4 ms·
I can't think of any other business that can get away with not even giving you a ball-park estimate on costs. If my car breaks down, my mechanic will at least
by rolobio 6y ago
I can't think of any other business that can get away with not even giving you a ball-park estimate on costs. If my car breaks down, my mechanic will at least give me an estimate within a hundred bucks or so. But a hospital has no idea what it will cost (and neither does insurance) until they finally negotiate that specific case.
Another issue is that insurance does not have to compete across state lines. They've divvied up the country and are sticking to their corners (much like ISPs).
Insurance should be required to accept customers from anywhere in the country. Hospitals should be required to publish prices. These seem like no-brainers to me. But hospitals and insurance make too much money, and give too much of it to congress for any real change.
- dbbk 6y agoWhy should a hospital have a price list? Does the fire department? The police?
- bjtitus 6y agoBoth public services which don’t directly bill you. Maybe something like a public health system is a good idea...
- exolymph 6y agoHospitals are not particularly equivalent to fire departments or the police, since the latter two are paid for by taxes. Some hospitals definitely do get some money from taxes, but as far as I know that isn't the norm.
- dbbk 6y agoThis is my point... it should be a public service paid for by tax.
- rolobio 6y agoThey do have a price list. I receive it every year as my property taxes.
- HarryHirsch 6y agoDoes the fire department Apparently there are unincorporated areas that do not have fire service from the county but you can buy fire service from the nearest city's fire department. If you do not have fire service the firemen come and watch that the fire does not spread from your property to the neighbours who have service. This ends up just as you would expect. The poorest and most indigent go without, and then there's death threats, newspaper coverage, the works. You wonder why people are permitted to make themselves wards of the state because if your house burns down your biggest savings vehicle is gone and you are homeless and a burden on the public pocket. Similarities with medical coverage are incidental.
- ProAm 6y agoThe police sure do for tickets they give. Those penalty fees are all set. Hospitals should have listed fees for procedures.
- irlib 6y agoWell, they have a publicly accessible price list in most hospitals out of USA.
- Bubbadoo 6y agoActually, hospitals do publish prices. Well they do and they don't. As in, good luck finding that price list. The Feds require them to do that so hospitalizations can be indexed for medicare.