They are getting pretty darn ridiculous.

The charges are high. The payment is low. Thank Medicare.

They have been ridiculous for several years now.

So what are the root causes of high inflation, raised prices now in the world?

Any ideas? lol

Old hat was a happy camper rube…

The root cause of high medical costs is insurance. It is a two-fold cause.

1. People opt for all kinds of unneeded or optional procedures/tests because "Insurance will pay for it."

2. Providers charge ridiculous amounts because "Insurance will pay for it."

Example: My wife recently had necessary surgery on two toes. The bill came to $70,000. And we haven't gotten the anesthesiologist bill yet. I forget the exact numbers, but Medicare and Tricare paid something like $8,000 - and that's what the doctor accepted. We owe nothing else.

When you go in for anything, ask what is the self-pay rate. Most of the time its well below the insurance rate. Especially on imagining.

This is one example - https://radiologyassist.com/MRI.html

waiting for a silly bible quote now from him

bible quotes are not silly

Someone has to pay healthcare for the millions of illegals aliens let in our country

You can thank your precious union for supporting Biden and open borders and protecting illegal aliens over American workers

Sad how dumb and disconnected American boomers are

Haha

So was WabGoon and his 1993 cell phone antenna

Those who are non union can stop accepting payment from customers that earn their money w union jobs.

Wow! Imagine for something like major heart surgery that requires a heart lung machine or a major transplant!

Was it a general surgeon who did the operation or a specialist?

Agreed!

So now you are back on wabigoon?

We all know the federal money spending spree is the cause of inflation. Medical costs were spiraling up long before 2020.

"The root cause of high medical costs is insurance."

You forgot cost of government.

Most tests are CYA because of ambulance chasing lawyers. Big pharma dictates what medications hospitals and doctors are allowed to prescribe. Anytime the government gets involved prices soar and services suffer. Most clinics around here only work four days a week.

Rubes of a feather

Get duped together

Surgery Center of Oklahoma.

They have a menu of costs for procedures. Two Cattlemen friends use them and speak highly of the facility.

.

using bible quotes on a hunting site is.

And its always the clueless hypocrites who love to use them

other reasons for higher inflation

The sanctions against Russia which you supported caused a big jump in inflation worldwide and shortages

Printing and giving over 150 billion to Ukraine which you supported helped devalue our dollar

Open borders which you support which have drastically driven up medical costs because tens of millions of uninsured illegal aliens over running or medical system

shutting down the economy during Covid which you supported

clueless

Socialized medicine will inevitably lead to euthanasia as a viable treatment option. We're only a handful of years behind Canada in the US.

Socialized medicine isn't about money. It's about control. The controllers raise the costs of medical treatment to the point where they can justify killing people.

Gooberment regs and lawyers

Roughly 30 million Americans have ZERO medical insurance and they DON'T pay their hospital and doctor bills.

That is a monstrous part of the reason doctors and hospitals charge you and me catastrophic rate, we pay the bills for those lame pukes.

OldHat: Well some one has to make up for all the free "care" and free "medications" that the millions upon millions of illegal aliens are running up!
That some one is apparently YOU (and me!)!
Welfare rats, alcoholics, drug addicts, illegal aliens, anchor babies, ghetto spawn and other scammers are one of the main reasons medical care is so expensive.
Get used to it - it is only going to get worse.
This country is going to be destroyed from within - the chi-coms and rooskies only have to be patient and they can walk on in and put our bread basket areas, natural resources, energy supplies and real estate to their own uses.
Sad.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Certainly, in a world where the United States is the only developed country without a national healthcare system, we could turn to all the other examples and find a system that works for us. There are many examples throughout the world, single payer, government administered, privately administered etc.

Our current system is unsustainable and will bankrupt this country. Almost 20% of the GDP is spent on healthcare and it continues to rise.
I pay $1500/month for a United Healthcare plan for a family of 4. That is more than my mortgage and homeowners' insurance combined.

Here's a chart that shows where we stand in costs per GDP
Healthcare per GDP

Multifactorial like every other problem in our Country and truly a broken system.

