Random Thought Thread

The cost of health care in this country is one of this country's single largest problems.

It is not nearly as expensive for comparable care in other countries. There's the cost of medicine everywhere else and then there is what we pay.

Even with insurance, the cost of an MRI costs me twice as much as it would cost to pay out of pocket, uninsured, in a European country for the exact same thing.

And if you don't have insurance in America, they charge you even more. Here's a procedure that could be performed, profitably, for $600, and it costs thousands of dollars to do it here. The combination of waste and profit is obscene.

And then there is the price gouging of things like insulin. Actually, everything is price gouged, it's just obvious with insulin because we happen to know what it ought to cost because it didn't used to be like this. Same with the EpiPen.

A vial of insulin costs $100. The cost to make it is $5.

I have seen in medicine, the actual cost to produce something is frequently just a rounding error. The price of medical products and procedures is completely divorced from their cost.

I have no problem with medicine for profit and the idea of insurance, but something is wildly wrong here.


Back in the old days when I was working as a design engineer I would frequently work on medical device designs and one of the products that I designed, which has been very successful, is still in production today. I learned that it cost about $4 to manufacture it. Now there's some assembly in there and there's a lot of steps that go into making it sterile and FDA approved, but we would mark it up to $40 bucks to our customer. The customer being a medical device provider that you have heard of that I won't name here.

They in turn would mark it up to $400 bucks for their customer, the hospital.

And then they would mark it up to $4000 bucks, to the patient.

It was very striking to me when I learned about this, because everybody who touched it added a zero. Ironically, the people who developed it and made it make, by far, the least amount of income from it.

Now, mind you, this is not just blind greed there's reasons for this. But, having worked in lots of other industries, I have to say that medical is just wildly fantastically incredibly wasteful and expensive. No other area in industry is remotely like it.
 
carnifex knifeworks said:
I mean.....I gave 2 options; one mild, one extreme. I thought everyone liked having options.
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I guess since I do all our vehicle maintenance myself, I didn't even consider your first option as an option. 🤷‍♂️

Nathan the Machinist said:
The cost of health care in this country is one of this country's single largest problems.

It is not nearly as expensive for comparable care in other countries. There's the cost of medicine everywhere else and then there is what we pay.

Even with insurance, the cost of an MRI costs me twice as much as it would cost to pay out of pocket, uninsured, in a European country for the exact same thing.

And if you don't have insurance in America, they charge you even more. Here's a procedure that could be performed, profitably, for $600, and it costs thousands of dollars to do it here. The combination of waste and profit is obscene.

And then there is the price gouging of things like insulin. Actually, everything is price gouged, it's just obvious with insulin because we happen to know what it ought to cost because it didn't used to be like this. Same with the EpiPen.

A vial of insulin costs $100. The cost to make it is $5.

I have seen in medicine, the actual cost to produce something is frequently just a rounding error. The price of medical products and procedures is completely divorced from their cost.

I have no problem with medicine for profit and the idea of insurance, but something is wildly wrong here.


Back in the old days when I was working as a design engineer I would frequently work on medical device designs and one of the products that I designed, which has been very successful, is still in production today. I learned that it cost about $4 to manufacture it. Now there's some assembly in there and there's a lot of steps that go into making it sterile and FDA approved, but we would mark it up to $40 bucks to our customer. The customer being a medical device provider that you have heard of that I won't name here.

They in turn would mark it up to $400 bucks for their customer, the hospital.

And then they would mark it up to $4000 bucks, to the patient.

It was very striking to me when I learned about this, because everybody who touched it added a zero. Ironically, the people who developed it and made it make, by far, the least amount of income from it.

Now, mind you, this is not just blind greed there's reasons for this. But, having worked in lots of other industries, I have to say that medical is just wildly fantastically incredibly wasteful and expensive. No other area in industry is remotely like it.
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Yeah, costs should NOT increase by an order of magnitude every time a product changes hands. It's almost as bad as some government contracts. :poop:
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
The cost of health care in this country is one of this country's single largest problems.

It is not nearly as expensive for comparable care in other countries. There's the cost of medicine everywhere else and then there is what we pay.

Even with insurance, the cost of an MRI costs me twice as much as it would cost to pay out of pocket, uninsured, in a European country for the exact same thing.

And if you don't have insurance in America, they charge you even more. Here's a procedure that could be performed, profitably, for $600, and it costs thousands of dollars to do it here. The combination of waste and profit is obscene.

And then there is the price gouging of things like insulin. Actually, everything is price gouged, it's just obvious with insulin because we happen to know what it ought to cost because it didn't used to be like this. Same with the EpiPen.

