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Facts On Healthcare
Market-Ticker ^ | March 26, 2017 | Karl Denninger

Posted on 03/27/2017 4:28:52 AM PDT by Wolfie

Facts On Health Care

Friday afternoon the Republicans "pulled" the AHCA without a vote.

This is the common way that the party in power makes sure you never get a recorded answer these days as to who opposes and who supports some piece of legislation: If there is no majority to pass it, they never vote at all.

(snip)

Let us remember that insurance is simply a math problem. That is, insurance is always and everywhere simply the expression of the formula [sum(p * c) + cost(operation of insurance company]

p = probability of having to pay a claim on a specific event c = cost of the event

And of course "sum" is the sum of all the "p * c" components that exist for all the things you bought the insurance against.

Given this fact I will now demolish a number of lies that you've been told.

Health insurance should cover routine and expected events. Nonsense. If p = 1.0 then it is always cheaper to simply pay cash because [cost(operation of the insurance company)] is never zero. For something where p = 1.0 for all, or nearly all of the population you should never buy insurance for same since p * c = c! Again, just in case you missed it: Putting such an expense through an insurance company will never cost less money; it is always cheaper to pay cash. The only reason to force such expected and certain events through any third party is to hide the cost from you and remove competitive pressure so that someone can jack up the price or collude with others to do so on a grand scale (which is illegal under 100+ year old law in 15 USC, by the way) and steal your money. Period.

(Excerpt) Read more at market-ticker.org ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: healthcare; ryancarebillpulled
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Why would you need health insurance if the following pricing was commonplace for the following routine medical things -- and remember to extend these representative samples to everything else in the medical field:
•MRI: $275
•CT scan: $167
•X-Ray: $37
•Mammogram: $142
•Ultrasound (pregnancy-related primarily, I suspect): $94
•A1c test (common for diabetics): $4
•CBC (complete blood count; common for a lot of diagnostics): $3.13
•Metabolic panel (common diagnostic as well): $3.50
•PSA screening (common for men over 50): $7
•3-Panel cholesterol (the cheap and common one): $3.94
•Tetanus booster: $20
•90 Prozacs: $1.98
•30 Prilosecs: $1.44
•30 Plavix (blood thinner; newer generation of Warfarin): $2.76
•90 Zocors (which I'd argue you probably ought not take at all!): $2.16

These are not fantasy prices -- they're real. They're what you could have today, or darn close to them if we had a conversation about competitive markets in medicine. I didn't pull these numbers out of my ass; they're on a "concierge" site for a "direct care" practice in Michigan and none of them are being provided at a loss.

1 posted on 03/27/2017 4:28:52 AM PDT by Wolfie
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To: Wolfie

The concierge site in Michigan is not using its prices to pay for obstetrical care for illegal aliens, treatment for drug addicts with bacteria eating their hearts, mobile coronary care units on standby 24/7/365 within 15 minutes of your house, or dialysis for anyone with kidney failure regardless of ability to pay.

The pricing structure of hospitals pays for all those things and much, much more. They even pay for 3 shifts of nurses, seven days a week, and you don’t get a separate bill for that. It’s priced in with the aspirin.

Obviously your own personal bills would (probably) be much cheaper if the system didn’t have you paying for everyone else also, but everyone else doing without is not an option you will ever be offered.

The only way to make the basic unit of care for everyone cheaper, affordable even, is to blow up the “insurance” industry and have Medicare pay direct.


2 posted on 03/27/2017 4:41:39 AM PDT by Jim Noble (Die Gedanken sind Frei)
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To: Wolfie

You aren’t just paying for a CT scan (for example) when you get a CT Scan. You’re paying for a legion of highly educated professionals to run the CT scanner, to maintain the CT scanner, to order the CT scan, to start your IV for the CT scan and to draw your blood before the CT scan (in order to evaluate your kidney function before you get the CT scan), and finally to interpret the CT scan results. That probably has a lot to do with why it all costs so much.


3 posted on 03/27/2017 5:04:09 AM PDT by RC one (The 2nd Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances)
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To: Wolfie

The concept of concierge care is great, but there are about 10 of them in the whole country. I think about 5 in the whole state of PA, 4 in Philly and one in Pittsburgh. So it’s not much help!


4 posted on 03/27/2017 5:12:35 AM PDT by Old_Grouch (69 and AARP-free. Monthly FR contributor.)
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To: Wolfie

My wife recently had a mammogram.
Our cost was over $500 if we used insurance. It was below our deductible so we’d have to pay the full “insurance price”.

She opted to pay about $200 “cash price” instead.

