Why medical bills are killing us
There is a lot of ongoing discussion about healthcare in this country, and we have all had our personal experiences with it, good or bad. But aside from all the political debate, I always thought there was a crucial discussion missing, and it is the one about prices.
Coming from a country where the raw unsubsidized healthcare prices are easily 5 to 10 times cheaper than here for the exact same quality of care, I was always astonished that it never really came up in any of the debates. These are always about the structure and who will pay for what, but never adress what looked to me like the core issue, The Prices!
Of course over the last 10+ years, and many medical bills later, I started to have some ideas of my own…
So I was thrilled when recently Time Magazine published a report (link at the end) called “Why medical bills are killing us” stating within the first few paragraphs:
“When we debate health care policy, we seem to jump right to the issue of who should pay the bills, blowing past what should be the first question: Why exactly are the bills so high?
What are the reasons, good or bad, that cancer means a half-million- or million-dollar tab? Why should a trip to the emergency room for chest pains that turn out to be indigestion bring a bill that can exceed the cost of a semester of college? What makes a single dose of even the most wonderful wonder drug cost thousands of dollars? Why does simple lab work done during a few days in a hospital cost more than a car? And what is so different about the medical ecosystem that causes technology advances to drive bills up instead of down?”
It is a long enlightening and infuriating article, but if you can stick with it, you will learn a lot. It examines a series of concrete cases and extracts from them many of the causes for these abnormally high prices.
It will also give you precious information on the managing of hospital bills in case you ever get really sick or end up not having sufficient coverage.
I think everyone should read this. First to protect themselves from hospital practices, but also because If nothing is done, it will bankrupt us all.
You can buy this special issue of Time Magazine, but it is also available online at the link below:
//healthland.time.com/2013/02/20/bitter-pill-why-medical-bills-are-killing-us/print/
UPDATE: The full article seems to have been removed at the link above, so I guess at this point you either need to be a subscriber, or you should buy the special report edition of Time Magazine.
Here are some interviews with the author of the article
//www.ritholtz.com/blog/2013/02/tds-steven-brill-on-why-medical-bills-are-killing-us/
It’s totally ridiculous, for sure. If I didn’t get Kaiser through work, I don’t know what I’d do. My husband had a hip replacement and we paid $250 out of pocket – never saw a bill.
You are lucky, but Kaiser isn’t the solution. I had a friend who went to Kaiser with chest pains. They sent him home without a stress test. Told him to rest. He was dead in a week.
My travels have convinced me that Americans might be the world’s most colossal hillbillies. Without ever going abroad to see what other people have accomplished, the average American concludes that he and his country has nothing to learn about… anything. This includes our healthcare. Xenophobia guarantees cultural decline.
Mark Twain wrote, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”
It’s true. I love when people bitch about France’s or Canada’s healthcare. I’ve lived in both countries and their healthcare and doctors are superior in my opinion. Yes you can find a good doctor here but most times it’s about the money not the patient care. Especially in VA.