OK. I haven't posted any opinions or news in a long time. This one pushed me over the edge this morning. I have to say something and at least inject my tiny amount of sanity and sense into the mess.
So people talk about Healthcare Reform. What they're really talking about is Health Insurance Reform. People talk about Access to Health Care. Everyone has access to health care, if they want to go to the doctor or the hospital. The thing people mean to say is Someone Else to Pay for my Health Care. Then today in the paper Denver Health hospital was whining about how they have to foot the bill for so many more Uninsured People than other hospitals. This implication that people without insurance are losers who will not pay their bills is what put me over the edge. I have been uninsured and I have been extremely under-insured and I have always paid my medical bills. I have had medical bills I couldn't pay immediately and in full, so I put together a payment plan with the medical providers, taking years to pay down. I understand there are lots of people who don't. Don't put all uninsured people in an Evil Group.
The problem we're facing is not Access to Health Care or Access to Health Insurance. The problem is that medical care is OUTRAGEOUSLY EXPENSIVE. Since when does it cost 10,000 for a day in the hospital? I can stay at a dang nice hotel for $300 and I can hire someone to come in and take specific care of me for about that. What are hospitals using the other 9,000 dollars for? "Oh, but doctors have to have so much training and specialty!" Yes, lots of professions require additional training. I don't see other professions claiming such a rarefied position in society that just because they forked over the dough to go to lots of schooling, they are somehow entitled to charge people 9 times the actual cost of their work. How is that reasonable?
How is it reasonable that a single pill of radioactive iodine cost me (and my generous insurance plan, through an employer) $8,000. How is that reasonable? How is it that three days in the hospital for pneumonia, the only treatment for which was oxygen and antibiotics that I could have overseen at home, cost us (and our generous insurance plan) $20,000? How is that reasonable? I could buy the oxygen equipment myself and heck! even the pulse-ox and monitoring equipment, for a fraction of that. Add in the $10 antibiotic and you still have five figures worth of unexplained, outrageous overage in the bill. How is this reasonable?
I understand about all the safety procedures, the legal requirements, the lawsuits, the training, the R&D, and all the rest. I, as a smart, logical, and reasonable person still ask:
HOW IS THIS REASONABLE!???!
...especially when EVERY doctor (and dentist) I have EVER encountered drives a top-of-the-line vehicle, wears expensive shirts, and lives in the most exclusive gated communities. This isn't rich-poor jealousy. It's me, scraping the family budget until it nearly disintegrates to pay medical bills, then seeing excess and yes, greed, in the medical profession.
I had cancer; I'm grateful for medical science. I just think they need to be grateful for what they have and stop overcharging everyone for it. The problem is the amount being charged for medical care, not whether people pay for their own or whether the government will do so. If it's reasonably priced, more people can pay for their own. The amounts coming through on the bills and statements are so astronomical as to be comical. That's the problem.
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2 comments:
I agree. I believe that it originally started out as Health Care Reform, meant to deal with the exact thing you are talking about, but then very quickly got slammed sideways into Health Insurance Reform instead. I watched it happen and was sad about it.
Part of the problem is that they can charge these crazy prices because most people have insurance to pay it and don't even see the prices. If they listed prices up front and people chose where to go and what to do knowing those prices, the whole scheme would change very quickly.
When we were looking at IVF it was IMPOSSIBLE to get them to give us even a price estimate. How can that be? How can they not give us an estimate of how much this will cost out of our pocket? Haven't they done this procedure before thousands of times? Can't they average the prices and give it to us with a huge disclaimer that it is an estimate? This left us with no way to plan ahead and no way to lower the price by picking and choosing which medicines, etc. we used in the prepwork. It was both infuriating and demoralizing. We felt powerless and hopeless.
I know price can't be the only consideration in choosing medical procedures, but it certainly can be a big part of it, and in something like IVF that isn't a life threatening emergency and is almost always paid out of pocket it certainly can be a bigger part.
It is completely ridiculous both the pricing and the way it is set up so you can't find out the price until later and you can't do anything to influence that price. Things like, "No thanks, I'll bring my own diapers to the hospital for our babies birth...they'll be a lot cheaper that way."
And how can I in good conscience agree to a procedure without knowing ahead of time if I'll be able to pay for it? We're not just talking IVF here, what about the physical therapy I just had months of? I couldn't find out ahead of time what it would cost, although I tried.
So, anyway, yeah, I agree!
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