[kindle-dev]

I do feel that insurers get the short-end of the stick. The doctors and hospital are the ones charging $257,000. And they're also driving Teslas. I've lost all respect for the hospital system after receiving a $47,000 surprise bill from an ER visit to get a single stitch.

[aetherspawn]

Uh, ouch. I got charged like $80 for two nurses to give me a venesection (half hour blood letting) and supervision, which was fully covered by our public health care system and billed the government directly. Didn’t even have to get a receipt. Australia.

[me_me_me]

They know it, you dont have to twits their knife :/

[stevesearer]

Not as extreme, but I burned my hands on bacon grease a few years back and needed a trip to the ER and some bandages on both hands. When they were signing me out, I asked what care I was supposed to do for the bandages and they said to come back tomorrow and someone could show me.

A few weeks after, it was quite a surprise to receive a not one, but two pricey ER bills!

While the hospital ended up waiving the second visit, I imagine many people either pay it or go into debt especially since it required a couple of hours during business hours to sort out.

[Thorentis]

How the fuck does a single stitch cost that much money? It's not like the Australian government is paying $47k to hospitals under Medicare. Things just don't cost that much.

[deepsun]

If patient sues the doctor that the stitches were wrong, legal costs may go above the $47k. Cost of doing business.

[DSingularity]

Do you think most doctors are in it to stitch you up?

[s5300]

The doctors and hospitals are only charging that much because of a long running history of insurers otherwise not paying out.

If they charge $50, insurance will begrudgingly pay $5 if you're lucky.

So you have to charge $5000 for something fairly simple, in order to hopefully get close to $500

[kindle-dev]

This argument makes no sense. Medical bills are the number 1 cause of bankruptcy. Hospitals knowingly employ out-of-network doctors so they can bill patients huge sums directly.

[robbedpeter]

Maybe some "John Q Public" meets "Man On Fire" could shake things up. The trouble with civility is the people and institutions who exploit it.

[noduerme]

Agreed. This is a case where an unfree market has arrived at the most absurd and circuitous route to everyone getting a slice of the pie. It's crazy that a lot of Americans fight any reform of the insurance industry on the grounds that doing so would constitute socialism or an attack on the free market. What we have right now is the furthest thing from a free market. It's a set of local monopolies fixing prices, and another group (doctors) trying to get paid in a broken system.