The reason is cause when people have a health issue it's better for them if they dont think about the price because they might not have the money. The only solution is Medicare for all. Bernie 2020
Going to hospital is like go to the club. They had their own price. In other country, there are public one and it is cheap so you don't need insurance. you still need insurance for private one.
I was in France last summer, I had no insurance there, I had to go to the emergency , I had an X-ray, and electrocardiogram, and seen by 2 doctors, I stayed in the hospital for about the 3 or 4 hours, there was only 2 people in front of me, but because it was heart related they took me in within 5 minutes Total cost: 24.56 Euro ! I will remember this price my entire life
Yes, I live in France. My sister-in-law had brain cancer, and because she could not climb stairs to speak to a psychologist about her concerns for her daughters whom she would be leaving, the psychologist paid house calls. It is the most fabulous health system in the world.
@@wraith511802003 I don't think I have a problem paying taxes if it saves me and the other person too. And that's how economy works ,are you a fool or pretending to be one.
I got a sadness deep as the ocean when she said, "The cheapest cancer care." I'm European... The very concept is alien to us, the idea of having to "budget" your survival chances is inhumane...
I had to come and live in England to be able to have healthcare; fortunately whilst working both sides of the pond I paid Income Tax and National Insurance here. I would be dead a long time now had I remained in NYC. I do not live in luxury and having been a RN in the NHS I already knew how great the level of care is; it showed me just how bad healthcare is for the working class back home. I get my pensions, disability benefits, rent & council tax benefit so I am doing just fine. PS: I forgot to say that I get a new car every three years with my mobility benefit.
@@duanepigden1337 In New York you just have to call something Socialist and they will run a mile away from it. Trump voters keep repeating Trump when he says "We will never be a Socialist Country." The problem is that none of them can tell you what Socialism, Communism or Capitalism are. I have never known a country where so many people election after election, vote against their own best interests. Even people on Medicare or Medicaid will be a lot better with Medicare For All. These people are told by the two main parties just how bad the healthcare systems in other countries are and they take it on blind trust. I have worked and been a patient both in New York and England and we back in the States are not a touch on the standards of care in the NHS. At the end of the day, if you vote to keep a mediocre health service, you get a mediocre health service. Even Trump had to admit how good the NHS is after one of his friends needed emergency surgery in Scotland.
President Trump agreed with this and signed an executive order now forcing medical providers to tell patients when asked how much their services will cost. th-cam.com/video/qIcMnbea3E4/w-d-xo.html
@@imprint2030 This is a naive statement. Everything costs something, the only answer is who is paying for it. What would happen during this pandemic when many many more people need healthcare treatment? The tax payers cannot afford a tax increase, the government is already majorly in debt and even cutting spending in other areas wouldn't be enough to cover healthcare for all, the government has to pay for other things as well: welfare, infrastructure, general services, and many people want free college added to that. So you say tax the rich, until the rich leave. Oh, they won't leave the opportunities are too great you say! Ask California about that, not only have they lost a major tax base with many rich people and their companies, but regular people are also leaving now because the taxes are too high. America is suffering from success. Americans have so use to the United States being so great that any policy could be put in place and companies, people, and money wouldn't leave. We are dealing with globalization now and a world-wide market that is just as good if not better than America. You see this with companies moving jobs & production to China and other Asia countries, you see them expanding into these markets as well because the cost of doing business in America is becoming too high. The United States was majorly based on Rome & because of that we will fall like Rome. We will become too needy, too use to having a good life free from any real worries compared to the rest of the world, we will slowly eat ourself alive until a civil war, major economic collapse, or the gradual overcome from another power. Medical prices are too high for many reasons. 1) the red tape and governmental cost of doing business in healthcare. It should just as easy for a single doctor to open up a small clinic as it is for a dentist to open up a practice. If you want to keep ER & major hospitals regulated, fine they are big business. 2) price transparency, people should know the cost of healthcare before they get it. You know how much a car, house, steak, clothes, literally anything you buy before you buy it. You can weigh your options to see which store has the best prices for the best quality. 3) healthcare workers are over appreciated & overpaid. Being a doctor once meant something because very few people had the ability to become one. Now, going to medical school is normal for people and you see the girls that failed simple math classes in high school going to college and in 2-4 years being an RN and treating people. The level of education has reduced, the ability to become one has reduced, the quality of them have reduced, while the numbers of them has grown. In any other industry that means labor prices would decrease. But the government has regulated the healthcare industry so much that a few big hospitals own a majority of all hospitals and keep new ones from forming. They are in bed with the government and see the regulations as just a cost of doing business and pass that onto the consumer. 4) insurance is only expensive because healthcare is expensive. If you could get knee surgery done for only $10k a knee instead of $50k+ a knee insurance would be a lot less. 5) people need to stop acting like their health is taboo, it is okay to talk about your illness either physical or mental and discuss with people the best option to treat it, which doesn't require medical attention as much as we currently put in place 6) people need to live healthier lives, a majority of peoples medical conditions and cost is due to them not taking care of their body & so if it costs alot of fix them where they have to go into debt that is on them and not my fault 7) hospitals pay for the people who dont pay their medical bills by added it onto your medical bill. This would never happen in any other industry. If the restaurant told everyone that table A left without paying their bill so now everybody else has to split the cost of that so the restaurant doesn't lose money they would all lose their minds but everybody turns a blind eye when it comes to healthcare. I have started a company (that will be launching nation-wide at the end of there summer 2021) that takes advantage of the executive order signed by the 45th president to allow people to compare and construct the cost and quality of hospitals, procedures, healthcare professionals, nursing homes, home health agencies, hospice agencies, pharmacies, & pharmaceuticals. I truly believe this is the way to bring down the cost of healthcare to normalize the healthcare industry so it is on the same level as any other industry and doesn't received special treatment from law makers & the public.
When is the last time you ate and had insurance pay for it? Sending claims to insurance to be denied, and have to fight insurance for crappy reimbursement is a nightmare. You want the cost to go down? Pay all doctors in cash. Remove all insurance completely. True competition will emerge, and you will then pay what it is worth.
@@Howard675 You don't have to get rid of insurance companies, but they wouldn't act as an intermediary as you would just bill them directly. I'd prefer a system where healthcare procedures were grouped (such as MRI, no billing codes) would have an upper limit to what an insurance company would be willing to pay. Insurance companies would say they will pay a certain amount, and anything more than that, the consumer pays. If we knew how much an insurance company was willing to pay for various procedures, and we knew what healthcare providers charged, then choosing healthcare providers would be easier as we would know what would and wouldn't be covered.
So while you are recovering from the Anesthesia, the doctor is supposed to give you the bill and tell you to call a taxi because you can't drive due to the drugs, just like a restaurant?
I am Canadian. i know our universal health care system gets knocked by some of our southern friends. I agree, it is not perfect. But really, when you see these numbers....our system looks great. This is profit racketeering at its most obvious.
Canada also has a few problems with keeping doctors as well as death panels. I have a few friends who live in Canada so I have heard both the positive and negative. From having no problems to having an issue that a single shot that was deemed unnecessary could have prevented a year long stay in a hospital. But when you want to survive cancer there is literally no better place to live than in the USA.
@@vagabondwastrel2361 : Thanks for the reply. You point out some realistic downsides up here. I suspect what you say about cancer in the USA is true but only if you have a very good health insurance or are wealthy. I suspect if you have neither, you are better off in Canada where at least your cancer will be treated regardless of income.
Depends. In canada they can still turn you down for treatment where in the us you there are almost too many charities. Oddly that is part of the American healthcare system. I wish I could go into a clinic and they would post all of the prices before more information is always better. Also when Obamacare was put into place it removed a lot of state run insurance plans for the poor. Wisconsin for instance you only had to pay 1$ a month. One of the biggest issues the American healthcare system is the government over involvement into a capitalistic model through regulations and government funds. It raises the overall price due to government inefficiency and the insurance companies write the rules.... I view is when you look at topics and you only hear people on the left wing complaining you can double check to see if it is a real issue. Just never take their solutions because it is always worse than the problem. When the right wingers complain you know something is seriously wrong.. unless it is by the theocrats in that case double check because they might oddly be correct.
If you want to see where a full capitalist healthcare would look like .. at least in the American system. you can look at plastic surgery and lazer eye surgery. Massive competition, rapid innovation and better customer care. I forget what countries have a fully capitalist system but there are only like two.
Ms. Pinder - thank you SO MUCH for doing this! Years ago I recall asking a provider for costs up front, and I got a puzzled reaction and don't recall getting the information. I'd love to hear my Congressman's reaction to a call for full transparency...
30 years ago I had a $2500 deductible. So very often I just negotiated cash settlement with medical providers. I found that if I paid cash at the counter for my pathology there was a 50% discount. I negotiated a $1000 MRI down to $200 because the doctor was a nice person and willing to deal in cash. I don’t think it’s changing much because I could never find out what the procedure cost before I actually had the procedure even though I was a personal friend of the director of the local hospital. Thanks so much for what you’re doing.
@@tylermiavlogs5441 why do people always blame the conservatives? Why don't I pop down to your house spend all your money and then blame you for cutting back.
john Thatcher Conservatives haven’t keep spending up with the nhs that’s why less people work for the nhs now then under Blair. We don’t need to borrow money we need a tax increase to rebuild our failing infrastructure and rebuild the nhs
It could be people who have perspective on the problem and have surmised that taking the discussion in the direction of nit-picky dollars might be a waste of everyone's time given the complexity of the system. Simplicity and transparency are often at odds. Bringing more people into the conversation might just make things worse.
That’s why I’m feeling to be on the brink of death with complications resulting from influenza I can’t afford without health insurance. Honestly would rather die than take up $5400 in debt for a damn Tamiflu pack I can get on the street for like $20, as my condition worsens. Only reason I haven’t gone to an ER is that I AM A HEALTHCARE PROVIDER! So I can monitor my symptoms and self medicate to a point...
@@headcold7250 so sorry that is just awful I don't go the doctor much myself and my cost would be around €100 to see and be treated but if I had an ongoing problem they would give me free health care. It's so not fair and them prices are unjustified.
Physician offices need to have a HIPAA officer, a Safety officer, an HR department, have to comply with government reporting for the incentive payment program, the list goes on. Physicians are still under the sequester cuts from Obama. Reimbursements are decreasing to physicians. Costs are increasing. The government and insurance companies are raping the physicians in an effort to shut them down, and open government health clinics to provide crappy "free health" to all. This lady is very short sighted in her discussion.
She's treating a symptom, just like the U.S. legislature. The big stinky fish is out of water and floundering in death throws. Health care for profit is immoral. The U.S. needs to join the rest of the western world.
The problem is these corporations are paying both left and right to keep things as they are. (Massively overfimplified view, I know, but it's a huge problem.)
The reason why the U.S. does not have Medicare for all, is due to ONE man: Senator Max Baucus. He was the chairman of the committee that held up the Affordable Care Act until they agreed to remove the Medicare option from it. He is a retired Insurance company executive, supported by the insurance industry to get elected. Now here's the surprise: He was a democrat. Yes, ONE guy screwed us all. He is no longer in office, but there are still far too many congressmen and senators (and president) that are indebted in some way to the insurance industry. www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/09/08/max-baucus-once-a-foe-of-single-payer-health-care-belatedly-endorses-it/?noredirect=on&.0a86f8df5b4c
@@walperstyle that's really strange you imply surgery costs money out of pocket for the patient and it certainly does not. All medically necessary surgery is covered in Canada. This info is readily available on Canada's own official website. You imply also that the state takes more out of your check and they don't. In fact you seem to have no idea how well you have it. An average (not median) family of 4 there pays $12k Canadian per year on healthcare. Here in the US the average is $28k US. Think about that a second. We pay 2 TIMES as much as you folks do and have worse health outcomes. Oh and don't talk about waiting times. I have really good insurance and it takes at least a month for an xray or MRI. Sometimes longer. 2-3 months minimum for a specialist consult. 4-6 months for a mental health appointment. Surgery on my spine took 5 months from scheduling to the knife. Oh and if you happen to pay cash, you can often get in the same day or at worst the same week you're seeking the appointment. We did this on an xray and also on a mental health appointment. You have it good and shouldn't be acting like private, for-profit healthcare is in any way a good thing.
They got people deeply fooled.....that changing prices changes anything.....smh😔......#1 first of all, the psychology behind raising prices was to get folks to think that the product was more valuable, so they could work harder to get something they are missing out on.....#2 lowering the prices won't do shyt either, due to the fact that most of these drugs are NOT constructed properly in the first place because if they were , then there wouldn't be any negative side effects to them or negative withdrawals.
@AI Martins , In my other post I explained in detail how medical billing actually works, based on my own many years of firsthand experience in that field. I did NOT, ' lie ', nor, ' deflect ', anyrhing!
Wow, it’s almost like prices go up when you artificially increase demand by conducting every healthcare transaction through insurance. Who would have thought.
Have you ever heard the saying: “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is”? In theory, people could waive their insurance on things like yearly physicals, X-rays, small operations, etc.. (assuming the doctors offices even know what to charge without the insurance) but in practice no one does because you’d have to be a fool to pay out of pocket for something insurance will cover after you have paid your insurance premium.
fretbuzz59 Demand is what people desire *and* can afford. Insurance artificially increases the amount of healthcare that people can afford. The desire part is a given for humans.
@@tomcotter4299 Well that's a completely fucked-up way of looking at things. But yes, insurance does make it possible for people to get healthcare they couldn't otherwise afford. Of course the alternative, in many cases, would be for them to DIE. If that's fine with you, then there's no more to discuss (except for your moral shortcomings). But if you think people should be able to get the care they need, then we've got to figure out a way to pay for it. As for "desire." The desire to survive is a given for humans. Beyond that, healthcare isn't like a luxury item that one desires but doesn't really need. "Should I get myself a fancy new watch or an appendectomy." It's not like that.
If it was a market for profit, there would be competition, reducing prices and increasing quality. Instead, we have government subsidized healthcare, causing massive distortion.
@@nosouponhead That would work if it was a free market where people were free to choose, let's explore these 2 point: 1)the healthcare market is not easy to enter, you can't just make a startup and start selling drugs, you need a huge amount of money so it's dominated by few giant corporations that can just make deals with each other in order to raise prices. 2)healthcare doesn't follow the free market rules because you don't have a choice: if your car is old you can keep it, spend to repair it or buy a new one (used or brand new). If you have cancer, diabetes or another health problem that can bring you to death you have to options: buy or die. If you need a specific drug to live that only one company makes (covered by patent) and they decide to raise the price from 25$ to 100$...or 500$...you have no choice, buy or die.
@@francesco8000 1: That's created by government regulation. 2: A free market means, you are able to buy your drugs from a cheaper place. cheaper phones from china, cheaper cars from korea. Why can't you import epi-pens and asthma puffers and sell them in the USA under your own company name at a cheaper rate than the big pharma companies?
@@nosouponhead Thats the theory of the capitalst ideal. Trouble is that theory stopped working as soon as corporations began & capitalism went global. Now the ever increasing race to the lowest cost disregarding the quality of product means you get a healthcare system that gives you the care that your bank balance denotes says you deserve.
I paid $200 to get new lenses in my eye glass frames in San Diego. In Tijuana, I got the same lenses, from the same manufacturer, for $38. I got the same prescription, but in plastic, not glass, in Mumbai, India, for $12.
