Of course I said ok, fine...run it through insurance. That year I wasn't going to meet deductible so I had no incentive to go through insurance.
This still boggles my mind... I understand the insurance provider negotiates bulk rates, but we were paying up front, in cash, and were still quoted 8x the insurance price.
(My finger was infected. I needed a week of antibiotics. That was it.)
Final billing: 55k in total, but because of insurance I paid about 5k. Which still left me wondering... what did people without insurance do? How could they possibly pay that much money, if they couldn't even get insurance?
I discovered an interesting fact the other day about the US's massive % of GDP spent on health; they spend about the same % of public monies on health that other developed countries do, the extra % is private spending! [1]
Anecdata: I am in Australia and have private health insurance (notably: otherwise I'd be paying an extra tax levy and be worse of in $ terms), but all that has meant is that I can go to a private hospital instead of a public one for elective surgery. For ~$2k a year. A few years back I broke both my collarbone and my ankle on separate occasions. The ankle repair was entirely free. The collarbone was setting too slowly (opportunity cost: I needed to get back to work ASAP... normally they just put your arm in a sling and let it stitch naturally), so I opted to have a surgical repair, which was about $2k all up for the out-of-pockets.
[0]: https://www.thebalance.com/medical-bankruptcy-statistics-415... [1]: https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-...
Sometimes being dumped from a hospital in the middle of the night drugged at some random location.
Often times a small problem gets put off and becomes a much larger problem.
It becomes a burden on family and friends, sometimes leads to amputations and other surgeries such that otherwise could of been avoided with better care.
This a huge problem for a lot of people, especially if you add in the dental care that is needed and not obtained around the country.
ymmv
Even then it’s a pretty crazy amount for what is supposed to be a routine delivery. No epidural was administered.
I can see why young people aren’t having babies. You work like a dog to pay rent and barely make it. Having a kid puts those finances in jeopardy.
"oh need new tires? We can't tell you how much it costs till we actually install your tires"
They can give you a processing discount but it is negligible and only applies to services rendered at that time.
Also they have to pay the insurance handling clerk whether you pay cash or not. The marginal savings are small.
I was a member of a "health cost sharing ministry" for about a year, while working for a startup that didn't offer insurance.
The idea was that I paid a monthly membership fee to the ministry, and in exchange they would cover my healthcare costs - minus a set amount, for which I was responsible directly. If I made the effort to negotiate a discount with the provider, that discount counted toward the part I was responsible for.
By inquiring about a cash discount and being able to provide a reasonable assurance that the bill would actually get paid in a timely manner, I never once paid out of pocket for a doctor's visit during that time.