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Join Date: Nov 2024 · 02-22-2006, 07:38 PM

Re: The reason people can't afford healthcare...

$1600! That really is outrageous!!

My OB only charged $330 TOTAL for my level II and it sounds like it involved all of the same stuff yours did (look at all of the organs, blood flow, arm/leg/abdomen measurements), except it lasted about 45 minutes...mostly because he was trying to get a "between the legs" shot of the baby. I wonder why there is such a discrepancy in price??

Originally posted by PrincessFiona

Obviously, I'm being billed for all of those w/o the luxury of health insurance too.

Unfortunately, I think you've hit the nail on the head.

**PrincessFiona** · 02-22-2006, 07:58 PM

OH...first chemotherapy bill? $12,000! Yup...that is 12 GRAND. Multiply that times 6 plus add another 50k easily for radiation.

How would someone without the benefit of good insurance (uninsured or underinsured) EVER pay for something like this? What about someone with a low lifetime maximum.

I shudder to think of what happens to people in this country who don't have adequate healthcare coverage.

This level II literally took 15 minutes...and that was with Aidan jumping all over the room and thomas having to pop in and out with him.

kris

Join Date: Nov 2024 · 02-22-2006, 08:04 PM

And don't forget the ultra-rude treatment you got to boot!

Maybe that's why the perinatologist was only $42. It was a "be seen be a rude as*hole" special.

**SueC** · 02-23-2006, 06:00 AM

Originally posted by PrincessFiona

OH...first chemotherapy bill? $12,000! Yup...that is 12 GRAND. Multiply that times 6 plus add another 50k easily for radiation.kris

Insane!!! My friend's nurses in the oncology dept. nicknamed her hair (which has grown in curly after getting several rounds of chemo) as the $70,000 perm!

**Rapunzel** · 02-23-2006, 09:28 AM

Kris, if you didn't have to pay as much in income taxes as you currently do you'd be in a much better position to afford such bills without insurance coverage.

**PrincessFiona** · 02-23-2006, 01:04 PM

Sorry...that was a type-o...the chemo was 17,000. The Rituxan alone was $12000.

The problem is that if we didn't pay any taxes or we paid less, we'd be stuck paying private school tuition, our universities would suk more than they do today, etc. We pay boatloads of MN state taxes, but MN has among the lowest number of uninsured and the lowest healthcare costs in the nation. Doctor salaries, are, btw, unaffected by this 'universal' healthcare plan up here in socialist MN.

Roads need more work here because of the freeze/thaw effect etc and someone has to pay for it.

At the federal level...who on earth would pay for W's war if not for the hard-working taxpayers of this country.

Something drastic has to happen to bring healthcare costs down to a more reasonable level. This country will have to have some sort of universal healthcare system available to the underinsured or uninsured...anything less is unacceptable...AND..those of us with good insurance are already paying for it with our $1600 ultrasounds. OUTRAGEOUS.

kris

**Sheherezade** · 02-23-2006, 01:29 PM

Out of curiousity....what did your insurance pay for the ultrasound? Was that the charge, or the payment given? I know medicaid pays such a small percentage of charges and medicare has a good deal as well. It seems the private insurers also only pay a portion of the cost and the rest just melts away. It seems odd that the exact same figure was entered for 4 different things and then combined for a total bill. My SIL paid for her ultrasounds out of pocket, and they were around 350 a piece. Could there be an error on your bill?

DH just sent a patient out of the hospital with meds that would have cost 8K purchased from a pharmacy. Oral chemotherapy. What do you think the chemo you are on costs before the hospital charge? Did they separate those charges out? (I'm curious if the drug companies and the hospital are marking up significantly.)

**PrincessFiona** · 02-23-2006, 01:46 PM

I don't know yet, Angie...the kick in the pants is that we had just switched over to a health savings account and have to pay the first $5000 in charges out-of-pocket....the first chemo bill pretty much takes care of that...but I will also be curious to see what they're willing to dish out.

kris

**Rapunzel** · 02-23-2006, 02:46 PM

Kris, if you had the 30-40% of your income back in your pocket you could afford all of the things you mentioned.