In 2017 I tore my Achilles tendon while in northeast China. The doctor ordered an MRI; it cost me $80. (The MRI machine BTW was made by GE.) When I saw my podiatrist in the US and showed him the images from the Chinese hospital, he said the same test would have cost me $1000 here. Go figure.
Sick people don't haggle, when unregulated, commercial health care providers are most likely to scam their patients because it is even more profitable than illegal drug trade. And they lobby politicians so they can keep doing that.
@@drakkorvladimir4012 Thats what happens when you legalize bribery. Who could have imagined that giving people with money unlimited access to politicians would lead to moral hazard. Hu da thunk it.
In 1999, I had the same procedure done in the space of 24 hrs due the Dr.'s rushing to go to a dinner party. The difference was an over night stay. The first cost $9,000. The second $20,000. When I asked for an itemized bill, I was stunned. The first thing I noticed was a pregnancy test. I am a man. They charged me for drugs not used and devices not used. When I showed this to a medical lawyer, he asked if he could have the case to sue. I told him only if the hospital didn't admit their mistake/ intended of charging. After the lawyer contacted the hospital, they asked if $3,000 would be acceptable. As for the Dr performing the procedure, he had his license removed for malpractice/ Medicare fraud.
My daughter had bend over stomach pain. Took her to emergency. Sunday night 11pm. We sat in the lobby for 2 hours. Once assigned a bed. 5 hours to get seen by the doctor. Blood drawn and waited 3 hours for results. Doctor gave my daughter potassium pills. We left and received a bill for $3557 😨
That's horrific, I'd imagin in my country you'd only have to pay for staying over night in hospital (bed + breakfast), fullstop. Rest is paid by your health insurance. Sure waiting some time is common, but 7h... Thanks for sharing your story!
now think about what she in the video is proposing as a solution. That if your daughter has that much pain, that you start to google the cheapest hospital and drive there... even if you do not know what to expect and how urgent it is. it is good taht you cant, because you really should not take an hour longer to see a doctor just so you can save some bucks.
@@joesmith389 As a Canadian I agree. Wait lists for an MRI can be a year or more. Our system is just as broken as the U.S. system, just in different ways. If an American wants an equivalent of the Canadian system. Think about the U.S. veterans healthcare. Only on a national scale with 30 million people trapped in it.
@Danny Bowen In Europe we pay nothing. But the Insurance companies, Doctors and Hospitals in US are trying to get you to pay this bills, one way or another. And 32 % of the people in US don`t even have Insurance A day in a hospital costs $5,220 here - versus $424 in Spain. Harvoni cures hepatitis C. It also costs $10,000 more in the US than anywhere else. Need to take the cancer drug Avastin? It will cost nine times more in the United States than in Britain. Bypass surgery costs $78,318 here, versus $24,059 in the UK.
I work in radiology and I 1000% agree with this. The prices hospitals charge is outrageous. Its not right. Only 3-4 exams could make any middle-class person bankrupt.
Several years ago I needed to have a colon screening. I wanted to know, beforehand, from my health insurance provider what my "Co-pay"would be. It took 2-1/2 years for me to get an answer after many frustrating calls. So my screening was delayed 2-1/2 years. I could have had it much sooner if I was willing to sign a blank check! Turns out that in Washington state there is some law that required them to tell me the cost if I asked. I guess they had 2-1/2 years to comply?
I needed a non covered service at the Cleveland Clinic. I called and asked them how much since my insurance didn't cover it. They said I had to wait until I was billed to see. For 30 minutes with a nutritionist, not a PHD, it was $700.
As a diabetic in Finland I can get my insulin 100% covered because it is classified as "life sustaining medication". I only pay € 4,50 administration fee per type of insulin which I use two of. I can get 3 months worth at a time from the pharmacy. But the amount the government pays is printed on the receipt. That total € 371 for 2 types of modern insulin products for 3 months. I once checked what that would cost for me in the US and it came up as $ 1300. And of course the medical company is already making a profit here in Finland or they would not operate here. So that x4 higher price in the US is nothing but a rip-off. Ripping off people for staying alive. For a drug of which original formula was sold to medical companies for a nominal price of $ 1 by the University of Toronto because it was meant to be for the good of humanity.
The healthcare providers and the insurance companies form a super monopoly. Free Market capitalism cannot exist when there is a monopoly in place. The healthcare system in the United States is not a Free Market; it is a Monopoly Market.
What if you sat down at a restaurant and the menu had no prices listed. You can only know the cost of the fillet mignon after the meal. Would anyone not get up and leave?! Medical procedure cost secrecy is criminal.
It's not that they don't care. It's just that the American public gets its news from the corporate news industry. Which usually comes for free. And if y'all are not paying for it, then you're not the customers. The customers are all the companies that buy ad time on that channel - and they very much include insurance and healthcare providers. So the news won't report on the healthcare crisis, because any response to said crisis would make the healthcare industry less profitable. Any ad you see on news media represents a massive conflict of interest for that channel. Meanwhile, reporting on celebrities only helps those celebrities. So you get a lot of "news" about celebrities.
calling this an emergency is a misnomer. This is a crime. These people should be arrested. This cartel should be repeatedly driven over by a dump truck.
Electricity , gas, water, everyone needs a supply of these things, and we have collectively decided, as a Society, that they are valuable,, That everyone should have access at a reasonable and transparent price.... so we have Public Utility Commissions to regulate prices and evaluate rate hikes.... Yet Medical costs are still an opaque and taboo subject.
Well those are public utilities that you don't have choices in which company you use. Insurance and medical you do. You can go to any hospital or Dr. Office doesn't matter your address. Can't get water service from a company in another town.
Kermit DaFrog so, according to your logic, the price goes up because there is competition? Isn't that there exactly the opposite of what the "free market" advocates state?
True. These industries are monopolies and are the opposite of capitlism. Yet you have idiots who think a free market in these industries would drive more innovation when you have a litteral random joe make their artificial pancreas thats actually more effective than what big companies make.
Here in the USSA, I'm relieved to find my paycheck exceeding that of an Australian whose gummint skims healthcare costs off the top. If you're single and childfree in Australia, you still pay part of your wages to support marriage and breeding of others.
@@jimkirby9959 Boo hoo. At least we don't go into debt just to have a operation or get a decent education. Your country is a failed state. Just wake up to reality.
@@jimkirby9959 Wait until you get older. The older you get, the more you need healthcare. Let’s see if you can still afford thousands of dollars for an ambulance ride, or thousands of dollars for prescription medicine which costs a fraction of the cost overseas, even in developing countries. You’ll get shafted by the US “healthcare “ system sooner or later. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. What do you expect of a system whose number one priority is profit over the lives of people?
@Ian Stevenson The government and insurance companies are to blame. Liberal lies of "healthcare for free" and "keep your doctor" have decimated our health system. The qualifications for enrollment to medical school continues to drop because there are fewer and fewer people who want to put in the time and tremendous work for the crappy pay a physician now gets. The shortage of physicians and nurses has already begun. The quality of health care has already started to suffer.
@@Howard675 To add to that we as people need to accept some responsibility when a lot of people want to the sue the hospital or the doctor at the drop of hat.... not accepting they did to their health...
In America some people want to blame the cop (government that is) for the rape. Of course the rapists are the AMA the drug companies and the insurance companies. Wow! There are none so blind as those who will not see. No facts will ever change their minds.
But we found out that the military was buying items that were extremely overpriced we were flabbergasted. When we see a hospital bill and a single Tylenol cost $80 where is the outrage?
And people think, "Well, my insurance will pay for it so it's not a problem." But what they don't realize is that those costs WILL be paid BY YOU eventually in the form of higher premiums for everyone.
Having bills itemized that way is a little silly, but there’s a reason they’re listed higher than normal. They’re inflating the cost of things you receive to pay for the things you don’t see. You’re paying for the administration, the nurses and techs, the electricity, plumbing, etc, the security guard, the building maintenance, the property taxes, the janitorial service, and so on. There are a lot of costs that get added on to things to pay for underlying costs. It’s just like a pizza costing $20 when the ingredients only cost $2.
@@dsolomon You forgot: - Hush money for mistresses - Mortgage on 19th house - Dining expenses at the Ritz Carlton - Polo lessons for little Jimmy Just kidding, but not really.
THANK GOD FOR THIS WOMAN!! I have asked so many times how much things cost for basic medical procedures at doctor's offices and hospitals and no one I speak with will tell me a thing. I feel alone but I know that everyone is in the same boat as I am.
The comments are fascinating. I particularly like the ones that argue that it is a personal responsibility of every single person to pay for their health care, implying it is a moral failure to be unable to do so. As if there was this perfect connection between what you can afford, and what happens to you. And in a system where the same procedure can randomly be priced 10 dollars or 1000, with no rhyme or reason. So if a hospital charges you 120 dollars for an exam, you pay it and you are an outstanding individual and a productive member of society. Same scenario, but the hospital decides to bill you 1200 for the same exam and you can't pay? You are a freeloader and should have taken a second or third job to cover your expenses, like any responsible adult should. And on top of all of this you are not even supposed to ask how the price is formulated. The hospital and the system should not be questioned. Otherwise you are a whiner and an entitled loser. Sounds legit.
I once thought about working in America for a while but the way patients are seen as customers rather than patients, the fact I'd be expected not to treat people because they had no insurance and the worry about how I'd get treatment if I'll really put me off. The system is incredibly dangerous and one thing we (the rest of the world) need to make sure America doesn't export.
This is America :,) land of the free and home of the brave. Free to pay to live and brave enough to try lmao. After the 1920s, American commerce switched to “consumerism”. Also lobbying is a thing so... there ya go.
The U.S. health care system is unique among advanced industrialized countries. The U.S. does not have a uniform health system, has no universal health care coverage, and the people suffer to put money in the pockets of the government workers
When I asked how much my cystoscopy would cost, my doctor literally told me, "I don't know; I've never considered it." I felt stupid then, but after watching it I realize that what's stupid is the fact that my doctor doesn't know how much it would cost a college student to get a test done. Maybe if they did, they wouldn't prescribe so many needless tests.
I work in a union and I was told health insurance costs increase 10% every year... 10% a year?! Healthcare costs are spiraling out of control. Hospitals and insurance providers are in a never ending battle in trying to make a profit. Healthcare prices don't follow in line AT ALL with economic inflation. Someone needs to address this issue! It is ruining tons of regular peoples lives and credit!
Healthcare should be a human right. Companies shouldn't be able to make money off of health issues period... Let alone laws protecting denial of services over pre existing conditions! Its criminal... We are dealing with human lives here ...Existence on this planet shouldn't be dependant on how much money you can afford to spend on healthcare.
I took a vow to "do no harm" as a nurse, that's why I quit healthcare. It screws people over financially if they need help. Most of the time they only get help with limited resources anyways as a lot of places don't hire enough staff and overwork those that are the for that shift. Nobody wins here, the patient doesn't get what they pay for and the worker is stressed out and can't possibly provide the best care 100% of the time due to being spread thin in most clinical instances. Healthcare in US sucks. It's predatory and unethical.
Yeah... but it's *NOT* the nurses and the Doctors who are the problem. Just like with the education system in the US, it's the hospital Administrations that has all the money and is causing all the problems. The Department of Health and Human Services introduced a rule in November of 2020 requiring hospitals to post clear prices *before* patients receive treatment -- and it requires that hospitals abide by those prices. Guess which organizations are suing to try and block this rule? The American Hospital Association, the Association of American Medical Colleges, and the Federation of American Hospitals. So; this looks a lot like collusion between all of the big hospitals in the country. We have some examples of 'Trustbusting' supreme court decisions that have occurred in the past, for example: , 310 U.S. 150 (1940).
@@gilian2587 Does it make a difference? I have 40 years' experience with negotiating people around healthcare systems. Posting prices sounds like a paper by a business major.
@@thomast3570 Knowing the general price for more expensive procedures like an 'Appendectomy' is crucial. Otherwise... even simple affairs could have someone might end up with a bandaid and a few words of encouragement and be charged $40,000 at Hospital A when a little research would have made it manifestly obvious that similar treatment at Hospital B would have charged them $100 for the visit. Patients have to be able to make judgments regarding price point. It allows patients to defend themselves a little more financially. Gas stations advertise their prices for their product, they have to in order to compete. Gas stations do not have a de facto license to extort their customers; why should Hospitals? As it stands -- people are being bankrupted by the medical system in the US right now. That has to stop.
They don't want us to know, because then we could comparison shop on some things. Also, we're scared to use coverage if we don't know how much it could cost.
In 2001, after paying for top AETNA family coverage for years, my wife and youngest daughter were hospitalized for surgical procedures. With two events in one year, I was so thankful to be covered by insurance - that is until I started receiving an endless stream of bills afterwards. As I negotiated uncovered hospital expenses, I learned insurance regulations prevented any after-the-fact discounting by the hospital. The hospital administrator tolerated my persistence and gave me a valuable education. I learned the cash price for my wife's stay was less than 50% of the charges through insurance. Building on this and having good Excel skills, I analyzed all costs including insurance premiums withheld from my payroll only to discover both hospitalizations could have been accomplished for less considerably less than what I paid out with insurance. In 2003, I dropped insurance entirely. Within a year, I figured out how to get healthcare for less than 1/3 the cost. It gets better. When I had insurance, I was always getting past due notices, phone calls and arguing with providers. I still don't have health insurance despite Obamacare. I also don't have unpaid healthcare bills and collectors calling me.
Too bad most Americans (online) don't want to hear about what's bad and what could be improved how about the US health care system. They hear about the good examples of public health care around the world and just scream "communism" or "socialist" and that's it. Maybe this video will help them reflect.
That's because we have a lot of ignorance here in the U.S. I'm American and I'm amazed at people here reacting like that considering our health system is a big scam but since the true president of this country are the corporations the health industry gets away with murder. How is it that no transparency of prices is something legal??
Dajana Darling :) Well....We Americans about 35 % are DUMB IDIOTS, these are illiterate, uninformed or under informed who live mostly in boonies in their cubbyholes , mostly have extreme views and superiority complex...and they don't want to hear anything different because that is beyond their comprehension abilities... you know what I mean?
@@coolwtr033 They are also lazy and want handouts for choosing not to work. It is a sad state of affairs. People who have never seen Nebraska say there is too many people on the earth. The then cry out "health care for all" never knowing the consequences of their desires. It's just not about free stuff for all.
@@valsummerfield3069 Transparency in the US is perhaps a myth. Who are the owners of Federal Reserve Bank? Because there is nothing "Federal" about it, it's a private organization!
This was a great talk. I've asked what a drug or procedure would cost, and how much my insurance would cover in the past. The number I have been given has always been lower than the number I've paid. I don't understand how the medical system can bill you whatever they want after the fact. To be totally honest, I went to an emergency room with severe chest pain, and the first person that talked to me was not a nurse or a doctor, but and insurance person. I told them I don't have insurance, money, a job, or anyway to pay for a bill in the future. They put me in the ICU for a week knowing I had no way of paying the bills. I am now hunted relentlessly for a crap load of money I told them I couldn't pay right at the beginning.
