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  #11  
Old 11-30-2007, 01:14 PM
hobbes9324 hobbes9324 is offline
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Location: Reno
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Default Re: Require health insurance assistance

Well, the problem is you young healthy male types are by far the most prone to being involved in traumatic injuries. To give you an idea, at our trauma center traumas come in three flavors -

T-5000 - pretty much nothing wrong, not much of a mechanism.

T-green - +/- hurt - say a rollover accident, or you fall off a ski lift from 15 feet.

T-blue - you're [censored] up - shot in the chest or stabbed in the belly, high speed car accident with open fractures, etc.

There is no minimum charge for a T-5000 - "just" the regular bill. For the ED fee, nursing charge, my fee, maybe an x-ray, radiologist fee - you MIGHT get out for a grand. Maybe. The meter spins pretty fast, though.
Now the bad news. If you come in as a green, with NO injury at all - automatic $8000 charge BEFORE I SAY HELLO.
For a blue $14000.

Last I looked, the average charge for a green came to about $20000 - for a blue, close to $100000 (yep, six figures)

note - before you bitch about expensive docs, I get a maximum of about $700 or so - for the sickest, most [censored] up patients. For the T-5000, I bill about $175. The rest goes to all the other place I mentioned.

So, anyway, that's why health insurance is so goddam expensive. Or at least a small part of the reason. And to the guy who thought we don't try to collect on the balance when the insurance company says "here's $500, take it or leave it" - we take it. Then we bill you for the rest, UNLESS we have a contract with your insurance company. (Medicare IS a take it or leave it deal, but you, by definition, don't qualify)

Best strategy - get a HIGH deductible policy from a WELL ESTABLISHED carrier. A lot of big hospitals have captive HMO's that offer these. BC/BS are a (poor) second choice - the coverage is fair, but they are god awful to deal with from both the patient and doc.) If you choose to go with Bob's great health care and pizza delivery, check with your state insurance board and make sure Bob is a real insurance company with the ability to pay if you bust your ass up. Believe it or not, a lot of people who think they are insured find out the hard way that they're not......

And yes, we should have a national health care system. With the special interest groups against it, though - no time soon.

MM MD
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  #12  
Old 11-30-2007, 01:21 PM
iron81 iron81 is offline
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Default Re: Require health insurance assistance

You should look into what assistance the government can provide, either through your state's medicaid program or another program. Public hospitals are often avaialable as well in major cities that provide free care, although the quality of care usually sucks there.
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  #13  
Old 11-30-2007, 03:27 PM
Nicholasp27 Nicholasp27 is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Springfield
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Default Re: Require health insurance assistance

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
EVERYONE should have health insurance in the US

even if you SELF-INSURE, you should get cheap insurance with a high deductible...it'll be cheap since insurance company will never pay out each year unless you have a major illness/surgery

[/ QUOTE ]
This does not seem to be the case. I tried inquiring into high deductible, catastrophic type coverage and it would be over $1000 a year for a completely healthy mid-20s non-smoking male.

If I am wrong feel free to point me in the right direction but I don't consider that "cheap."

[/ QUOTE ]

<100/month is cheap...i don't know about prices, as i work for an employer, but u can shop around to see if can get cheaper with like a 5k deductible, co-insurance, and such...it only takes one trip to the hospital because u get sick/injured after 5pm and the difference u pay because u have SOME insurance is more than $1000 off
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  #14  
Old 11-30-2007, 03:30 PM
Nicholasp27 Nicholasp27 is offline
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Location: Springfield
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Default Re: Require health insurance assistance

the $40/month plan sounds perfect for a self-insurer

otherwise, u are gonna need to fund your self-insurance account a lot more than $40 more a month to cover the difference in what u pay by being uninsured vs what u pay by being insured
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  #15  
Old 11-30-2007, 03:31 PM
Nicholasp27 Nicholasp27 is offline
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Location: Springfield
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Default Re: Require health insurance assistance

btw, walmart and cvs now have 100s of generic drugs for $4/prescription...that's great if u have or don't have insurance...things like pain killers and such are only $4 now...so go to one of those or call around before u just go to the nearest pharmacy and pay your $20 copay or pay $100+ because u don't have insurance

some doctor's offices also sell prescriptions now for maybe $15 for popular drugs...but the $4 now trumps that
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  #16  
Old 11-30-2007, 04:09 PM
jogsxyz jogsxyz is offline
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Posts: 1,167
Default Re: Require health insurance assistance

[ QUOTE ]
EVERYONE should have health insurance in the US


[/ QUOTE ]

That's nonsense. The US should be like every other industrialize nation in the world. There should be universal care for all. It should cover preventative care and emergency care.
Only those who want more coverage would need to buy health insurance.
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  #17  
Old 11-30-2007, 04:55 PM
Nicholasp27 Nicholasp27 is offline
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Default Re: Require health insurance assistance

obviously the US should have universal health care

but since it doesn't currently, everyone should have health insurance in the US
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  #18  
Old 11-30-2007, 05:19 PM
NajdorfDefense NajdorfDefense is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Manhattan
Posts: 8,227
Default Re: Require health insurance assistance

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
EVERYONE should have health insurance in the US


[/ QUOTE ]

That's nonsense. The US should be like every other industrialize nation in the world.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's nonsense.