A vial of insulin costs $100. The cost to make it is $5.

I have seen in medicine, the actual cost to produce something is frequently just a rounding error. The price of medical products and procedures is completely divorced from their cost.

I have no problem with medicine for profit and the idea of insurance, but something is wildly wrong here.


Back in the old days when I was working as a design engineer I would frequently work on medical device designs and one of the products that I designed, which has been very successful, is still in production today. I learned that it cost about $4 to manufacture it. Now there's some assembly in there and there's a lot of steps that go into making it sterile and FDA approved, but we would mark it up to $40 bucks to our customer. The customer being a medical device provider that you have heard of that I won't name here.

They in turn would mark it up to $400 bucks for their customer, the hospital.

And then they would mark it up to $4000 bucks, to the patient.

It was very striking to me when I learned about this, because everybody who touched it added a zero. Ironically, the people who developed it and made it make, by far, the least amount of income from it.

Now, mind you, this is not just blind greed there's reasons for this. But, having worked in lots of other industries, I have to say that medical is just wildly fantastically incredibly wasteful and expensive. No other area in industry is remotely like it.
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Part of the problem is the FDA. They have some ridiculous tests/standards that cause lots of pharmaceuticals to be shelved. This in turn causes companies to recoup their R&D costs by hiking up the prices on the drugs that passed FDA approval.

If I have a terminal illness, but there's a treatment that significantly helped 25% of the test subjects, killed 50%, and did nothing for the remaining 25%, it should be my decision to take it out not. It shouldn't be up to the fda. As long as the risks and benefits are clearly stated, the people should be making their own decisions.

I don't ever want to end up like New Zealand, where the government decided we aren't responsible enough to take melatonin without a prescription or have access to nyquil.

The other problem is that many hospitals are owned by publicly traded companies or they're operated like they are. Obligations to the shareholders, etc.

It's not a simple scenario, sadly.
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
The cost of health care in this country is one of this country's single largest problems.

It is not nearly as expensive for comparable care in other countries. There's the cost of medicine everywhere else and then there is what we pay.

Even with insurance, the cost of an MRI costs me twice as much as it would cost to pay out of pocket, uninsured, in a European country for the exact same thing.

And if you don't have insurance in America, they charge you even more. Here's a procedure that could be performed, profitably, for $600, and it costs thousands of dollars to do it here. The combination of waste and profit is obscene.

And then there is the price gouging of things like insulin. Actually, everything is price gouged, it's just obvious with insulin because we happen to know what it ought to cost because it didn't used to be like this. Same with the EpiPen.

A vial of insulin costs $100. The cost to make it is $5.

I have seen in medicine, the actual cost to produce something is frequently just a rounding error. The price of medical products and procedures is completely divorced from their cost.

I have no problem with medicine for profit and the idea of insurance, but something is wildly wrong here.


Back in the old days when I was working as a design engineer I would frequently work on medical device designs and one of the products that I designed, which has been very successful, is still in production today. I learned that it cost about $4 to manufacture it. Now there's some assembly in there and there's a lot of steps that go into making it sterile and FDA approved, but we would mark it up to $40 bucks to our customer. The customer being a medical device provider that you have heard of that I won't name here.

They in turn would mark it up to $400 bucks for their customer, the hospital.

And then they would mark it up to $4000 bucks, to the patient.

It was very striking to me when I learned about this, because everybody who touched it added a zero. Ironically, the people who developed it and made it make, by far, the least amount of income from it.

Now, mind you, this is not just blind greed there's reasons for this. But, having worked in lots of other industries, I have to say that medical is just wildly fantastically incredibly wasteful and expensive. No other area in industry is remotely like it.
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IMG_9140.jpeg
#Type1
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
The cost of health care in this country is one of this country's single largest problems.

It is not nearly as expensive for comparable care in other countries. There's the cost of medicine everywhere else and then there is what we pay.

Even with insurance, the cost of an MRI costs me twice as much as it would cost to pay out of pocket, uninsured, in a European country for the exact same thing.

And if you don't have insurance in America, they charge you even more. Here's a procedure that could be performed, profitably, for $600, and it costs thousands of dollars to do it here. The combination of waste and profit is obscene.

And then there is the price gouging of things like insulin. Actually, everything is price gouged, it's just obvious with insulin because we happen to know what it ought to cost because it didn't used to be like this. Same with the EpiPen.

A vial of insulin costs $100. The cost to make it is $5.

I have seen in medicine, the actual cost to produce something is frequently just a rounding error. The price of medical products and procedures is completely divorced from their cost.