I will never forget that I was $500 for gauze. I was 17 at the time so about 21 years ago. I had asked for an itemized list and actually got it at the time. I saw the gauze and my jaw dropped. I was like WTF not because of the cost, but because they never used the gauze. On the phone I was told it was because it was made available. I started to argue that the gauze was never used and why would a strip of gauze cost $500 but I was hung up on. I refused to pay bill at $500 and the hospital sent it to collections. I had to pay it off eventually because I needed a car. The hospital put a bad note on my credit though I paid the $17,200ish but not the $500 left on the note.I figured it was normal for an MRI to cost $12,000 and the one doctor I never saw to cost about $2000
A universal health care system will be as good as we decide to make it. Just because some Canadians are unsatisfied with their system doesn't mean all universal health care systems must be bad by default. The current (employer provided health insurance) system came into being accidentally as a result of the wage freeze during WWII and it is now being jealously guarded by insurance industry lobbyists, among others, and their lying political stooges. It's common sense that a fortune could be saved and citizens would be better served if the layer of useless insurance industry overhead was eliminated.
Physician offices need to have a HIPAA officer, a Safety officer, an HR department, have to comply with government reporting for the incentive payment program, the list goes on. Physicians are still under the sequester cuts from Obama. Reimbursements are decreasing to physicians. Costs are increasing. The government and insurance companies are raping the physicians in an effort to shut them down, and open government health clinics to provide crappy "free health" to all. This lady is very short sighted in her discussion.
That is like saying Socialism isn't bad just because everyone else who tried it did it wrong. It is never more efficient for the government to do anything. Government does not care how much something costs, it isn't their money they are spending.
@@marioxmariox And here we have the typical ignorant "muh socialism" argument. The USA have the highest healthcare cost per capita in the world. If you adjust for wealth, the USA pay twice as much as anyone else except for Switzerland. And even then, Switzerland is lower. Canadians pay less than half of the costs. Less than half. People aren't talking about taking on a system that "doesn't work", they're talking about adopting a system that works orders of magnitude better, but still has its own issues.
when i was uninsured, my knee started hurting. i tried to get a price for a simple consultation before i went in. nope. "no way to tell". the joint doc never looked at my knee, just spent literally 1.5 minutes telling me he was scheduling an mri. how much? no one could tell me. come back next week for the results. how much to come back in for the results? "we couldn't tell you." a week later, knee feeling better, i went back and the doc said the knee looked fine, 'perscribed' a knee brace that they happened to have under the counter up front. here's where i finally lost it: i went up front, gave them the script for the brace, they measured my knee and handed me a medium-sized cloth brace in a box. i asked how much. THEY COULDN'T TELL ME. i said i wanted to pay now. they said "impossible. we don't do money. wait for the bill." i asked where the bill would come from. they said "upstairs". i told them to call upstairs and find out how much the dam brace was. it devolved from there. the upstairs person was pizzed at the downstairs person for allowing it to go this far- patients are ~billed~, period. meanwhile, while i waited, i had time to look at the brace- just a normal brace, nothing special. finally, after a long time, i got a number: about 8 times the price for a knee brace at walgreens. but the final bills totalled in the thousands.
There needs to be a law requiring health service providers to post their prices and tell the patient the cost before they do the procedure. What other business do not do these things?. It's criminal
@@B33SON1 unfortunately with trump in the White House and a Republican controlled senate this won't happen. I would love to see what excuse they make to vote against a bill that requires transparent easily available pricing.
Svein Gerald Hansen I totally got your message the first time. I’m in Canada. Where, I’m so grateful to be able to take my elderly parents to the hospital as needed. They are checked in, and out, like it was a hotel, (actually easier, and faster). With no direct cost to me. As a self employed, it’s nice to not be bankrupted, by your parents. Imagine the stress, taking your old dad to the hospital. But our system is under the threat of, a strong business lobby. That wants us to be like the US. They can smell the huge profits. And currently, we have to pay our Dr’s crazy amounts, to discourage them from going south.
In Canada here, I suffered a lacunar infarct after a severe flu. I did receive a bill though; $4.50 for overnight parking. Outrageous. Standard of care was excellent.
I'm an Australian citizen and was admitted to The Royal Melbourne Hospital via ER for an operation last year. I pay a small yearly admin fee to the ambulance service and was treated and driven by the paramedics to hospital for free. I was in for several days and had x rays, an ultra sound, blood tests, a saline drip, general anesthetic, morphine, Endone tablets, 3 meals (with deserts) a day , I was seen by several different doctors and specialists, plus the surgeons and anesthesiologist and was looked after by several different nurses the entire time, with prompt assistance only a button push away. The only thing I had to pay for was $10 AU to be able to watch a personal 30" TV set with a convenient hand held speaker and remote, so I didn't wake up others in the middle of the night. We have some of the best medical professionals in the world working in our public health system and it doesn't cost us a cent. I could've paid a lot more had I gone to a Private Hospital but still no where near the cost in the U.S. as we're not subjected to overinflated price hiking monopolies by the Hospitals, insurance companies and pharmaceutical corporations. We pay several thousand percent less for the same medicine at shops compared to the U.S. and people receiving government benefits will pay next to nothing when they present their health care card. What the U.S. does to it's citizens with Health Care is criminal and denying poor people the opportunity to life saving treatment is nothing short of corporate sponsored murder. It would appear Bernie Sanders is your only way out of this mess: if he gets elected, if he remains good to his word and if he can get these changes through Congress. I know all this may be a tall order but while ever it remains possible, I sincerely hope this can happen to put an end to this corrupt behavior, giving the hard working, U.S. tax paying public what they rightfully deserve.
Basically create an actual free market for healthcare services where cost, quality and voluntary agreements for goods/services creates competition. Yes please!
@jocaguz18 As far as the acceptance of services, if I stopped accepting the services of a grocery store which supplied me with food, I would die as well, but there are a large number of grocery stores competitively selling the same products in a free market of absolutely life necessary items. If you can't make your own food (a fundamental building block of life), you have to rely on a market of people/services/products to provide them for you. The only government oversight in that example are the ones that ensure the products are safe to sell/consume (FDA), and the companies participating in the market are doing so fairly (SEC, FTC, etc). No one is making the claim that the government has to provide the means to feed 327 million people who will at some point be hungry. And no one is selling hunger insurance to remove the competition of the grocery stores and allow them to set prices according to what the insurance companies will pay as opposed to the individuals who directly partake in the goods/services being provided. I see healthcare in the same vein. Require government for the basic areas of safety and fair trade. I support the need for cost transparency when there is a HUGE, unexplained difference in costs and I would rather not have the magic hand of government attack pricing, cause every time it does, it screws it up. Government is by design not meant to be flexible, dynamic, agile and responsive to issues, so why hand control of more things to them?
@@DeoMachina I still believe that the regulation of ISP's is problematic in the half-way in/out way they operate now. If we as a society believe that connectivity is a basic and absolute requirement to fulfill basic human rights, then it should be fully regulated and managed like roads/public transits, managed at a city or state level according to the management priorities of those entities. OR, deregulate it completely and require all companies to share the infrastructure without constraint, there by creating an actual marketplace where you can have 1. real choices, 2. opportunity for new players to enter the market without unrealistic start-up costs and infrastructure lock-ins, 3. competition based pricing/servicing according to local/state level priorities. Just a thought, it's pretty complicated when you are dealing with something that I think is still seen as more of a privileged than even driving.
@@clocktowertx the problem is, if doctors profit from how they run their business, morals can change. I watched a movie about how doctors over prescribed opioids for pain. No oversight means even doctors can lose their moral compass.
@jocaguz18 I don't know about you, but every time I go to the hospital, it's not a life and death situation. I'd say most of the time, it's not anywhere close to being that. Vast majority of healthcare costs are NOT life and death. Also, if a hospital has a practice of being transparent with their prices and charges fair prices for procedures, they're less likely to gouge you if and when you do need them in an emergency situation.
This is what I've been saying- all medical providers should by law publish their prices to a central website where consumers can comparison shop for medical services. Right now there's no competition because there's no transparency.
Yeah, everybody calling for "free" healthcare doesn't realize it just makes the problem worse, because Hospitals will still do the same old thing, and the "free" health care company that you are assigned to by the government saves every penny they can, denying you the services you actually need to be able to physically breath. So instead you end up going to the hospital where you wait for 8 hours while the doctor tries to work out something with the insurance company that is acceptable, meanwhile you're literally dying from asphyxiation. Free market, transparent competition is the way forward.
It's not funded through taxes - it's private. If it was funded through taxes and everyone paid the same amount then it would be way better - like it is in the rest of the modern world.
Should be illegal for companies of any kind to impose charges on a customer if that customer wasn't first aware of the costs before "buying" (or in this case, agreeing to have it administered to them). For whatever reason, I thought it was but I guess not... you only know AFTER everything is set in stone.
I texted this to my mom who is a nurse in an administrative position. She's in the Air Force and it's a little weird to explain. Basically as you move up in rank you get to a point where you're mainly doing administrative work because you're at a higher rank that the nurses on the floor. But because it's the military there are always people on leave and getting deployed so she had done a plethora of positions and at any time could be pulled out to do those positions. Anyway, I thought that context might help. MDG stands for Med group, essentially what they call the hospital and/or clinic. Here's what she said: "Wow! I hope this project goes fwd. I have to say, medical billing (I did medical coding yrs ago) is very hard to understand. It’s not really cut-n-dried (I mean this from the billing offices side of the house). I still deal with coding (every nurse encounter meaning med refill, triage, advice, etc.) I have to code-hence bill. It is very detailed. The coder and me at the MDG knew each other well cause I always messed up, or the providers did. Meaning, It’s hard to say what the cost of something is, cause there are so many added variables such as is it a new visit, an established patient, a specialty visit, a procedural visit. You can tell someone “oh, a throat swab for strept costs this flat rate” but there is so much more. My finger can’t type all that is involved, but in reality your final bill might have 6 or 7 codes attached to it that is three times the cost of “just a throat swab.” So a $12 swab will probably cost about $250. So I understand why it’s not easy to publish costs up front. Not that I agree, I just understand."
they are propping up a corrupt means of profiting from the infirmed. Our American health care providers are just as frustrated with this broken system as the patients are. The only ones truly thrilled are on the admin side where the billing, insurance and lobbyist are.
That's a fancy way of saying "the same procedure will cost 500x more if you really REALLY need it". All the US "healthcare" system is doing is exploiting vulnerable people.
@@asmosisyup2557 No, it's my mom saying it's not as simple as we think. She's not justifying it, she's explaining it because the woman giving the talk didn't.
I'm literally dying because of lack of access to healthcare and have no insurance, so I'm experiencing this right now. I worked in healthcare while HIPAA was rolling out and thought this might happen, but never this severe.
the transparent prices at the beginning can force the service provider to balance their prices to medium prices mean all provider have almost the same prices, it does cut cost.
A colleague of mine got transferred to the UK. At first he was put off by the higher taxes he paid in the UK compared to when he was in the US. But after he factored his health insurance premiums with his US taxes, he said the UK total was not terribly higher than what he paid in health insurance and taxes in the US. He said what really sold him on the UK system to the point he's working to becoming a UK citizen, he was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident. For his treatment that included several leg surgeries and rehabilitation therapy, prescription medicines, he paid very little out of pocket costs. You can't say the same for most US health insurance plans. He estimates, calculate with opaque prices, his treatment in the US would have costed tens of thousands easily with massive out of pocket costs.
When the US spends 18% of its GDP on healthcare and many developed countries spend half of that you can be pretty sure that downward pressure via people being able to research prices would result in big money savings.
Imagine that military grants were funding a whole lot of students and science programs in universities across the country. You don't have to imagine, that's how it is now.
@@liamjohnson8000 like on TH-cam? Check out Yale, MIT, and Khan academy. A whole lot of high quality education out there accessible to anyone with internet access.
Recently went to the E.R., thought my son had broken his wrist. no bleeding, no fever, no need for the room to be cleaned two weeks go by. Bill from e.r. was in excess of 500 dollars, xrays 200, e.r visit 100. Called hospital, the 500 was accessed from an expert consultant, we didnt see, the expert had no other duty than to tell the hospital how much to charge. Contest every cent of every hospital bill you get. For to long doctors and hospitals have tacked on whatever they want, I say again contest every cent they want to charge you.
@@jwhatever7610 I didnt pay it yet, and that's really the point, if I went to buy a car, and the salesman told me it had chrome wheels, I'd verify it did before I bought it. Tha hospitals basically have gotten used to lazy people who dont verify the wheels before the pay the bill. Contest everything with doctor and hospitals always.
What if health care providers were legally required to price match medical services and medications with other local providers? Allowances would have to be made for quality of service and legitimate overhead (obviously building a new hospital costs Moe than leasing a shop in a strip mall), but it would likely improve costs.
Yup. 50% income tax so I can have "free" healthcare. People need to know the real cost of healthcare and education even if the government pays the freight. That is the only way informed consumer decisions can be made.
I've been saying this since they first started discussing Obamacare. The first step should have been to get costs down, not focus on who was going to pay or how. Make hospitals post the prices for routine procedures, how many times they do those procedures each year, how many people have to be retreated, and what the infection rates for the patient population is. Prices would drop and quality would soar. The question is, who is stopping this?
there are many problems with many healthcare system around the world, people often think that there's a magic bullet, whether that's privatisation, socialisation, integrity, or regulations, what this video alludes to is that there are problems and will continue to be problems, but holding the right people accountable is a good first step.
And that is why I am moving to another country when I retire in a few months. Screw this organized crime syndicate. As a healthy 56 year old I can get the best medical insurance, covering me 100% for pennies to a dollar on what I can get here before Medicare kicks in.
@@Lanja1991 Greece actually since I am Greek and speak the language. One of the most beautiful countries in the world, especially when you have some means.
Arisgod27 great. Then move there lol and with your retirement fund you can have a very lavish life style there because USA dollar has so much value in Greece
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Here in my country i saw an U S A patient few months ago...she got an ankle sprain and her friends took her to the public hospital where i practice . i was at the operating theatre and she got to wait for me 45 minutes...the management of her trauma was conservative...with a walker boot..the final bill was 0 dollars..but she got to buy Celecoxib as a pain killer outside the hospital...she was really amazed for the final bill ...which was as i wrote before 0 dollars...
Health care is a service. You are not entitled to the labors of others. There 100% should be pricing clarity. Government is heavily involved in the medical system, which pushes prices up. Prices get higher and people can't pay for them, so they get insurance. With insurance you aren't paying for your full medical bills and don't care what it costs (beyond your deductible), which causes the insurance to pay out more, increasing premiums. Since the hospitals know you aren't paying for it yourself, and you don't care what it costs beyond your deductible, they increase their prices, causing a feedback loop. This is the same reason why college has grown so expensive with gov't backed loans. We would have to reduce government involvement in healthcare, and cut out insurance companies to save any kind of money. In the countries outside the US that have socialized healthcare, you get objectively worse care, and it costs more than in the US. While the individual patient may have a direct out of pocket cost less, the total cost of the system is higher. These systems are, or will shortly be insolvent.
Anthem Blue Cross & Blue Shield has been doing this for 4 years. It's on their website so customers can see what procedures will cost at different hospitals.
Hey there! People keep telling us that the insurers' price tools are terrible. Here's one story by one of our partners about that. www.philly.com/health/health-care-costs-price-estimator-tool-20190110.html
This is good information. Would you please look into why COBRA Healthcare with dental for two adults is $1650 a month, and why I cannot just quit COBRA to get onto Covered California?
Panashe Ngowera - because I pay for COBRA I have healthcare. I spoke with someone via chat with Covered CA I cannot quit any means of current healthcare, even if it’s sending me to the poor house. They check what your last healthcare was. So for me, COBRA runs out in June. I cannot apply until coverage runs out. So now, I’m almost a “senior” age person I have to find a job. The average time it takes for a person over 40 is 18 months minimum, unless you have a specialty.