I don't want to wait 6 months for a /MRI/CT-scan or 12+ months for 'emergency' brain surgery.

If you're too cheap to buy insurance, it's your neck.

If you have no $, there's Medicaid/care. Medicaid in NYC, for example, offers far MORE comprehensive coverage than any private policy you could ever buy, even for $40-50k a year for 1 person.

'A typical Canadian seeking surgical or other therapeutic treatment had to wait 18.3 weeks in 2007, an all-time high, according to new research published Monday by independent research organization the Fraser Institute....
Saskatchewan (27.2 weeks), New Brunswick (25.2 weeks) and Nova Scotia (24.8 weeks) recorded the longest waits in Canada...Patients waited longest between a GP referral and orthopedic surgery (38.1 weeks), plastic surgery (34.8 weeks) and neurosurgery (27.2 weeks)....The median wait for an MRI... Newfoundland and Labrador residents waited longest (20.0 weeks). '

You fall in the US and injure your skull/brain, go to emergency room, you get your MRI or CT-scan that day, not 5 months later, insured or not, as it is a Federal crime to deny emergency care.

UK and Canada have well-documented literature, studies, and commissions that show the disgraceful nature of their health systems. Millions of people die off while waiting so that the gov't never has to pay for their care. In France, they just leave the old people in no-HVAC homes all summer and tens of thousands die during heat waves.

Some provinces in Canada report 18-MONTH waiting time for brain surgery for some patients:
http://www.sasksurgery.ca/specialty/...gery.htm#table

'Holmes began losing her vision in March 2005, she told a press conference at Queen's Park yesterday. An MRI in May 2005 revealed a tumour in her brain. Her family doctor couldn't expedite appointments booked with specialists for July 19 and Sept. 19, 2005. As the tumour pressed on her optic nerves, her vision deteriorated. Afraid to wait any longer, she went to the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Within a week she met three specialists and was told she had a fluid-filled sac growing near her pituitary gland at the base of her brain. They urged her to have it taken out immediately. She went home with the hopes of quickly removing what is known as a Rathke's cleft cyst.

Unable to get surgery fast, she returned to Arizona and had the mass removed on Aug. 1, 2005. Her vision was restored in 10 days. The Holmes family is now in debt $95,000 because of medical costs.

...A computed tomography or CT scan showed a large wedge-shaped brain tumour. He was discharged from hospital four days later with a diagnosis of stroke and a prescription for anti-seizure medication.

Worried the tumour might be cancerous, McCreith and his family wanted an MRI. He was given an appointment date four months later. McCreith went to the U.S. and paid $494.67 (U.S.) for an MRI. Armed with the scan, he saw his Ontario family doctor, who referred McCreith to a neurologist. He was examined on Feb. 8, 2006. He was referred to a neurosurgeon but would have to wait three months.
Unhappy with this, he returned to Buffalo. In early March, during a biopsy, the tumour was found to be malignant and surgically removed.'
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  #19  
Old 11-30-2007, 05:58 PM
RustedCorpse RustedCorpse is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: NYC Crimson Team
Posts: 827
Default Re: Require health insurance assistance

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
EVERYONE should have health insurance in the US


That's nonsense. The US should be like every other industrialize nation in the world.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's nonsense.

I don't want to wait 6 months for a /MRI/CT-scan or 12+ months for 'emergency' brain surgery.

If you're too cheap to buy insurance, it's your neck.


[/ QUOTE ]


Funny that everyone is quick to point out the examples like these. I can't help but think they are more rare than people like to imply.

I've been hurt overseas twice, once with a broken limb another time with minor internal surgery from a stab wound.

I paid nothing for either (I wasn't even a citizen of either country)the limb and follow up were immediate, and I didn't wait more than 3 weeks for the second surgery.

In the US, I waited 5 weeks for a specialist, and WITH insurance still shelled out $1200 bucks for kidney stones.


As for the too cheap to buy insurance line, sorry we're not all millionaires. And if you're implying insurance is affordable to everyone I want to live in your world.
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  #20  
Old 11-30-2007, 06:15 PM
dylan's alias dylan's alias is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 279
Default Re: Require health insurance assistance

$1000 per year (if that is an accurate figure) is more than affordable. I find it hard to believe that you couldn't find $3 a day to trim from your budget.

Many of the uninsured in America are young and healthy, who choose not to buy health insurance because it will cost more than their likely expenditures for the year. If they all joined the insurance pool, it would drive costs down across the board.
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