Cost of a tetanus shot in the US
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A few weeks back I had a close personal encounter with centrifugal physics when I swung my tennis racquet rather unnecessarily hard and found it not only completely missing the ball but also hurtling straight for my face side-on. A resounding thwack later I found myself spitting pieces of one of my teeth out. As it turned out I had broken one of my front teeth clean in half. Friends insisted that I go to the ER and go I did. They took one look at it and said, well, you've got to go see a dentist. After 1.5 hours of thumb twiddling they gave me a tetanus shot and sent me on my way after depriving me of $100. I walked away thinking, "$100 for a tetanus shot?! Outrageous!". Fast forward a week or two when I find myself staring at a bill in the mail in disbelief. Cost of the treatment is given as $1,087.20 :omg:. I am thinking, this is surely a typo! I log on to the insurance website to see what was submitted for the claim and there I find another claim for $294 apart from the other thousand. The hospital submitted a claim for $1,381.20 and the insurance company actually paid $664.00. Add the $100 I paid and you arrive at a grand total of $764 for one measly injection! While my personal liability was only $100, I find the idea that the hospital thought that the service was worth $1,481.20 a bit mind-boggling. When I did a little googling about this, I found articles where the rationale appears to be that ERs run 24/7 all 365 days of the year and are required by law to treat all patients regardless of whether they have insurance or not and that a good chunk of the service they provide goes uncompensated and are therefore forced to distribute that cost among other patients who do happen to be insured. I am not sure that I find that completely convincing. Does anyone else think there's something broken with this system?
-- gleat http://blogorama.nerdworks.in[^] --
You aren't being charged for the tetanus shot, but the visit to the ER. The $1481 is part of the charade medical providers go through so that they can write of the difference between it and what the insurance company actually pays, so they can whine about how they are being ripped off and so they can get some money from the government which forces them to accept all patients. (Incidentally, only about 13% of ER patients have no insurance or aren't paying for themselves at the busiest hospitals. Where I live, I doubt it's more than 5%.) A tetanus shot by itself isn't much. The itemized bill will show that. Had you gone to a doctor office (or an extended care facility) rather than ER, your costs would have been much lower. BTW, the multiple claims are due to the bizarre way hospitals bill. For various reasons mostly to do with liability insurance, doctors usually bill separate from the hospital. One thing that's broken is not having more care clinics where you can get basic medical care without resorting to more expensive facilities. Many Walmarts have these. In my area, both the main hospital monopoly and the teaching university have these, though they are still too expensive for really basic care (i.e. not having broken bones set or being stitched up.)
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People have their reasons. Many perceive the bill as representing government take-over of health care and consequently a step towards socialism! The "public option" clause which allows the government to be one of the choices John Q. Public will have when selecting an insurance provider has raised the hackles of many big private insurance companies as they feel they could never compete with a government option which is backed by tax payers. Add to that the muscle-flexing by the lobbyists ($1.4 million[^] are being spent on average every single day by lobbyists apparently to have their cause heard on the floor) and you have what you see going on!
-- gleat http://blogorama.nerdworks.in[^] --
Add to that that Group coverage is wide spread and highly regulated which means as a consequence most people are happy with it. If that changes the dynamic will change, which may take a few more years of rampant health inflation. Small companies find it difficult now, within a few years even professionals may find themselves paying 25% of their pay check or going without.
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We don't have those problems in Canada, because health care is free. I can't imagine why people would trust for-profit corporations to run critical services such as health care? Obama seems to get it. Every 1st world country except USA seems to get it. Not to turn this into a heavy political debate, but from a distance, it seems quite unintelligent that people are fighting him on it.
Obama DOESN'T get it. To say otherwise are fighting words. Take it to the lounge. There are very good reasons to oppose socialization of medicine; ask Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams about it--you know, the one who just came to the states for medical care. BTW, while US spends more per GDP on health care, costs are rising as fast in Canada and Europe as in the US. Come back to me when your taxes are raised and benefits cut (and/or Canada stops the charade of making private health insurance illegal.)
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Add to that that Group coverage is wide spread and highly regulated which means as a consequence most people are happy with it. If that changes the dynamic will change, which may take a few more years of rampant health inflation. Small companies find it difficult now, within a few years even professionals may find themselves paying 25% of their pay check or going without.