@@coloringwithd That must be a state thing. When I quit my job to go back to school, I moved to Oregon. I was offered COBRA from my job, but when I talked to Oregon's health agency, they said I could put my family on Oregon Health Plan instead. Of course, Oregon Health Plan is much better than Covered CA, since Oregon runs their own Medicaid instead of turning it over to private insurers. But I guess that's as much Anthony Rendon's fault as the fact that he killed California's single payer bill. #JusticeDemocrats
@@hypnometal Admittedly I don't know much about Oregon so it is very interesting about how Oregon runs their Medicaid system. California Medicaid told me that because my husband owns his own business they have to inspect the books for the past 3-years to determine if he doesn't make enough. I couldn't believe it. I wonder if OR Medicaid system would have told you the same thing if you already accepted COBRA? Either way, I have to find a job where I get benefits. Being an older adult and having mental disabilities is not easy. What can I do, right? Have a nice day :-)
I had a problem with price transparency. My doctor ordered some blood work and an EKG, but because it was diagnostic and not preventative, it wasn't covered by my Obamacare-compliant insurance. I would have to pay out of pocket and it would count against my $5,000 deductible. And of the 8 tests she ordered, I could only get the prices on three -- which I could get as part of a flat-fee 5-item blood screening I could get at a freestanding urgent care clinic for something like $15 or $25. The EKG was $250 at the urgent care clinic and I wanted to figure out where it fit in the clinical picture in making decisions about the rest of the testing. When I went back to the doctor with the list of ordered tests and let her know she could expect the three results from iCare but I needed to prioritize the others and might need help researching prices, she told me never mind they weren't actually so cruicial that it was worth the trouble for me to shop around for prices and budget them myself! There is really, really something wrong with this picture.
Here in the UK recently, a friend of mine had a total hip replacement, then I did the same with the same consultant at the same hospital. We could have chosen to do it: (a) on the NHS; (b) via health insurance: or (c) in cash. All these options were open and just fine. The NHS sounds good, as that’s ‘free’ i.e. already paid for as part of all our taxes - but there was a long waiting list and wouldn’t be in a nice private hospital with lots of facilities. My friend chose cash, and paid £9,000 i.e. $11,800 (that covered everything except physio). I chose to pay via my private health insurance (for which I pay £550pm i.e. $720pm for two of us in our 60s). Note such private health insurance is in addition to being covered by the NHS, it’s just a second option for us. I had to pay a bit in cash, about £1,000 ($1,300) as my health insurance wouldn’t cover all of that surgeon’s bill, plus I paid for most of my physio in cash. How much would a total hip replacement job cost in the US? Via heath insurance? In cash?
Obscure pricing removing the ability for individuals to choose the cheaper and/or better option for them is a reason why we need to make a system where prices are essentially gone and you have no choice to your healthcare?
@@Netro1992 obscure pricing? Did you even watch the video you're posting on? Honestly. What cheaper options? Do you have any idea at all what healthcare costs in our country costs right now? The average cost for a family of 4 is $28k per year. That's INSANE! Compare that to Canada who pays an average of $12k per year for a family of 4. In the UK it's an average of $11k per family of 4 for a year. We pay double for our healthcare and have way worse outcomes. No matter who does the study on overall healthcare costs, Libertarian or standard academic. We would spend TRILLIONS less with #Medicare4All than the insanity we have now. Toss on top the fact that those studies don't even factor in the government being able to negotiate drug pricing. Rather than the stupid system we have now where the drug companies just dictate prices and we pay it. You talk about choices for coverage and yet don't take in the fact that most of the cheap plans make a person underinsured. Meaning they have coverage, but with super high deductibles and co-pays that make actually using the coverage impossible. So they effectively pay money for something they can't use. Compare rhat to Medicare For All where a person can just walk in to any doctor's office, hospital, or clinic and get seen without any out of pocket expense. So it's either no choice at all now or all the choices of where to be seen under Single Payer.
@@SWRaptor1 The video is about how it's impossible to know what prices are for procedures unless you actively go dig for them, and how knowing these prices has help people reduce the amount of money they pay because, rather than having the prices obscured by red tape and other parties, they actively seeked out the cheaper and better option for them. Given this, I ask you, what video are YOU watching? PS: Link me up to any libertarian study about the cost benefits of Medicare for all, it would make a fascinating read.
@@Netro1992 "Obscure pricing..." = "The video is about how it's impossible to know what prices are for procedures unless you actively go dig for them..." I mean did you even read what I wrote or naw? Funny part about that whole first paragraph of yours is that you also stated, "...rather than having the *prices obscured* by red tape and other parties..." Guess you missed where you even used the correct description in regards to pricing being obscured and then asked me what video I watched after my rebuttal on the obscured prices comment you made. SMH... Strange you ask me for the study when it's readily available all over the Google machine. The study is from the Koch Brother funded Mercatus Institute and it found that #Medicare4All would cost roughly $32 trillion over ten years. Then went on to explain that our current system will cost over $34 trillion over those same ten years. The study also didn't factor in the fact that we have been seeing 4-5% increases of the current healthcare system costs per year for the last several years. The Mercatus study: www.mercatus.org/bridge/commentary/medicare-all-plan-would-cost-federal-government-32-trillion Also there is another report by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that states that we will see our current system cost about $41 trillion by 2027 if current trends hold. www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/NationalHealthExpendData/Downloads/ForecastSummary.pdf Here is another study by the University of Massachusetts Amhurst that shows that Medicare For All would save us 10% off our current system over ten years: www.peri.umass.edu/publication/item/1127-economic-analysis-of-medicare-for-all
@@SWRaptor1 BOOM! Drop the #FactBombs! Can you believe that Netro guy owned himself in his own comment?!? I mean damn... that was unreal. It's time for #MedicareForAll already! Strange that people want to keep spending more for healthcare when we don't have to do it. They just eat up the propaganda that's trying to keep their healthcare costs sky high.
That wouldn't solve the problem of hospitals charging $51 for a Tylenol, or $350 for an IV bag (saline water: real cost $0.42, including the bag and tubing)!
@@jim.h Exactly. Then hospitals could bill the taxpayers enormous amounts of money and there'd be no accountability. That's why these socialists systems in Europe and Canada are broke.
In the U.K. If you want treatment by the private sector you will be told the costs for any treatment. When my wife needed an operation and decided to use my work private health insurance, she got quotes from Four surgeons, all who were acceptable by the insurance company. The quotes were fully inclusive of all costs and the quotes detailed what the treatment package included. My health insurance had a £200 excess (I think this is equivalent to the American co-pay) on all claims in a calendar year. My health insurance cost about £150 pm for both of us, but didn't cover Dr visits, Emergency etc as these are covered by the NHS. Not many people in the U.K. know that if you injure someone, e.g. In a car accident, the NHS will give you a bill for treating the injured person, thus UK car insurance provides cover for theses costs.
Healthcare with insurance companies and pharmacies in USA is a real issue. If the government isn't able to take charge because of lobbying and corruption, we should take care with our voices and wallets. Thank you 🙏. Also, I'm adding my pricing info to "clear health costs". Please do the same.
One main problems with are health care. Bullshit over charges for near everything fix or outlaw charge 1000 times what cost is for items used cuts overall health care costs by huge amount .
Am getting a 27385 quadriceps tendon repair transostomy. The facilities charge is $6175, the surgery charge is $1600, and the anesthesia charge, about $1120 for a total of $8895.
Kudos to this project. We need price competition in US healthcare and be able to make apples to apples quality comparisons. I do worry though about people wanting their healthcare to cost next to nothing. Someone has to pay for it. If not You someone else is. Also people in the healthcare profession have to go through lots of training. I want there to be incentives for people to get in those professions and don’t expect them to sacrifice years of training for nothing
Lane Sterenberg for profit healthcare isn’t the bad idea. Laser eye surgery is an extremely for-profit procedure that’s highly unregulated and not dealt with by most insurance companies. Yet, it’s decreased in price by roughly 96% over the last decade or so because of profit incentives flooding the market with providers and spurring innovation to deliver a better cheaper product. And that all started with price transparency. The issue here is that people basically believe that as long as they pay their healthcare premium, they’re set and they don’t care much what the price is for the medical services they purchase because they think their insurance is paying for it anyway. It’s that kind of apathy and ignorance as to the price of the medical services they’re being rendered that has contributed to the skyrocketing of healthcare costs in the US. If you know what the prices are and care about getting the best service for the lowest cost, you’ll begin to see those costs go down as an inevitable result of price transparency working with a competitive free market just like what we saw with laser eye surgery.
@@hootieman1991 For-Profit Healthcare is a bad idea. Current cost are higher than it was in 1960, as a percentage of GNP/GDP. Current outcomes are worse than many Socialist countries. Pharmaceutical profits are used to buy Republicans and Democrats. I worked for 72 physicians in West Michigan in the 80's. Our purpose was to thwart the effect of managed care brought on by HMO's. I negotiated fee schedules with 3 HMO's. I had a file of what every physician in our group charged for every procedure they performed. I compared each fee proposed by the HMO to the average fee charged by our members. I divided their proposed fee by our average. I sorted this list by the result. The graph showed where the HMO allowed more than our average fee, a flat portion of the curve where they allowed about our average and declined to where they offered less to much less than our average. I learned a great deal from this 3 year experience; - Physicians are terrible business people - the variation in fees is shocking (I learned new definitions for the term outlier) - people have no idea if they are being overcharged - an outcomes based payment system would put many physicians out of business - some physicians will do anything for money - most physicians will consider crazy methods for making more money - Physicians are financially amoral I would argue for a single payer, outcomes based system with elements of the old "Cost Plus" The Key to reforming our corrupt system is to coach smart, at-risk kids through Medical School and encourage them to practice in their home community. We need to increase the number of good doctors by 60%. www.statista.com/statistics/184968/us-health-expenditure-as-percent-of-gdp-since-1960/
@@hootieman1991 I,m afraid you are so imbued with spurious political dogma you are dancing around with these topics while Rome burns . There should not be ANY medical insurance companies involved in a national healthcare system . The American system causes mass suffering with concomitant mass death and terrible ruination . To determinedly visit this on a nation is incomprehensible and profit is no excuse .
I had a pretty severe eye injury at work which was covered by workman's compensation. It ended up with a corneal transplant and laser surgery to correct vision. An expensive endeavor I'm sure... But in talking with my caseworker, I learned that workers compensation had paid out over $900,000. I thought that it was a bit steep.
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Imagine going into a restaurant that refused to display prices.
They only told you afterwards how much the meal cost.
The reason is cause when people have a health issue it's better for them if they dont think about the price because they might not have the money. The only solution is Medicare for all. Bernie 2020
Bob Smithies, Yes I can imagine. That restaurant would cost 100 times more in the USA compared to most other 1st world countries
Sadly I've been to a restaurant like that.
Some fancy restaurants are exactly like that!
And then you would get an additional bill from the dishwasher 6 months after you had your meal.
Since she never says it in the video, the name of her website/database is "Clear Health Costs."
This ought to be pinned at the top
I use pratter.us. It's amazing the price difference between vendors.
Thank you
Thank You!
Going to hospital is like go to the club. They had their own price. In other country, there are public one and it is cheap so you don't need insurance. you still need insurance for private one.
I was in France last summer, I had no insurance there, I had to go to the emergency , I had an X-ray, and electrocardiogram, and seen by 2 doctors, I stayed in the hospital for about the 3 or 4 hours, there was only 2 people in front of me, but because it was heart related they took me in within 5 minutes
Total cost: 24.56 Euro ! I will remember this price my entire life
Yes, I live in France. My sister-in-law had brain cancer, and because she could not climb stairs to speak to a psychologist about her concerns for her daughters whom she would be leaving, the psychologist paid house calls. It is the most fabulous health system in the world.
And how much would this cost you in US
You realize France tax payers paid all the rest right?
M K you realize it’s more economical and efficient that way.
@@wraith511802003 I don't think I have a problem paying taxes if it saves me and the other person too. And that's how economy works ,are you a fool or pretending to be one.
I got a sadness deep as the ocean when she said, "The cheapest cancer care."
I'm European... The very concept is alien to us, the idea of having to "budget" your survival chances is inhumane...
This.
Same in Canada.
I had to come and live in England to be able to have healthcare; fortunately whilst working both sides of the pond I paid Income Tax and National Insurance here. I would be dead a long time now had I remained in NYC. I do not live in luxury and having been a RN in the NHS I already knew how great the level of care is; it showed me just how bad healthcare is for the working class back home.
I get my pensions, disability benefits, rent & council tax benefit so I am doing just fine.
PS: I forgot to say that I get a new car every three years with my mobility benefit.
Judith Aldridge -- it’s sad to listen to the lies that the Republicans tell Americans. What’s worse is so many people believe them.
@@duanepigden1337 In New York you just have to call something Socialist and they will run a mile away from it. Trump voters keep repeating Trump when he says "We will never be a Socialist Country." The problem is that none of them can tell you what Socialism, Communism or Capitalism are. I have never known a country where so many people election after election, vote against their own best interests. Even people on Medicare or Medicaid will be a lot better with Medicare For All. These people are told by the two main parties just how bad the healthcare systems in other countries are and they take it on blind trust. I have worked and been a patient both in New York and England and we back in the States are not a touch on the standards of care in the NHS. At the end of the day, if you vote to keep a mediocre health service, you get a mediocre health service. Even Trump had to admit how good the NHS is after one of his friends needed emergency surgery in Scotland.
Transparency in health care costs is a good start.
President Trump agreed with this and signed an executive order now forcing medical providers to tell patients when asked how much their services will cost. th-cam.com/video/qIcMnbea3E4/w-d-xo.html
@@michaelhuebner6843 what MSM wouldn't tell you.