A few of the many contributors include .gov, regulations and bureaucracy, "big business" medicine and associated "spin-offs", third party payer system, the legal system/attorneys, big Pharma, education system/costs, greedy and/or dishonest providers, wasteful consumers, unrealistic consumer demands, and "deadbeat" consumers who do not pay for care. These are a few of the causes. Many times you can just follow the money! Many Americans profit from this system, not just providers.

Probably too big to really fix without a lot of pain or catastrophe but, sadly, that is so true of many things in our Country now.

Excessive/oppressive government control is not the answer... we lose our freedoms. Similarly, run-away capitalism is no better... we lose our freedoms to another set of crooks.

So hard to find a balance anymore on much of anything. I am glad to leave the broken system behind in one sense (I tried to treat people the way I would like to be treated) but now I get to enjoy it from the other side as a consumer. I am not optimistic if that is not already obvious!

My health insurance went up 20% for 2023.

And Medicare costs will drop by $5/month while Social Security payments will increase 8.7%.

This about covers it completely.

I have to pay Cobra insurance rate, now I'm on long term disability through work.
New Bill came in with an increase.
How bout 1857 bucks a month !
Gotta have it to cover my back surgery....

Add in what all these border jumpers will do to that equation. They all need to be trebuchet'd back over the wall. Every last one of them. F**k amnesty.

Agree. We cannot seriously address medical care, education system, social security reform, medicare/medicaid (the list goes on and on) until we first address immigration reform, including those that are already here illegally and new arrivals.

My daughter has health insurance through the teachers union it sucks. She had an emergency appendix operation, went in at 8am out at 6pm cost was $80k. She's on the hook for her $5k deductible. Our health care insurance went up 40% but come September I get Medicare so we'll see how all that plays out.

Think city has 8k deductible, not sure what county is.
Horrible insurance
And a bunch of fat folks and chainsmokers.
They gotta be going broke w their poor health habits.
Then again, maybe thats why its so high.

Two cattlemen friends!

That explains where old toot, chief howler monkeys bullshit comes from😂

Wow! Cobra only lasts 18 months from my understanding.

I believe that federal law mandates 18 months and the costs are carried in full by the insured party meaning that the insured party pays their normal part plus what the company used to pay typically costing around 110% more than before cobra was used.

The long term disability payments from most companies equals the company’s part per month plus SS’s part per month to equal approximately 50% of what the employee’s monthly salary was at the time of disability.

It’s been a while since being familiar with these processes and much may have changed from what I listed.

Those with high deductible insurances need to start a health care savings account so they can be better prepared.

You don't have to pay taxes on your contributions to such a account. There is a yearly cap on contributions.

I've maxed out my allowable amount every year and built up enough funds to cover my deductibles.

For me it amounted to about a 30% savings so my $5000 deductible actually cost me $3500.

If you have a health care savings account and become unemployed, you are allowed to make Cobra insurance payments with you health care savings funds IF you are actively collecting unemployment benefits. That's another 30% off those high Cobra payments when you most need it.

Folks need to take advantage of every savings offered and be prepared financially for their unexpected health needs before they arise.

Of course we could always just buy nicer pickups and cooler guns and worry about our personal healthcare needs when and if they enter the picture.

Health insurance and drug companies are fleecing us with our government's blessing. Obamacare was a giveaway to the health insurance industry and made a lot of them rich.

My doctor wants to put me on a drug that's $1400 a month if insurance doesn't pay for it. He filed a prior authorization request with my insurance and they disapproved it, they want me to try other drugs that he says won't work. Anywhere else in the world that medicine is $75-100 a month. I'm overseas all the time, I'll just take my prescription with me and have it filled in Europe. Most people don't have that option.

Scum sucking lawyers are a big part of it too. The country needs tort reform where the loser of a civil suit pays all the court and expenses of the winning party. That would put a quick halt to all the frivolous BS lawsuits these dirtbag attorneys pursue unless there was a very high likelihood of winning.

