Health Insurance Sometimes Borders on a Racket
Posted by CircuitGuy 10 years, 3 months ago to Economics
We took our kid to a doctor for a minor but persistent respiratory problems. The doc suggested two possible diagnostic tests. We asked some questions about whether the results would affect which interventions we used. I thought the results may or may not be of some use, so I asked what it would cost. He said something like, “Oh no, do you have to pay for medicine [outside of health plan premiums]?” We told him yes, but the cost would not be a burden for us at all. We talked through it and we all decided the tests wouldn't affect the treatment and would only be worthwhile if someone else were paying for it.
This is the THIRD TIME in the past four years a doctor has suggested something that costs several thousand dollars and withdrew the suggestion after we took a moment to work through a quick-and-dirty cost/benefit analysis.
There was an opposite example with my wife's pregnancy. The doc started to say we could have so many ultrasound tests and then said, “oh wait, you're private pay. Nevermind. You can have them every day if you want. They're $183 each.”
These insurance plans that insure against every little trifling expenditure are a gravy train for providers. They start with people wanting to turn over responsibility for managing expenses to a company or gov't.
People should be free to make stupid health decisions, like my decision to indulge in Taco Bell and other unhealthful habits.
This is the THIRD TIME in the past four years a doctor has suggested something that costs several thousand dollars and withdrew the suggestion after we took a moment to work through a quick-and-dirty cost/benefit analysis.
There was an opposite example with my wife's pregnancy. The doc started to say we could have so many ultrasound tests and then said, “oh wait, you're private pay. Nevermind. You can have them every day if you want. They're $183 each.”
These insurance plans that insure against every little trifling expenditure are a gravy train for providers. They start with people wanting to turn over responsibility for managing expenses to a company or gov't.
People should be free to make stupid health decisions, like my decision to indulge in Taco Bell and other unhealthful habits.
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ethics do not permit them to take their own lives.
Moreover, faking reality isn't allowed in the Gulch.
What is this elsewhere of which you speak and why are you taking stuff there?
Whenever I run across someone who rubs me the wrong way, I just avoid their posts.
Eventually they hang themselves.
But to answer your question, I don't define what is, or isn't, welcome here...see if someone else wants to tackle that.
I've know about the problem for 10 years, but I rarely come into contact with it. I know some of the causes. I don't have a remedy.
I guess my remedy is not entering managed care insurance contracts and slowly build wealth to self-insure against all perils.
I agree with mostly every word of what you said: "We are deep into it."
You mentioned a market could resurface. There will always be a market. When you introduce a system, the poor will use it. People who can afford it will always buy and sell things in a market.
Whatever new extremes of exec power, intrusiveness, and spending are now precedents for the next person, unless there's a backlash.
Yes! What's weird about the cases I've seen in the past four years is that they involved thousands of dollars.
At this appointment, someone at the clinic mentioned some other non-medical approach, and said "but that would cost over $100". It just blew my mind. Their typical customer has a hard time paying $100 for something health related but pays thousands of dollars without a second thought. It's a complete market failure.
It's not news to me, but it was weird to hear it stated so plainly. It almost seemed like a scripted commercial for how badly a centralized system allocates goods and services.
It seems like you're just saying rude things. It wasn't a question, rather just a weird brief window I got into a system trying to do what a market should do.
That's a topic worthy of its thread or section of the website. My reason is I think he will put forward policies consisent with what I think is right better than the other choice.
Perhaps the dirty reason is a little urban/rural narrative works for politicians, they use it, and it sort-of works on me. One side says something that sounds good to urban people and bizarre to rural people. The other side does the opposite. Sometimes they're reall issues, but whatever they are, the urban/rural nonsense allows the duopoly to avoid talking about reducing the intrusivenss and cost of gov't.
Yes! We move coins around on a table trying to arrange them so they're worth more, as if there's some trick that makes goods and services appear for free.
"After you voted for more of these socialist policies"
Someone else said something like that. I obviously never did. What's up with that?
I don't have a solution. It was just weird to get a little real-life window into a system strugling and failing to do the job of a market.
BTW, it would have been neat to hear the answer if you could have politely asked that customer the relationship between her finding a lower-cost provider and single-payer. You would think she might say, "well the market worked this one time."
You seem to be setting out the dinner place cards....
Exactly! Second, third, other sources of evidence, and whatever it takes for rational people to form their own opinions.
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