062142174041062102
And that's what people don't seem to understand. Doing nothing here isn't an option. If you like you current coverage, if the government does nothing, it will keep getting more and more expensive until you lose it anyway. So all the wailing about a government take-over doesn't seem to grasp the fact that the current system is unsustainable.
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People have their reasons. Many perceive the bill as representing government take-over of health care and consequently a step towards socialism! The "public option" clause which allows the government to be one of the choices John Q. Public will have when selecting an insurance provider has raised the hackles of many big private insurance companies as they feel they could never compete with a government option which is backed by tax payers. Add to that the muscle-flexing by the lobbyists ($1.4 million[^] are being spent on average every single day by lobbyists apparently to have their cause heard on the floor) and you have what you see going on!
-- gleat http://blogorama.nerdworks.in[^] --
gleat wrote:
Many perceive the bill as representing government take-over of health care and consequently a step towards socialism!
Especially people who know socialism only from the scaremonger posters.
Agh! Reality! My Archnemesis![^]
| FoldWithUs! | sighist | µLaunch - program launcher for server core and hyper-v server. -
We don't have those problems in Canada, because health care is free. I can't imagine why people would trust for-profit corporations to run critical services such as health care? Obama seems to get it. Every 1st world country except USA seems to get it. Not to turn this into a heavy political debate, but from a distance, it seems quite unintelligent that people are fighting him on it.
Health care systems are never free, the method or payment varies from country to country and in Canada's case payment is remitted from the public purse through various programs, which means it is funded by taxation. There do seem to be bizzare beliefs here in the US however that only two systems exist in the world, either a completely free market private yet caring and world beating system or complete soviet style state control. The earlier doesn't exist here, and the latter hasn't actually been considered of course.
062142174041062102
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Obama DOESN'T get it. To say otherwise are fighting words. Take it to the lounge. There are very good reasons to oppose socialization of medicine; ask Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams about it--you know, the one who just came to the states for medical care. BTW, while US spends more per GDP on health care, costs are rising as fast in Canada and Europe as in the US. Come back to me when your taxes are raised and benefits cut (and/or Canada stops the charade of making private health insurance illegal.)
You are implying Danny went to the US due to inadequate services, and that is inaccurate. I happen to be from Newfoundland and Labrador, so I know that story well. Danny could have received the surgery here for free. However, he consulted with Canadian doctors who told him the most experienced people are in Miami, so that's where he went. In Canada we get free health service, plus the benefit of buying whatever cutting edge services or higher levels of experience the US has to offer, if one can afford it. Danny can. Was that necessary? Certainly not, but most of us would take advantage of the best surgeons if money wasn't an obstacle.
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You are implying Danny went to the US due to inadequate services, and that is inaccurate. I happen to be from Newfoundland and Labrador, so I know that story well. Danny could have received the surgery here for free. However, he consulted with Canadian doctors who told him the most experienced people are in Miami, so that's where he went. In Canada we get free health service, plus the benefit of buying whatever cutting edge services or higher levels of experience the US has to offer, if one can afford it. Danny can. Was that necessary? Certainly not, but most of us would take advantage of the best surgeons if money wasn't an obstacle.
Talks like a duck, walks like a duck, it's a duck. By definition, for him, the Canadian services were inadequate.
zievo wrote:
plus the benefit of buying whatever cutting edge services or higher levels of experience the US has to offer
Do you even comprehend the hypocrisy of that statement? If the US implements Canadian style health care, you won't have any fall back. To whit, not many Americans (or any nationality) are traveling to Canada for their vaunted health care expertise.
zievo wrote:
In Canada we get free health service,
No you don't, you pay higher taxes for that benefit. Now, it may be worth it, maybe not, but it isn't free.
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Health care systems are never free, the method or payment varies from country to country and in Canada's case payment is remitted from the public purse through various programs, which means it is funded by taxation. There do seem to be bizzare beliefs here in the US however that only two systems exist in the world, either a completely free market private yet caring and world beating system or complete soviet style state control. The earlier doesn't exist here, and the latter hasn't actually been considered of course.
