Providers make up for it by soaking paying customers and their insurance companies with unneeded treatments, withholding treatment, all kinds of fees, and bumping up coding descriptions. I used to look at providers as the ones acting ethically in the industry but not after dealing with the changes they have implemented.
In a health economics class I sat in on the professor said that the entire drop was due to the opioid pandemic, certainly not Covid. Interestingly a student suggested Obamacare as a possible reason and he scoffed saying “how could health insurance cause a decline in life expectancy”…
It is probably several things and the last few years, COVID especially because of delayed care/diagnosis, increased drug and alcohol use, no exercise, and other spillover effects from government policies.
Health insurance is nice but you still have to have money to use it. It really only benefits a person if they have a serious health problem but people get excited to get an artificial discount on prescriptions or office visits.
“Health insurance is nice but you still have to have money to use it.”
I just received a bill for a 3 hour long, outpatient procedure: $1,025.00. The total bill, submitted by the provider, was over $134,000. My insurance “adjusted” that bill by saying that no one owes about half of it, then paid almost the rest, leaving me with a very manageable total. I also think the part they paid was very, very generous.
But then, I have federal employee health insurance which costs me next to nothing, and as guilty about that as I am, I am glad of it….
Was that the procedure that you were concerned about some weeks ago?
Glad to have you with us!
Yes, it was. And thank you! It was a bit rougher on me than I had expected, but worth it.
Not entirely due to the opioid crisis. Unfettered immigration, too
The first group to receive a subsidy for O’care was the congressional staffers. This is not a surprise.
Providers make up for it by soaking paying customers and their insurance companies with unneeded treatments, withholding treatment, all kinds of fees, and bumping up coding descriptions. I used to look at providers as the ones acting ethically in the industry but not after dealing with the changes they have implemented.
In a health economics class I sat in on the professor said that the entire drop was due to the opioid pandemic, certainly not Covid. Interestingly a student suggested Obamacare as a possible reason and he scoffed saying “how could health insurance cause a decline in life expectancy”…
It is probably several things and the last few years, COVID especially because of delayed care/diagnosis, increased drug and alcohol use, no exercise, and other spillover effects from government policies.
Health insurance is nice but you still have to have money to use it. It really only benefits a person if they have a serious health problem but people get excited to get an artificial discount on prescriptions or office visits.
“Health insurance is nice but you still have to have money to use it.”
I just received a bill for a 3 hour long, outpatient procedure: $1,025.00. The total bill, submitted by the provider, was over $134,000. My insurance “adjusted” that bill by saying that no one owes about half of it, then paid almost the rest, leaving me with a very manageable total. I also think the part they paid was very, very generous.
But then, I have federal employee health insurance which costs me next to nothing, and as guilty about that as I am, I am glad of it….
Was that the procedure that you were concerned about some weeks ago?
Glad to have you with us!
Yes, it was. And thank you! It was a bit rougher on me than I had expected, but worth it.
Not entirely due to the opioid crisis. Unfettered immigration, too
The first group to receive a subsidy for O’care was the congressional staffers. This is not a surprise.