Democrats just want to solutions to fall of the sky in the other hand
It shouldn't cost you anything tho
@@imprint2030 This is a naive statement. Everything costs something, the only answer is who is paying for it. What would happen during this pandemic when many many more people need healthcare treatment? The tax payers cannot afford a tax increase, the government is already majorly in debt and even cutting spending in other areas wouldn't be enough to cover healthcare for all, the government has to pay for other things as well: welfare, infrastructure, general services, and many people want free college added to that. So you say tax the rich, until the rich leave. Oh, they won't leave the opportunities are too great you say! Ask California about that, not only have they lost a major tax base with many rich people and their companies, but regular people are also leaving now because the taxes are too high. America is suffering from success. Americans have so use to the United States being so great that any policy could be put in place and companies, people, and money wouldn't leave. We are dealing with globalization now and a world-wide market that is just as good if not better than America. You see this with companies moving jobs & production to China and other Asia countries, you see them expanding into these markets as well because the cost of doing business in America is becoming too high. The United States was majorly based on Rome & because of that we will fall like Rome. We will become too needy, too use to having a good life free from any real worries compared to the rest of the world, we will slowly eat ourself alive until a civil war, major economic collapse, or the gradual overcome from another power. Medical prices are too high for many reasons. 1) the red tape and governmental cost of doing business in healthcare. It should just as easy for a single doctor to open up a small clinic as it is for a dentist to open up a practice. If you want to keep ER & major hospitals regulated, fine they are big business. 2) price transparency, people should know the cost of healthcare before they get it. You know how much a car, house, steak, clothes, literally anything you buy before you buy it. You can weigh your options to see which store has the best prices for the best quality. 3) healthcare workers are over appreciated & overpaid. Being a doctor once meant something because very few people had the ability to become one. Now, going to medical school is normal for people and you see the girls that failed simple math classes in high school going to college and in 2-4 years being an RN and treating people. The level of education has reduced, the ability to become one has reduced, the quality of them have reduced, while the numbers of them has grown. In any other industry that means labor prices would decrease. But the government has regulated the healthcare industry so much that a few big hospitals own a majority of all hospitals and keep new ones from forming. They are in bed with the government and see the regulations as just a cost of doing business and pass that onto the consumer. 4) insurance is only expensive because healthcare is expensive. If you could get knee surgery done for only $10k a knee instead of $50k+ a knee insurance would be a lot less. 5) people need to stop acting like their health is taboo, it is okay to talk about your illness either physical or mental and discuss with people the best option to treat it, which doesn't require medical attention as much as we currently put in place 6) people need to live healthier lives, a majority of peoples medical conditions and cost is due to them not taking care of their body & so if it costs alot of fix them where they have to go into debt that is on them and not my fault 7) hospitals pay for the people who dont pay their medical bills by added it onto your medical bill. This would never happen in any other industry. If the restaurant told everyone that table A left without paying their bill so now everybody else has to split the cost of that so the restaurant doesn't lose money they would all lose their minds but everybody turns a blind eye when it comes to healthcare. I have started a company (that will be launching nation-wide at the end of there summer 2021) that takes advantage of the executive order signed by the 45th president to allow people to compare and construct the cost and quality of hospitals, procedures, healthcare professionals, nursing homes, home health agencies, hospice agencies, pharmacies, & pharmaceuticals. I truly believe this is the way to bring down the cost of healthcare to normalize the healthcare industry so it is on the same level as any other industry and doesn't received special treatment from law makers & the public.
@@HeyItsHades jesus mate calm down this isnt an exam
When was the last time you ate at a fine restaurant only weeks later to get bills from the chef, the buss boy, the waiter, and the dishwasher ?
When is the last time you ate and had insurance pay for it? Sending claims to insurance to be denied, and have to fight insurance for crappy reimbursement is a nightmare. You want the cost to go down? Pay all doctors in cash. Remove all insurance completely. True competition will emerge, and you will then pay what it is worth.
You forgot to include tort reform. Currently, 28% or more of every health care dollar goes for "malpractice" insurance. @@Howard675
@@Howard675 You don't have to get rid of insurance companies, but they wouldn't act as an intermediary as you would just bill them directly. I'd prefer a system where healthcare procedures were grouped (such as MRI, no billing codes) would have an upper limit to what an insurance company would be willing to pay. Insurance companies would say they will pay a certain amount, and anything more than that, the consumer pays. If we knew how much an insurance company was willing to pay for various procedures, and we knew what healthcare providers charged, then choosing healthcare providers would be easier as we would know what would and wouldn't be covered.
So while you are recovering from the Anesthesia, the doctor is supposed to give you the bill and tell you to call a taxi because you can't drive due to the drugs, just like a restaurant?
@@Howard675 Totally Howard.
I am Canadian. i know our universal health care system gets knocked by some of our southern friends. I agree, it is not perfect. But really, when you see these numbers....our system looks great. This is profit racketeering at its most obvious.
Canada also has a few problems with keeping doctors as well as death panels. I have a few friends who live in Canada so I have heard both the positive and negative. From having no problems to having an issue that a single shot that was deemed unnecessary could have prevented a year long stay in a hospital. But when you want to survive cancer there is literally no better place to live than in the USA.
@@vagabondwastrel2361 : Thanks for the reply. You point out some realistic downsides up here. I suspect what you say about cancer in the USA is true but only if you have a very good health insurance or are wealthy. I suspect if you have neither, you are better off in Canada where at least your cancer will be treated regardless of income.
Depends. In canada they can still turn you down for treatment where in the us you there are almost too many charities. Oddly that is part of the American healthcare system. I wish I could go into a clinic and they would post all of the prices before more information is always better. Also when Obamacare was put into place it removed a lot of state run insurance plans for the poor. Wisconsin for instance you only had to pay 1$ a month. One of the biggest issues the American healthcare system is the government over involvement into a capitalistic model through regulations and government funds. It raises the overall price due to government inefficiency and the insurance companies write the rules....
I view is when you look at topics and you only hear people on the left wing complaining you can double check to see if it is a real issue. Just never take their solutions because it is always worse than the problem. When the right wingers complain you know something is seriously wrong.. unless it is by the theocrats in that case double check because they might oddly be correct.
@@vagabondwastrel2361 : Thanks for the informative response. I appreciate it. I learn something new every day.
If you want to see where a full capitalist healthcare would look like .. at least in the American system. you can look at plastic surgery and lazer eye surgery. Massive competition, rapid innovation and better customer care. I forget what countries have a fully capitalist system but there are only like two.
Ms. Pinder - thank you SO MUCH for doing this! Years ago I recall asking a provider for costs up front, and I got a puzzled reaction and don't recall getting the information. I'd love to hear my Congressman's reaction to a call for full transparency...
30 years ago I had a $2500 deductible. So very often I just negotiated cash settlement with medical providers. I found that if I paid cash at the counter for my pathology there was a 50% discount. I negotiated a $1000 MRI down to $200 because the doctor was a nice person and willing to deal in cash. I don’t think it’s changing much because I could never find out what the procedure cost before I actually had the procedure even though I was a personal friend of the director of the local hospital. Thanks so much for what you’re doing.
Thank you so much, Joe DiGiovanni! Together we are strong!
The NHS is the BEST THING THE UK EVER DID.
The USA health care is an embarrassment
Yeah and they slag off our nhs. We don't pay$200 for a paracetamol they're idiots!
john Thatcher Give the Conservatives a few more years of austerity and see how it is then
@@tylermiavlogs5441
So what's your solution? Keep borrowing more and more???
@@tylermiavlogs5441 why do people always blame the conservatives?
Why don't I pop down to your house spend all your money and then blame you for cutting back.
john Thatcher Conservatives haven’t keep spending up with the nhs that’s why less people work for the nhs now then under Blair. We don’t need to borrow money we need a tax increase to rebuild our failing infrastructure and rebuild the nhs
Apparently, 55 people give a thumbs down for having the ability to know when they are being charged 1000% or more for a medical procedure or supply...
They're the pharmaceutical companies
They are republicans on Medicare, what do they care what it costs.
I think they're probably 55 doctors and insurance providers...
It could be people who have perspective on the problem and have surmised that taking the discussion in the direction of nit-picky dollars might be a waste of everyone's time given the complexity of the system. Simplicity and transparency are often at odds. Bringing more people into the conversation might just make things worse.
@@JanisFroehlig Medicare for all would simpify everything and lower costs. Single payer like the rest of the civilized world.
Omg the price of health care over in the US is nuts.
That’s why I’m feeling to be on the brink of death with complications resulting from influenza I can’t afford without health insurance.
Honestly would rather die than take up $5400 in debt for a damn Tamiflu pack I can get on the street for like $20, as my condition worsens. Only reason I haven’t gone to an ER is that I AM A HEALTHCARE PROVIDER! So I can monitor my symptoms and self medicate to a point...
@@headcold7250 so sorry that is just awful I don't go the doctor much myself and my cost would be around €100 to see and be treated but if I had an ongoing problem they would give me free health care. It's so not fair and them prices are unjustified.
You all pay taxes there is no reason there shouldn't be a health system in place.
Physician offices need to have a HIPAA officer, a Safety officer, an HR department, have to comply with government reporting for the incentive payment program, the list goes on. Physicians are still under the sequester cuts from Obama. Reimbursements are decreasing to physicians. Costs are increasing. The government and insurance companies are raping the physicians in an effort to shut them down, and open government health clinics to provide crappy "free health" to all. This lady is very short sighted in her discussion.
that's why I haven't seen a doctor in twelve years
i'm not super man, i'm just not super rich
The healthcare system needs to be improved. Left/right we should be able to agree with that
She's treating a symptom, just like the U.S. legislature.
The big stinky fish is out of water and floundering in death throws. Health care for profit is immoral. The U.S. needs to join the rest of the western world.
Totally agree
The problem is these corporations are paying both left and right to keep things as they are. (Massively overfimplified view, I know, but it's a huge problem.)
The reason why the U.S. does not have Medicare for all, is due to ONE man: Senator Max Baucus. He was the chairman of the committee that held up the Affordable Care Act until they agreed to remove the Medicare option from it. He is a retired Insurance company executive, supported by the insurance industry to get elected. Now here's the surprise: He was a democrat. Yes, ONE guy screwed us all. He is no longer in office, but there are still far too many congressmen and senators (and president) that are indebted in some way to the insurance industry. www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/09/08/max-baucus-once-a-foe-of-single-payer-health-care-belatedly-endorses-it/?noredirect=on&.0a86f8df5b4c
@@walperstyle that's really strange you imply surgery costs money out of pocket for the patient and it certainly does not. All medically necessary surgery is covered in Canada. This info is readily available on Canada's own official website.
You imply also that the state takes more out of your check and they don't. In fact you seem to have no idea how well you have it. An average (not median) family of 4 there pays $12k Canadian per year on healthcare. Here in the US the average is $28k US. Think about that a second. We pay 2 TIMES as much as you folks do and have worse health outcomes.
Oh and don't talk about waiting times. I have really good insurance and it takes at least a month for an xray or MRI. Sometimes longer. 2-3 months minimum for a specialist consult. 4-6 months for a mental health appointment. Surgery on my spine took 5 months from scheduling to the knife. Oh and if you happen to pay cash, you can often get in the same day or at worst the same week you're seeking the appointment. We did this on an xray and also on a mental health appointment.
You have it good and shouldn't be acting like private, for-profit healthcare is in any way a good thing.
what? you dont agree with 87 dollars for two advil?
@North American TH-camr ,
That's not really correct either. Please look at my above post.
Hopefully the Advil is cage-free and all natural....
They got people deeply fooled.....that changing prices changes anything.....smh😔......#1 first of all, the psychology behind raising prices was to get folks to think that the product was more valuable, so they could work harder to get something they are missing out on.....#2 lowering the prices won't do shyt either, due to the fact that most of these drugs are NOT constructed properly in the first place because if they were , then there wouldn't be any negative side effects to them or negative withdrawals.
Thank you Trump for fixing this!
@AI Martins ,
In my other post I explained in detail how medical billing actually works, based on my own many years of firsthand experience in that field.
I did NOT, ' lie ', nor, ' deflect ', anyrhing!
Wow, it’s almost like prices go up when you artificially increase demand by conducting every healthcare transaction through insurance. Who would have thought.
How does insurance increase demand? BTW, people don't have to us.e insurance; they're free to pay out of pocket
Have you ever heard the saying: “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is”?
In theory, people could waive their insurance on things like yearly physicals, X-rays, small operations, etc.. (assuming the doctors offices even know what to charge without the insurance) but in practice no one does because you’d have to be a fool to pay out of pocket for something insurance will cover after you have paid your insurance premium.
@@tomcotter4299 Of course. But you side-stepped the main point. You claimed that insurance increases demand, thus increasing prices. How?
fretbuzz59
Demand is what people desire *and* can afford. Insurance artificially increases the amount of healthcare that people can afford. The desire part is a given for humans.
@@tomcotter4299 Well that's a completely fucked-up way of looking at things. But yes, insurance does make it possible for people to get healthcare they couldn't otherwise afford. Of course the alternative, in many cases, would be for them to DIE.
If that's fine with you, then there's no more to discuss (except for your moral shortcomings). But if you think people should be able to get the care they need, then we've got to figure out a way to pay for it.
As for "desire." The desire to survive is a given for humans. Beyond that, healthcare isn't like a luxury item that one desires but doesn't really need. "Should I get myself a fancy new watch or an appendectomy." It's not like that.
What if the US recognised that healthcare is a human right rather than a market for profit.
If it was a market for profit, there would be competition, reducing prices and increasing quality. Instead, we have government subsidized healthcare, causing massive distortion.
@@nosouponhead That would work if it was a free market where people were free to choose, let's explore these 2 point:
1)the healthcare market is not easy to enter, you can't just make a startup and start selling drugs, you need a huge amount of money so it's dominated by few giant corporations that can just make deals with each other in order to raise prices.
2)healthcare doesn't follow the free market rules because you don't have a choice: if your car is old you can keep it, spend to repair it or buy a new one (used or brand new).
If you have cancer, diabetes or another health problem that can bring you to death you have to options: buy or die.
If you need a specific drug to live that only one company makes (covered by patent) and they decide to raise the price from 25$ to 100$...or 500$...you have no choice, buy or die.
@@francesco8000 1: That's created by government regulation.
2: A free market means, you are able to buy your drugs from a cheaper place.
cheaper phones from china, cheaper cars from korea.
Why can't you import epi-pens and asthma puffers and sell them in the USA under your own company name at a cheaper rate than the big pharma companies?
@@nosouponhead Thats the theory of the capitalst ideal. Trouble is that theory stopped working as soon as corporations began & capitalism went global. Now the ever increasing race to the lowest cost disregarding the quality of product means you get a healthcare system that gives you the care that your bank balance denotes says you deserve.
@@nosouponhead exactly
I paid $200 to get new lenses in my eye glass frames in San Diego. In Tijuana, I got the same lenses, from the same manufacturer, for $38. I got the same prescription, but in plastic, not glass, in Mumbai, India, for
$12.
In 2017 I tore my Achilles tendon while in northeast China. The doctor ordered an MRI; it cost me $80. (The MRI machine BTW was made by GE.) When I saw my podiatrist in the US and showed him the images from the Chinese hospital, he said the same test would have cost me $1000 here. Go figure.
@@kidlatazul Operating equipment is hugely influenced by wages though. That being said, that would only account for a $200-300 difference.
Sick people don't haggle, when unregulated, commercial health care providers are most likely to scam their patients because it is even more profitable than illegal drug trade. And they lobby politicians so they can keep doing that.
@@joseph_wei So true. Politicians and the damn lobbyists are crooks! Pisses me off!
@@drakkorvladimir4012 Thats what happens when you legalize bribery. Who could have imagined that giving people with money unlimited access to politicians would lead to moral hazard. Hu da thunk it.
In 1999, I had the same procedure done in the space of 24 hrs due the Dr.'s rushing to go to a dinner party. The difference was an over night stay. The first cost $9,000. The second $20,000. When I asked for an itemized bill, I was stunned. The first thing I noticed was a pregnancy test. I am a man. They charged me for drugs not used and devices not used. When I showed this to a medical lawyer, he asked if he could have the case to sue. I told him only if the hospital didn't admit their mistake/ intended of charging. After the lawyer contacted the hospital, they asked if $3,000 would be acceptable. As for the Dr performing the procedure, he had his license removed for malpractice/ Medicare fraud.
My daughter had bend over stomach pain. Took her to emergency. Sunday night 11pm. We sat in the lobby for 2 hours. Once assigned a bed. 5 hours to get seen by the doctor. Blood drawn and waited 3 hours for results. Doctor gave my daughter potassium pills. We left and received a bill for $3557 😨
That's horrific, I'd imagin in my country you'd only have to pay for staying over night in hospital (bed + breakfast), fullstop. Rest is paid by your health insurance. Sure waiting some time is common, but 7h... Thanks for sharing your story!