062142174041062102
Yes, nothing in life is free, I'm aware of the cliche, and not immune to the long arm of the tax collector. However, it's confusiong to most to state it in a way other than 'free'. I agree though, free is inaccurate. Socialized health care? As you pointed out, also inaccurate. Maybe a conglomerate of public and private industries subsidized or completely paid for by govt using Canadian tax dollars.
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People have their reasons. Many perceive the bill as representing government take-over of health care and consequently a step towards socialism! The "public option" clause which allows the government to be one of the choices John Q. Public will have when selecting an insurance provider has raised the hackles of many big private insurance companies as they feel they could never compete with a government option which is backed by tax payers. Add to that the muscle-flexing by the lobbyists ($1.4 million[^] are being spent on average every single day by lobbyists apparently to have their cause heard on the floor) and you have what you see going on!
-- gleat http://blogorama.nerdworks.in[^] --
gleat wrote:
The "public option" clause which allows the government to be one of the choices John Q. Public will have when selecting an insurance provider has raised the hackles of many big private insurance companies
It's also raised the hackles of many of us who have seen how well government programs are run. I live in a place with an excellent medical system and cost effective insurance program. We are genuinely worried that the distortions the government will put into the system will destroy what we have. (One of the issues that is being avoided are the various coverage mandates government impose on insurance companies.) When people criticize the private sector or free enterprise as failing, they often fail to see that it isn't free enterprise; the government heavy hand is in the mix, preventing the free market from operating efficiently. (In medicine, most insurance isn't insurance at all, but prepaid medical care, which distorts the free market even more. However, even some of this is due to nanny government believing individuals are incapable of making rational decisions--hence, for example, the absurd war on narcotics.) I hasten to also point out that many of the big insurance companies are actually on Obama's side in this! When the government starts handing out money, they want to be first in line.
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I'd be happy to pay $785/mo for basic health insurance. Instead I can't get any, except for high risk at over $1400/month.
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E. Comport Computing Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
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You aren't being charged for the tetanus shot, but the visit to the ER. The $1481 is part of the charade medical providers go through so that they can write of the difference between it and what the insurance company actually pays, so they can whine about how they are being ripped off and so they can get some money from the government which forces them to accept all patients. (Incidentally, only about 13% of ER patients have no insurance or aren't paying for themselves at the busiest hospitals. Where I live, I doubt it's more than 5%.) A tetanus shot by itself isn't much. The itemized bill will show that. Had you gone to a doctor office (or an extended care facility) rather than ER, your costs would have been much lower. BTW, the multiple claims are due to the bizarre way hospitals bill. For various reasons mostly to do with liability insurance, doctors usually bill separate from the hospital. One thing that's broken is not having more care clinics where you can get basic medical care without resorting to more expensive facilities. Many Walmarts have these. In my area, both the main hospital monopoly and the teaching university have these, though they are still too expensive for really basic care (i.e. not having broken bones set or being stitched up.)
This is right on the money. And it happens at doctor's offices as well. A few years ago I had a cat scan done in my doctors office. Almost 2 years later I got a bill for an unpaid balance. I called them up to find out what's going on. They said it was a computer glitch - just ignore it. Another doctor confirmed that they just needed to show an unpaid bill that they could write off as a loss on their taxes. This is the kind of stuff that happens every day in the USA.
Brent
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A few weeks back I had a close personal encounter with centrifugal physics when I swung my tennis racquet rather unnecessarily hard and found it not only completely missing the ball but also hurtling straight for my face side-on. A resounding thwack later I found myself spitting pieces of one of my teeth out. As it turned out I had broken one of my front teeth clean in half. Friends insisted that I go to the ER and go I did. They took one look at it and said, well, you've got to go see a dentist. After 1.5 hours of thumb twiddling they gave me a tetanus shot and sent me on my way after depriving me of $100. I walked away thinking, "$100 for a tetanus shot?! Outrageous!". Fast forward a week or two when I find myself staring at a bill in the mail in disbelief. Cost of the treatment is given as $1,087.20 :omg:. I am thinking, this is surely a typo! I log on to the insurance website to see what was submitted for the claim and there I find another claim for $294 apart from the other thousand. The hospital submitted a claim for $1,381.20 and the insurance company actually paid $664.00. Add the $100 I paid and you arrive at a grand total of $764 for one measly injection! While my personal liability was only $100, I find the idea that the hospital thought that the service was worth $1,481.20 a bit mind-boggling. When I did a little googling about this, I found articles where the rationale appears to be that ERs run 24/7 all 365 days of the year and are required by law to treat all patients regardless of whether they have insurance or not and that a good chunk of the service they provide goes uncompensated and are therefore forced to distribute that cost among other patients who do happen to be insured. I am not sure that I find that completely convincing. Does anyone else think there's something broken with this system?