I had a heart attack this past summer followed by 2 weeks in coronary icu and a double bypass.
Care to guess the hospital/surgeon/anesthesiologist bill??





$271,000 and change! Medicare paid a little over $90k. I had to kick in another $1100.

On another note....
Back in the late 50's or early 60's my mom needed to get a full set of dentures. The dentist quoted a total cost of $200 for everything.
After the procedures were started my dad got a new job that had dental coverage so Mom asked the dentist if he'd accept that insurance.
He said sure thing. So mom took the paper work to him to have him fill it out.
The dentist charged the insurance company over $600! When Mom asked him how he could charge the higher price after having already quoted $200 he replied "why do you care, you're not paying for it".
And boys and girls is why medical costs are so high

capitalism works when you have winners and losers in the market in competition with each other

The healthcare system is not incentivized to compete, the majority of people don't know what something is going to cost ahead of time and they are not encouraged to shop around. When you are facing a life or death decision, you aren't going to ask questions about how much is this going to cost - and the current system is designed to profit from that.

Governments solution is not to control health costs, but to subsidize those costs for those that can't afford them. It only leads to one option- a nationalized single payer healthcare system. Costs will get so high that people will demand relief and the government will step in to do what they've been wanting to do since Clinton, take over healthcare in this country. where alot of people will get wealthy running a lobbyist controlled system.

Its ridiculous that we have a health care system in place now with premiums and deductibles so high its preventing Americans from making significant gains in their lives. Obama's grand idea was to tax people that actually had good health insurances so they'd all be forced into a system the insurance companies tailor made for congress to sign off on.

I hate that man to this day for that.; He did more harm to health insurance in 2 years than everyone else in the last 50.

At this point I'd like to see more laws in place to protect consumers from bankruptcy due to medical costs. I know more gov involvement is the last thing people want (well many people anyways) but the reality is government is heavily involved and its determining your quality of life at this point. If government is going to be involved in healthcare, make it where it benefits the consumer, not the insurance companies and big pharma.

There is massive collusion between medical services and insurance companies. That's why a simple MRI self-pay is $200 and the same image through the insurance company is $1,350. With your copay, you wind up paying more out of pocket than you would have as a self-pay. The insurance company wins and the imaging service wins.

But everyone is going to pay less with Nomobama Care. I heard him say it. 🤬

You would have to show me that $200 self-pay.

Due to .gov regulations, insurance companies were forced into becoming the bookkeepers for Medicare/Medicaid. They built the software, helped set the coding standards and guidelines and found ways to provide the same services to worker groups through group coverages.
The .gov wanted to own it all. Step one was completed YEARS ago.

Over-utilization, non-payment and inflation are major drivers of medical cost trend.

Very good summation of the situation KFWA. Obamacare was designed to foster a government takeover of the healthcare system while making insurance and pharmaceutical companies rich beyond anyone's wildest dreams. There's a reason health insurers and pharmaceutical companies are the biggest campaign contributors to political campaigns.

According to OECD

US spends $12.300 pr person on healthcare.


Next highest countries on list:

Germany: $7300
Switzerland: $7200
Norway: $7100
Netherlands: $6750
Austria: $6700
Denmark: $6380
Sweden: $6260
France: $6100
Canada: $5900



In other OECD countries people pays less in taxes for equal healthcare.. and receive Zero copays, no out of pocket expenses, etc etc etc...
If you are sick, you go to a doctor and not a emergency room.


Doctors pr 1000
US: 2.6

Germany: 4.5
Switzerland: 4.5
Norway: 5.2
Netherlands:
Austria: 5.5
Denmark: 4.3
Sweden: 4.3
France: 3.4
Canada: 2.8


Medical graduates (Doctors) pr 100.000
US: 8.5

Germany: 12
Switzerland: 12.9
Norway: 10.9
Netherlands: 14.3
Austria: 14.4
Denmark: 21.2 (might be a error, and might be 12.2??)
Sweden: 13.6
France: 9.9
Canada: 7.5




The US is still the only developed country that accepts squandering $Trillions each year for inadequate healthcare, as long as it ends up in the pockets of for profit insurance companies, healthcare providers and drug companies.
Republicans* loooooooove donations from these companies, and will fight tooth and nail to keep that income flowing..

