Just lovely.

[Chaos5522]

A friend and bandmate of mine ended up having to go to the hospital after a party last year (Some claim it was a seizure, some claim he wast just that hammered). The ambulance company charged him $900 for the ride. Afterwards, he demanded an itemized bill, listing what procedures and supplies they used to justify that bill, and they refused and just kept sending him the same bill. Eventually they sent the bill to a collections agency. The collections agency called my friend, and he explained that the ambulance service had failed to provide the itemized bill that he had requested. Eventually he got handed over to a manager at the collections agency who informed him that the ambulance company had failed to follow legal procedure in turning the bill over to collections because they failed to send the itemized bill. The manager told him that this wasn't anything new and that the collections agency would not attempt to collect the bill, and would only contact him again if they needed him to help with a lawsuit against the ambulance company.

[ThudMaker]

I wonder if all the illegal aliens who don't carry insurance and use the ER regularly will get fined $1,000.

[samson3382]

my job is seasonal, im off in the winter. during the winter before last, i had been laid off for about 2 1/2 months, and when i called my employer about returning to work, he basically said I was fired. (this caused all kinds of problems with the unemployment office, they thought i had been lying to them about returning to my previous job)
I never had insurance in the first place, just a decent paying job, and confidence that i would be getting a regular paycheck.
within a couple days of finding out i didn't have a job, i developed some kind of infection on my right wrist. (not sure if mabey i got bit by something, or some kind of scratch or something, it was weird, never happened before or since, and i get scratched up all the time at work)

I eventually went to the emergency room, after i noticed red streaks going up my arm away from the wound. took about two hours. they shot me up with some antibiotics and gave me a script for some pills. $800 or so was the bill i believe. i met with their financial planner and told her my story. No job and no guarantee of one in the near future. At the time, on paper, my monthly expenses were far more than my monthly unemployment income.
They actually wrote the bill off, i didn't have to pay a dime. worked out great for me, i was flat broke at the time, through no fault of my own. i eventually got a new job. I still wonder who paid my bill? and if its that easy for them to forget about $800 how ridiculous is their profit margin for everything else that they DO get paid for?

[J.]

If we just want to reign in costs, we'd introduce more market forces into healthcare. What we have now is essentially prepaid medicine - all people worry about are their various copays, with little thought as to the total costs. Prices are negotiated between insurance companies and providers.

If people had traditional indemnity insurance (like full coverage car insurance for example), they'd pay all the little stuff out of pocket. Routine visits, checkups, vaccinations, etc, would all be handled as a free market transaction. The insurance would be for when you got hurt or really sick and needed a lot care. Furthermore, people should be able to buy insurance from whomever and wherever they choose. Minnesota, for example, has so many ridiculous mandates that the cost of private insurance is unaffordable, and state law prevents one from buying it out-of-state. To sweeten the deal, people would get a tax credit (not just a deduction) for their health insurance premiums.

If people started shopping around for their healthcare, going wherever they wanted for the best service at the cheapest price, you'd see costs come down quite a bit.

There is an Achilles' heel to this plan, and that's the pre-existing condition. As many know, insurers don't like to cover pre-existing conditions or anything that stems from said condition. If you have juvenile diabetes, good luck finding a private insurer that will give you and affordable premium, even with a nationwide market. If you do get insurance, they'll deny everything they can as it could be related to your pre-existing condition. Almost every health issue can be somehow linked to the patient's diabetes it seems.