Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire $89,000 for eighteen hour hospital stay

Absolutely.

It will continue to be this way unless .gov gets out of the medical business.

There is NO way I"d be in a business where .gov says... look, since its me paying, I'll only pay you 10% or whatever of what you charge.

Doesn't take a fool in the business to realize he is going to have to charge a hell of a lot, since its going to be cut drastically, to then be able to pay for what the real bill is.

I don't enjoy the high costs either... but you have to realize, medical is just like paying the fire department, whether they have a fire or not, they have to be there 24/7. And there is no way around that unless you don't want the "coverage"

The government definitely needs to get out of it because they are totally incompetent and even when they manage to get something done they are the most inefficient way of accomplishing that thing that anybody could imagine. That said, you have perfect examples right here of the mindset that has allowed the costs to escalate the way they have. You have people who swallow the bullshit about costs, hook, line and sinker. Then you have the others about "how much is your life worth?". When you go there you'll accept huge monetary charges and that is one of the big things that has ruined our healthcare system. It's another aspect of the low information voter.

"Because the hospital has a contract with Ferguson's insurer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield, it reduced the total bill to $20,227. According to the Observer, the couple paid $5,400 out of pocket to cover their deductible and co-pay.

The hospital defended its prices, saying it has to charge prices higher than retail because of the various discounts it is required to give insurers."
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The problem here was not ObamaCare. i.e the Affordable Care Act, he had p[rivate insurancde company coverage. It wasn't even Medicare or Medicaid. The problem was private insurance companies demand a discounted price or they will approve the provider (hospital, clinic or MD)for reimbursement from the plan. These are the same companies who will be providing care under the Affordable Care Act. Argue if you will that the care is not affordable But it was and will continue to be provided/paid for by private insuranace companies.

So, thinking of alternatives . . . what did our forefathers do back in the 19th Century when they were bit by Copperheads or Rattlers?

For the love of God, give the viewers a warning.

lost a lot of appendages.....

I'm rather disappointed. Where are the "If you don't want to pay it, no one is making you go," "If you don't like it, start your own hospital," "What's wrong with charging as much as you can?" responses. The Campfire is definitely slipping.

Anti-venom costs have gone insane. There are many more stories about this same type of cost related with anti-venom for snakebites now.

Ever since the 22 ammo shortage...

this....if your curious just look at Africa or Asia....lot of people missing lower legs due to snake bite.....hands aswell due to harvesting veggies in snake infested fields....we used to have a fair number die but due to outstanding and quick medical treatment of the 7,000 plus bites a year maybe 5 are fatal.....used to be alot higher, bites from northern Pacifics, mohave greens and coral snakes were mostly fatal before ventilators.....

thats cause we now actually have antivenin thats worth a chit....the old cheap Wyeth also came with a laundry list of side effects in alot of cases the antivenin was more dangerous than the original bite because allergies to it were common.....the new CroFab is more expensive but it also works better and has much reduced side effects, allergies to it are pretty uncommon....

I worked in or with .gov all of my employed life. Trust me, you can't fathom the width and depth or density of .gov stupidity and total conviction that only they can tell time on a digital clock. IF they had common sense, or were allowed to exercise any degree of it, their massive volumes of detailed employee work rule books wouldn't be required. NOTHING is too screwed up or be as expensive or happen so slowly it can't be made worse when .gov "fixes" anything.

Letting politicians and their bureaurcrat unionized drones run our health insurance has been, is and will remain a costly disaster for the public but you can safely bet your home and bank account that they WILL take very good care of themselves.

I worked in or with .gov all of my employed life. Trust me, you can't fathom the width and depth or density of .gov stupidity and total conviction that only they can tell time on a digital clock. IF they had common sense, or were allowed to exercise any degree of it, their massive volumes of detailed employee work rule books wouldn't be required. NOTHING is too screwed up or be as expensive or happen so slowly it can't be made worse when .gov "fixes" anything.

Letting politicians and their bureaurcrat unionized drones run our health insurance has been, is and will remain a costly disaster for the public but you can safely bet your home and bank account that they WILL take very good care of themselves.

If you can't afford it don't use the service. He was more than welcome to not go and stay home.

Not to mention the cost of filing everything in duplicate.

Finally! My faith is somewhat restored.

If you think insurance companies get a discount, you ought to see what a discount Medicare/Medicaid get. It's way bigger and is a problem that is also made up on private patients. Income redistribution at work.

The biggest problem with what healthcare charges is most people don't have a clue what they are being charged for. They have no idea how many people are behind the scenes that they never see.

Want to talk cost of drugs. Fine. Our inpatient pharmacy operates 24/7. To cover every shift, every day requires a lot of pharmacists and technicians. To have the drugs on the shelves when you need them requires several people who only work supply. Unfortunately, all those people need management and their support. Oh yeah, those drugs have to be in stock in sufficient amounts. It's not a small amount in inventory that is there just in case that never gets used, but it has to be there just the same. How much mark up has to be made just to break even? It's not a little.

Now, that pharmacy has bills whether we have patients or not. Equipment, cleaning staff, utilities. It's not free. Same goes for every department in the hospital. You may see one nurse, but there are many people behind her that are required for her to give you treatment. The hospital overall has to have admin and HR plus all the costs of providing them a place to work. All those people have to be there whether we see one patient or 100.

Doctors? They certainly don't come for free and you may encounter several along the way.

If your hospital bill had a breakdown of everything you were paying for you would never finish reading it. You see three people while you're in but don't see the other 50 that are there making sure you can be taken care of. You certainly don't see all the millions of dollars worth of equipment that is there just so you can be taken care of.

Then factor in all the people we have to take care of that we know we won't cover expenses. How many businesses are required to sell products below cost or just give them away?

Of course, some of you just want to bitch and don't really want to know what's going on, so bitch away.

I think the point Ethan was making had to do with market distortions in the price of medical care resulting from government interference at multiple levels, including government's long term partnership with the insurance companies. In other words, what we're seeing are not natural market prices for these services, but a gross distortion of them whereby absurd profits are being made that wouldn't be supported by anything like a free market in medical care.