lol just got my bill from surgery

[VinBed]

I've taken part of the healthcare systems in the US, Norway, and now Czech Republic. Norway had the highest level of quality in terms of their healthcare. Czech Republic is by far the most cost efficient one (I buy commercial insurance that costs $~750 a year and gives coverage everywhere in the EU). The US had the most complicated and expensive system.

Seeing as the US has the most privatized system out of the three, I'd say that "getting the government out of the equation" won't necessarily make it more affordable.

Even if it did make it more affordable to completely privatize the system, do you really want to "shop around" for healthcare services? When I have an emergency I just want to go to a hospital as quickly as possible. I don't think anyone wants to be comparing prices/packages while holding a severed finger in their hand.

The US may be relatively privatized, but it is a system where hospitals will bill patients a certain way because they expect most patients to be using their insurance plans to pay for it.

With many doctors and hospitals you can barter over a procedure by offering cash. It can take a very long time for a hospital to collect on money owed by the insurance companies for the procedure, so cash is always preferable when a hospital is for-profit.

The american healthcare system has a middle man who is disinterested in the prices of health services because they can simply raise premiums. Saving the consumer more cost in premiums is not the prime motivation of insurance companies.

When a hospital bills the insurance company $300 for a bottle of saline solution (found on Amazon.com for $2) the insurance company isn't going to do the same kind of haggling that you will if you were being handed that bill for the cash in your pocket.

In response to the ER visit comment: If we were living in a world where what I said above was true, and that the patient was dealing directly with hospitals without any insurance company involvement, chances are you will end up at a hospital which also is forced to compete on price. In a true emergency, a few dollars difference isn't going to matter.

 

[Johnathan]

This thread is full of win right now.

Thanks for all the extra reading material, and OP keep your grind on, 75k is nothing compared to living and breathing.

 

[imbo55]

My insurance company was billed 25K+ for the 20 days I was a prisoner at Fairmount Behavioral Health. I did write a letter to the Pennsylvania Department of Public Health complaining that I couldn't use my own lawyer at my involuntary commitment hearing, as well as telling them about some other weird circumstances (surrounded by spies) Someone from the PA Dept. of Public Health suggested I write a letter to Golden Rule, my insurance company explaining the circumstances but they had already paid the bill.

I'm not sure if you are being serious or if it was all some elaborate trolling you were doing. But honestly, consider yourself lucky that you were only committed for 20 days. You seemed clearly out of your mind at the time, and I only bothered to read part of it....

 

[shindig]

The hospital I had the surgery at wasn't the first place I started at. I transferred to it after having a second opinion from a neurologist there who was a million times better than the neurologist at the fancy place.

I started at a fancy one with exotic woodwork, water fountain in the waiting room, etc and the neurologist didn't spend more than 15 minutes with you and was right out of school with no experience. I had an MRI, spinal tap, and every blood test imaginable, and it was all 50% more than when I had MRI's at the new place(where I had surgery).

The neurologist I went to for a second opinion, after treatment from the first hospital didn't work, because it wasn't the right diagnosis, was night and day in comparison. He was professor at yale, trained in the military, currently teaches at Univ of WA, with 30+ years of actual experience. He took away a lot of my pain at the first appointment after months of agony which eventually became debilitating. I saw him monthly for 7+ months and had to keep upping the meds and adding more when I got to the maximum dose of 2, until I was on chronic opiates, anti seizure, and nerve pain meds and couldn't up the meds that helped the most anymore because they were causing potentially deadly side effects at the dose I was on, and it only toned the pain down, never eliminated it. Eventually he said it has to be the 5th cranial nerve after the 3rd MRI so he sent me to the surgeon.

The surgeon is also a professor at Univ of WA, is a stanford graduate, and he is amazing....

As far as surgery it was a piece of cake. I'll do it again if I have to in a heartbeat. From the time I woke up in ICU I was elated. After you do the initial rundown of orienting yourself with what just happened as you come-to you have this realization it's "show time". Things are done, you're alive, time to get up and run with it.

Before surgery I was coming to terms with accepting a life on SSI and food stamps, now I have my dream 9-5 job as a programmer. So obviously it's worth it, not just for me but for everyone since I'll make a lot more money over time than I would have. It was an eye opener I get to walk away from. I truly feel for people with disabilities.

 

[SkyFire]

Congrats man, glad you are feeling better.

 

[charlesmartel]

Non-profit hospitals are a scam thanks to the government:

G. Keith Smith, M.D. - Not for profit hospitals and Enron

 

[BlokBlok]

$24k to CUT OPEN YOUR FUCKING HEAD AND LOOK AT YOUR BRAIN AND PUT IT ALL BACK TOGETHER.

God damn deal if you ask me, there are plenty of cars where an engine replacement costs more than that.

 

[andyt]

I'm not sure if you are being serious or if it was all some elaborate trolling you were doing. But honestly, consider yourself lucky that you were only committed for 20 days. You seemed clearly out of your mind at the time, and I only bothered to read part of it....

I'm completely serious.

surrounded by spies (with image, tweets) · andytriboletti · Storify

I will not consider myself lucky that I was committed for 20 days.

Maybe the surrounded by spies story is too hard to read because of the redactions? If any Wickedfire member would like the full story, including the names of the people involved like the person who invited me to work for the UN, or the person who I hired who I later found through Rapportive that their Hi5 profile picture was Osama Bin Laden, let me know and I will email it to you.

 

[andyt]

I do feel lucky compared to David Oaks, the former executive director of Mindfreedom International. I posted on their Facebook wall for the first time on December 1st about being involuntarily committed. The next day David Oaks fell off a ladder and broke his neck.

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=iz9nbp&s=5
https://www.facebook.com/pages/MindFreedom-International/33579368821
Dec. 2012 accident | David W. Oaks

 

[Fatbat]

In our current economic state I don't think it will be easy for anyone to get a job easily. Not everyone is clever enough for a degree in computers, medicine, ...And some don't even know what they want to do with their life yet e.g. all those art students (who later draw those amazing drawings on your Pizza Hut box). Lets say that they make $25k a year by having a 8 - 5 job at Pizza Hut. It isn't hard to calculate that this person will live in debt for at least 3 - 7 years (calculate tuition fees, rent, food - while being at college).

As others have said, university isn't for everyone. If you're not that bright, or are lazy (as is the case with a lot of people), and are destined to work a job at Pizza Hut your whole life, then you don't need to go to university to get some useless degree that you may or may not finish and can't pay for.

Of course parents are responsible to pay for the education of their children. But what if those parents didn't get a proper education neither and have a job on minimum wage? They are not capable to pay for a college degree for their children. (and lets not include many of these financial disasters who can't handle their own finances).

This is what the student loan program is for.

I think instead of saying "education should be free", we should set-up a proper system that allows the poor to get education at the minimum price possible, and those who actually have the money should pay for it in full. But since the US is controlled by the 1%, something like this will never happen.

A large number of people that are capable do pay for their education outright. The loan program is there for people who can't afford it. In Canada a portion of the loans are a grant that you don't have to pay back. I don't know if that is the same with the US or not, but there are also scholarships for the best and brightest to go to school for free.

Take all 4 away, what are you going to do? You have to take a loan at a financial institution. And those greedy bastards obviously have high interest rates and don't really care about you and just want your damn money. They will destroy you and your family until they have their money.

You need to educate yourself. In the US (and Canada) student loans have very low interest rates. It's 3-4% in the US (although it seems the Repubs are trying to raise this to 6.8%), and in Canada it's prime +5% fixed or prime +2.5% floating.