Cost of a tetanus shot in the US
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
Nice to hear there are decent insurers, the anecdotal evidence I've had to date from independents I've worked with go more inline with your UHC experience though the insurer would pay in the end. Of course these guys were paying top dollar for decent plans, I suspect the less well off are screwed - crappy insurance and no way to pay out-of-pocket when they deny you.
062142174041062102
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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.
Bingo. Insurance is a lousy way of paying for defined costs. The risk in a system of perfect knowledge is 1 in 1, ergo the premium should be the total amount of care. This is of course why insurance is utterly useless for long term conditions unless heavily regulated.
062142174041062102
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harold aptroot wrote:
Or do they just misunderstand?
Yes. There has been so much purposeful mis-information about this it's ridiculous. Personally I don't think this has a chance in hell of passing given the way things are currently going. Which is really too bad because there are some fundamental issues that need to be dealt with, and all these guys are doing is just dithering and passing the buck.
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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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Well they think Fox is a news channel...
Join the cool kids - Come fold with us[^]
Yeah, they don't help, but the worst, IMHO, are the politicians themselves. During last summer, several of them started rumors at press conferences and the like, not just little exaggerations, but out and out bald faced lies. The level of sheer bullshit being spouted on about this stuff is just incredible and it took weeks for anyone to aggressively call them on it. Which of course is now too late as the damage was done, and any hopes for an actual debate about the *issues* was gone. Instead you've got idiots in the street raving about "death panels". Sigh.
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Personal 3D projects Just Say No to Web 2 Point Blow
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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?
How much does a tetonis shot cost in Canada? Don't say free because it is not free. Again, how much does it cost?
Watch the Fall of the Republic (High Quality 2:24:19)[^] Sons Of Liberty - Free Album (They sound very much like Metallica, great lyrics too)[^]
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If Obama has his way that's probably what will happen in the US too. One of the proposals in the health reform bill apparently is to impose tax penalties on people who remain uninsured. I am sure there will be some sensible caveat to that but yeah, that seems to be the general idea.
-- gleat http://blogorama.nerdworks.in[^] --
It is nothing but a bailout to the insurance companies and they ration out care to reduce costs.
Watch the Fall of the Republic (High Quality 2:24:19)[^] Sons Of Liberty - Free Album (They sound very much like Metallica, great lyrics too)[^]
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How much does a tetonis shot cost in Canada? Don't say free because it is not free. Again, how much does it cost?
Watch the Fall of the Republic (High Quality 2:24:19)[^] Sons Of Liberty - Free Album (They sound very much like Metallica, great lyrics too)[^]
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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.
Joe Woodbury wrote:
That's because you're too damn old like me.
Yeah, but 5 more years before I can get Medicare. Actually, I have 5 things that all the insurance companies run scared from: aneurysm on the aorta, diverticulosis, prostate infection, bad disk in the back, and injured hand. All are under control and my doctors say that none are anything to be concerned about. I haven't been in a hospital for over 39 years except to visit people. Yet, I can't get insurance without going to work for a company or getting into the state's high risk pool.
Joe Woodbury wrote:
BTW, saw on your profile that you lived in Venezuela.
Yep, lived there, mostly in Maracaibo, for about 12 years. We loved it there and sure hated to leave, but the economics and politics just got to be too much. We certainly would go back if the politics were bearable and the cost of living was commensurate with the salary.
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E. Comport Computing Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
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I have no idea. Sure, I have to pay taxes, but if I needed a tetanus shot I'd walk in, receive it, walk out, and not receive any bills for it. I'm sure you are asking a trick question though, so go ahead and let me have it.
The fact of the matter is that it is probably more expensive because of bureaucracy and the fact that you don't have any choice in the matter, they will have your money whether you like it or not. Remember that the insurance companies in our "health care" bill will receive guaranteed funding through taxpayers and through a law mandating that everyone buy insurance. At the same time they will ration out care to reduce costs, it is another grand robbery.
Watch the Fall of the Republic (High Quality 2:24:19)[^] Sons Of Liberty - Free Album (They sound very much like Metallica, great lyrics too)[^]
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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.
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Yep, that is a major problem, and it pretty much means that because of this, we never have any substantial discussion of the issues at hand or how to fix them, we just get into a shouting match over nothing.
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Personal 3D projects Just Say No to Web 2 Point Blow
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The fact of the matter is that it is probably more expensive because of bureaucracy and the fact that you don't have any choice in the matter, they will have your money whether you like it or not. Remember that the insurance companies in our "health care" bill will receive guaranteed funding through taxpayers and through a law mandating that everyone buy insurance. At the same time they will ration out care to reduce costs, it is another grand robbery.
Watch the Fall of the Republic (High Quality 2:24:19)[^] Sons Of Liberty - Free Album (They sound very much like Metallica, great lyrics too)[^]
As I understand it, costs are generally cheaper in Canada due to Federal regulation. For example, prescription drugs are substantially lower in Canada than the US. Cross-border purchasing has been estimated at $1 billion annually. (http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/170/6/945?etoc[^])
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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.
Joe Woodbury wrote:
absurd war on narcotics.
The war on other drugs is pretty absurd as well. :laugh:
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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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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.
Wjousts wrote:
Doing nothing here isn't an option.
Yes it is and not a bad one. Economic reality is that health care will never become unaffordable. Government acting won't bring down costs without cutting benefits because government isn't run on magic fairy dust. I'm continually surprised that people think politicians have the answers. Since when? These are the same idiots that came up with the current tax code.
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It is nothing but a bailout to the insurance companies and they ration out care to reduce costs.
Watch the Fall of the Republic (High Quality 2:24:19)[^] Sons Of Liberty - Free Album (They sound very much like Metallica, great lyrics too)[^]
CaptainSeeSharp wrote:
and they ration out care to reduce costs.
If you think the government will ration out care less, I have a bridge to sell you. (You need to make up your mind, dude. One moment you're Mr. Anti-communist, next moment you're Mr. Socialist.)