"So long as you're not poor..."
I had a kidney stone a few weeks ago. All told, the bills for dealing with that hit $34,000.
For a kidney stone.
That's not about being poor or not, that's highway robbery.
I had a kidney stone a few weeks ago. All told, the bills for dealing with that hit $34,000.
For a kidney stone.
That's not about being poor or not, that's highway robbery.
Double hernia surgery was a couple grand out of pocket.
Not all insurance is the same.$34k is robbery.
34 k would pay for the original poster's trip to my country (Uruguay), the best treatment available, and he'd have money left over - heck, 34 k would probably pay the doctor's wages on that hospital for a year.
There are very dodgy and shady costs with US healthcare.
I have the very best healthcare available in my country (Hospital Británico). It costs U$ 150 per month. A kidney stone would probably run me in the hundreds of dollars. 3k would probably bankrupt me.
http://www.hospitalbritanico.org.uy
Some differences are that doctors in the U.S. are paid an order of magnitude more, and I've heard hospitals have legions of well-paid administrators doing paperwork for insurance companies, which will have legions of people doing paperwork on their side, and government doing its bit, and lawyers doing their thing. All that money is obviously not going directly into healthcare, it's basically bureaucracy friction. I suspect "real" healthcare costs, even factoring expensive U.S. doctors, would be shockingly cheap.
Tell me something: Suppose you go in to get your left kidney removed, but the doc removes the right one by accident. What are your options? Law suit? What would you expect to get in settlement?
Surgeons and anesthetists are on a class of their own, they make upwards of 60k per hospital.
yes. health reform (and lots of others) is/are needed.