I have no problem with medicine for profit and the idea of insurance, but something is wildly wrong here.


Back in the old days when I was working as a design engineer I would frequently work on medical device designs and one of the products that I designed, which has been very successful, is still in production today. I learned that it cost about $4 to manufacture it. Now there's some assembly in there and there's a lot of steps that go into making it sterile and FDA approved, but we would mark it up to $40 bucks to our customer. The customer being a medical device provider that you have heard of that I won't name here.

They in turn would mark it up to $400 bucks for their customer, the hospital.

And then they would mark it up to $4000 bucks, to the patient.

It was very striking to me when I learned about this, because everybody who touched it added a zero. Ironically, the people who developed it and made it make, by far, the least amount of income from it.

Now, mind you, this is not just blind greed there's reasons for this. But, having worked in lots of other industries, I have to say that medical is just wildly fantastically incredibly wasteful and expensive. No other area in industry is remotely like it.
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I didn’t like any of what I just read.

Most medications here are subsidised, some things can be expensive but generally speaking not essential medicines like insulin. I just looked up insulin here. If you have a Medicare card it’s $30 for a vile, if you have concession e.g. over 65, low income, disability etc. it’s $7.

I recently had to have a colonoscopy, I walked in and out of hospital without having to pay a cent.
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
The cost of health care in this country is one of this country's single largest problems.

It is not nearly as expensive for comparable care in other countries. There's the cost of medicine everywhere else and then there is what we pay.

Even with insurance, the cost of an MRI costs me twice as much as it would cost to pay out of pocket, uninsured, in a European country for the exact same thing.

And if you don't have insurance in America, they charge you even more. Here's a procedure that could be performed, profitably, for $600, and it costs thousands of dollars to do it here. The combination of waste and profit is obscene.

And then there is the price gouging of things like insulin. Actually, everything is price gouged, it's just obvious with insulin because we happen to know what it ought to cost because it didn't used to be like this. Same with the EpiPen.

A vial of insulin costs $100. The cost to make it is $5.

I have seen in medicine, the actual cost to produce something is frequently just a rounding error. The price of medical products and procedures is completely divorced from their cost.

I have no problem with medicine for profit and the idea of insurance, but something is wildly wrong here.


Back in the old days when I was working as a design engineer I would frequently work on medical device designs and one of the products that I designed, which has been very successful, is still in production today. I learned that it cost about $4 to manufacture it. Now there's some assembly in there and there's a lot of steps that go into making it sterile and FDA approved, but we would mark it up to $40 bucks to our customer. The customer being a medical device provider that you have heard of that I won't name here.

They in turn would mark it up to $400 bucks for their customer, the hospital.

And then they would mark it up to $4000 bucks, to the patient.

It was very striking to me when I learned about this, because everybody who touched it added a zero. Ironically, the people who developed it and made it make, by far, the least amount of income from it.

Now, mind you, this is not just blind greed there's reasons for this. But, having worked in lots of other industries, I have to say that medical is just wildly fantastically incredibly wasteful and expensive. No other area in industry is remotely like it.
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If you have good insurance and a decent income then care in the US can't be beat. I needed back surgery in Canada in 1990. It took 6 months to get an MRI. Meanwhile I'd be sitting eating corn flakes and get a spasm of pain that would drop me to the floor. "you're on your own in this stinking world".
When we had our daughter in Montreal, we had to book off the entire day for routine appointments since we could easily end up waiting 4 hours to see a doctor with bloodshot eyes who barely seemed to remember us. You get a room with 2-3 other patients.
In the US, they ordered an MRI this year. I got it done about 3 days later and only had to pay $50 not covered by insurance. You get full access to the images and reports. Totally different ballgame.
 
Getting my shoulder rebuilt last year was eye-opening as far as insurance coverage goes. Between emergency room, hospital stay, surgery, anesthesia, etc., the total bills were circa $83,000.

The insurance simply denied* about $70,000 of that because the billing codes were incomplete.

I didn't have to pay anything after my deductible, but I was very much on the sidelines, watching two corporations bash it out with one claim and a denial after the other. It was fascinating to see, and showed me how much of a non participant I was in my own healthcare.

*edit - the insurance denied claims that had missing detail with a 30 day time for the provider to respond... Which never seemed to happen, at which point the claims were denied and closed.
 
vkp78 said:
The cost for an out of pocket MRI is actually cheaper than your insurance copay sometimes. Search for cheap MRI near me or something like that. Look up the centers online ratings, if possible( not all machines/services are equal)
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Yep, this is exactly what I found earlier this year. Copay was $500, out of pocket it was just under $350. Of course, paying out of pocket, that ~$350 doesn't go towards our deductible. 🤬 Granted, I knew we wouldn't hit the deductible this year anyway, as my company stupidly changed insurance providers in June. 😑 Who does that??? 🫨

TRfromMT said:
Getting my shoulder rebuilt last year was eye-opening as far as insurance coverage goes. Between emergency room, hospital stay, surgery, anesthesia, etc., the total bills were circa $83,000.

