Trump cheats at golf - the ONE and ONLY politics thread

Tony, imagine what the hospital would charge for your Midol.

You might need some Valium after that.

 

I thought this thread might have gotten locked. But I guess its just that o_t got sidetracked at the bar. (I keed, I keed).

 

All I'm doing is asking if you are forced to take the aspirin (and pay the outrageous price). If you go to a restaurant, are you forced to order things? If something is on the menu and you don't think it's worth the price, you do have the option of leaving and getting steaks at a grocery store. Why don't you think you have that option at an emergency room?

Here's an idea: carry a small container with two aspirin in your pocket. Or are you simply forced to buy everything someone pushes at you when you walk through the doors?

 

Good lord. I haven't spent time in a hospital in years, thankfully, but you do know that you aren't always in control right?

 

Once again, I am speechless

 

That's great until you're in a hospital bed and they bring you a little medicine cup and tell you to take it. You gonna go through it pill by pill and ask what they cost? If you do, I guarantee you that the nurse won't have a clue. So how do you shop?

How do you shop for medical care? Most of the time the doctors themselves don't know what things are going to cost. Even an office visit with a family doc can range from $45 or so to 120, depending on the complexity of what the doctor does in his exam. If you need a chest xray or labs, add more. Try walking up to the check in window and asking what an office visit will cost. Add in that even if you do try to shop, if you have insurance every policy is structured differently. Five different people all with BCBS can have radically different coverages. Then you run into things like how employers change what they negotiate for in an effort to limit the annual price increase. You won't know that your insurance does not cover speech therapy or occupational therapy any more until your kid is in a car wreck and they get sent for it in the hospital or the rehab - and often you won't know it's not covered till you get a big honking bill for needed services that were not covered.

Generally the doctor does not even know how much a prescription will cost, other than that the generic will cost less unless a Pharma Bro has jacked it up.

The US health/medical insurance system is a screwed up mess.

 

My sister had a heart attack and nearly died a few years back. She took a 20K helicopter ride to "avoid traffic". Think she had an option?

 

Pretty sure that if you don't take all your medicine you get fined under Obbamacare.

 

Yup. And as a medical tech in primary care, I assure you that there are good reasons why many of those doctors work at the doc in the box and not a real health system job. More than that, there is a ton of price gouging in such places. You go in because you have a head or chest cold and you get an exam, a strep test, a chest x-ray, a flu test, and a throat culture. Hell, I've know staffers in such places who told me that basically if you go in with a runny nose you get that as a matter of standard procedure. And it ain't cheap. I have no experience with all inclusive pricing, but you can bet that they're making money on it somehow.

 

But I took my aspirin at home this morning, sir.

 

Thanks for an actual thoughtful answer rather than slinging insults first.

So you go to an emergency room. You're not unconscious. You are cognizant and alert. Why can't you ask what something cost? Why can't you say "no thanks, I'll pick some up on the way home"? Some people seem to think that you give up all your rights and freedoms as a consumer when you walk through the doors. Trust me, you don't. Now, you can go along to get along and have it come out of your own pocket, but nothing says that you have to do that. I've never seen a sign on the door going into a hospital that says you lose all rights and freedoms by walking through these doors. Yet the great majority of people just follow blindly on everything. Yes, it's wise to follow doctor's advice, but there is nothing wise about paying $20 for two aspirin. In fact, I find it ridiculously stupid. Even if it's $5 for the two aspirin, you're being taken. And maybe if people stopped doing that, hospitals would stop reaming people up the ass at every chance (other than a colonoscopy).

 

Hospitals are not prisons. Not yet.