Same facility/equipment/personal. And the facility suggested we pay over 60% less, so I’d guess they aren’t the ones scamming people.

We have paid similar extra fees before because we knew we’d go way over the deductible that year and in the end it was cheapest for us. But no longer since we aren’t likely to hit the deductible.


5 posted on 03/27/2017 5:22:46 AM PDT by LostPassword
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To: Wolfie

Let me start by stating I AM a healthcare professional. I have been and MD for over 30 years.

That said, I say this: How did we get to the point where it is accepted that we should GIVE healthcare to poor people? Ponder that simple question. Think about it. How can any country, culture, or society persist if it accepts a premise like this? You can not produce a sustainable community of any size when a core value is that we should work together to try to meet an infinite need with a limited supply of ANYTHING.

Sorry, but the inescapable conclusion is that we have LOST our fight, right there. It may be harsh, insensitive, and unfeeling but when we can not point out simple, unbending logical fallacy on a fundamental level because we are afraid of being called mean we have lost.


6 posted on 03/27/2017 5:24:07 AM PDT by wastoute (Government cannot redistribute wealth. Government can only redistribute poverty.)
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To: wastoute

Excellent point,bit I would substitute willfully indolent for poor.


7 posted on 03/27/2017 5:38:21 AM PDT by Midnitethecat
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To: Jim Noble

He addresses that in the article. In short, it’s theft.


8 posted on 03/27/2017 5:40:59 AM PDT by Wolfie
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To: wastoute

Not to mention the people who, in ever increasing numbers, eat themselves into Type II diabetes, incurring hundreds of thousands if not millions in extra costs, and simply won’t change their behavior to make that unnecessary.


9 posted on 03/27/2017 5:44:26 AM PDT by Wolfie
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To: Midnitethecat

Normally, I would agree but I have seen things that really set me to thinking, decades ago. At that point in my career I was involved in ER medicine. Specifically, I was in charge of an Army Hospital’s ER. Decades ago. But it was an eye opener for things to come. I am not an economist so I am probably using the word “fungible” wrong but as I understand it, it refers to a resource that is “hard to pin down”. If it is stressed in one way it resiliently responds by changing and resurfacing somewhere or somehow in another way.

Healthcare ain’t like that. It cannot respond in the same way petroleum or rice can. It can only be brought to the interaction in question and utilized to advantage or it perishes and is wasted. The time the provider invested in the interaction is wasted. The resources provided don’t contribute in a positive way to “social progress” (to co-opt a term).

I have seen folks sign in for “free treatment” in the ER for A BROKEN FINGERNAIL. FOR A PAPER CUT. I once saw an E-7 spend 4 hours on a Sunday afternoon sitting in the ER waiting room for a free bottle of Tylenol for his Tension Headache. When I asked him if he realized he could have bought the same bottle of Tylenol at the PX for a buck or less his answer was the one I handed him was “free”.

I am telling you, of all the things we could propose to “give” poor people for free, healthcare is about the WORST.


10 posted on 03/27/2017 5:49:44 AM PDT by wastoute (Government cannot redistribute wealth. Government can only redistribute poverty.)
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To: Wolfie

And think about this. A good number of these obese got that way eating food that was GIVEN to them. We have literally gotten to the point where evil is good and good is evil.


11 posted on 03/27/2017 5:51:24 AM PDT by wastoute (Government cannot redistribute wealth. Government can only redistribute poverty.)
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To: Wolfie

Not just Ryan, but Reince Prebuis as he was suppose to run point on the healthcare legislation!

Know why it was pulled? Had more moderate Republicans vote against it!

Ryan & Prebuis didn’t do their jobs! Huge fail!

And it only stopped Planned Parenthood funding for ONE year!! Read page 23 of CBO report!

I can hardly believe Trump supported this.

Also wondering why Freedom Caucus is taking the fall for this in Trump’s eyes.


12 posted on 03/27/2017 5:59:59 AM PDT by Lopeover (The 2016 Election is about allegiance to the United States!)
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To: wastoute

I think one of the reasons it has come to this point is that most of the western world does provide healthcare to all its citizens. So many Americans say why can’t we. I have always been against single payer and believed our system was the best.

However, two years ago took the family to England and France for vacation. While there I asked every European I could how they liked their country’s healthcare. I was expecting to hear horror stories of how a family member died waiting for treatment, etc.

Everyone I talked to only had positive things to say about their country’s healthcare. Now I know this is just anecdotal evidence, I only talked to about thirty people, but I was surprised that I heard nothing negative from anyone. When I brought up our American health system they actually expressed pity to me. They thought it was horrific that someone could become destitute from a medical emergency.

