For those who didn’t do the math, that’s more than $1.1 million dollars.
I wonder what becomes of her children if she’s poor… 
Nothing, or close to.
Basically, the actual question is where does the $1.1 million go - mostly to cover the bills from the people who aren’t insured thru cost shifting from the insured patient.
With a healthy chunk creamed off for the insurance company.
MM MD
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I have to take an eye drop every day. Over the years, it’s been a guessing game as to how much it will cost. I refilled it last week and it was $200+ for a tiny bottle (fortunately, it lasts me a few months). That’s with my insurance. I did a Google search and the price seems to be similar even without insurance.
I went on the manufacturer’s website and got a coupon that dropped the price to $25. So dumb.
That stuff is so tilting. It’s the same with Good RX. Every pharmacy is more than happy to gouge you horrifically but if you just give them a code it’s “whatever, cool 90% off”.
It is insane and immoral.
This reminds me for a while Walmart pharmacy employees would sign people up with similar codes if they did not have insurance. Then one day they wiped ALL of them from their system and forbade their employees from assisting in acquisition of pharmacy discount codes.
None of these things should be happening.
GoodRx was something like $70 for the eye drops. Fortunately, I remembered that the manufacturer had coupons.
Walgreens is good with coupons. There have been times that they applied one for me without me even having one. The pharmacist the other night said she was putting the coupon on my file so I could use something like the next six times automatically. I’m keeping the printout just in case (doesn’t matter, really - I can go back to the website and get a new one).
Hey, look at this person on my facebook feed that’s okay with Medicaid for his daughter… He’s unable to go the extra step and realize he was fortunate that a socialized medical option was available to treat his daughter and should be available to everybody - but screw Bernie!
The greatest trick Republicans ever pulled is convincing people that social security won’t be there for them - like money isn’t fungible and SS is prohibitively expensive. Nope - money’s gone, can’t get it from anywhere else. Endless unfunded war though - that money grows on trees.
Yep when that day comes we just shake our fist at the damn gubmint for screwing it up. No thought that we might freaking demand they keep their promise and keep paying for it. And never mind actually bringing into line with cost of living increases.
It still baffles me how people accept this.
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As surprise medical billing has emerged as a hot-button issue for voters, doctors, hospitals and insurers have been lobbying to protect their own bottom line. All that lobbying meant nothing got passed last year.
They are throwing in a lot of money, funneling millions to lawmakers ahead of the 2020 elections. Four physician organizations that have heavily lobbied on surprise medical bills and have private equity ties — the American College of Emergency Physicians, Envision Healthcare, US Acute Care Solutions and US Anesthesia Partners — gave roughly $1.1 million in 2019 to members of Congress, according to a Kaiser Health News analysis of Federal Election Commission records.
“We are not trying to stop legislation. We are trying to stop bad legislation,” says Anthony Cirillo, an emergency medicine physician who describes a “bad” bill as one that favors insurance companies over doctors.
Cirillo is also a lobbyist for US Acute Care Solutions, a physician staffing company backed by private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe. WCAS, which manages $27 billion in assets and is focused on health care and technology investments, is based in New York City and co-founded US Acute Care Solutions in 2015.
“There is a lot of anti-physician rhetoric out there,” says Pak-Teng, who is pushing her physician colleagues to be more active in shaping public policy by sharing stories about the reality of caring for patients.
Unpossible.
wtf
I work with new international graduate students at a large university. Telling them about shit like this and general advice about how to navigate the medical system in USA #1 always sends lawnmowers into orbit. Other countries don’t do shit like this. This isn’t normal.
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The US medical system is utterly incomprehensible and horrifying to me as a Brit.
September last year I had a bit of a shortness of breath and bloating problem so went to my local GP who diagnosed a heart issue and sent me straight to A@E. I spent 6 days in hospital hooked up to a crap load of tubes and electrodes.
Since I got out I’ve had monthly blood tests, seen a consultant once and the speciality heart nurse once a month, and had 2 check ups with my GP. I’m on a cocktail of 7 drugs daily.
The total cost to me is one direct debit £10 month to cover all the prescriptions I need
And this in a country that run by a Trump lite maniac that routinely shits on the poorest in society.
I’d almost certainly be dead at this point if I’d had to deal with the shitshow you guys have to put up with
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For real. Having to deal with my own medical condition is enough to keep me out of America. Paying out the ass for epilepsy meds and waiting months for a neurologist to accept new patients and months more for an appointment is not my idea of a good healthcare system.
Took me 3 days in the CR to get a neurologist and 2 days later I had my first appointment. Zero paid out of pocket for my meds. Zero paid for EEG. Zero paid for MRI.
It’s amazing what years of right wing propaganda can do… We’re in this massive uphill fight for improvements because more than enough Americans are convinced that SwankyWilder and superuberbob would be getting quicker, higher quality care here and desperately waiting in line hoping not to die oh shit they’re dead anywhere else in the world.
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I think this aspect of Canadian/Australian/similar healthcare systems is really misunderstood in the US.
You can accomplish in 1 week in the US what might take 6+ months in Australia. Of course this assumes a privileged position of private health insurance etc. I am not saying the US system shouldn’t be changed, just noting that these other “free healthcare” systems have their downsides and I don’t see them talked about much.
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Such as?
“You can” should obv read “some can”, with “some” being the population with amazing insurance or that is rich enough to not worry about thousands of dollars of bills
Not very many can.
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For the record, there’s an interesting(?) string of posts about M4A in the New Hampshire primary thread, which is now closed.
Recent string starts here:
By the way, on the topic of Bernie’s single payer plan, I think it’s a pretty big failure that he doesn’t have a website set up where you can plug in your AGI and see how much you’d save (or how much more you’d pay) per year, demonstrating the cut off point between it helping and hurting you financially, then letting you plug in a medical condition to see what’s covered and what it costs you out of pocket.
People would go on there, and 99% would see their medical problems covered at no cost out of pocket, while probably 90% would see savings.
It’d take some time to set up, but he’s had ~3 years.
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One of the problems with his plan politically is we don’t know who is going to pay more to help cover the working class and poor. We know it costs less overall, but we don’t know where the income cutoff is where it costs more. I’m guessing I’d pay more, but I don’t really know. I support it anyway, because I would get better coverage, more peace of mind, more stability and of course it’s morally right and I was there once and suffered through having shitty coverage and losing sleep/expended energy worrying about it, so I get it.
That said I’m guessing that a lot more people think they’d pay more than actually will pay more.
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Ehh not really - a significant percentage of people will pay more, not just 1%. Probably 5-15%. But regardless people need to see the amount they’d save and the quality of care they’d get to really change minds IMO, telling people we’re saving 10 trillion over a decade nationally is about as relevant to their voting decisions as telling them apple pie will fall from the sky if they vote for Bernie.