
Texas Is Latest State to Attack Surprise Medical Bills - HillaryBriss
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/06/18/733369370/texas-is-latest-state-to-attack-surprise-medical-bills
======
taxidump
Has a family member go to a private emergency room in Austin TX. When asking
the ER if they accepted his insurance they said yes, many times. After the
visit he recieved an $8000 bill. When confronted, the business stated they
accepted the patients insurance however the insurance company would not accept
the ER. Settled the $8000 bill for $300. Pretty sketchy.

~~~
folkhack
It's not even a surprise for me anymore when this happens (3-4 times in my
life). They make more money this way and I figure a ton of people either just
default on the debt or eat the expense because they don't understand.

The worst part is that they will keep you on the phone sometimes for upwards
of 8+ hours to settle this sorta crap - I am lucky to have a job that I can
keep a phone on hold via speaker for hours and hours at a time.

Protip for anyone reading this - they put a "hey Mr. X, you still with us?"
human bit spaced out by around 45 minutes-ish. Don't miss it or be on mute
because they'll drop the call in about 2s if you don't immediately answer
effectively making you start ALL over again.

~~~
toomuchtodo
The quick way to fix this is to open a complaint with your state’s insurance
regulatory body, which begins a paper trail and starts a clock ticking for
your insurance provider.

Always Be Creating A Paper Trail

~~~
folkhack
Yep I agree. But here's the thing we all have lives and they're BANKING on
that for this sort of abuse of the system.

I think a lot of people A) don't know about the state insurance regulatory
body; and B) just want the nightmare to be over as soon as possible, so
calling yet another person up is more time involved.

Every time it's happened to me it's staying on hold for an outrageous amount
of time then saying something along the lines of, "I'm going to review this
with my lawyer" when someone gets on the phone. It's the same with any bully -
the moment they know you potentially have some teeth they leave you alone to
go pick on a weaker target =(

I also have zero confidence in government employees so there's that too - I
would just expect my case to end up on someone's desk indefinitely to never
get addressed. Everything in this country is going towards anti-citizen and
anti-consumer - hard not to be really bitter about it =(

~~~
toomuchtodo
My answer is single payer in the long term, and consumer protections in the
short term. Sorry you don't trust government; citizens are who decide how
government runs. Private insurance isn't accountable to anyone.

~~~
wavepruner
In a democracy the lowest common denominator of citizens determines policy.
They are easily manipulated by moneyed interests and always insanely
uninformed (not because they are stupid but because it is impossible to know
everything). Knee-jerk, short-term policy is a given.

Private insurance companies are held accountable by the customer's ability to
switch plans.

I understand that billing is an incredibly frustrating issue, but forcing
people to participate in one master healthcare system would be devastating to
people battling poorly understood diseases. People in this situation
desperately need choice in their healthcare options.

~~~
toomuchtodo
The choice to have different private insurance companies deny them treatment?

------
King-Aaron
Boy, imagine a system where part of your taxes could go towards a publicly
funded healthcare system which would prevent problems such as this from
arising in the first place.

~~~
Boxbot
I think you'll find that a running your healthcare expenses and approvals thru
labyrinth of private, corporate bureaucracies, each siphoning off a portion of
of the available money and incentivized to increase that amount however
possible while offloading all expenses possible onto you, is in fact the
ultimate expression of freedom. Please report to your local consumer
reeducation camp for programming.

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
I sometimes feel that if Amiericans traveled more around the world it would
help to eradicate false beliefs like these.

~~~
testpostpls
I’ve yet to travel to a country of 330 million people or more with flawless
public healthcare. Perhaps you could point me to one?

~~~
King-Aaron
Well there's only two other countries with more than 330 million people so
that's a bit of a poor argument to make, and it assumes that the well-
functioning systems in (most, if not all) other western countries won't scale
- I'm not entirely sure where such an assumption comes from.

Probably a refusal to imagine it as a possibility in the first place, I
suppose.

~~~
true_religion
National level public healthcare would be difficult to implement in the US for
the same reason a pan European standard would be hard to implement.

That said, if you do it on a state by state basis then qualify will vary just
like it does between the different European countries.

But as the US is a single nation, the mere existence of variation will mean
some people say the system is a failure.

------
alyandon
My son had an emergency ER visit due to a cut right above his eye. The ER
staff assured me repeatedly that they were in network. Turns out the ER was in
network but they neglected to tell me that all the staff there were
contractors and that the contract service company was out-of-network for my
insurance.

So, a few months later I got hit with a surprise bill in the neighborhood of
$2000... for what amounted to a few stitches.

I freaking hate the US health care system.

