$53 for 1 pair of surgical gloves

[FreakinDJ]

$53 for 1 pair of surgical gloves

That is what the hospital charges your insurance and what YOU ultimately pay for.

That was the subject on CNN the other night and the problem being the Insurance companies don't argue the cost they just pass the cost along.

[tomm2thumbs]

1. ridiculous! and they don't even have swarovski crystals

[heli]

2. $0.62 a pair at glovesexpert.com

with free shipping.

[Xipe Totec]

8. Yea, I'm sure those are surgically sterile and guaranteed to be so. nt

[uppityperson]

14. No, sterile surgical gloves cost around one dollar a pair

[arcadian]

3. vultures

[LynneSin]

4. Remember the $300 toilet seats the army was buying?

There tends to be some major part of oversite when it comes to how billing is done - it's the perfect way to do some creativing billing to help build costs.

[FreakinDJ]

7. Perfect example of how Government Option lowers cost

"OverSight" who wuld da thunk it

[The_Commonist]

5. Does that also pay for...

...the manicure for the hands that are wearing said gloves?

[tavalon]

10. Nope, it pays for people who don't have the resources to pay, actually

But they do seem obscene and if we had universal healthcare with some oversight, such atrocities would hopefully go away.

[Gormy Cuss]

19. Paying for the uninsured only explains part of that price.

That ticket price mostly pays for the cost of doing business with insurance companies.

[tavalon]

24. You won't get any argument from me

I've been on the front line and in the trenches for 20 years. I see, up close and personal, just what a joke it is to call it a health care system. It neither cares nor is it a viable system. Screw the robust public option, I want universal health care and I want it now!

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

6. The rates insurance companies actually pay is much less.

Insurance companies negotiate rates much lower than the "billed" amount the patient would see.
It's still a slightly inflated cost but also much cheaper than the sated amount on the bill.
A patient, paying out of pocket, would be expected to pay the billed amount unless otherwise appealed.

It's kind of like credit unions.
You can pay off the exact same debt with a CU acting as an intermediary and get a WAY reduced interest rate.
But if you're on your own, a bank or credit agency would impose a much higher interest rate.

[d.gibbs]

9. Don't forget that taxpayers are paying too

for people with government insurance, including Medicare and Medicaid.

[babyblonde]

12. yup

for all your friendly congresscritters an their families:puke: :grr:

[CC]

11. You and they must not really

read your bills and what insurance pays. That would be what an uninsured person with no contract in place pays at a for profit hospital. If you insurance company is paying a hospital within networks those same gloves might cost them a penny.

Best example I know is there are two hospitals near me. One for profit with a contract with our insurance company and one community hospital that has no contract but accepts it the insurance. Because of a reaction to a drug I had to have lung x-rays done at both with in a week. Community hospital's real charge for the e-ray $50.00, my co-pay $30.00 insurance paid $20.00. Second x-ray had to be done at the contracted hospital. Real cost for same x-ray $2,800.00, my co-pay $30.00, ins. co. paid $45.99 to bring it up to the contracted amount of $75.00. I ask the for profit hospital did they really charge the uninsured that much for a simple chest x-ray and the answer was yes. For me the difference was having insurance but the real problem was between a non-profit community hospital and a for profit hospital. Even worse the for profit was a community hospital a couple years ago and had reasonable prices. It was paid for and built by the communities around it. For profit came in, bought it and raised prices. When health care is seen as a for profit money maker prices are going to sky rocket since there is no real choice for people.

It would take months and more than a few minutes story for CNN or any other news to get a real picture of the cost problems in health care and none of it would give them the results they want. Last time Dem's tried to get HCR passed one of the news flip outs was that hospitals charged $9.00 for a Tylenol and $6.00 a Band-aid. Eventually it is all the patients, doctors, nurses and lawyers fault but never the insurance co., pharma or other big players fault.