And Obamacare didn't create this mess...


(*As well as some corporate Democrats... )

Fugging Walt.


Way overpaid.

Instead of "some" it's more like a WHOLE LOT of Democrats:


Opensecrets -- Pharmacutical Companies


OpenSecrets -- Hospitals & Nursing Homes


Opensecrets -- Insurance Companies




Top Personal Income Tax Rates in Europe







^^^ USA: 37% ^^^

Don't forget, the quality of the care.

As Northman says, Obamacare didn't create this problem, but it was meant to be the pathway and conduit to get us to a national healthcare system. Whether it was perfect or not, it was essentially scuttled and left in a state where it won't succeed. It was like half baking a cake. We either needed to go big or go home.

We already, as a country, pay approximately 40% more for healthcare than every other developed nation. And in 4 out of 5 metrics of the quality of healthcare, we perform significantly below the average.

It's time to design and implement a national healthcare system that works.

Had a heart attack Jan 2014, never paid a dime, two stents put in, not a dime spent.
Had a foot infection from an injury and being diabetic they jumped on it fast, first IV treatment, then a more aggressive pic line
Picc Line
www.macmillan.org.uk
A peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC), also called a PICC line, is a long, thin tube that's inserted through a vein in your arm and passed through to the larger veins near your heart.
the pic line allowed them to fight it more effectively, no cost to me.
Now when I say not a dime spent by me, I mean out of pocket expenses.

The coverage I was inline for upon retiring pays for it all, so compared to what some have to pay, I was lucky to have a job for 45 years that had great benefits that continues today along with 3 pensions that enable me to carry on a very comfortable lifestyle.

Denmark 55%..

Denmark Population: 5.857 million (2021)

USA Population: 331.9 million (2021)



US States - 10 highest in Population (2022)


California (Population: 39,613,493)
Texas (Population: 29,730,311)
Florida (Population: 21,944,577)
New York (Population: 19,299,981)
Pennsylvania (Population: 12,804,123)
Illinois (Population: 12,569,321)
Ohio (Population: 11,714,618)
Georgia (Population: 10,830,007)
North Carolina (Population: 10,701,022)
Michigan (Population: 9,992,427)


(2021 population numbers)

New Jersey (9,267,130)
Virginia (8,642,274)
Washington (7,738,692)
Arizona (7,276,316)
Massachusetts (6,984,723)
Tennessee (6,975,218)
Indiana (6,805,985)
Missouri (6,168,187)
Maryland (6,165,129)
Wisconsin (5,895,908)

How good is it in BallSac County??

What does population have to do with it?

Our health care system is fubar but the best quality care in the world has always been here in the USA. You have to be able to afford it, but it’s here. There’s a reason why if you drive by the airport in Rochester MN you’ll see a bunch of jets with Arabic writing on them. Those middle eastern sheiks didn’t go to Denmark, they flew twice as far to get here and they passed over a bunch of countries with socialized medicine to do it. If they do stop in Europe it’s at the American Hospital of Paris which is the only US accredited hospital in Europe and completely private, outside the French system. It’s also big $$$.

Your argument is completely valid, but the odds of Joe Blow getting care at the facilities in Rochester, MN are about the same as winning a $100,000 scratch ticket.

Joe Blow’s medical choices are a doc -in-the-box with a couple of harried PA’s or wait six weeks to see his family doctor, who will then refer him to a specialist with an 8 week wait.

The USA model has been broken for at least three decades. It's not sustainable but the older I get the less I care.

Went in for a medical test. At the time, I did NOT have Medicare. When the receptionist asked for insurance, I told her I was "cash pay".
The procedure was $5500.
Cash up front, cost was $1500!