Now I’m not saying that this convinced me that single payer is better than our system. (Also our constitution does not give the the federal government the authority to run such a system. If the majority of the American people decided they wanted to have the government run a single payer system then they should have their representatives propose a constitutional amendment along those lines and then have their state representatives pass it.). However, it has made me look at the issue again.


13 posted on 03/27/2017 6:01:07 AM PDT by OIFVeteran
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To: wastoute

Ted Kennedy is the granddaddy of socializing medicine in the modern era... I fully expect him to be made a saint before my flesh returns to dust.

Just think, you are nearly a US government employee....


14 posted on 03/27/2017 6:02:17 AM PDT by Just mythoughts
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To: Wolfie

The Myth of preexisting conditions.

In reality it is giving a free guarantied win lottery ticket to a small portion of the population who fall ill to a serious disease and chose to not purchase insurance prior to it.

Avoiding this is why we have insurance.


15 posted on 03/27/2017 6:08:00 AM PDT by Rik0Shay
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To: wastoute

I know that had to be Air Force personnel. Not Marines or Army.


16 posted on 03/27/2017 6:09:21 AM PDT by OIFVeteran
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To: wastoute

I have been in healthcare for as long as you have. Hospitals are spending $1 and getting $0.25 reimbursement. This started almost,in part, with hillarycare in 87-88, regulations went through the roof and insurance companies found out they could take in cash by increasing their prices in a seriously non-competitive market. Medicare is provided through an insurance company, why? Aren’t there supposed to be Medicare funds? I see them come out of my paycheck.
Btw I work in tha lab, running UAs on asymtomatc 20&30 year olds makes no clinical sense, they are 99 percent neg.
Fast forward to our day, people are seen in the ER for congestion, daily. Congestion? Unless you are at-risk, go to your reg doctor.
There should be an immediate coordination with the local health department to schedule the 38 Yr old with congestion within 48 hours.
Now, the drug seekers know your reimbursement is tied to their ratings, no pain pills today, no good rating. Lower reimbursement and less care.
This entire Obamacare was designed to fail.
So who decides and how does that person get held accountable if we choose not to provide a particular person with healthcare? If not for all, who do we turn away and how do we do it? Do we really turn away methheads? What if we missed our one chance to stop the addiction?
And finally, where do we draw the line on the chronic or terminally ill? It’s all fine and well until it’s your daughter, son, wife, mother or father.
I believe there is a psychological disorder for people who seek healthcare weekly or monthly for benign and normal illnesses. It it social? Is it because they can’t spend money on NyQuil because they are saving it for cigarettes?


17 posted on 03/27/2017 6:10:34 AM PDT by momincombatboots (pathway to citizenship... Amnesty history repeats. Walling Illegals In wasn't the idea moron!)
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To: OIFVeteran

Simple answer. In those countries where “healthcare is free” once you look more closely at just WHAT things are provided free it ain’t what you and I think of as healthcare. You don’t go in with “back pain” and get an MRI scan. You get what we refer to as “recommended, evidence driven, health MAINTENANCE” for free. A lead level when you are five. A cholesterol level at 50. A mammogram at 50.

For your back pain you are given the address of somebody that charges money.

YMMV as to time and place, but NO COUNTRY GIVES ANYTHING FREE ON DEMAND TO EVERYBODY, not even air or water. Sorry to burst the bubble of so many but just a sad fact.


18 posted on 03/27/2017 6:10:38 AM PDT by wastoute (Government cannot redistribute wealth. Government can only redistribute poverty.)
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To: Wolfie
Obamacare is so expensive because the "high risk" people are in the same pool as everyone else; the AHCA would "fix this" by putting back in place High Risk Pools and insurance costs would drop substantially for health people.

AHCA would not fix this because it did not remove the requirement to cover pre-existing conditions and it did not allow insurance companies to cap their liability at a set amount.

19 posted on 03/27/2017 6:13:04 AM PDT by DoodleDawg
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To: Wolfie

When I went into the workforce, we had “Major Medical” only and paid out of pocket for everything else. Office visits were out-of-pocket, as were prescriptions. We shopped for an inexpensive pharmacy and bought our prescriptions there. Now doctors fill out insurance forms and include the costs for form-filling in their bill.
People expect zero-co-pay and wind up paying 10 times over with the insurance company and their army of clerks.

Healthcare would be much cheaper if we still had these options.


20 posted on 03/27/2017 6:13:22 AM PDT by BuffaloJack ("If you're going through Hell, keep going." Winston Churchill)
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