------
csunbird
> In fact, getting a steep hospital bill is something more Americans say is
> their biggest financial fear.

This is a pretty bad thing. I can't imagine being sick and afraid of going to
ER because there is a possibility of getting bankrupted.

~~~
asteli
Happens to loads of people. I hear about people getting shot and having
someone drive them to the hospital to avoid the ambulance fee.

I was in a motorcycle accident and declined to even go to a hospital because I
was uninsured at the time. Injuries were relatively minor (nothing broken but
I didn't walk right for a while), but I had to make a judgement call moments
after I flew through the air and hit my head enough to break the visor off my
helmet. I got lucky, others have done the same and succumbed to internal
injuries that weren't apparent.

------
thorwasdfasdf
I'm glad to see that more states are taking this more seriously. Finally we're
starting to head in the right direction. Here is the solution: "When a
hospital and insurer can't agree on a price, the two parties will have to work
it out — without ever billing the patient."

Although I would like to see more action taken to prevent hospitals from
billing so high in the first place. Otherwise we just end up paying for in the
insurance premium.

Also, they should make it illegal for "out of network" personel/equipment to
be used if you're in a in-network hospital. or just make out-of-network
illegal all together.

------
IAmEveryone
A lot of credit for movement on this issue should go to Vox. They have
invested time and money into a data-driven investigation of this issue:
[https://www.vox.com/2018/2/27/16936638/er-bills-emergency-
ro...](https://www.vox.com/2018/2/27/16936638/er-bills-emergency-room-
hospital-fees-health-care-costs)

It's a good example of the role that a vibrant press plays in a democracy, and
it might warrant considering adding vox.com and similar outlets to your ad
blocker's whitelist.

~~~
dredmorbius
NPR also, in addition to TFA:

[https://www.npr.org/sections/health-
shots/2018/02/16/5855495...](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-
shots/2018/02/16/585549568/share-your-medical-bill-with-us)

[https://www.npr.org/sections/health-
shots/133188447/health-i...](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-
shots/133188447/health-inc)

------
rossjudson
Is it possible that this is an issue where the parties could find...agreement?

~~~
scarface74
I have to say that this was one hope that I had for the current administration
before he took office. Trump said the entire current health system was a mess
before he got elected. Since he wasn’t beholden to either party and his
strength came from his base, he could have pushed _something_ good through and
conservative politicians would have to go along.

Most of the ACAs faults were caused by Congress not being able to improve it
without the parties working together.

It would have been an “only Nixon can go to China” moment.

~~~
IAmEveryone
I don't think the “only Nixon can go to China” was ever meant to be
_prescriptive_. Using it as a voting tactic would basically always mean voting
for the candidate _opposed_ to your ideas.

It's also doubtful that it is even empirically correct: Nixon may have gone to
China, but Obama went to Iran and Cuba, and also made the most progress on
health care since medicare and medicaid. All that was required of Trump was
not to destroy that progress, which is strictly easier than expecting any
progress from him.

~~~
scarface74
The phrase that “only Nixon could go to China” meant that since Nixon was well
known as being anti-communist, no one would suspect him of being a “secret
Communist”.

Even if Romney had been elected and tried to implement health care reforms, he
couldn’t do it. He had to disown his own accomplishments as governor because
he had to work within the political system, Trump didn’t.

In tech terms, the only CEO of Apple that could have made the deal with
Microsoft and Gates in the 90s was Jobs. No one was going to doubt Jobs
loyalties were with Apple or that he was just there for a paycheck.

~~~
philwelch
Amelio did a lot of the legwork on that deal.

~~~
scarface74
Nixon also didn’t do all of the legwork behind going to China. But he was the
person seen making the deal.

But as far as Apple, who do you think was more effective? A random CEO who was
at Apple for less than 100 days talking to random people at Microsoft or Jobs
being able to call up Gates directly - someone who he worked with for both the
Apple // plus (AppleSoft Basic was written by Microsoft) and with the
introduction of the Mac - Gates was on stage at the introduction?

~~~
philwelch
Amelio was at Apple for over a year; his memoir about it was titled, "On the
Firing Line: My 500 Days at Apple". One of his claims was that the Microsoft
thing was already a done deal by the time he left. The only "Nixon" thing
about it was how Jobs could (just barely) get away with standing on the stage
at Macworld with Bill Gates ominously looming over everyone like Big Brother.

~~~
scarface74
Fair enough (100 vs 500). But by your own admission, the analogy still holds.
While Jobs could “just barely” get away with it, can you imagine Amelio trying
to get away with it at all among the few at the time remaining Apple faithful?