Medicare has a schedule of payments. They have a specific payment for every procedure.
If you pay cash, most (not all) doctors will charge less than the Medicare schedule.
If you pay cash and file with Medicare, Medicare will pay more than the cash payment.
Medicare WILL NOT allow you to pay cash and tile with them. You could get rich.

EVERYtime I get a medical bill, my first question is, "What is your cash rate?".
Quite often, they will offer a significant discount. Last one gave me a 30% discount for prompt/cash payment.

Wife just had cataracts removed. Cash up front and Medicare was a significant savings.

Yes sir. The ACA/Obamacare just threw gas on an existing dumpster fire.

When I was working, I had employer paid health insurance. I paid the usual co-pays when service was rendered. Now I'm retired and on a fixed income. My insurance is still provided for by my (previous) employer, but Medicare has become my primary. Seeing that I paid into Medicare for the last 50 years I didn't think I'd be paying more now that I am receiving it. How wrong I was. I pay more for my health now than I ever did when I was working full-time.

Something is definitely wrong with this system.

Actually, you paid for all of it while you were working. It was simply another way of compensating you for your work, given in lieu of higher wages. The upside is that such a benefit is usually not taxed so the employee comes out ahead.

Everything...

California alone has almost twice the total population of Denmark on free Medicaid healthcare already and New York has a number equal to the entire population of Denmark on free Medicaid...

https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/medicaid-enrollment-by-state



Then there's this:

Denmark: #11 in the 2021 World Index of Healthcare Innovation

This is interesting!

This is exactly right. The vast majority of Americans, me included, obtain healthcare with no idea as to costs. Nothing else we buy works that way. I price shop everything I buy except healthcare.

Th best government reforms would be forcing a price competition and disclosure mechanism within the healthcare industry.

Daughter, when she was 18, needed surgery, BCBS 'might' not pay....

DRs said total if you have to pay is $7500.....

Surgery went well, the Bill, near $150,000, submitted to BCBS, DENIED 'this was elective'....

Appealed, making the case of 'Medical Necessity' with help of family physician, BCBS agreed to pay........

BCBS paid $7500 and everyone was happy........... !?!?!?!?

Some one gets to write off $147K.....

There's a scam in there somewhere...

The strange part, after the surgery and during the appeal process, daughter had scar revision surgery, scar from the 'denied' procedure..... BCBS paid for that with no question?????

The bill for just an outpatient surgery is insane right now. Bills keep coming months after the procedure, with little to no explanation of the services provided. From a medical standpoint, it pays to be a member of the underclass these days. I hear they get to strut out without paying a thing. Just think of all the Mexicans working labor related jobs. They have to be getting injuries requiring surgery. Are they getting away with paying nothing?

Sixty five dollars just to give a tetanus shot?

A friend’s daughter was in the hospital for a needed procedure several years ago. Insurance was covering most all except for the copay amount. His wife noticed a charge for “Miscellaneous” on the bill for $800.

She called and asked about this and was told that it was a customary billing. She asked for the reason and told the hospital that she was going to inform their insurance company of issue unless she received an adequate explanation of the charge.

The billing office later replied that it was for necessary feminine use items.

John’s wife then asked what necessary feminine use items did a 4 year old girl require?

It was taken off of the bill.

Holy Shiet

Still the best answer. As long as the consumer has no “skin in the game”, there is no incentive to control cost and prices will continue upward. Make the patient directly responsible for a percentage of the cost and market forces come back into play. Nobody watches your money more carefully than you will. Dinesh D’Sousa has a great discussion of this on YouTube. Good call Rocky.

Healthcare is a classic example of what happens to an industry when the government is the largest payer and has a direct role in limiting supply. Supply and demand applies to healthcare like every other good and service.

Some people work crappy jobs if the insurance is good.

I'm curious, how is the "supply" limited?

No, but he fugged it up even more. I was paying $254 per month prior to Obamacare. It went to $1500 once he made it affordable. With the increased premiums and higher deductible I was an extra $22,000 out of pocket before they paid a dime. Thanks.

From HeeHaw, Government aid, "They take a quart of blood from your left arm, and put in your right, and spill half of it on the way,"