Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us

Ouch! Lengthy article with some numbing cases presented. I couldn't finish it, maybe I will try later. Ouch.

(Gives a lot of insight into how things have gotten completely insane on this front. Exercise, supplement, good diet, pray, are all that I can say! Mama mia!)

(h/t KD, his commentary here)

Years ago my father went into the hospital when he was very ill. While there a dietician came and spoke to him.

When he looked at the bill later, he could not believe how much the quick visit with the dietician amounted to.

He said, "I didn't request that woman's professional advice. I did not seek her out. She did not tell me anything I didn't already know. Why do I have to pay for a service that I did not ask for?"

That's when I realized that we have so little control over our own treatment in the hospital. We are a captive audience without any options.

The article is filled with some good point, some true problems that need to be dealt with, and some half truths. For example much of the "money" we spend on health care does create research jobs and support jobs here in the US.

But one way or the other we will have to control costs. Obamacare won't do that.

Quote: Palinista wrote in post #2

---

Years ago my father went into the hospital when he was very ill. While there a dietician came and spoke to him.

When he looked at the bill later, he could not believe how much the quick visit with the dietician amounted to.

He said, "I didn't request that woman's professional advice. I did not seek her out. She did not tell me anything I didn't already know. Why do I have to pay for a service that I did not ask for?"

That's when I realized that we have so little control over our own treatment in the hospital. We are a captive audience without any options.

---

Quote: Weird Tolkienish Figure wrote in post #4

---

They don't care because for most people insurance/medicare covers the cost. So the people don't care, the hospitals don't care. The only ones who care are people unlucky enough to be without insurance.

---

Some interesting and mind boggling information.

Zitat

---

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the pharmaceutical and health-care-product industries, combined with organizations representing doctors, hospitals, nursing homes, health services and HMOs, have spent $5.36 billion since 1998 on lobbying in Washington. That dwarfs the $1.53 billion spent by the defense and aerospace industries and the $1.3 billion spent by oil and gas interests over the same period. That’s right: the health-care-industrial complex spends more than three times what the military-industrial complex spends in Washington.

---

And all to benefit corporate medicine, not the individual stand alone physician who is being put out of business through over regulation, the costs of paper work, keeping up with ever changing coding standards, and malpractice insurance.

Zitat

---

The difference between the regulatory environment in the U.S. and the environment abroad is so dramatic that McKinsey & Co. researchers reported that overall prescription-drug prices in the U.S. are “50% higher for comparable products” than in other developed countries
. . .
The pharmaceutical industry’s common explanation for the price difference is that U.S. profits subsidize the research and development of trailblazing drugs that are developed in the U.S. and then marketed around the world. Apart from the question of whether a country with a health-care-spending crisis should subsidize the rest of the developed world — not to mention the question of who signed Americans up for that mission — there’s the fact that the companies’ math doesn’t add up.

According to securities filings of major drug companies, their R&D expenses are generally 15% to 20% of gross revenue

---

Quote: Justme wrote in post #5

---

We have always been self insured. Negotiate like you would anything else. As we are getting closer to 50 we're looking into catastrophic coverage. I am never cool with other people spending my money.

---

Got a chuckle out of this comment from KD:

Zitat

---

You're being robbed outright, and now it's in the "mainstream media."

Oh, and Obamacare? It further institutionalizes these practices by forcing you to participate and have your money stolen.

For how long will you sit back and tolerate this sort of outright theft in an amount that aggregates to nearly three trillion dollars annually, undertaken with the full permission and active participation of the United States Congress, the Administration and the States as well?

---

Quote: algernonpj wrote in post #9

---

Got a chuckle out of this comment from KD:

Zitat

---

You're being robbed outright, and now it's in the "mainstream media."

Oh, and Obamacare? It further institutionalizes these practices by forcing you to participate and have your money stolen.

For how long will you sit back and tolerate this sort of outright theft in an amount that aggregates to nearly three trillion dollars annually, undertaken with the full permission and active participation of the United States Congress, the Administration and the States as well?

---

---

That's the thing, even setting aside the non-propriety of it all, it is totally unsustainable and is ultimately going to explode in everyone's faces.

Quote: FP123 wrote in post #10

---

Quote: algernonpj wrote in post #9

---

Got a chuckle out of this comment from KD:

Zitat

---

You're being robbed outright, and now it's in the "mainstream media."

Oh, and Obamacare? It further institutionalizes these practices by forcing you to participate and have your money stolen.

For how long will you sit back and tolerate this sort of outright theft in an amount that aggregates to nearly three trillion dollars annually, undertaken with the full permission and active participation of the United States Congress, the Administration and the States as well?

---

---

That's the thing, even setting aside the non-propriety of it all, it is totally unsustainable and is ultimately going to explode in everyone's faces.

---

Which no doubt is it's real goal. Another reason for us all to sign on to some form of 'hope and change' in the form of global statism to 'save' us.

If you could get it through the jerks in the senate and congress heads, that, we the people would have a very good and an affordable health care if you got the illegals and sorry azz free loaders off the system, I am sick and tired of paying the bills of people to sorry to work and illegals that should not be here.