@@kleinshui9082 I wondering it I should question the bill further. I think I will get it itemize.
In that cost you both could have traveled to india, get treated. come back...still with some money to throw a party
@@vikas274 what!! 😨
now think about what she in the video is proposing as a solution. That if your daughter has that much pain, that you start to google the cheapest hospital and drive there... even if you do not know what to expect and how urgent it is.
it is good taht you cant, because you really should not take an hour longer to see a doctor just so you can save some bucks.
As a Brit that's another reason to love our NHS.
I hope you sort out your healthcare issues USA.
Imagine if you just lived IN CANADA like myself...
You would never have to worry about this!
My ex is from Canada. You are leaving out some things like the interminable waits for some procedures.
As long as you don’t die before the waiting period is over.
@@joesmith389 As a Canadian I agree. Wait lists for an MRI can be a year or more. Our system is just as broken as the U.S. system, just in different ways. If an American wants an equivalent of the Canadian system. Think about the U.S. veterans healthcare. Only on a national scale with 30 million people trapped in it.
@Danny Bowen
In Europe we pay nothing.
But the Insurance companies,
Doctors and Hospitals in US are trying
to get you to pay this bills, one way or another.
And 32 % of the people in US don`t even have Insurance
A day in a hospital costs $5,220 here - versus $424 in Spain.
Harvoni cures hepatitis C.
It also costs $10,000 more in the US than anywhere else.
Need to take the cancer drug Avastin?
It will cost nine times more in the United States than in Britain.
Bypass surgery costs $78,318 here, versus $24,059 in the UK.
@@joesmith389
In Europe we don`t have waiting time, and is free.
I work in radiology and I 1000% agree with this. The prices hospitals charge is outrageous. Its not right. Only 3-4 exams could make any middle-class person bankrupt.
Wow, makes me feel nice about being born in France
Several years ago I needed to have a colon screening. I wanted to know, beforehand, from my health insurance provider what my "Co-pay"would be. It took 2-1/2 years for me to get an answer after many frustrating calls. So my screening was delayed 2-1/2 years. I could have had it much sooner if I was willing to sign a blank check! Turns out that in Washington state there is some law that required them to tell me the cost if I asked. I guess they had 2-1/2 years to comply?
I needed a non covered service at the Cleveland Clinic. I called and asked them how much since my insurance didn't cover it. They said I had to wait until I was billed to see. For 30 minutes with a nutritionist, not a PHD, it was $700.
Cynthea Sabolich welcome to America.
As a diabetic in Finland I can get my insulin 100% covered because it is classified as "life sustaining medication". I only pay € 4,50 administration fee per type of insulin which I use two of. I can get 3 months worth at a time from the pharmacy. But the amount the government pays is printed on the receipt. That total € 371 for 2 types of modern insulin products for 3 months. I once checked what that would cost for me in the US and it came up as $ 1300. And of course the medical company is already making a profit here in Finland or they would not operate here. So that x4 higher price in the US is nothing but a rip-off. Ripping off people for staying alive. For a drug of which original formula was sold to medical companies for a nominal price of $ 1 by the University of Toronto because it was meant to be for the good of humanity.
Because of insurance companies rather than using the free market
The healthcare providers and the insurance companies form a super monopoly. Free Market capitalism cannot exist when there is a monopoly in place. The healthcare system in the United States is not a Free Market; it is a Monopoly Market.
What if you sat down at a restaurant and the menu had no prices listed. You can only know the cost of the fillet mignon after the meal. Would anyone not get up and leave?! Medical procedure cost secrecy is criminal.
It doesn’t matter if the truth gets out there, people still care more about kylie jenner being self made than health care..
But she's isn't self made though
@@unityking7451 ray j made that family. poor guy deserves royalties
If she’s self made I’m a taco
Sure but if you tell them a splint for a broken arm costs $30 at one hospital and $500 at another, I'm sure they'll care a little bit more.
It's not that they don't care. It's just that the American public gets its news from the corporate news industry. Which usually comes for free. And if y'all are not paying for it, then you're not the customers. The customers are all the companies that buy ad time on that channel - and they very much include insurance and healthcare providers. So the news won't report on the healthcare crisis, because any response to said crisis would make the healthcare industry less profitable. Any ad you see on news media represents a massive conflict of interest for that channel. Meanwhile, reporting on celebrities only helps those celebrities. So you get a lot of "news" about celebrities.
calling this an emergency is a misnomer. This is a crime. These people should be arrested. This cartel should be repeatedly driven over by a dump truck.
we agree! how do we catch them?
@@majermike preferably at the ends of pitchforks and then secure them firmly beneath guillotines. It's coming.....
Electricity , gas, water, everyone needs a supply of these things, and we have collectively decided, as a Society, that they are valuable,, That everyone should have access at a reasonable and transparent price.... so we have Public Utility Commissions to regulate prices and evaluate rate hikes.... Yet Medical costs are still an opaque and taboo subject.
Well those are public utilities that you don't have choices in which company you use. Insurance and medical you do. You can go to any hospital or Dr. Office doesn't matter your address. Can't get water service from a company in another town.
Kermit DaFrog so, according to your logic, the price goes up because there is competition? Isn't that there exactly the opposite of what the "free market" advocates state?
True. These industries are monopolies and are the opposite of capitlism. Yet you have idiots who think a free market in these industries would drive more innovation when you have a litteral random joe make their artificial pancreas thats actually more effective than what big companies make.
Reasonable Speculation 🎼thaaaats caaaaalled looooobbying🎼
Five weeks ago I had triple bypass surgery in Australia, cost me absolutely nothing.
So glad I live here and not in the USA.
Here in the USSA, I'm relieved to find my paycheck exceeding that of an Australian whose gummint skims healthcare costs off the top. If you're single and childfree in Australia, you still pay part of your wages to support marriage and breeding of others.
@@jimkirby9959
Boo hoo.
At least we don't go into debt just to have a operation or get a decent education.
Your country is a failed state. Just wake up to reality.
@@jimkirby9959 Who cares if you got a higher paycheck, you gotta pay to ride an ambulance bruh lmao.
@@jimkirby9959 Wait until you get older. The older you get, the more you need healthcare. Let’s see if you can still afford thousands of dollars for an ambulance ride, or thousands of dollars for prescription medicine which costs a fraction of the cost overseas, even in developing countries. You’ll get shafted by the US “healthcare “ system sooner or later. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. What do you expect of a system whose number one priority is profit over the lives of people?
This is great stuff.
Embarassing for Google that said company did not come up with that idea first.
That lady will save lives with her work!
Thank you so much! (blushing)
@@Clearhealthcosts put a link in description. Or comments outside and pin it
Your medical system is insane...
@Ian Stevenson The government and insurance companies are to blame. Liberal lies of "healthcare for free" and "keep your doctor" have decimated our health system. The qualifications for enrollment to medical school continues to drop because there are fewer and fewer people who want to put in the time and tremendous work for the crappy pay a physician now gets. The shortage of physicians and nurses has already begun. The quality of health care has already started to suffer.
@@Howard675 To add to that we as people need to accept some responsibility when a lot of people want to the sue the hospital or the doctor at the drop of hat.... not accepting they did to their health...
The American system right now is a mix of big business, over regulation, heavy subsidization and some of the best healthcare you can get.
yes it is insane, we're sorry everyone we just want to say that we really suck hard and we can't help that we suck
In America some people want to blame the cop (government that is) for the rape. Of course the rapists are the AMA the drug companies and the insurance companies. Wow! There are none so blind as those who will not see. No facts will ever change their minds.
But we found out that the military was buying items that were extremely overpriced we were flabbergasted. When we see a hospital bill and a single Tylenol cost $80 where is the outrage?
And people think, "Well, my insurance will pay for it so it's not a problem." But what they don't realize is that those costs WILL be paid BY YOU eventually in the form of higher premiums for everyone.
Having bills itemized that way is a little silly, but there’s a reason they’re listed higher than normal. They’re inflating the cost of things you receive to pay for the things you don’t see. You’re paying for the administration, the nurses and techs, the electricity, plumbing, etc, the security guard, the building maintenance, the property taxes, the janitorial service, and so on. There are a lot of costs that get added on to things to pay for underlying costs. It’s just like a pizza costing $20 when the ingredients only cost $2.
@@dsolomon You forgot:
- Hush money for mistresses
- Mortgage on 19th house
- Dining expenses at the Ritz Carlton
- Polo lessons for little Jimmy
Just kidding, but not really.
THANK GOD FOR THIS WOMAN!! I have asked so many times how much things cost for basic medical procedures at doctor's offices and hospitals and no one I speak with will tell me a thing. I feel alone but I know that everyone is in the same boat as I am.
This is the definition of racketeering /rakəˈtɪərɪŋ/ _noun_ : dishonest and fraudulent business dealings.
The comments are fascinating.
I particularly like the ones that argue that it is a personal responsibility of every single person to pay for their health care, implying it is a moral failure to be unable to do so.
As if there was this perfect connection between what you can afford, and what happens to you. And in a system where the same procedure can randomly be priced 10 dollars or 1000, with no rhyme or reason.
So if a hospital charges you 120 dollars for an exam, you pay it and you are an outstanding individual and a productive member of society. Same scenario, but the hospital decides to bill you 1200 for the same exam and you can't pay? You are a freeloader and should have taken a second or third job to cover your expenses, like any responsible adult should.
And on top of all of this you are not even supposed to ask how the price is formulated. The hospital and the system should not be questioned. Otherwise you are a whiner and an entitled loser.
Sounds legit.
To those of us on the outside looking in, it is just bizarre.
That and the lack of compassion for your fellow man is truly upsetting :-(
I once thought about working in America for a while but the way patients are seen as customers rather than patients, the fact I'd be expected not to treat people because they had no insurance and the worry about how I'd get treatment if I'll really put me off. The system is incredibly dangerous and one thing we (the rest of the world) need to make sure America doesn't export.
This is America :,) land of the free and home of the brave. Free to pay to live and brave enough to try lmao.
After the 1920s, American commerce switched to “consumerism”.
Also lobbying is a thing so... there ya go.
No, it's a moral failure to depend on the kindness of strangers for your pregnancy leave and childcare support.
The U.S. health care system is unique among advanced industrialized countries. The U.S. does not have a uniform health system, has no universal health care coverage, and the people suffer to put money in the pockets of the government workers
When I asked how much my cystoscopy would cost, my doctor literally told me, "I don't know; I've never considered it." I felt stupid then, but after watching it I realize that what's stupid is the fact that my doctor doesn't know how much it would cost a college student to get a test done. Maybe if they did, they wouldn't prescribe so many needless tests.
I work in a union and I was told health insurance costs increase 10% every year... 10% a year?! Healthcare costs are spiraling out of control. Hospitals and insurance providers are in a never ending battle in trying to make a profit. Healthcare prices don't follow in line AT ALL with economic inflation. Someone needs to address this issue! It is ruining tons of regular peoples lives and credit!
I work in the medical industry and you hit the nail on the head!
Healthcare should be a human right. Companies shouldn't be able to make money off of health issues period... Let alone laws protecting denial of services over pre existing conditions! Its criminal... We are dealing with human lives here ...Existence on this planet shouldn't be dependant on how much money you can afford to spend on healthcare.
I took a vow to "do no harm" as a nurse, that's why I quit healthcare. It screws people over financially if they need help.
Most of the time they only get help with limited resources anyways as a lot of places don't hire enough staff and overwork those that are the for that shift.
Nobody wins here, the patient doesn't get what they pay for and the worker is stressed out and can't possibly provide the best care 100% of the time due to being spread thin in most clinical instances.
Healthcare in US sucks. It's predatory and unethical.
Yeah... but it's *NOT* the nurses and the Doctors who are the problem. Just like with the education system in the US, it's the hospital Administrations that has all the money and is causing all the problems.
The Department of Health and Human Services introduced a rule in November of 2020 requiring hospitals to post clear prices *before* patients receive treatment -- and it requires that hospitals abide by those prices. Guess which organizations are suing to try and block this rule? The American Hospital Association, the Association of American Medical Colleges, and the Federation of American Hospitals. So; this looks a lot like collusion between all of the big hospitals in the country. We have some examples of 'Trustbusting' supreme court decisions that have occurred in the past, for example: , 310 U.S. 150 (1940).
@@gilian2587 It's everyone in the system.
@@thomast3570 And your role? Administration?
@@gilian2587 Does it make a difference? I have 40 years' experience with negotiating people around healthcare systems. Posting prices sounds like a paper by a business major.
@@thomast3570 Knowing the general price for more expensive procedures like an 'Appendectomy' is crucial. Otherwise... even simple affairs could have someone might end up with a bandaid and a few words of encouragement and be charged $40,000 at Hospital A when a little research would have made it manifestly obvious that similar treatment at Hospital B would have charged them $100 for the visit. Patients have to be able to make judgments regarding price point. It allows patients to defend themselves a little more financially. Gas stations advertise their prices for their product, they have to in order to compete. Gas stations do not have a de facto license to extort their customers; why should Hospitals? As it stands -- people are being bankrupted by the medical system in the US right now. That has to stop.
They don't want us to know, because then we could comparison shop on some things. Also, we're scared to use coverage if we don't know how much it could cost.
In 2001, after paying for top AETNA family coverage for years, my wife and youngest daughter were hospitalized for surgical procedures. With two events in one year, I was so thankful to be covered by insurance - that is until I started receiving an endless stream of bills afterwards. As I negotiated uncovered hospital expenses, I learned insurance regulations prevented any after-the-fact discounting by the hospital. The hospital administrator tolerated my persistence and gave me a valuable education. I learned the cash price for my wife's stay was less than 50% of the charges through insurance. Building on this and having good Excel skills, I analyzed all costs including insurance premiums withheld from my payroll only to discover both hospitalizations could have been accomplished for less considerably less than what I paid out with insurance. In 2003, I dropped insurance entirely. Within a year, I figured out how to get healthcare for less than 1/3 the cost. It gets better. When I had insurance, I was always getting past due notices, phone calls and arguing with providers. I still don't have health insurance despite Obamacare. I also don't have unpaid healthcare bills and collectors calling me.
I agree. Transparency is key to a healthier society. Record your experiences to protect yourself and others.
Too bad most Americans (online) don't want to hear about what's bad and what could be improved how about the US health care system. They hear about the good examples of public health care around the world and just scream "communism" or "socialist" and that's it. Maybe this video will help them reflect.
That's because we have a lot of ignorance here in the U.S. I'm American and I'm amazed at people here reacting like that considering our health system is a big scam but since the true president of this country are the corporations the health industry gets away with murder. How is it that no transparency of prices is something legal??
Dajana Darling :) Well....We Americans about 35 % are DUMB IDIOTS, these are illiterate, uninformed or under informed who live mostly in boonies in their cubbyholes , mostly have extreme views and superiority complex...and they don't want to hear anything different because that is beyond their comprehension abilities... you know what I mean?
@@valsummerfield3069 Correct!
@@coolwtr033 They are also lazy and want handouts for choosing not to work. It is a sad state of affairs. People who have never seen Nebraska say there is too many people on the earth. The then cry out "health care for all" never knowing the consequences of their desires. It's just not about free stuff for all.
@@valsummerfield3069 Transparency in the US is perhaps a myth. Who are the owners of Federal Reserve Bank? Because there is nothing "Federal" about it, it's a private organization!
This was a great talk. I've asked what a drug or procedure would cost, and how much my insurance would cover in the past. The number I have been given has always been lower than the number I've paid. I don't understand how the medical system can bill you whatever they want after the fact.