-- gleat http://blogorama.nerdworks.in[^] --
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Talks like a duck, walks like a duck, it's a duck. By definition, for him, the Canadian services were inadequate.
zievo wrote:
plus the benefit of buying whatever cutting edge services or higher levels of experience the US has to offer
Do you even comprehend the hypocrisy of that statement? If the US implements Canadian style health care, you won't have any fall back. To whit, not many Americans (or any nationality) are traveling to Canada for their vaunted health care expertise.
zievo wrote:
In Canada we get free health service,
No you don't, you pay higher taxes for that benefit. Now, it may be worth it, maybe not, but it isn't free.
I keep getting beat up over the word free. I humbly retract it. We pay for our health care the same way we and you pay for paved roads, which is, yes, via taxes.
Joe Woodbury wrote:
Talks like a duck, walks like a duck, it's a duck. By definition, for him, the Canadian services were inadequate
I see you where you are coming from, but understand that's an insult to my country. Allow me to retort. As I see it, the only fact in your statement is synonymous with the following: for Canadian's who want the best surgeon on the continent and can afford to pay for him/her whatever the cost, the Canadian health care system might be (assuming the surgeon isn't in Canada) inadequate. What does that apply to, the top 0.01%? For the vast majority of Canadian's, 'inadequate' still isn't accurate. We do have great health services.
Joe Woodbury wrote:
To whit, not many Americans (or any nationality) are traveling to Canada for their vaunted health care expertise.
I wager not, probably a similar number to Canadian's going to the US. Considering the population difference (33 mil to 300 mil), that makes since as we are bound to have less 'best on the continent' surgeons. However, when a wealthy American finds out the best surgeon he can get is in Toronto, 9 times out of 10 that's where he goes. And again, why wouldn't he?
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A few weeks back I had a close personal encounter with centrifugal physics when I swung my tennis racquet rather unnecessarily hard and found it not only completely missing the ball but also hurtling straight for my face side-on. A resounding thwack later I found myself spitting pieces of one of my teeth out. As it turned out I had broken one of my front teeth clean in half. Friends insisted that I go to the ER and go I did. They took one look at it and said, well, you've got to go see a dentist. After 1.5 hours of thumb twiddling they gave me a tetanus shot and sent me on my way after depriving me of $100. I walked away thinking, "$100 for a tetanus shot?! Outrageous!". Fast forward a week or two when I find myself staring at a bill in the mail in disbelief. Cost of the treatment is given as $1,087.20 :omg:. I am thinking, this is surely a typo! I log on to the insurance website to see what was submitted for the claim and there I find another claim for $294 apart from the other thousand. The hospital submitted a claim for $1,381.20 and the insurance company actually paid $664.00. Add the $100 I paid and you arrive at a grand total of $764 for one measly injection! While my personal liability was only $100, I find the idea that the hospital thought that the service was worth $1,481.20 a bit mind-boggling. When I did a little googling about this, I found articles where the rationale appears to be that ERs run 24/7 all 365 days of the year and are required by law to treat all patients regardless of whether they have insurance or not and that a good chunk of the service they provide goes uncompensated and are therefore forced to distribute that cost among other patients who do happen to be insured. I am not sure that I find that completely convincing. Does anyone else think there's something broken with this system?
-- gleat http://blogorama.nerdworks.in[^] --
Dude, when my wife was in the hospital after delivering our son four years ago she asked for an aspirin; the line item for in on the invoice showed $30+. I really don't know what I found more outrageous, the price or the fact that our health insurance company paid it without any visible hesitation.
And above all things, never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning. --Isaac Asimov Avoid the crowd. Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece. --Ralph Charell
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Not forgetting, of course, that if that's an individual policy it'll cover you up to but not including the moment you're sick or injured.
