What a great day!! NOT

[Davdeb1]

I am just skipping over 5 pages of threads. I tried to read them, but there is so much prejudice and hatred from all sides, that very few can see the truth. No matter what anyone says, opinions are opinions.

Health insurance, not health care, is the problem. until we decide that health care for everyone instead of health insurance for everyone is the answer, the only winners in this will be the insurance companies, and the fee-for-service providers. They are driving costs up, along with, and I almost forgot, the drug companies. We are drinking the Koolaid, given to us by drug companies, convincing us that we should demand the drug they are peddling, no matter what the costs, and providers pushing more and more services, tests, and procedures. We all want the best drug, the best test, the best procedure. We are unwilling to eat properly, walk 30 minutes, or do anything that would require restraint or sacrifice.

Obviously, I am not speaking for everyone. I just feel every intelligent person knows that proper diet and moderate exercise is far more important than your choice of doctors, procedures, or drugs.

I can hardly wait to see how many quotes on this post will just include the first two lines.

[wildtoad]

Originally Posted by Davdeb1

Health insurance, not health care, is the problem. until we decide that health care for everyone instead of health insurance for everyone is the answer, the only winners in this will be the insurance companies, and the fee-for-service providers.

First, I totally agree with you on the diet, personal habits, exercise, and to add personal responsibility are critical to improving the health of all of us and help reduce the over cost of health care.

Second, I totally agree with you that the focus on health insurance for everyone is the wrong tact and we need to find a way to provide access to basic health care for our citizens.

Health insurance companies make for a great "Bad Guy" in the discussion as THEY are the ones denying coverage or denying claims. I don't have any particular issue with universal health care as long as if I'm broken I don't have to wait to be fixed. I'm ok with waiting to have a knee replacement (as an example) as long as I can have some good drugs in the meantime.

And I didn't quote all the lines ....

[wildtoad]

Originally Posted by WheelingIt

Sure. I"m happy to post it. We use Coventry and are based in South Dakota. We got the insurance through ehealthinsurance.com. It's nationwide.

Thanks

[Midniteoyl]

Originally Posted by Jack1234

Mexico

[Perry White]

Wanna have some fun?

Put out an MRI you need for bids. Wholly cow. Need to have more discovery in the medical bills. If everybody started shopping price, prices would come down. It ain't insurance companys, well, maybe.

[SRT]

Originally Posted by desertrv

This medical thing is going to put the entire country in trouble.

We're already in trouble.....

[WheelingIt]

Originally Posted by WheelingIt

Left a message. We'll see when they get back to me.

Well a week of trying and no call back from the finance guys at the hospital. Unfortunately that reflects my experience of how hard it is to get pricing. I'm not going to keep calling them.

For those interested I've found another article on how hard it is to figure out price for medical services. I really do feel lack of price transparency is a major problem in our system and this is exactly what I've experienced trying to shop around for care. It's close to impossible to figure out actual costs, even for very simple procedures.

Looks like there is movement to improve this however. The Health Care Blue Book’s Web site that I listed in a prior post is one resource. Another one is Fair Health’s consumer Web site, which I hadn't seen before.

Decoding Your Medical Bill - NYTimes.com

[laj]

I don't think it's really that hard on a already done med bill. The problem is people want to know before whatever procedure they are going to have done what the exact cost will be, no two people are the same, this isnt your mh your taking in for a standard oil change a friend of mine is a nurse auditor for a major hospital. What you have to do is fully understand medical procedures what practices are standard for that procedure , and coding in order to be able to decode your bill. It's way deeper then just this superficial post. Trying to get a cost up front for about anything other then a knee scrape is about impossible. You can but only if you know for absolutely certain everything that is going to happen during that surgery. What is going to and as so many can see kill health care is people's idiot eating habits. you eat one way all your life,wake up at 50 need a heart bypass for a mere 50k, that only extends life about 25 percent of the time, continue eating the same way and expect different results. Not going to happen.
There isn't a Dr. out there That can cure any major disease. He can at best control it. Only you can cure it.