My family did not have medical insurance for much of my childhood, btw.
I know it would have helped tremendously if my parents had had more access to their income rather than having it taken by the government.

And, federal income tax should not go to public education. Public education is the domain of the states - not the federal government. The more we see the federal government try to control public educaiton (such as No Child Left Behind) the more we see that the federal government should have nothing to do with education. As far as universities accepting federal tax dollars: Brigham Young University does not and they are considered a very good, rather large school complete with a great business school and law school. They refuse all federal funding. It can be turned down and a school can still be a great, thriving one - they're a good example of that. (BTW The Dean of the Harvard Business School just left his post here in Mass. to be the Dean of BYU-Idaho).

Road maintainance is also the domain of the states and is not the federal governments responsibilities (that's why you see such a wild variation in quality of roads as you drive from state to state btw - some, like Texas, are better at it than others).

Now, war is something for which the federal government does have the Constitutional right to collect taxes.

**PrincessFiona** · 02-23-2006, 04:29 PM

Actually, we still couldn't pay for $250,000 in treatments even if we weren't paying so much in taxes. What about the regular Joe though? I would venture to guess that more than 1/2 of the people on this board who are currently med student/resident spouses could not under any circumstances afford $250k or even $125k....hey, let's cut the cost down even farther....$60k in medical treatments.

We can't have it all...capitalism that allows drug companies to charge $12,000 for a single dose of a needed drug, hospitals kicking out huge profits, hospital ceo's making milions and....then....expect the average person to pay for it out-of-pocket. I seriously doubt that if we went to a pay-as-you go systemt things would get better.

A large percentage of people would simply forego prenatal care, as well as maintenance care for themselves. To be honest, if I had had to pay for my appts. with my internist before my diagnosis (I went in 4 times before something was finally found) I wouldn't have gone in the last time to pay for yet another x-ray, etc.

For the most part, people don't have the opportunity to negotiate costs when it comes to a lot of very expensive procedures. If you need a life-saving treatment and the for-profit hospital says it will cost X amount of dollars....you'll agree to pay for it no-matter what if it means extending the life of you or your child.

Who would really say "Nope, I'm not going to pay 40,000 for that cardiac cath...make it $20k and I'll consider it".

This illnes would have done more than bankrupt us during residency or fellowship even with the healthcare insurance that we had....but without health insurance...well...it would have been disastrous.

just my point of view....

**PrincessFiona** · 02-23-2006, 04:32 PM

Originally posted by Rapunzel

Public education is the domain of the states - not the federal government.

Though I agree with the fact that our federal govt is basically incapable of running anything at this point, if we put it in the domain of the states we'd have even more trouble than we do now. States with state taxes and sources of income would fair much better...the current state money isn't enough so every state would have to institute higher state income taxes to support it...then poorer states would simply churn out even worse results...think...Florida, TX, etc.

kris

Join Date: Nov 2024 · 02-23-2006, 06:39 PM

Mississippi.

Just based on what the bills for my boys looked like, the final bill will likely be $396 for the combined ultrasound/s and then the $42 for the perinatologist.

Its really just one session that is charged for, but they have to show each thing that is done during it, and if you were only having the say, fetal heart done, it would still be $396. At least thats my guess.

The cost of the chemo is just horrible. Its so wrong that not only are they poisoning you to make you better,they are ripping you a new one to do it.

**PrincessFiona** · 02-23-2006, 07:21 PM

The bill that they sent us was for > $1600 but it could be that the final amount paid is just $396..I sure hope so. We nearly had a heart attack.

And does this mean that people who are private pay and don't have insurance companies to negotiate for them DO get stuck with the full sticker price?

The drugs are outrageously expensive...it's scandalous, really!

kris

**SueC** · 02-23-2006, 08:56 PM

Well, since I have done medical billing for years, I do feel the need to mention that just because an office charges a certain amount, the insurance or medicare allowable is always a much smaller portion of that (less than half a lot of the time, depending on what the charge is) so try not to get too worked up about the initial bill. For the only two clients I have ever billed for, we NEVER charged private pay patients our full charges. I think it's silly that we have to go through the rigamoral (sp?) of charging an inflated fee knowing most of it is going to be disallowed but that is how reimbursement works.

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