062142174041062102
Looks like we have a member who works for the insurance industry and would rather me not mention 'Recision' ;)
062142174041062102
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This is right on the money. And it happens at doctor's offices as well. A few years ago I had a cat scan done in my doctors office. Almost 2 years later I got a bill for an unpaid balance. I called them up to find out what's going on. They said it was a computer glitch - just ignore it. Another doctor confirmed that they just needed to show an unpaid bill that they could write off as a loss on their taxes. This is the kind of stuff that happens every day in the USA.
Brent
I never did receive a bill for my daughter's birth in '08. I know I hadn't maxed out the deductible for the year so someone swallowed a few hundred. When we do get bills I have to have them translated by the billing person at my wife's (doctor's) office, it's purposefully opaque.
062142174041062102
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A few weeks back I had a close personal encounter with centrifugal physics when I swung my tennis racquet rather unnecessarily hard and found it not only completely missing the ball but also hurtling straight for my face side-on. A resounding thwack later I found myself spitting pieces of one of my teeth out. As it turned out I had broken one of my front teeth clean in half. Friends insisted that I go to the ER and go I did. They took one look at it and said, well, you've got to go see a dentist. After 1.5 hours of thumb twiddling they gave me a tetanus shot and sent me on my way after depriving me of $100. I walked away thinking, "$100 for a tetanus shot?! Outrageous!". Fast forward a week or two when I find myself staring at a bill in the mail in disbelief. Cost of the treatment is given as $1,087.20 :omg:. I am thinking, this is surely a typo! I log on to the insurance website to see what was submitted for the claim and there I find another claim for $294 apart from the other thousand. The hospital submitted a claim for $1,381.20 and the insurance company actually paid $664.00. Add the $100 I paid and you arrive at a grand total of $764 for one measly injection! While my personal liability was only $100, I find the idea that the hospital thought that the service was worth $1,481.20 a bit mind-boggling. When I did a little googling about this, I found articles where the rationale appears to be that ERs run 24/7 all 365 days of the year and are required by law to treat all patients regardless of whether they have insurance or not and that a good chunk of the service they provide goes uncompensated and are therefore forced to distribute that cost among other patients who do happen to be insured. I am not sure that I find that completely convincing. Does anyone else think there's something broken with this system?
-- gleat http://blogorama.nerdworks.in[^] --
When we start buying "insurance" in order to get food from the grocery store, you will see the price of a tomato become $50 each. And then, you will see the public demand that it be free--and then, a shady politician *promise* to make it happen. Free markets with consumers making direct choices and producers and service providers tailoring to the conscience consumer will drive prices through the floor. Look at the cost of botox. I use quotes around insurance because we are not really talking about insurance, anyway. Normal doctor visits for me and kids should be like routine visits to an auto mechanic where I pay out of pocket. When was the last time you used auto insurance at the mechanic shop? The Midas guy would look at me like I was high if I handed him an insurance card for broken tail-light.
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Not forgetting, of course, that if that's an individual policy it'll cover you up to but not including the moment you're sick or injured.
062142174041062102
I've had my fair share of medical expenses, including an emergency C-Section and a gallbladder removed, but I've had only one claim rejected and I won that argument. (It had to do with the post natal care for my first daughter and what "first month coverage" meant. I argued it meant 30 days, they said it meant until the end of the month. She was born on April 29. The weird part is that the fine print didn't actually say which it was--some lawyer really screwed up there. I'll bet it does now.) Now I do admit that for the last twenty-five years, with one exception I've been covered by decent to just plain excellent insurance. (The one exception was United Health Care and they sucked--they'd challenge everything; fortunately, our various doctors' bookkeepers knew all of their tricks and we rarely had an issue.) My biggest complaint now is that my doctor for the past 17 years seems to be getting lazy in his old age. Nice guy though.
modified on Monday, March 1, 2010 1:48 PM
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I'd be happy to pay $785/mo for basic health insurance. Instead I can't get any, except for high risk at over $1400/month.
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E. Comport Computing Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
That's because you're too damn old like me. BTW, saw on your profile that you lived in Venezuela. I lived in Puerto Ordaz (now Ciudad Guayana), Caracas and Valencia in the early 80s. A good friend lived in Maracaibo in the late 90s. We both agreed it was a crazy place, but great in other respects and that it's a real shame what's happened to that country.