To be totally honest, I went to an emergency room with severe chest pain, and the first person that talked to me was not a nurse or a doctor, but and insurance person. I told them I don't have insurance, money, a job, or anyway to pay for a bill in the future. They put me in the ICU for a week knowing I had no way of paying the bills. I am now hunted relentlessly for a crap load of money I told them I couldn't pay right at the beginning.
I will never forget that I was $500 for gauze. I was 17 at the time so about 21 years ago. I had asked for an itemized list and actually got it at the time. I saw the gauze and my jaw dropped. I was like WTF not because of the cost, but because they never used the gauze. On the phone I was told it was because it was made available. I started to argue that the gauze was never used and why would a strip of gauze cost $500 but I was hung up on. I refused to pay bill at $500 and the hospital sent it to collections. I had to pay it off eventually because I needed a car. The hospital put a bad note on my credit though I paid the $17,200ish but not the $500 left on the note.I figured it was normal for an MRI to cost $12,000 and the one doctor I never saw to cost about $2000
A universal health care system will be as good as we decide to make it. Just because some Canadians are unsatisfied with their system doesn't mean all universal health care systems must be bad by default. The current (employer provided health insurance) system came into being accidentally as a result of the wage freeze during WWII and it is now being jealously guarded by insurance industry lobbyists, among others, and their lying political stooges. It's common sense that a fortune could be saved and citizens would be better served if the layer of useless insurance industry overhead was eliminated.
Physician offices need to have a HIPAA officer, a Safety officer, an HR department, have to comply with government reporting for the incentive payment program, the list goes on. Physicians are still under the sequester cuts from Obama. Reimbursements are decreasing to physicians. Costs are increasing. The government and insurance companies are raping the physicians in an effort to shut them down, and open government health clinics to provide crappy "free health" to all. This lady is very short sighted in her discussion.
That is like saying Socialism isn't bad just because everyone else who tried it did it wrong. It is never more efficient for the government to do anything. Government does not care how much something costs, it isn't their money they are spending.
@@marioxmariox And here we have the typical ignorant "muh socialism" argument.
The USA have the highest healthcare cost per capita in the world. If you adjust for wealth, the USA pay twice as much as anyone else except for Switzerland. And even then, Switzerland is lower. Canadians pay less than half of the costs. Less than half.
People aren't talking about taking on a system that "doesn't work", they're talking about adopting a system that works orders of magnitude better, but still has its own issues.
marioxmariox if you ever find yourself saying “never” or “always” in an argument, you just made something up.
Please! We've got a massive government managed health system. It's call the Veterans Administration. Go visit, learn.
when i was uninsured, my knee started hurting. i tried to get a price for a simple consultation before i went in. nope. "no way to tell". the joint doc never looked at my knee, just spent literally 1.5 minutes telling me he was scheduling an mri. how much? no one could tell me. come back next week for the results. how much to come back in for the results? "we couldn't tell you." a week later, knee feeling better, i went back and the doc said the knee looked fine, 'perscribed' a knee brace that they happened to have under the counter up front. here's where i finally lost it:
i went up front, gave them the script for the brace, they measured my knee and handed me a medium-sized cloth brace in a box. i asked how much. THEY COULDN'T TELL ME. i said i wanted to pay now. they said "impossible. we don't do money. wait for the bill." i asked where the bill would come from. they said "upstairs". i told them to call upstairs and find out how much the dam brace was. it devolved from there. the upstairs person was pizzed at the downstairs person for allowing it to go this far- patients are ~billed~, period. meanwhile, while i waited, i had time to look at the brace- just a normal brace, nothing special. finally, after a long time, i got a number: about 8 times the price for a knee brace at walgreens.
but the final bills totalled in the thousands.
That sounds almost fraudulent.
There needs to be a law requiring health service providers to post their prices and tell the patient the cost before they do the procedure. What other business do not do these things?. It's criminal
thetruth ...posting prices is only part of the solution. We need Medicare for all.
@@B33SON1 unfortunately with trump in the White House and a Republican controlled senate this won't happen. I would love to see what excuse they make to vote against a bill that requires transparent easily available pricing.
Svein Gerald Hansen
I totally got your message the first time. I’m in Canada. Where, I’m so grateful to be able to take my elderly parents to the hospital as needed. They are checked in, and out, like it was a hotel, (actually easier, and faster). With no direct cost to me. As a self employed, it’s nice to not be bankrupted, by your parents. Imagine the stress, taking your old dad to the hospital.
But our system is under the threat of, a strong business lobby. That wants us to be like the US. They can smell the huge profits. And currently, we have to pay our Dr’s crazy amounts, to discourage them from going south.
In Canada here, I suffered a lacunar infarct after a severe flu. I did receive a bill though; $4.50 for overnight parking. Outrageous.
Standard of care was excellent.
Yet another wonderful video from TedX team. Really appreciate.
#SumitVBhardwaj
Hi bro...text me ...my number is 9705238625
Transparency would be a good start. What is next?
Remove excessive government regulation, tort reform, privatize insurance, pay cash.
You let capitalism / the market sort it out from there.
Universal healthcare, health care is a right, not a privilege
@michaelatw86 so if I can't afford it, and I break my arm or get deathly ill, I should just die or let it set incorrectly?
@michaelatw86 also I read that in Trump-voice and it always sounds... Unintelligent. It's a good laugh, man, thanks!
even the lower prices on the slides look expensive for me
I'm an Australian citizen and was admitted to The Royal Melbourne Hospital via ER for an operation last year. I pay a small yearly admin fee to the ambulance service and was treated and driven by the paramedics to hospital for free. I was in for several days and had x rays, an ultra sound, blood tests, a saline drip, general anesthetic, morphine, Endone tablets, 3 meals (with deserts) a day , I was seen by several different doctors and specialists, plus the surgeons and anesthesiologist and was looked after by several different nurses the entire time, with prompt assistance only a button push away. The only thing I had to pay for was $10 AU to be able to watch a personal 30" TV set with a convenient hand held speaker and remote, so I didn't wake up others in the middle of the night. We have some of the best medical professionals in the world working in our public health system and it doesn't cost us a cent. I could've paid a lot more had I gone to a Private Hospital but still no where near the cost in the U.S. as we're not subjected to overinflated price hiking monopolies by the Hospitals, insurance companies and pharmaceutical corporations. We pay several thousand percent less for the same medicine at shops compared to the U.S. and people receiving government benefits will pay next to nothing when they present their health care card. What the U.S. does to it's citizens with Health Care is criminal and denying poor people the opportunity to life saving treatment is nothing short of corporate sponsored murder. It would appear Bernie Sanders is your only way out of this mess: if he gets elected, if he remains good to his word and if he can get these changes through Congress. I know all this may be a tall order but while ever it remains possible, I sincerely hope this can happen to put an end to this corrupt behavior, giving the hard working, U.S. tax paying public what they rightfully deserve.
This is a GREAT idea. This needs to be seen in every city in our country PERIOD.
You can feel her passion! She is marvelous!
Basically create an actual free market for healthcare services where cost, quality and voluntary agreements for goods/services creates competition. Yes please!
You mean like how ISP's operate right? Oh wait- uh
@jocaguz18 As far as the acceptance of services, if I stopped accepting the services of a grocery store which supplied me with food, I would die as well, but there are a large number of grocery stores competitively selling the same products in a free market of absolutely life necessary items. If you can't make your own food (a fundamental building block of life), you have to rely on a market of people/services/products to provide them for you. The only government oversight in that example are the ones that ensure the products are safe to sell/consume (FDA), and the companies participating in the market are doing so fairly (SEC, FTC, etc). No one is making the claim that the government has to provide the means to feed 327 million people who will at some point be hungry. And no one is selling hunger insurance to remove the competition of the grocery stores and allow them to set prices according to what the insurance companies will pay as opposed to the individuals who directly partake in the goods/services being provided. I see healthcare in the same vein. Require government for the basic areas of safety and fair trade. I support the need for cost transparency when there is a HUGE, unexplained difference in costs and I would rather not have the magic hand of government attack pricing, cause every time it does, it screws it up. Government is by design not meant to be flexible, dynamic, agile and responsive to issues, so why hand control of more things to them?
@@DeoMachina I still believe that the regulation of ISP's is problematic in the half-way in/out way they operate now. If we as a society believe that connectivity is a basic and absolute requirement to fulfill basic human rights, then it should be fully regulated and managed like roads/public transits, managed at a city or state level according to the management priorities of those entities. OR, deregulate it completely and require all companies to share the infrastructure without constraint, there by creating an actual marketplace where you can have 1. real choices, 2. opportunity for new players to enter the market without unrealistic start-up costs and infrastructure lock-ins, 3. competition based pricing/servicing according to local/state level priorities. Just a thought, it's pretty complicated when you are dealing with something that I think is still seen as more of a privileged than even driving.
@@clocktowertx the problem is, if doctors profit from how they run their business, morals can change. I watched a movie about how doctors over prescribed opioids for pain. No oversight means even doctors can lose their moral compass.
@jocaguz18 I don't know about you, but every time I go to the hospital, it's not a life and death situation. I'd say most of the time, it's not anywhere close to being that. Vast majority of healthcare costs are NOT life and death. Also, if a hospital has a practice of being transparent with their prices and charges fair prices for procedures, they're less likely to gouge you if and when you do need them in an emergency situation.
Large corporations using standard corporate practices, with the associated complete lack of morality. Par for the course in US.
This is what I've been saying- all medical providers should by law publish their prices to a central website where consumers can comparison shop for medical services. Right now there's no competition because there's no transparency.
Yeah, everybody calling for "free" healthcare doesn't realize it just makes the problem worse, because Hospitals will still do the same old thing, and the "free" health care company that you are assigned to by the government saves every penny they can, denying you the services you actually need to be able to physically breath.
So instead you end up going to the hospital where you wait for 8 hours while the doctor tries to work out something with the insurance company that is acceptable, meanwhile you're literally dying from asphyxiation.
Free market, transparent competition is the way forward.
Us spending most tax money on health care and have the worst health care system in the world !!
It's not funded through taxes - it's private. If it was funded through taxes and everyone paid the same amount then it would be way better - like it is in the rest of the modern world.
@@IAmSoMuchBetterThanYou Yet the US spend more tax per capita than anyone else for healthcare their people can't afford.
Should be illegal for companies of any kind to impose charges on a customer if that customer wasn't first aware of the costs before "buying" (or in this case, agreeing to have it administered to them). For whatever reason, I thought it was but I guess not... you only know AFTER everything is set in stone.
Right! Like you don't walk into the coffee shop, give your name, get handed their recommend coffe and billed later.
@@Waitwhat469 And that is why the coffe price have to be on public dispay in the shop.
I texted this to my mom who is a nurse in an administrative position. She's in the Air Force and it's a little weird to explain. Basically as you move up in rank you get to a point where you're mainly doing administrative work because you're at a higher rank that the nurses on the floor. But because it's the military there are always people on leave and getting deployed so she had done a plethora of positions and at any time could be pulled out to do those positions. Anyway, I thought that context might help. MDG stands for Med group, essentially what they call the hospital and/or clinic. Here's what she said:
"Wow! I hope this project goes fwd. I have to say, medical billing (I did medical coding yrs ago) is very hard to understand. It’s not really cut-n-dried (I mean this from the billing offices side of the house). I still deal with coding (every nurse encounter meaning med refill, triage, advice, etc.) I have to code-hence bill. It is very detailed. The coder and me at the MDG knew each other well cause I always messed up, or the providers did.
Meaning, It’s hard to say what the cost of something is, cause there are so many added variables such as is it a new visit, an established patient, a specialty visit, a procedural visit. You can tell someone “oh, a throat swab for strept costs this flat rate” but there is so much more. My finger can’t type all that is involved, but in reality your final bill might have 6 or 7 codes attached to it that is three times the cost of “just a throat swab.” So a $12 swab will probably cost about $250. So I understand why it’s not easy to publish costs up front. Not that I agree, I just understand."
they are propping up a corrupt means of profiting from the infirmed. Our American health care providers are just as frustrated with this broken system as the patients are. The only ones truly thrilled are on the admin side where the billing, insurance and lobbyist are.
That's a fancy way of saying "the same procedure will cost 500x more if you really REALLY need it". All the US "healthcare" system is doing is exploiting vulnerable people.
@@asmosisyup2557 No, it's my mom saying it's not as simple as we think. She's not justifying it, she's explaining it because the woman giving the talk didn't.
Thank you so much! If your mom wants to get in touch, I'm jeanne@clearhealthcosts.com!
I'm literally dying because of lack of access to healthcare and have no insurance, so I'm experiencing this right now. I worked in healthcare while HIPAA was rolling out and thought this might happen, but never this severe.
the transparent prices at the beginning can force the service provider to balance their prices to medium prices mean all provider have almost the same prices, it does cut cost.
A colleague of mine got transferred to the UK. At first he was put off by the higher taxes he paid in the UK compared to when he was in the US. But after he factored his health insurance premiums with his US taxes, he said the UK total was not terribly higher than what he paid in health insurance and taxes in the US.
He said what really sold him on the UK system to the point he's working to becoming a UK citizen, he was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident. For his treatment that included several leg surgeries and rehabilitation therapy, prescription medicines, he paid very little out of pocket costs. You can't say the same for most US health insurance plans. He estimates, calculate with opaque prices, his treatment in the US would have costed tens of thousands easily with massive out of pocket costs.
When the US spends 18% of its GDP on healthcare and many developed countries spend half of that you can be pretty sure that downward pressure via people being able to research prices would result in big money savings.
Imagine if the military budget was cut and that money was used to develop other sectors like healthcare, scientific research and the economy.
Imagine that military grants were funding a whole lot of students and science programs in universities across the country. You don't have to imagine, that's how it is now.
Eli Nope imagine if every citizen had access to higher education and not just the sheep
@@liamjohnson8000 like on TH-cam? Check out Yale, MIT, and Khan academy. A whole lot of high quality education out there accessible to anyone with internet access.
Do you want to cut the military spending on the security we provide for other countries around the world too?
@@gio493 Killing innocent civilians, using our people as canon fodder, destabilising foreign Governments and seizing foreign assets is not security.
The US healthcare system is hilarious and terrifying in equal measure.
Recently went to the E.R., thought my son had broken his wrist. no bleeding, no fever, no need for the room to be cleaned two weeks go by. Bill from e.r. was in excess of 500 dollars, xrays 200, e.r visit 100. Called hospital, the 500 was accessed from an expert consultant, we didnt see, the expert had no other duty than to tell the hospital how much to charge. Contest every cent of every hospital bill you get. For to long doctors and hospitals have tacked on whatever they want, I say again contest every cent they want to charge you.
I just came across this video. Wow it's nuts down there ...I can't believe you paid that much for something so basic it's insane what they charged you
@@jwhatever7610 I didnt pay it yet, and that's really the point, if I went to buy a car, and the salesman told me it had chrome wheels, I'd verify it did before I bought it. Tha hospitals basically have gotten used to lazy people who dont verify the wheels before the pay the bill. Contest everything with doctor and hospitals always.
@@MrPatski1 you're right they're probably billing for God knows what and figuring people will just pay up. I'd fight it as much as I could
What if health care providers were legally required to price match medical services and medications with other local providers? Allowances would have to be made for quality of service and legitimate overhead (obviously building a new hospital costs Moe than leasing a shop in a strip mall), but it would likely improve costs.
