4 ms·
It was not a $69k hospital bill. It was just $2500 for him. But it sure does make a good headline.
by sgjohnson 5y ago
It was not a $69k hospital bill. It was just $2500 for him.
But it sure does make a good headline.
- throwaway675309 5y agoTrivializing the cost as "just $2500" speaks more about your privilege than it does anything else.
- sgjohnson 5y agoIt has nothing to do with privilege or anything other than basic relativity. $2.5k is “just $2.5k” relative to $69k for everyone.
- datavirtue 5y agoIt wasn't 69k either. That's the troll number the hospitals and insurance companies use to shock people and justify the actual high prices.
- mrguyorama 5y agoBut when they send you that bill, it is a legally valid debt that you owe them. The fact that you can negotiate large debts does not change that
- datavirtue 5y agoNo, they mark it down as $69,000 and then show the "insurance negotiated" rate underneath. They do this regardless of whether or not you are paying out on of pocket. If you are uninsured they do the same thing but the discount is for "self pay" or whatever. It just seems kind of stupid but most people just see the insurance rate that applies to them when they are paying out of pocket in the deductible range. It's propaganda/manipulation.
- nanoservices 5y agoSure... Who is the hospital billing $69k to, the insurance? Also $2,500 is still a lot.
- sgjohnson 5y agoNobody. Not even the insurance company paid that.
- telchior 5y agoNot a completely unreasonable headline, considering that an uninsured person would get a bill for something probably closer to $69k than $2.5k. I've gotten one of those bills before, and IMO the insanity of it cannot be pointed out enough times.
- bpodgursky 5y agoThis is true and the system is incredibly wasteful and dumb, but to be clear those uninsured people would immediately negotiate it down to about $250 by calling and saying "wtf am I supposed to do with this bill".
- olyjohn 5y agoOr they just put you on a payment plan for the rest of your life.
- telchior 5y agoNo. What really happens is that the hospital does a check on whether the uninsured person has any assets. If yes >> garnish the assets. This can include your business, your house, whatever you have. If no >> ok they're poor, let's negotiate it down to the limit of what they can pay. If they're really, really poor, it gets written off... and the other uninsured people bear the cost of that writeoff. That's one of the major reasons that the costs for uninsured people are so crazy; the hospital system is allowed to do that.
- deltaonefour 5y agoWell where did that 69k number come from? Seems like the person at fault here is person that generated that ludicrous number that's completely BS.
- legohead 5y agoYou can get an x-ray at urgent cares for around $75.