Holy crap. That is one expensive bite. Thank god there are no rattlesnakes (or American Healthcare) around here.
Am I wrong to think that there’s really no reason why someone in 2015 would be uninsured?
Poor + state that didn’t expand Medicaid.
Unless you mean that in John Oliver sense of, “It’s 2015! How do we not yet have this fixed???” in which case, I dunno, we suck.
They should bill the snake.
Plenty of uninsured in texas still. I work in a rural ED and we get plenty of people who have no insurance. And no, of course we didn’t expand medicaid, cause rural texas, bootstraps, independence, blah, blah, idiots.
So I’m guessing these are folks on the lower end of the income spectrum, but not poor enough to get the subsidies under the ACA?
I’m curious how many folks fall in that category, where they want insurance but legitimately can’t afford it, vs. people who are simply choosing not to get insurance (and aren’t being punished for doing so because no one in the government is enforcing the individual mandate).
Of course, owing a hundred grand is punishment, I guess.
When $200/mo is the low end of insurance costs but also represents 20% of your monthly take home, there’s not much of a choice there if you enjoy, say, eating.
Even in states without medicaid expansions though, like Texas, there are still other assistance programs as part of the ACA to help pay for things. I’m not sure what the end cost would actually be though.
It’s still a dick move of failure to govern though on the part of those states, as a state like mine (PA) where we don’t have our own exchange but still implemented the medicaid expansion, and you get free healthcare all the way up to around $16k a year.
Was there actually any penalty for the states to implement the medicaid expansion, or was the choice not to purely ideological, where they didn’t want to support it?
Not expanding medicaid was done to prevent as many people as possible from getting used to the idea of healthcare as a right. Now those same people, under threat from the AHCA, aren’t really “losing” anything since they never had it to begin with.
Sinister all the way.
They mostly don’t want insurance cause they have to pay for it. That doesn’t keep them from coming to the ED when they have a cold, however. Just my personal experience speaking. I’m sure you all remember bush saying ‘we have universal health care - just go to the ED’ before backing off from that statement. But that’s the truth of it here.
I have an idea. He should not pay that bill. In fact, throw it in the garbage.
® Rep. David Valadao of Central California is running ads on TV now extolling the virtues of the republican health plan and how it is such an improvement over Obamacare. To be honest, I don’t know if he is paying for it or if some PAC or group is paying for it and using his name. They are not running them using ® Rep. Devin Nunes name who is also in this area.
American healthcare adjacent
Most hospitals don’t make the venom. If they’re not an in area that it’s used a lot, they might even have to fly it in real quick… which is not cheap. Those that carry it but don’t use it often have to throw it out and replenish… just in case.
Aka, I am guessing a big chunk of that pharmacy cost is just pushed through from what the pharmacy was charged. If the patient was in the ICU… very sick. They’re not going to put you in the ICU without needing to. I assume the patient survived and will likely have this written off if they are low income.
I’m going to be honest and say that if I got an out-of-pocket medical bill for $153k, that would be it for me.
That would be it for most people who aren’t the 1%. Like I said. It’s an ED account that turned into an inpatient. The health care system is probably not for profit (not the same as non-profit), so if that patient works with the business office, Financial Assistance, it will probably be written off. They need to write off charges in order to maintain not for profit status.
We have rattlers here… the process to milk snakes, make it into anti-venom, store it and keep a fresh supply, it’s hell expensive and not done in-house by the local systems. For large systems in areas with more snakes, maybe they do in house.
I heard a black widow case went well over triple digits here once… the patient was allergic to the spider and the anti-venom. They had to fly in something else.
Sure, but my issue is that it likely wouldn’t be written off for me. I make just enough that it would probably get negotiated down to around 50%-60% of that price, then they’d set up some terrible 20yr payment plan. My life would basically be fucked.
In lighter news…
[quote]
Then Miss D.C. stepped up to answer a question about the most currently contentious subject in the country: “Do you think affordable health care for all U.S. citizens is a right or a privilege, and why?”
McCullough, a 25-year-old scientist who works at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, tied in her own experience to her answer. “I’m definitely going to say it’s a privilege,” she said. “As a government employee, I am granted health care. And I see firsthand that for one to have health care, you need to have jobs. So therefore, we need to continue to cultivate this environment that we’re given the opportunities to have health care as well as jobs to all the American citizens worldwide.”[/quote]
I find it amusing that there are people that still pay attention to these pageants.
It’s usually a combination of low income and ability to pay. For people with resources, they’re going to look at that but 150k bill… that’s a mortgage. Only poorly run places are going to be hard nosed about that. Hell most the places I work at have workflows in place for high dollar accounts to look at them before they bill… they would have contact the patient ahead of time. Unfortunately some people know a big bill is coming and won’t answer the phone not realizing the billing office is actually trying to set things up. They aren’t really supposed to just willy nilly write-off accounts. They need documentation to back that decision.