I've have Humana for my prescriptions. Because the Friends in Washington require you to they haven't paid one cent.
Humana cutting back.....
- Thread starter ZZman
- Start date
They are all thieves. Went to get a new prescription filled last week using my Medicare part D plan. Cost was $130.00 and change. I said no way that is crazy. I asked what it would be just buying it out of pocket. Pharmacist said $28.00 So that is how I purchased it. Thank you Insurance company.
If you feel you are paying too much ask for an outright price. Often cheaper. The pharmacist is forbidden contractually by the ins co. to offer you the alternative price. But if you ask they can do it.
If you feel you are paying too much ask for an outright price. Often cheaper. The pharmacist is forbidden contractually by the ins co. to offer you the alternative price. But if you ask they can do it.
GON
$150 Site Donor 2025
Competition and free markets always solve market problems. Encouragement of free markets, removal of government imposed barriers to entry, and removals if restraints to trade will provide all Americans better more accessible healthcare at a fraction of today's costs.
USA is the world standard for health care and I am not sure how much I want more or less regulations. Works fine for me thank you very much
America voted for closed markets back in Jan 2009 which I did not agree with either. Americans lost the ability to pick and choose the coverage they wanted and had to go with mandated coverage
GON
$150 Site Donor 2025
Very glad the U.S. healthcare is working out well for you. Not glad that the tradeoff is inflation and debt/deficit. At some point reality will come out.USA is the world standard for health care and I am not sure how much I want more or less regulations. Works fine for me thank you very much
America voted for closed markets back in Jan 2009 which I did not agree with either. Americans lost the ability to pick and choose the coverage they wanted and had to go with mandated coverage
Have you downloaded and looked at the the list of standard rates from your preferred hospital system that became law they had to publish starting January 1st of this year? I have. Its 46,000 line items. I don't understand any of them.
To ensure a free market the primary need is the free flow of information to all market participants. Thats why corporate earnings are published at the same time to anyone that cares to look and insider trading is illegal - unless your in congress, because they know its benefit and hence pass laws to enrich themselves.
So if I need healthcare, I have to trust what my provider suggests - because I don't know. And I have to trust my insurance company to pay because I don't understand the list of 46,000 items. So I have conflicting interests with me in the middle - I consume the healthcare, which is recommended by a third party and paid for by a third party, and I have little if any understanding on how that works. You can't have a free market - lack of information flow due to no neutral understanding.
Milton Friedman wrote about this in regards to government spending - in that the government can never be as efficient as the private sector because there spending money that is not there own. Health insurance is the same issue.
If we all could somehow learn to self diagnose and understand the 46,000 prices for possible medical services, we would still need to do away with Medicaid, Medicare and VA. Because those three represent just about half of all health care spend and its growing. So you can't possibly have a free market when a single payer controls more than half the market, irrelevant of who that payer is.
So we have never had a free market health insurance market, and we never can. Not saying there is not room for improvement, but we can't have a free market because the needed pieces can't exist by definition.
This coming from a complete free market guy.
GON
$150 Site Donor 2025
If U.S. citizens had to pay for healthcare out of their own pocket, I am quite sure a collapse in pricing would occur.
It is Sunday morning for me, I am currently working in Bangkok. Bumrungrad is a hospital in Bangkok, often rated as a top 100 hospitals in the world. I have been told this hospital costs per patient procedure are 92 percent less than the U.S. if accurate, that is a huge difference.
Of note, I have visited patients in n Bumrungrad hospital , always amazed at how modern, well run, and effective the hospital is
https://www.bumrungrad.com/en
Is Bumrungrad a hospital any local can walk in and get help, or is it a medical tourism destination? A quick google search tells me that Bangkok does in fact provide universal health care to all their citizens. So in that case the low costs can't be associated with a free market - its not a free market there. Unless of course they serve people who are not from Bangkok.
Either way, who in the US is ever going to agree to pay out of pocket for healthcare directly - forgoing insurance completely, not to mention medicare, medicaid and VA. Our society would deem that unacceptable.
Anyway, safe travels!
Last edited:
I agree some third world countries have world class hospitals but we are much more fortunate here in the USA.
