
Greedy Hospitals Fleece the Poor - ProAm
https://newrepublic.com/article/155013/greedy-hospitals-fleece-poor
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DannyB2
Hospitals fleece the insured. Or their insurance companies. (But insurance
companies are not a magic pile of money in the sky, everyone's premiums are
affected.)

A poor, uninsured person visits the ER. They can't pay. The hospital writes it
off.

An insured person visits the ER. Their insurance pays. The hospital charges
outrageous prices to make up for the uninsured.

It seems like insured people are subsidizing uninsured people. Am I missing
something?

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shkkmo
Since the uninsured pay more than the insured for the same proceedure,
wouldn't that make it the uninsured who are subsidizing the insured?

Joking aside, tt is near impossible to find good numbers for this, but the
research I read indicates that most of the money for uncompensated care ends
up coming from government and any impact on prices of care for the insured is
negligible.

~~~
pkaye
So does that mean hospitals with low number of privately insured (instead
mostly uninsured and medicare/medicaid) will perform just as well as those
with high percent privately insured patients?

~~~
shkkmo
As I said, good numbers appear hard to find. Good luck even finding a good
estimate of what percentage of uninsured care is paid for by the uninsured.
The closest thing I found is that the insured and the uninsured tend to pay
about the same amount out of pocket but the uninsured have consistently lower
incomes so are spending a higher percentage of their income.

As a point of reference, I am uninsured and pay all my medical bills out of
pocket. I have never received any uncompensated care (because I can afford
it). I suspect that the uninsured pay for a much higher percentage of their
care than people assume.

~~~
pkaye
Yes its hard to figure this out. I've happened to find this interesting link.
Not sure how unbiased it is.
[http://truecostofhealthcare.org/hospital_financial_analysis/](http://truecostofhealthcare.org/hospital_financial_analysis/)

I have a pretty good private plan right now but being that I'm on dialysis,
I'll be forced onto medicare soon enough because 30 months after starting
dialysis, we have to switch to medicare as primary coverage. I just hope I
don't end up paying more out of my pocket.

~~~
goldenkey
That sounds rough. I had a kidney scare earlier this year due to creatine.
Luckily I recovered by being off of it. Can you tell a bit more about how your
kidneys got to their current state? Could help me or somebody else out.

~~~
pkaye
Mine is an autoimmune disease called IgA nephropathy. One day when your body
is fighting a cold or something your immune cells decide your kidneys are a
good place to attack. The immune cells are big so they damage the filtering
capacity of the kidneys. And you don't even notice it until your GFR (level of
kidney function) drops super low and you start feeling crappy.

There is not a lot you can do about IgAN except get lucky to catch it early
and slow its progress. However mine was a quick progressing one and happened
between doctor visits. Only thing I can say it get a baseline comprehensive
metabolic panel blood tests (its very cheap) and do it periodically to monitor
your health. The medical system tends to be reactive but you as an individual
should be proactive. If you think about it people get their cars checked out
more often than themselves.