Here in Canada if by the odd chance something isn’t covered, we’re told right away. Plus if we ever have to pay for something, it’s affordable.
Yeah but you pay for it even if you're not sick. You pay for healthcare all the time in a little thing called 'taxes'.
Yup. 50% income tax so I can have "free" healthcare. People need to know the real cost of healthcare and education even if the government pays the freight. That is the only way informed consumer decisions can be made.
Intransparency kind of contradicts the premise of 'free market'.
If you're poor, you're dead
False
Medicaid exists
@@tech-hilfeportal6611 High fees charged by your crappy healthcare system also exist and are a fact.
I've been saying this since they first started discussing Obamacare. The first step should have been to get costs down, not focus on who was going to pay or how. Make hospitals post the prices for routine procedures, how many times they do those procedures each year, how many people have to be retreated, and what the infection rates for the patient population is. Prices would drop and quality would soar. The question is, who is stopping this?
there are many problems with many healthcare system around the world, people often think that there's a magic bullet, whether that's privatisation, socialisation, integrity, or regulations, what this video alludes to is that there are problems and will continue to be problems, but holding the right people accountable is a good first step.
I agree. I lived in English for 8 years and can tell you the NHS has problems. Most people only know the one system they are familiar with.
Why is lobbying legal in USA??
What you did is what is actually called as "care"..🙏😇
And that is why I am moving to another country when I retire in a few months. Screw this organized crime syndicate. As a healthy 56 year old I can get the best medical insurance, covering me 100% for pennies to a dollar on what I can get here before Medicare kicks in.
Arisgod27 chose Spain or Greece. It’s very cheap and lots of sunshine.
@@Lanja1991 Greece actually since I am Greek and speak the language. One of the most beautiful countries in the world, especially when you have some means.
Arisgod27 great. Then move there lol and with your retirement fund you can have a very lavish life style there because USA dollar has so much value in Greece
Here in my country i saw an U S A patient few months ago...she got an ankle sprain and her friends took her to the public hospital where i practice . i was at the operating theatre and she got to wait for me 45 minutes...the management of her trauma was conservative...with a walker boot..the final bill was 0 dollars..but she got to buy Celecoxib as a pain killer outside the hospital...she was really amazed for the final bill ...which was as i wrote before 0 dollars...
Health care is a service. You are not entitled to the labors of others. There 100% should be pricing clarity.
Government is heavily involved in the medical system, which pushes prices up. Prices get higher and people can't pay for them, so they get insurance. With insurance you aren't paying for your full medical bills and don't care what it costs (beyond your deductible), which causes the insurance to pay out more, increasing premiums. Since the hospitals know you aren't paying for it yourself, and you don't care what it costs beyond your deductible, they increase their prices, causing a feedback loop. This is the same reason why college has grown so expensive with gov't backed loans.
We would have to reduce government involvement in healthcare, and cut out insurance companies to save any kind of money. In the countries outside the US that have socialized healthcare, you get objectively worse care, and it costs more than in the US. While the individual patient may have a direct out of pocket cost less, the total cost of the system is higher. These systems are, or will shortly be insolvent.
Amen
Anthem Blue Cross & Blue Shield has been doing this for 4 years. It's on their website so customers can see what procedures will cost at different hospitals.
Hey there! People keep telling us that the insurers' price tools are terrible. Here's one story by one of our partners about that. www.philly.com/health/health-care-costs-price-estimator-tool-20190110.html
And here's another. www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/11/30/453087857/patients-want-to-price-shop-for-care-but-online-tools-unreliable
This is good information. Would you please look into why COBRA Healthcare with dental for two adults is $1650 a month, and why I cannot just quit COBRA to get onto Covered California?
Wait... what do you mean by you "can't quit?" Why not?
Panashe Ngowera - because I pay for COBRA I have healthcare. I spoke with someone via chat with Covered CA I cannot quit any means of current healthcare, even if it’s sending me to the poor house. They check what your last healthcare was. So for me, COBRA runs out in June. I cannot apply until coverage runs out. So now, I’m almost a “senior” age person I have to find a job. The average time it takes for a person over 40 is 18 months minimum, unless you have a specialty.
@@coloringwithd That must be a state thing. When I quit my job to go back to school, I moved to Oregon. I was offered COBRA from my job, but when I talked to Oregon's health agency, they said I could put my family on Oregon Health Plan instead. Of course, Oregon Health Plan is much better than Covered CA, since Oregon runs their own Medicaid instead of turning it over to private insurers. But I guess that's as much Anthony Rendon's fault as the fact that he killed California's single payer bill. #JusticeDemocrats
@@hypnometal Admittedly I don't know much about Oregon so it is very interesting about how Oregon runs their Medicaid system. California Medicaid told me that because my husband owns his own business they have to inspect the books for the past 3-years to determine if he doesn't make enough. I couldn't believe it.
I wonder if OR Medicaid system would have told you the same thing if you already accepted COBRA? Either way, I have to find a job where I get benefits. Being an older adult and having mental disabilities is not easy. What can I do, right? Have a nice day :-)
Why would someone dislike this video?
I had a problem with price transparency. My doctor ordered some blood work and an EKG, but because it was diagnostic and not preventative, it wasn't covered by my Obamacare-compliant insurance. I would have to pay out of pocket and it would count against my $5,000 deductible. And of the 8 tests she ordered, I could only get the prices on three -- which I could get as part of a flat-fee 5-item blood screening I could get at a freestanding urgent care clinic for something like $15 or $25. The EKG was $250 at the urgent care clinic and I wanted to figure out where it fit in the clinical picture in making decisions about the rest of the testing. When I went back to the doctor with the list of ordered tests and let her know she could expect the three results from iCare but I needed to prioritize the others and might need help researching prices, she told me never mind they weren't actually so cruicial that it was worth the trouble for me to shop around for prices and budget them myself!
There is really, really something wrong with this picture.
Here in the UK recently, a friend of mine had a total hip replacement, then I did the same with the same consultant at the same hospital. We could have chosen to do it: (a) on the NHS; (b) via health insurance: or (c) in cash. All these options were open and just fine. The NHS sounds good, as that’s ‘free’ i.e. already paid for as part of all our taxes - but there was a long waiting list and wouldn’t be in a nice private hospital with lots of facilities. My friend chose cash, and paid £9,000 i.e. $11,800 (that covered everything except physio). I chose to pay via my private health insurance (for which I pay £550pm i.e. $720pm for two of us in our 60s). Note such private health insurance is in addition to being covered by the NHS, it’s just a second option for us. I had to pay a bit in cash, about £1,000 ($1,300) as my health insurance wouldn’t cover all of that surgeon’s bill, plus I paid for most of my physio in cash.
How much would a total hip replacement job cost in the US? Via heath insurance? In cash?
This screams as reason #10,412 pointing at the NEED to have #Medicare4All.
Obscure pricing removing the ability for individuals to choose the cheaper and/or better option for them is a reason why we need to make a system where prices are essentially gone and you have no choice to your healthcare?
@@Netro1992 obscure pricing? Did you even watch the video you're posting on? Honestly.
What cheaper options? Do you have any idea at all what healthcare costs in our country costs right now? The average cost for a family of 4 is $28k per year. That's INSANE! Compare that to Canada who pays an average of $12k per year for a family of 4. In the UK it's an average of $11k per family of 4 for a year. We pay double for our healthcare and have way worse outcomes.
No matter who does the study on overall healthcare costs, Libertarian or standard academic. We would spend TRILLIONS less with #Medicare4All than the insanity we have now. Toss on top the fact that those studies don't even factor in the government being able to negotiate drug pricing. Rather than the stupid system we have now where the drug companies just dictate prices and we pay it.
You talk about choices for coverage and yet don't take in the fact that most of the cheap plans make a person underinsured. Meaning they have coverage, but with super high deductibles and co-pays that make actually using the coverage impossible. So they effectively pay money for something they can't use. Compare rhat to Medicare For All where a person can just walk in to any doctor's office, hospital, or clinic and get seen without any out of pocket expense. So it's either no choice at all now or all the choices of where to be seen under Single Payer.
@@SWRaptor1 The video is about how it's impossible to know what prices are for procedures unless you actively go dig for them, and how knowing these prices has help people reduce the amount of money they pay because, rather than having the prices obscured by red tape and other parties, they actively seeked out the cheaper and better option for them.
Given this, I ask you, what video are YOU watching?
PS: Link me up to any libertarian study about the cost benefits of Medicare for all, it would make a fascinating read.
@@Netro1992 "Obscure pricing..." = "The video is about how it's impossible to know what prices are for procedures unless you actively go dig for them..." I mean did you even read what I wrote or naw? Funny part about that whole first paragraph of yours is that you also stated, "...rather than having the *prices obscured* by red tape and other parties..." Guess you missed where you even used the correct description in regards to pricing being obscured and then asked me what video I watched after my rebuttal on the obscured prices comment you made. SMH...
Strange you ask me for the study when it's readily available all over the Google machine. The study is from the Koch Brother funded Mercatus Institute and it found that #Medicare4All would cost roughly $32 trillion over ten years. Then went on to explain that our current system will cost over $34 trillion over those same ten years. The study also didn't factor in the fact that we have been seeing 4-5% increases of the current healthcare system costs per year for the last several years.
The Mercatus study: www.mercatus.org/bridge/commentary/medicare-all-plan-would-cost-federal-government-32-trillion
Also there is another report by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that states that we will see our current system cost about $41 trillion by 2027 if current trends hold. www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/NationalHealthExpendData/Downloads/ForecastSummary.pdf
Here is another study by the University of Massachusetts Amhurst that shows that Medicare For All would save us 10% off our current system over ten years: www.peri.umass.edu/publication/item/1127-economic-analysis-of-medicare-for-all
@@SWRaptor1 BOOM! Drop the #FactBombs! Can you believe that Netro guy owned himself in his own comment?!? I mean damn... that was unreal. It's time for #MedicareForAll already! Strange that people want to keep spending more for healthcare when we don't have to do it. They just eat up the propaganda that's trying to keep their healthcare costs sky high.
Who thumbed this down? Insurance provider employees?
Medicare For All now!
All this does for me, is increase my resolve for Universal Single Payer Healthcare in the US, eliminating all the for-profit insurers, HMOs, etc.
That wouldn't solve the problem of hospitals charging $51 for a Tylenol, or $350 for an IV bag (saline water: real cost $0.42, including the bag and tubing)!
@@jim.h Exactly. Then hospitals could bill the taxpayers enormous amounts of money and there'd be no accountability. That's why these socialists systems in Europe and Canada are broke.
In the U.K. If you want treatment by the private sector you will be told the costs for any treatment.
When my wife needed an operation and decided to use my work private health insurance, she got quotes from Four surgeons, all who were acceptable by the insurance company. The quotes were fully inclusive of all costs and the quotes detailed what the treatment package included.
My health insurance had a £200 excess (I think this is equivalent to the American co-pay) on all claims in a calendar year. My health insurance cost about £150 pm for both of us, but didn't cover Dr visits, Emergency etc as these are covered by the NHS.
Not many people in the U.K. know that if you injure someone, e.g. In a car accident, the NHS will give you a bill for treating the injured person, thus UK car insurance provides cover for theses costs.
Healthcare with insurance companies and pharmacies in USA is a real issue. If the government isn't able to take charge because of lobbying and corruption, we should take care with our voices and wallets. Thank you 🙏. Also, I'm adding my pricing info to "clear health costs". Please do the same.
"You know, it's not free in other countries, they pay [significantly less] in taxes"
One main problems with are health care. Bullshit over charges for near everything fix or outlaw charge 1000 times what cost is for items used cuts overall health care costs by huge amount .
Haha *as he laughs in european accent*
....or Canadian accent aye?
Go in France bro. Our healthcare system is the best !
How can someone laugh in an accent of an area with 27 countries an 27 languages?
lol you think european healthcare is better?
@@yuehhtewbb427 yes
Am getting a 27385 quadriceps tendon repair transostomy. The facilities charge is $6175, the surgery charge is $1600, and the anesthesia charge, about $1120 for a total of $8895.
Kudos to this project. We need price competition in US healthcare and be able to make apples to apples quality comparisons.
I do worry though about people wanting their healthcare to cost next to nothing. Someone has to pay for it. If not You someone else is. Also people in the healthcare profession have to go through lots of training. I want there to be incentives for people to get in those professions and don’t expect them to sacrifice years of training for nothing
For profit healthcare is a bad idea, remember cost plus?
Lane Sterenberg for profit healthcare isn’t the bad idea. Laser eye surgery is an extremely for-profit procedure that’s highly unregulated and not dealt with by most insurance companies. Yet, it’s decreased in price by roughly 96% over the last decade or so because of profit incentives flooding the market with providers and spurring innovation to deliver a better cheaper product. And that all started with price transparency. The issue here is that people basically believe that as long as they pay their healthcare premium, they’re set and they don’t care much what the price is for the medical services they purchase because they think their insurance is paying for it anyway. It’s that kind of apathy and ignorance as to the price of the medical services they’re being rendered that has contributed to the skyrocketing of healthcare costs in the US. If you know what the prices are and care about getting the best service for the lowest cost, you’ll begin to see those costs go down as an inevitable result of price transparency working with a competitive free market just like what we saw with laser eye surgery.
@@hootieman1991 For-Profit Healthcare is a bad idea. Current cost are higher than it was in 1960, as a percentage of GNP/GDP. Current outcomes are worse than many Socialist countries. Pharmaceutical profits are used to buy Republicans and Democrats.
I worked for 72 physicians in West Michigan in the 80's. Our purpose was to thwart the effect of managed care brought on by HMO's. I negotiated fee schedules with 3 HMO's. I had a file of what every physician in our group charged for every procedure they performed. I compared each fee proposed by the HMO to the average fee charged by our members. I divided their proposed fee by our average. I sorted this list by the result. The graph showed where the HMO allowed more than our average fee, a flat portion of the curve where they allowed about our average and declined to where they offered less to much less than our average. I learned a great deal from this 3 year experience;
- Physicians are terrible business people
- the variation in fees is shocking
(I learned new definitions for the term outlier)
- people have no idea if they are being overcharged
- an outcomes based payment system would put many physicians out of business
- some physicians will do anything for money
- most physicians will consider crazy methods for making more money
- Physicians are financially amoral
I would argue for a single payer, outcomes based system with elements of the old "Cost Plus" The Key to reforming our corrupt system is to coach smart, at-risk kids through Medical School and encourage them to practice in their home community. We need to increase the number of good doctors by 60%.
www.statista.com/statistics/184968/us-health-expenditure-as-percent-of-gdp-since-1960/
@@hootieman1991 I,m afraid you are so imbued with spurious political dogma you are dancing around with these topics while Rome burns . There should not be ANY medical insurance companies involved in a national healthcare system . The American system causes mass suffering with concomitant mass death and terrible ruination . To determinedly visit this on a nation is incomprehensible and profit is no excuse .
clearhealthcosts. Com is the name of the platform she developed since she never even mentioned it once. You're welcome
Price gouging.
The core issue in the U.S.
I had a pretty severe eye injury at work which was covered by workman's compensation.
It ended up with a corneal transplant and laser surgery to correct vision.
An expensive endeavor I'm sure... But in talking with my caseworker, I learned that workers compensation had paid out over $900,000. I thought that it was a bit steep.
Come back Bernie. You are the one America needs.