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Americans pay 2.5 Trillion for Healthcare that cost just 912Billion in 2003
- Thread starter jueco2005
- Start date
Quote from Angrycat:
BTW, in the last 30 years, your probability of dying from a heart attack in the United States went from 40% to 6%. Are you not willing to pay for that? [/B]
You seem to be a guy willing to pay for a lot of stuff. I will ask Obama to make you pay for my healthcare as well.
Quote from jueco2005:
You seem to be a guy willing to pay for a lot of stuff. I will ask Obama to make you pay for my healthcare as well.
Well, I'm a gall who is willing to pay to survive a heart attack and cancer.
However, unless you plan to have Obama open Gulags and close the borders in America to make me pay for your healthcare, then it's not going to happen. I won't work if I'm working to keep your family in the lifestyle to which you think you have a right instead of mine.
Quote from Angrycat:
Can you freely negotiate a fee for service with a doctor who otherwise accepts insured patients?
This is entirely doable. In fact, I like paying cash out of pocket for all the mundane stuff and having an insurance policy only to cover the catastrophe. If you are paying out of pocket the conversation between you and your doctor is unfettered by insurance restrictions and prices can come way, way down depending on your willingness to shop and negotiate and find the doctors that do things on the cheap for people without insurance. I knew a gal that got her son an MRI for $25 and she got a bone set for her daughter for about twice that, they sent the kid home without a cast and she just had to be very careful for a couple of weeks, which she did and everything was fine..
Quote from Eight:
This is entirely doable. In fact, I like paying cash out of pocket for all the mundane stuff and having an insurance policy only to cover the catastrophe. If you are paying out of pocket the conversation between you and your doctor is unfettered by insurance restrictions and prices can come way, way down depending on your willingness to shop and negotiate and find the doctors that do things on the cheap for people without insurance. I knew a gal that got her son an MRI for $25 and she got a bone set for her daughter for about twice that, they sent the kid home without a cast and she just had to be very careful for a couple of weeks, which she did and everything was fine..
Hear my applause! I love it.
I actually pay for all doctors out of pocket because none of the doctors I go to accept insurance - and they are worth every penny I pay them. Insurance is for health PROBLEMS, not for routine maintenance.
However, in most states, if a doctor bills insurance $200 for a procedure and only receives $100 from the insurance company, he cannot bill $100 to a cash paying customer. He must bill them $200 or he is committing insurance fraud - even though the insurance company never pays him more than $100 for the procedure. Who wrote those laws? The insurance regulators - working hard to make your life an expensive mess. See, the trouble is that if YOU have the freedom to individually negotiate your own rates, then that makes life hard for them so they get the trusty regulator (who is supposed to be working for YOU, the public) to write laws prohibiting you from negotiating or making felons out of doctors. F-ing disaster.
BTW, once again, congratulations on your and your friends negotiation skills. Totally awesome.
Quote from aegis:
Wow. Did they find the cure for cancer within last 6 years?
Sorry, but I don't see any major breakthroughs in the medical industry within the last 6 years that could justify that kind of spending increase.
Perhaps you should consider that your lack of knowledge doesn't mean that they don't exist.
Quote from Eight:
This is entirely doable. In fact, I like paying cash out of pocket for all the mundane stuff and having an insurance policy only to cover the catastrophe. If you are paying out of pocket the conversation between you and your doctor is unfettered by insurance restrictions and prices can come way, way down depending on your willingness to shop and negotiate and find the doctors that do things on the cheap for people without insurance. I knew a gal that got her son an MRI for $25 and she got a bone set for her daughter for about twice that, they sent the kid home without a cast and she just had to be very careful for a couple of weeks, which she did and everything was fine..
DRs in my area charge people 3 times the normal rate if they do not have insurance.