....but I've said for years that physicians, medical schools, the AMA, nurses and other healthcare providers should be the ones leading the discussion, suggesting solutions, making the connection between what they do/how they do it and what it costs/how to contain costs. I've said multiple times I like the Mayo Clinic system, which is a multi-team, patient-centered approach. The physicians have a more total care, comprehensive and "holistic" view of what the patient needs, including best care at lowest cost. And no, that doesn't take a fucking act of congress, "central planning", a bunch of red-tape or 1,000 page laws.
The only suggestion from you seems to be....be prepared to pay for care, no matter what it costs (translation=only the wealthy will get treated) or just die young. Roll the dice, make the gamble that sheer luck and good genes will see you through, suck it up and stop whining if you lose.
Aye, aye, Ms. Kettle.Stop jackin' around simply to post more of your dramatic commentary that has nothing to do with anything.
So your suggestion, and the seemingly only "relevant" part of your post, as per the standard you applied to me would be that health care professionals should get together and figure out suggestions.
Really top-notch, outstanding contribution there.
Oh, wait, there's also this...
So your solution to the fact that routine doctor's visits are too expensive is to bring in a team of world-renowned experts... or at least copy what they do. And your theory is that since routine visits to a single health care professional are too expensive, we ought to make people see a team of health care professionals in order to reduce costs. Bet that works out great; do keep me posted.
And you say I'm not reading your posts. Funny.The only suggestion from you seems to be....be prepared to pay for care, no matter what it costs (translation=only the wealthy will get treated) or just die young. Roll the dice, make the gamble that sheer luck and good genes will see you through, suck it up and stop whining if you lose.
But for the record, welcome to life, and yes, that is the only completely free option available to any of us - anything better costs money. (It's really too bad you didn't figure that out decades ago.)
Look, if you want to just whine and bitch that shit's too expensive, and no one's bending over backwards to make life easier for you (or anyone else), and life's unfair and you don't like the system and the rich and powerful have different (no) rules than everyone else (which seems to be what you're doing in general), that's fine by me.
But if all you're going to do is complain about stuff without wanting to discuss it or offer up solutions or even hear an opposing viewpoint, don't hold others, such as me to a different standard than you hold yourself to.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson: American Founding Father, clairvoyant and seditious traitor.
Miss Kettle is just fine.
Too bad for you that your post didn't also come with a cute British accent that could go a long way as a distraction for what you actually say. Pip pip Mister Pot! You asked, I answered. It was even prefaced appropriately, or so I thoughtSo your suggestion, and the seemingly only "relevant" part of your post, as per the standard you applied to me would be that health care professionals should get together and figure out suggestions.
Really top-notch, outstanding contribution there.
2) My "solution" would be unacceptable to anyone in the insurance industry, and it would mean physicians getting more involved in cost-containment, so I won't even bother.
Stop acting retarded. It's not in keeping with your reputation as an intelligent (albeit angry) poster. Nowhere did I use the term "make" or suggest force, or any law. That's your own bias at work. Physicians are smart professionals who strive to practice healing with science. A few of them might be motivated by monetary profit, but they'd be the minority. When confronted with the possibility to practice medicine and healing, without causing entire societies to go broke doing so.....I'd wager most physicians DO care about costs. It's just very difficult for them to be both healer and accountant. That doesn't mean there aren't millions of physicians or nurses who don't have good ideas.Oh, wait, there's also this...
So your solution to the fact that routine doctor's visits are too expensive is to bring in a team of world-renowned experts... or at least copy what they do. And your theory is that since routine visits to a single health care professional are too expensive, we ought to make people see a team of health care professionals in order to reduce costs. Bet that works out great; do keep me posted.
Well, you don't. You're simply positioning yourself to POUNCE. Sounds more like a bar dating strategy than a discussion forum strategy.And you say I'm not reading your posts. Funny.
I've offered suggestions and solutions, I don't just complain but want to discuss---not just from my own perspective but from others'. All you manage to say is that life is one big glorious gamble. Take it or leave it.But for the record, welcome to life, and yes, that is the only completely free option available to any of us - anything better costs money. (It's really too bad you didn't figure that out decades ago.)
Look, if you want to just whine and bitch that shit's too expensive, and no one's bending over backwards to make life easier for you (or anyone else), and life's unfair and you don't like the system and the rich and powerful have different (no) rules than everyone else (which seems to be what you're doing in general), that's fine by me.
But if all you're going to do is complain about stuff without wanting to discuss it or offer up solutions or even hear an opposing viewpoint, don't hold others, such as me to a different standard than you hold yourself to.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote