The bizarre calculus of emergency room charges
- Thread starter Banjo
- Start date
I called about 6 different places for quotes with and without insurance. For some places there was no discount for paying cash. The range of prices was between $400 and $2,500. $400 was for paying cash. The lowest insurance quote was $1,000. $2,500 was an insurance quote. It pays to shop around even though it is a complete pain in the ass.
When shopping I was told it was illegal to charge a different price for cash vs. health insurance by some 20 something year old.
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We should add still more to the real cost. What your company pays to cover your wife. That's money that could otherwise be in your wife pay check! I suppose it's on the order of 300-400/month. Lets use the low figure. That brings your family's total yearly health care cost for two adults and one child to about 4800+out of pocket co-pays+2K to 4K for medicare (assuming only your wife is paying into medicare) + 3600 paid for your wife by here employer to a total of between 11,200 and 9,200 (low end) per year leaving out any medicare you might pay (you did not say what your employment situation was. That is one hell of a lot of money for a probably pretty healthy family!!!
It may seem incorrect to include medicare which is really paying in advance for care you will receive later, however keep in mind that even after you become eligible for medicare you still continue to pay your monthly medicare payments. They don't stop with retirement, but go on as long as you live unless you qualify for medicaid. If you don't include medicare as part of your current health care costs but move those payments forward to your retirement years than your current costs are more like 7200/year but your cost after retirement balloons because of those thousands of dollars of medicare payments you move forward to allocate to your retirement years on top of the continued medicare payments you will make after retirement. Any way you look at it, health care in the U.S. is hugely expensive!
---Any way you look at it, health care in the U.S. is hugely expensive!---
this why guys from places like europe,who complaining about high taxes over there should be happy. at least they can get something for "free". everyone of them,regardless to their income. no such thing in usa. and when you apply all those expenses(various taxes,insurances,education for kids) -the numbers will be faaaar greater than 50%
this why guys from places like europe,who complaining about high taxes over there should be happy. at least they can get something for "free". everyone of them,regardless to their income. no such thing in usa. and when you apply all those expenses(various taxes,insurances,education for kids) -the numbers will be faaaar greater than 50%
Health care is the only business in America that can get away with such deceitful methods. Any other business would be in court and ran out of business. If I ran an open policy of billing insurance companies twice what I charge an individual I would be sued for insurance fraud.
I do not understand how anyone can support our current health care system.
Both sides of the political spectrum agree on this point...which is why it never ceases to amaze me how the politico's simply take a bad situation and make it even worse.
Take just about any pressing issue and you will find a consensus of opinion that something needs to be fixed...but per usual the special interests, lobbyists get a hold of it and soon we turn it into a complete debacle.
This healthcare system is selling a far inferior product to that of natural medicine, far inferior. They compete by tying themselves up with the legal system, buying politicians, etc. The participants are brainwashed that they are "science" and everything else is "placebo", meanwhile they kill hundreds of thousands every year and never look back.. Going to a doctor is a fatal mistake for lots of people. Getting admitted to a hospital is even a bigger mistake. The drug approval process is pure politics. We have medical fascism wherein the government teams up with the corporations to screw the little guys out of their health and wealth... The thing is that preventative and natural medicine requires a lot of learning on the part of the consumer and few are willing to work at it.
It's hard to keep the fascists from not taking away all our medical freedoms. Bill and Hillary wanted to do that, John McCain wanted to do that, the whole Democratic party wants to do that but they found out that it's a very hot-button issue with a lot of us and they seem to be leaving it alone.
It's hard to keep the fascists from not taking away all our medical freedoms. Bill and Hillary wanted to do that, John McCain wanted to do that, the whole Democratic party wants to do that but they found out that it's a very hot-button issue with a lot of us and they seem to be leaving it alone.
I noticed that too and thought I was missing something.....
5-600 per month for insurance vs no insurance and saving 6k a year. Now that I think about it, it's pretty damn hard to rack up 6k worth of bills. Not to mention a 3-5k co-pay.
I think we're all better off without insurance.