The insurance simply denied about $70,000 of that because the billing codes were incomplete.

I didn't have to pay anything after my deductible, but I was very much on the sidelines, watching two corporations bash it out with one claim and a denial after the other. It was fascinating to see, and showed me how much of a non participant I was in my own healthcare.
Click to expand...
This is SO frustrating!!! It seems to be happening more and more, and I swear it's on purpose! I think it's a ruse to try and get people who don't know any better to just pay the bills. I know that in my experience the past couple of years, if we hadn't kept on the Dr. offices, hospitals, and insurance companies to figure it the heck out, we would have paid a LOT more money out of our pockets!!! It's always because the codes are wrong, incomplete, the Dr's NPI number was submitted incorrectly, or the location address was wrong (we've literally experienced every one of those things this year), so they just deny covering the bill unless you as the insured intervene and force them to do their damn jobs! SO FRUSTRATING!!!!
 
Well I’m not usually the type to complain and go above leadership. But I finally had enough of our lead foreman(that is soon to be our new manager) today and called my brother at the Union Hall. Not sure if I am going to file a grievance but I might. That or I’m finding a new job really soon.
 
Hospitals lose incredible revenue from non-insured patients who frequently never pay anything, as well as the ridiculous reimbursement rates from Medicare/Medicaid. Emergency rooms get used by many as primary care, and not emergency care.
Many providers refuse to see patients on that coverage because it is simply not worth the time financially.

Socialized medicine is also cheaper due to reasons such as limited choices in care options/treatments, medications allowed, age limits on procedures, and taxes. Providers here also frequently treat based on fear of litigation versus what likely makes the most sense.

Even within the US, systems like the VA and Native Hospitals have medication and procedure lists that have to be adhered to, not necessarily the one that might be best.

That said, newest is not always best.
 
Murphjd25 said:
Well I’m not usually the type to complain and go above leadership. But I finally had enough of our lead foreman(that is soon to be our new manager) today and called my brother at the Union Hall. Not sure if I am going to file a grievance but I might. That or I’m finding a new job really soon.
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4 years ago I took a $35k paycut to get out of where I was. State government b.s. and sitting in front of a computer 40 hours a week wore me down.

It’s been financially hard, especially having kids in that time and I’m not back to where I was but I enjoy what I do now. Life’s too short to do deal with crap everyday.
 
SpyderPhreak said:
Yep, this is exactly what I found earlier this year. Copay was $500, out of pocket it was just under $350. Of course, paying out of pocket, that ~$350 doesn't go towards our deductible. 🤬 Granted, I knew we wouldn't hit the deductible this year anyway, as my company stupidly changed insurance providers in June. 😑 Who does that??? 🫨


This is SO frustrating!!! It seems to be happening more and more, and I swear it's on purpose! I think it's a ruse to try and get people who don't know any better to just pay the bills. I know that in my experience the past couple of years, if we hadn't kept on the Dr. offices, hospitals, and insurance companies to figure it the heck out, we would have paid a LOT more money out of our pockets!!! It's always because the codes are wrong, incomplete, the Dr's NPI number was submitted incorrectly, or the location address was wrong (we've literally experienced every one of those things this year), so they just deny covering the bill unless you as the insured intervene and force them to do their damn jobs! SO FRUSTRATING!!!!
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The odd thing to me is that I've been 100% left alone. The providers have not sought any payment from me beyond my deductible, at all. I'm thankful, and from that standpoint I have great medical insurance!
But this is, by definition, corruption. In the long run I will get screwed as things continue to spiral out of control.

Don't get me started on hail damage and roof replacement costs... 🤬🤬🤬
 
Yeah insurance ... there are several medications and procedures that will cost you less paying out of pocket than using your insurance. When an insurance company can charge you over $150.00 copay for a medication you can buy out of pocket for under $20.00 there's something messed up.
 
beeinak said:
Change of topic but totally random- 5 lbs of flour covers much more area than you would expect when the container it was in was dropped (pulling the lid off while lifting from shelf) and it spills every last bit in the pantry. Took a while to clean up🤣
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I spilled a container of powdered baking chocolate once. The vacuum I used to clean it up smelled like chocolate for years until I finally got rid of it.
 
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