The ER

[lukethedrifter]

Not too long ago I saw a very large, well dressed woman in a wheelchair roll up to the triage nurse at the ER complaining of shortness of breath. In her lap was what appeared to be a freshly purchased full meal deal box from KFC.

[heyzeus]

Our ER visit, where the sum total of medical treatment received by our sun was a snot-sucking and huffing off a nebulizer, is going to cost us over $2000. FML.

[planet planet]

Our ER visit, where the sum total of medical treatment received by our sun was a snot-sucking and huffing off a nebulizer, is going to cost us over $2000. FML.

Wow, you've got to be kidding me! I assume most of that is just due to the ER visit and not the treatments? I'd think insurance would cover more than this.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

An ER costs a lot of money to operate with tons of overhead. I have no idea the specifics, but at any given time, I'd imagine the largers ones easily have a hundred workers or so going, everything from administrators to doctors. Anyway, let's say that cost is $X.

They have to make $X to remain profitable (in most cases at least). If $X/# of customers = $500, for instance, then they have to average $500 brought in for every patient that walks through the door. If they know 75% of the patients won't pay, the patients that do pay then get charged 4x ($X/# of customers) which in this case would be $2000.

As Zeus has said, it's already a socialist system, just in the most inefficient way.

[heyzeus]

Our ER visit, where the sum total of medical treatment received by our sun was a snot-sucking and huffing off a nebulizer, is going to cost us over $2000. FML.

Wow, you've got to be kidding me! I assume most of that is just due to the ER visit and not the treatments? I'd think insurance would cover more than this.

We have a high deductible, low premium plan. Most years we come out way ahead. 2012 will not go down as one of them.

[sighyoung]

Our ER visit, where the sum total of medical treatment received by our sun was a snot-sucking and huffing off a nebulizer, is going to cost us over $2000. FML.

Wow, you've got to be kidding me! I assume most of that is just due to the ER visit and not the treatments? I'd think insurance would cover more than this.

We have a high deductible, low premium plan. Most years we come out way ahead. 2012 will not go down as one of them.

Holy cow. I was only out $350 bucks for the ER x-ray when my daughter said she had swallowed one of her hair barrettes (she hadn't).

Which reminds me of when I was two or so, and my parents realized that I was having trouble breathing. They looked in my mouth, and all they saw was darkness, and suddenly they feared that I might have been born with some defect to the roof of my mouth.

My pediatrician told my parents to her house right away, and they rushed over. Dr. Nash was deeply worried, grabbed a spoon, poked around a bit, and realized that I'd torn off and tried to eat my teddy bear's ear.

The visit was no charge, by the way.

[slide_into_first]

If assault weapons were banned, more victims would survive mass shootings and need ER care, diluting the effect of uninsured ER abusers and lowering the average cost for insured people.

[pioneer98]

Our ER visit, where the sum total of medical treatment received by our sun was a snot-sucking and huffing off a nebulizer, is going to cost us over $2000. FML.

Wow, you've got to be kidding me! I assume most of that is just due to the ER visit and not the treatments? I'd think insurance would cover more than this.

We have a high deductible, low premium plan. Most years we come out way ahead. 2012 will not go down as one of them.

We have a high deductible, high premium plan. Well, I call it that because when my employer switched to it, my deductible went up by a factor of 8, but my premiums stayed the same.

We got the HSA thing going, which helps. I wish I could say we come out ahead most years, but it's been more like 50/50. We had a few very good years and others not so much. We've just had some weird, unexpected things happen.

[pioneer98]

The costs of the ER are completely messed up...and yet, hospitals seem to be doing fine. They turn enough profit to keep expanding here, at least. I realize we all end up paying for all these uninsured ER people...so what does that mean the hospital's profit margin is on the people that DO have insurance? They make up for all those uninsured people, plus still have enough left over to be plenty profitable.

Another thing that occurs to me is that all of the hospitals here at least were founded many decades ago as non-profit enterprises by nuns or religious groups. They didn't try to turn a profit, and were there simply to help sick people. Maybe that's why things were cheaper back then? Granted, they weren't doing the same amount of surgeries or anything back then...but it doesn't change the fact that we've shifted from a non-profit model to more of a for-profit one.

[slide_into_first]

Consider also that large hospital chains acquire non profit hospitals which include sweetheart deals for the administrators who can convince the board to go along with it, and the enormous value the hospital was given for decades by being tax exempt is assumed to belong to the new owner and is never repaid to taxpayers.