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San Francisco General Hospital is focused on serving the public, i.e. those without private health insurances. Per Wikipedia: About 80 percent of its patient p
by jdavis703 8y ago
San Francisco General Hospital is focused on serving the public, i.e. those without private health insurances. Per Wikipedia:
About 80 percent of its patient population either receives publicly funded health insurance (Medicare or Medi-Cal) or is uninsured. SFGH also cares for the homeless, who make up about 8 percent of its patients.
They effectively use the high rates for privately insured folks to subsidize their public mission. Of course this all speaks to a really broken health care system, but it's not like uninsured people would have been charged even more than $20k.
- mc32 8y agoThis the Robbin Hood approach to a problem. How on Earth does a public hospital think it’s ethical to exploit people like this and think it’s okay to do because I’m helping someone else?
- gowld 8y agoIt's price discrimination and it's how most businesses operate because that's the only viable option in many industries.
- r00fus 8y agoIt’s only a viability issue because everyone does it. Regulation can help here.
- pkaye 8y agoWhat other options does the public hospital have?
- shhehebehdh 8y agoUmmm taxes.
- pkaye 8y agoBut that is not under control of the hospital. The lawmakers need to enact it.
- fmajid 8y agoThat argument would hold water if they didn't also receive nearly a billion a year in funding from the City of San Francisco.
- dmckeon 8y ago(Z)SFGH is also the only Level I trauma center in SF City/County and San Mateo County (415 and 650 area codes) (note: trauma patients in the southern part of SM county are taken to Stanford Hospital). So, under their billing practices, if you suffer major trauma, say in a vehicle collision, and are taken to SFGH, you may win multiple lotteries: major injury, recovery time, major medical bills to pay, and the chance to pay some other people’s medical bills as well, depending on the hospital policy, and whether you have an HMO or PPO (details are complicated.) The thing that most US Americans stumble over here is their general expectation that goods and services have a price, and that bargaining for a better price is not an option. We do not expect to bargain over groceries in a supermarket, or gasoline when fueling, or most other goods. In a professional setting, like a medical office, trying to negotiate a price seem inappropriate. But behind the scenes, a vast network of third parties are negotiating on behalf of other patients, and the uninformed or naive consumer not only pays “retail” but is asked to pay a wildly inflated price that all the third parties know is merely an initial offer.
- masonic 8y ago(415 and 650 area codes) Much of 650's population is in Santa Clara County (Mtn. View, Palo Alto, parts of Sunnyvale)