[hpoe]

Recently I got laser eye surgery to help my vision. This was not covered by my insurance. It also happened to be the simplest medical procedure/payment I ever had to interact with. They told me "this procedure will cost $X.XX and we have a discount we can offer you that will save you X%" I said okay and paid them the money.

Compare that to insurance being involved recently in my wife's diabetes supplies. My wife is a type 1 diabetic and needs supplies that monitor her blood sugar, we noticed her supplies didn't arrive on the scheduled date, we waited a week to see if they would show up and they didn't. My wife called the company that was supposed to send them, they said our account was in collections? Why, we never received a bill, we never were notified, but in collections we were. We eneded up paying and got that sorted out and waited another week, still no supplies. I'll cut it short and just say it took us 3 weeks being on the phone multiple times a day being bounced around between our insurance, the supplier and her dr, to finally get told we couldn't get the supplies because my wife had gotten a new phone and so the insurance company didn't have enough data to prove that she needed these supplies, and wouldn't reauthorize them. The drama is still ongoing.

Let's get this straight a huge part of the healthcare costs are directly related to insurance and the money and laws tied up in that. We need to get rid of insurance, and the way it works if we honestly want to make any change. Any other effort will only further entrench the confusopoly.

[zhdc1]

Several years ago, I lived in a country where I had high-deductible private insurance in lieu of the (then relatively new) national healthcare plan.

I was able to walk into a fairly large hospital, get a full battery of tests along with a thankfully minor diagnosis and medication for a small amount of money paid up front. The bill was itemized, translated, and I received excellent customer service.

[intergalplan]

Time dealing with our shitty medical billing system is a huge hidden cost of it. I'm also not sure how well accountings of US healthcare costs factor in things like the hours HR folks spend negotiating rates, or government folks in areas related to benefits et c. have to screw around with sorting out who has what private insurance.

[andrewlgood]

Simpler question is why you have to go through your health care insurer to buy the diabetes supplies. One of the distortions of having healthcare insurance paid for by companies is it makes it tax deductible. Thus $100 spent on healthcare by the company only costs them $60. If you paid the expense directly, it would cost you $100.

Imagine if auto insurance were eligible to be provided by your company as a tax deductible expense. We would all be buying our gasoline through our car insurance company.

[JJMcJ]

I have had some private pay medical treatment and can concur. Come in, write the check/present the card, and walk out. Fortunately it wasn't very expensive.

[EvanAnderson]

You're talking about an elective procedure, too, re: your laser eye surgery. Arguably there's "sales" involved.

I required a non-elective procedure not covered by my grandfathered pre-ACA insurance back in 2014. I attempted to "shop" the procedure around. It was was not at all easy. I would have rather dealt with insurance.

[anotha1]

Sorry to hear about your ongoing issues. Sadly, it's the same story thousands of times per day, often for people experiencing the final moments of their lives.

The healthcare insurance industry absolutely needs to be destroyed.

One day, we'll look back at this debacle similar to cigarettes, big industry manipulating the population and millions of people dying unnecessarily because of it.

It's time to end the suffering.