PAYING TILL IT HURTS: As Hospital Prices Soar, a Stitch Tops $500



charlesmartel said:
The government created this problem. Laws favoring non-profit hospitals were pushed through, which eliminated most for profit hospitals. To maintain the semblance of non-profitability, these hospitals use their emergency rooms to book fake losses.

They charge outrageous prices knowing full well that they'll only get a fraction of those charges. This allows them to book a loss and maintain the veneer of a non-profit hospital. Of course, most people are unaware that the hospitals get a large portion of those fake losses back each year from the government. I believe it's called uncompensated care rebates.

If you can, avoid going to an emergency room. Urgent care centers can take care of a lot of the same injuries, including lacerations, at a much lower price.

Check out this urgent care center in Hollywood. Their prices are reasonable:

Hollywood Walk-In Clinic - Services

This guy runs a surgery center that doesn't accept insurance and the rates are unbelievably low. Here's his blog:

G. Keith Smith, M.D.
Click to expand...
A lot of this is true, and I'll tell you something else that's lesser known about the cost run-up.

In the years after the war, insurance companies talked the AMA into convincing doctors to raise their fees. They wanted more people buying insurance so that doctors' fees would be covered.

Also, the government classifies insurance benefits as non-taxable income. This motivated businesses to pay lavish insurance benefits on employees in lieu of better pay. People usually didn't care how much the doctors and hospitals charged because, hey, they weren't paying for it. Now that medical cost are so obscene, employees are paying more and more out of pocket for their healthcare.

Hospitals have no pricing transparency and can charge whatever they like. What a flawless profit-generating system for the hospital, especially when people arrive sick or hurt. Can you imagine buying a car and not being allowed to see the sticker price before driving it off the lot?

There's been 60 years of damage to the economy caused by the insurance industry and others. Obamacare is a flawed but worthy effort to curb abuse and reform the system. It helps, but doesn't go far enough. If I wasn't a US citizen, I'd be petrified about coming here and getting sick, leaving myself open to abuse from this "system."

Fuck US healthcare. I'm going to Turkey for oral surgery.
 
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