In a recent commentary, I pointed out the shift in focus among hospitals from refuges for the sick and injured into profit centered extraction chambers that almost omit a sucking sound as you walk through the sliding doors… but it’s probably just the air handlers.
Since then, several doctors have come forward privately with stories that reinforce this new paradign of pure profit focus. They shall remain nameless for fear of reprisal from Providence management.
In one example, the bone growth medium used in a spinal fusion is so inexpensive that the surgeon doesn’t even include it in their list of incidental expenses because it is less than a dollar, and comes in little 5cc bricks, scored to pull apart into single CC servings. He says his cost on a grouping of 5 cc’s is less than a pack of chewing gum, and a patient came to him wanting to know what the $4,000 charge was for bone growth medium on his insurance claim. Needless to say, the surgeon was flabbergasted, and that was several years ago.
In another example, a torso brace costs the hospital $800 (as seen by the surgeon) and a patient was billed over $30,000 while it was coded as a prosthetic by the hospital billing department. And the insurance paid.
“…like a healthcare worker arms race.”
Healthcare has become a game between hospitals having to eat the endless return customers, and by that I mean the addicted, who treat the hospital as a revolving door, and NEVER pay a hospital bill, and the hospital itself trying to screw over the insurance company to make as much money as humanly possible off of the few that DO pay. It’s a vicious circle that is driving costs into the stratosphere.
ALASKA WATCHMAN DIRECT TO YOUR INBOX
The cost to deliver my son at MatSu Regional, all told, was over sixty seven thousand dollars. Insurance paid all but twelve of that. We were there two days, no complications at all.
The State of Alaska recently released their annual report, the Commission on Aging. In that report, there were some very surprising items. Do you know the average cost of a single bedroom in a nursing home (meaning you have a nurse or a doctor on call, versus assisted living where you don’t.)
Hazard a guess?
If you had asked me I would have said $80,000-$100,000 per year. Turns out $106,000 dollars is the INCREASE year over year from 2019 to 2020. That’s just the year over year increase. The total average cost is just shy of $437,000, for one room, for one year. In 2019 it was 330,000.
I spoke with a contact at Health and Social Services and they likened it to a Healthcare Worker Arms Race.
This is not sustainable. It isn’t even really understandable. Most cruise lines have a program that will let you basically OWN a suite onboard, you know the best ones at the very top, for around twelve grand a month. I know because my wife and I met a couple doing just that on our honeymoon. You could own three of those for this cost and still have money left over for shore excursions. Said another way, $437,000 would buy you a fine house in almost any neighborhood in Alaska, every single year.
All this is exacerbated by the fact that the vast majority of seniors aren’t leaving when they retire, and so the problem is getting worse. They call it the Grey Tsunami, and it is going to feel like one to state finances when it hits in the near future and there is simply no more capacity for seniors and no more money to pay for it.
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CLOWARD PIVEN GLOBALIST COMMUNIST DESTRUCTION TAKEOVER OF OUR ECONOMY THROUGH THE BASTARDS COVID
BILOGICAL FIRST STRIKE WAR. DEFENSE , FIRSTREMIND THE ALASKA STATE. GOVT SENATE AND LEGISLATURE THAT COMMUNIST CHINESE
DOMNINION VOTING MACHINES MUST BE DESTROYED AND THOSE THAT HAD THEM INSTALLED JAILED.
WE REGAIN OUR VOTE AND WE RETAIN OUR REPUBLIC.. IT TOOK THEE COMMUNIST A LONG TIME TO DESTROY MUCH
OF THE CONSTITUTION AS OUR GOVT PARTICIPATED, IT WILL TAKE A LONG TOUGH TIME TO RESTORE HER… LETS START TODAY
DEMAND YOUR REP RESTORE OUR VOTE.. ENOUGH OF COWERING DOGS TO WHAT IS TRENDING.. CUT OFF ALL TERRORIST GROUPS
LIKE THE FBI BLM ANTIFA FROM OUR NATION. ARREST THE HATING ENEMIES OF OUR LAND.
Most healthcare workers provide care every day that they know they cannot afford themselves.
A few weeks ago, I had an accident that required a visit to ER, I did not go to Providence knowing that the waiting room would be full of those that use the ER as a doctors office!
Terrible you had to make that decision and I would have done the same. I hope you are recovering without incident.
Agree stay away from these money machine hospitals
Start referring the addicts to GP’s that are willing to treat them.
My husband and I are self employed. We pay over $2200. a month for our health insurance. We are fortunate we can afford it, and shopping around there were very few options and all were not much less for far less coverage. Since Obama care was foisted upon us, insurance has become unattainable for too many working people, who are working to pay for insurance for dead beats across our nation, while they go without. Then those of us that are paying the astronomical cost of private coverage, we get to subsidize the deadbeats that use the emergency room as their personal physician. It is truly a mess. Then the way our seniors are treated is beyond reprehensible.
The Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) was always a bad idea and here’s why:
* It never made economic sense. The promise that it would be inexpensive was a lie and every expert in the health care industry knew it;
* It guaranteed unlimited benefits and coverage that no one realized was unlimited. Yes, no limit on what you could spend
* It took away choice and required that you take the whole package. That’s like offering transportation to everyone and only providing a Mercedes. Less than 10% of the population can afford a Mercedes vs a Subaru.
* Initially it required everyone to buy it. It still does because the contract with the health insurance companies all contain the same provisions. 15-20 of the population still go without because they can’t afford it. Here’s why: TBA
We are better off dead than going to a hospital, really, truly. If these medical providers don’t kill you, their plan to take every hard-earned dollar will finish you off fully.