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Conjecture is silly when there's good data to be had. The number one cause of bankruptcy in the United States: > "medical expenses"[0] The average amount cha

Conjecture is silly when there's good data to be had. The number one cause of bankruptcy in the United States: > "medical expenses"[0] The average amount charged for an ER visit in the United States: > between 2008 and 2017, the average price of hospital ER visits rose 135 percent, from $393 to $924[1] The cost of an ambulance ride in the United States: > $164/mile[2] And make sure to compound the monetary cost with the cost of people avoiding medical care out of fear and unknowns surrounding the actual monetary cost. [0] take your pick of any study done by anyone [1] https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/average-cost-of-hospital-er-visits-jumped-135-4-other-insurance-report-findings.html https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/average-cost-o... [2] https://www.consumerreports.org/consumerist/164-per-mile-surprise-ambulance-bills-are-a-growing-problem-difficult-to-avoid/ https://www.consumerreports.org/consumerist/164-per-mile-sur...

com2kid 7y ago
ER visits at 924 are still far below the stories in this thread of 4-5 digit $ visits for simple issues. The OOP is still averaging under 300, again, not the horror stories in this thread. Problems exist, but it seems that only a small % of providers are horribly abusing the system. (of course a small % across over 300 million people is still a lot of harm!)
- kwhitefoot 7y ago
  USD 900 for an ER visit is a horror story too. Where does someone without savings get that kind of money from? At least it seems difficult for many: https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/22/pf/emergency-expenses-household-finances/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/22/pf/emergency-expenses-house... I don't live in the US and I'm not American so perhaps I'm missing some information.
  - com2kid 7y ago
    It needs to be fixed, but a $900 average that includes $200 charges for a $25 "medical boot" and charges for a $30 bandaid sounds like it may be not too hard to reduce costs across the entire board. If the average ER visit was 5K of unknown miscellaneous charges than that would indicate nationwide maliciousness on the part of nearly all hospitals. If only a small # of hospitals are engaging in that level of unfair billing, then they can possibly be investigated one by one. It is the same thing as "we have thousands servers that are crashing at random multiple times a day" versus "we have a bunch of servers that are low on RAM, and a couple servers that crash 5 times a day." Neither scenario is good to be in, but it is possible to get a hand on the latter scenario, while in the first scenario a "burn it all down and rewrite" fix might be appropriate.

com2kid 7y ago

ER visits at 924 are still far below the stories in this thread of 4-5 digit $ visits for simple issues. The OOP is still averaging under 300, again, not the horror stories in this thread. Problems exist, but it seems that only a small % of providers are horribly abusing the system. (of course a small % across over 300 million people is still a lot of harm!)

kwhitefoot 7y ago
USD 900 for an ER visit is a horror story too. Where does someone without savings get that kind of money from? At least it seems difficult for many: https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/22/pf/emergency-expenses-household-finances/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/22/pf/emergency-expenses-house... I don't live in the US and I'm not American so perhaps I'm missing some information.
- com2kid 7y ago
  It needs to be fixed, but a $900 average that includes $200 charges for a $25 "medical boot" and charges for a $30 bandaid sounds like it may be not too hard to reduce costs across the entire board. If the average ER visit was 5K of unknown miscellaneous charges than that would indicate nationwide maliciousness on the part of nearly all hospitals. If only a small # of hospitals are engaging in that level of unfair billing, then they can possibly be investigated one by one. It is the same thing as "we have thousands servers that are crashing at random multiple times a day" versus "we have a bunch of servers that are low on RAM, and a couple servers that crash 5 times a day." Neither scenario is good to be in, but it is possible to get a hand on the latter scenario, while in the first scenario a "burn it all down and rewrite" fix might be appropriate.