The hospital you mention (boy you really travel don’t you?!?!?) is a world class hospital that serves the wealthy and the medical tourism industry. Like all things in third world countries costs are lower for everything and anything even many doctors make the salaries of less than 100k a year which could be a school teacher here. But everything is cheaper right down the line in every aspect of life there.
It’s a private hospital not part of the government system and certainly much to all of the Thai population cannot afford to go there. It caters to the wealthy and those that can pay cash. Correct me if I am wrong. But I know that hospital does not serve the general Thai population unless they can pay for it themselves as it is not part of the government system that common Thai people go to.
With that said here is the USA those with any kind of insurance including government Medicaid can be treated in the best USA hospitals and the hospitals are not just for rich people who can pay cash.
https://www.seadoc.co/guide/top-international-hospitals-in-thailand-for-foreign-patients
It can never be a free market. With basic essentials like housing and food, people know what they need and shop in advance. No one knows if they are going to get sick, or when.
If a lifesaving drug is only available from the one company that holds the patent on it, the patient's choice is to pay that company's price, or die.
If a lifesaving drug is only available from the one company that holds the patent on it, the patient's choice is to pay that company's price, or die.
Much like Epipens price increasing 6x in 2016.
But capitalism or something. You can live as long as you have money.
Anybody remember that airforce veteran that lit himself on fire in 2018 to protest the poor treatment by the VA? There's that good world-class stuff.
We are lucky that there were good people in history that did not patent their research, like Penicillin. Today, not so much.
Last edited:
Most other countries learned long ago that the only way to contain costs was a universal system.
And Medicare has a funding issue. The Medicare tax rate hasn't increased in decades even though more are on it, live longer, takes more drugs and have more expensive procedures.
And Medicare has a funding issue. The Medicare tax rate hasn't increased in decades even though more are on it, live longer, takes more drugs and have more expensive procedures.
Market is not free at all. Highly controlled and all kinds of bad health information fed into the system by gov
The worse kind of corruption is when gov and biz cooperate
Your not in Medicare then, just clarifying for others since two conversations going on here, Medicare and non Medicare
Once you are 65 you do not have to carry health insurance of any kind. In Hospital only coverage is free and you do not have to have or pay for anything else if you do not want it.
Doctor, outpatient care, tests, drugs etc are optional coverages
In the USA Medicare treats all people as equals. They get the world’s best care. Try living in some other countries and find out about thier system and why the rich fly here for treatment or to places like @GON
Posted.
People think it’s so great to have government controlled health care system?
I find that amazing that people think that much about government run institutions. People in other countries are stuck in government systems that don’t come close to our level of care. Anyone who can afford to go outside the government run heath care for treatment do so.
There are two levels of care in many places overseas, those in the system and those who can afford to pay go outside the system to a private institution
https://apnews.com/article/uk-infected-blood-inquiry-report-cc37acdc60798c7af82131efce63b6f1
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-69037200
https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2018/12/19/international-patients
Last edited:
Your examples are not on point. One is about tainted blood that had nothin to do with socialized care, and the other has to do with people coming here for care and how there screened.
We do have the best care on earth. We have the best providers. We also have way too much administration and bureaucracy with their hands out so we also pay the most with those that buy private / employer health insurance or pay out of pocket that subsidize the rest of the system.. A small subset pays a lot more for everyone else's care.
Go look up the cost for a CT scan here, or in a modern country like Japan or Germany. I choose CT simply because its an automated test and there are really only 2 manufacturers of those machines. Hint - its way cheaper there.
I pulled this out of my hospitals spreadsheet of required published cost. I really don't know what it is but I believe its some sort of CT scan. What is interesting is there are 20 different prices. I assume the very two low outliers are some sort of state medicade administrator or an error. Also note there is no Medicare direct pay. This is a state run hospital. I assume there is some sort of meeting in a smoke filled room to determine that number.
Please tell me how having 20 different rates for the same standard service makes any sense? It would be like your grocery store having 20 prices for milk dependent on who you were?
And you can't really price shop here. What if you could and Insurance companies gave you a break for it.
How do you price shop for emergency treatment?
And many take surgery vacations to other countries. Most complaints are waiting for surgeries and such. When everyone is covered and using services of course there will be a wait for non emergencies. Is having no coverage or going bankrupt better?
Similar threads
- Locked