[bullwinkle428]

13. I was directly billed $100 for an elastic "half-glove" with two pieces

of plastic running down the side of each thumb, by my orthopedic doctor's office!! :mad: :mad: :mad:


Something very similar to this, which, at $29.95, still almost certainly guarantees a healthy profit for the distributor.

http://supports4less.com/alex/abducted_thumb_support.htm

Of course, my health insurance company refused to pay a penny of it! This visit occurred late in 2009, so the deductible had long since been satisfied; i.e., not an issue.

Edit to add : this bill was for the glove ONLY; the office visit was separately billed.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

15. support stockings $100

[Blue Owl]

16. Now it makes sense

why the GOP just wants to keep our "health care" system the way it is.

[tech9413]

17. I worked supporting the healthcare industry since the late 70's

I think it was 83 that hospitals were freaking out about DRG (diagnosis related group) being implemented. They initially thought it would be their downfall. Less than two month's later they found it to be a profit landfall. They could bill for every little thing they used to provide care.
That's one reason for the high cost of health care in this country. It's the underlying cause of the fee for services boondoggle. Pay for results instead and get more doctors involved in primary care and we'll probably see 100% cost reduction in health care cost.

[Xithras]

18. It's a subsidy.

People without insurance or money walk into the ER's for medical treatment, and they have to treat them. The doctors need to be paid, the nurses need to be paid, the electric bill needs to be paid, etc, etc. Because these patients can't pay, the hospital has to eat the loss...but HOSPITAL still have to pay for all of the costs associated with treating that patient. They fix the problem by jacking up the prices on other patients who do have insurance, which means you pay a fortune for things that should be cheap. It's not illegal or shady, but is a legitimate way to offset financial losses.

The Rethugs fight against a national healthcare plan because they don't want to pay for medical care for the poor. What they JUST DON'T GET is that they're ALREADY paying for it. Every time they pay their insurance bill, they're subsidizing healthcare for the poor. Every time they pay a doctors bill, they're subsidizing healthcare for the poor. Every time they agree to wait two hours to get into the ER, they're contributing their time to the subsidizing of healthcare for the poor.

Apparently they LIKE that status quo, but it's horribly inefficient and is costing us ALL a lot more than it should.

[hedgehog]

21. The problem is actually the other way around, I think.

The insurance companies may be hyenas, but at least they protect us from the vultures who run hospitals and medical supply companies.

Walk into a hospital with no insurance, and you're on the hook for whatever the hospital decides to charge you, up to and including being forced into bankruptcy. Walk in with an insurance policy, and you pay the negotiated price.

For example - I was offered a chin strap - a piece of latex free elastic with some velcro - to keep my mouth closed while using my C-Pap machine. If my insurance had refused the claim, I would have paid $65 for this! Instead, my insurance company paid $15!

Even worse, I think this incident is an illustration of what happens when you're receiving medical care. If I'd had a few minutes to really look at the chin strap and see what I was getting, I would have walked out without it and rigged up my own for about $5. I do have a sewing machine at home, after all! But here I was committed to using the machine, knowing the machine wouldn't work for me if my mouth fell open while I was sleeping, being offered a take it or leave it choice....

[FreakinDJ]

23. 20% of Hospital Cost are to cover "Un-reimbursed Medical Cost"

"Un-reimbursed Medical Cost" = Covering the uninsured who walk into Emergency rooms

[Trillo]

20. It's a great big corporate oligopoly

nt

[Winterblues]

22. They also charge ten dollars for two Aspirin tablets.

Doctors charge four thousand dollars for walking past your room. We need to focus on this aspect of Health Care Reform every bit as much as Insurance Reforms..

[Liberal_in_LA]

26. I remember being charged a couple of bucks per aspirin on my surgical bill

aspirin I was never given.

[walldude]

25. LOL.. Have you heard about MRS?

You ever see that on a hospital bill? I did. $80 for MRS. After much digging I discovered that MRS stands for Mucous Removal System.... Get it? Mucous Removal System? TISSUES! $80 for a box of fucking tissues.

It's not just insurance companies fucking us over, it's a huge scam from the top to the bottom.