Republican health care reform

AZDuck said:

Sledog said:

AZDuck said:

RaceBannon said:

AZDuck said:

RaceBannon said:

CirrhosisDawg said:

RaceBannon said:

I just paid three bills at 50 cents on the dollar because I don't have insurance

WTGWT

The fact that providers gladly take half price to avoid insurance should tell you something

If you have half a brain

The fact that the numbers make that a better deal for me is also revealing

If you have half a brain

If only we had half brains, we would let Medicare and Medicaid negotiate compensation rates and drive down charges for everyone. But we don't do that.

That would defeat the cash discount. The cost of insurance, government red tape and the like is why the bill is 50% higher to begin with

Cash doesn't require a staff of drones and massive storage of data

I can't afford to pay for cancer surgery or MS medication out-of-pocket, even at a 50% discount. So now what?

Move to Cuba. You'll still be dead but happy in your socialist dream land.

you know there are a lot of places where I don't have to die, don't you?

Venezuela? North Korea? China?

Deader than shit in all of 'em.

pawz said:

Woof said:

If you're only getting 50% off by paying cash you're a total fucking idiot.

At my old job our reimbursements were typically at about 30-40% of billed rate, which is what we got after dealing with all of the insurance shit. I saw times where we accepted 15% of what was billed when we paid cash, depending on the procedure. I'd say 25% is probably the average in the industry.

If you're actually willing to take 15-25% then charging 4-6x in the first place might be criminal. #medicalmafia

You're not wrong. There is a huge information disparity which drives much of the market inefficiency. Has anyone ever asked prices before they go to the doctor? Insurance companies negotiate different rates, so in network and out of network can be 2-3X different in reimbusements. The other part of it is all the bureaucracy involved, which to some degree would be solved by single payer, but I'm sure that would be only temporary.

I think the way to go would be to have standardized single payer catastrophic and basic preventive care, and then let private insurance be the market for everything else, but also ensure prices are listed up front prior to treatment.

Yes. So when freeloaders w/o insurance show up and demand service for which they voluntarily chose not to join and pay for, the Hospital can write off $11,000 more than covering the $2,500 actual cost.

AZDuck said:

The laws of health care economics must be different here than in the rest of the developed world or something

It's almost like the Pharma and Insurance companies have bought off the politicians here to drive up costs.

But sweet @d2d graph anyway though.