OK, an important bucket list item is now out of the bucket – I did my civic duty, fulfilled my civic responsibility, by serving on a jury this week. The case ended yesterday – and it left a bitter taste in my mouth. But that’s not the purpose of this post.
Related: Trump Administration Joins Governors and Asks Court to Put ObamaCare Out to Pasture
I am uninsured from a healthcare insurance perspective. Just the way it has been since my former job was offshored to India and Mexico a couple of years ago.
THANKFULLY, I’m in relatively good health and nothing really bad has happened thus far. But, I’ve been trying to make and keep a doc’s appointment for a while. I had one scheduled for yesterday but when the Clerk of the Court announced that this case might go on for the entire week, I asked TMEW to cancel my appointment which she did. When we finished the trial deliberations early I went over to the doc’s office at Lakes Region Hospital to reschedule.
Now for the point of the title. I quickly walked over to the finance dept of the hospital to see if I could keep the cash discount for yesterday’s appointment and “re-purpose” it for December. All said and done, they took my money (LRGH had just declared Chapter 11 so of COURSE they took my money). Here’s what I found out.
- The doctor appointment price for just a regular yearly exam is $350 – a lot of money when the Grandson requires and has been soaking up a lot of any excess “I’m retired” monies. We took this on happily knowing it was going to happen and we’ve budgeted for things best we can. That’s why I had wanted to pay upfront before the appointment – pay it when I had it and then go in for the visit.
- I had talked with the Financial folks earlier in the month about getting a cash discount because of the lack of insurance.
- Immediately, they gave me a discount of 40%
- Because I was willing to pay early (they allowed for two days before any service), I receive an addition 20% discount from the original price.
That told me two things. The second discount was a reward for payment before the service was delivered – they saved, I’m betting, the higher-than-I-thought cost of chasing down deadbeats – not a small amount.
The first told me HOW MUCH HASSLING there must be, and time spent in getting paid, costs LRGH (and I would assume, other healthcare providers as well). And that’s from insurance companies that exist to pay out money.
Now, I, unlike many Socialist Progressives, am not shouting “MALFEASANCE!” on this point.
Sure, it most likely happens from time to time but the really bad actors are going to get nailed for it in the end. No, this is the cost of being able to correctly set up all the paperwork, send it, have somebody review it, make sure that every “T” is crossed and every “I” is dotted correctly, that every procedure and product issued for a given ailment is correctly specified….and it all takes time. And time, literally, is money. Receivables cost money, to be perfectly blunt.
TMEW just had her knee replaced and everything “worked” the way it was supposed to from Medicare and Humana extra coverage. Except for the Physical Therapist who was out of network, we saw very little of the $63,000 of the original pricing. I know, that because of agreements (we got copies), that the actual price paid was much lower as well.
But my small little example is illustrative of the cost of “free insurance.” Essentially, I got a 60% discount simply by cutting out the middle man.
When Obamacare started roiling of the US healthcare system, it was clear that it truly WASN’T “affordable” unless you were getting subsidies. When someone else is paying FOR you, of COURSE, you like “affordable” because it was essentially free. And the Rich still got care – they had the money to afford it. The upper-middle-class with insurance, sure.
It was the middle and lower-middle classes that got nailed – and while many that were previously uninsured became “insured,” all that Obamacare did was make a class of slightly better people, who made just above the subsidy levels, uninsured instead. Being an Alinsky devotee, Obama accomplished what old Saul couldn’t – he transferred from the “Haves” to the “Have Nots.”
The problem is that Obama didn’t care about the “New Have-Nots” just like the Progressives now are yelping that the rest of us are complaining when we see and hear that the “mostly peaceful” rioters are stealing receiving reparations from the stores they are torching. Once again, “responsible” wealth transfers from the Haves to the Have Nots outside the Rule of Law.
But I digressed.
Healthcare insurance should be like house and car insurance – a backstop for Black Swan health events – heart attacks, transplants, serious injuries and illnesses. Normal stuff, like most meds, doctor visits, and the like – pay out of pocket. You don’t expect your car insurance to fill your tank or pay for your new tires, do you?
Think of the money we’d ALL save if that was the model, again, of how healthcare operated. Why can’t we agree that Government intrusion into it has a made a hash of things?
There’s a lot more I could say but I’ve already gone long.
