Last week was interesting, news-wise, what with exploding watermelons in China and the embarrassing revelation for France that their media—and, apparently, their elite—are unable to grasp the distinction between “seduction” and “attempted rape.” (And this from the nation that had always led us to believe that they were the final experts on this area of human experience. Choquant.)
However, I was distracted from world news by the arrival of the statement for my husband’s minor cardiac procedure—an angioplasty and stent placement. After years of contented ignorance, we’ve started receiving these things, because while we’re fully, even obsessively, insured, and Ed is still working, he is now eligible for Medicare. Something about the overlap has prompted the two systems—giant insurance company and giant government agency—to start watching each other, and the government seems to want us as witnesses.
This sort of thing is bad news for the health-care industry. If the happy arrangement under which providers of medical goods/services and insurance companies rack up record profits—and pay minimal taxes—is to continue, it’s better not to draw attention to the fact that human suffering has become a conduit through which wealth is sucked ever more efficiently out of the pockets of the lower and middle classes and showered into those of the rich.
Here are the filthy specifics: Ed’s bill, for the procedure and a stay of roughly 28 hours at Tucson Medical Center as an “outpatient,” was $38,382.28. The stent, the little tube they put in his artery? $9,446. Med-Sur Supplies (billed twice)? $424. Sterile Supply? $477. Normal saline solution infus (that is, salt water)? $266.40. They charge absolutely whatever they please.
We’re mid-middle-class people. $38,000 is almost as much as I gross in a year at my job, and roughly 1 1/2 times what I take home. It’s about a quarter of what our house is worth, and much more than we paid for my car. It is, in short, a totally insane amount of money.
I read the other day that the cost of hospitalization in the United States has doubled in the last decade. I’d say that’s conservative: When my brother was dying at TMC in 2004, my sister-in-law saw a statement for, as I recall, about $30,000 for 10 days of care. At the time, we were shocked.
But, wait. Since I’m insured and don’t have to pay these ridiculous bills, why should I care about the costs? Well, let me tell you the other current family story about people and hospitals.
My aunt Joyce, who’s 80 and who was until last fall the picture of good habits, vigorous self-care and radiant health, had a bad stroke in November, followed by serious complications. She is now mostly paralyzed and unable to speak. Last month, her husband, my uncle Jay, was told by the people at the rehab facility where she was being cared for that they “couldn’t do anything more for her,” and he would have to make other arrangements for her.
Translation: Her Medicare benefits were exhausted. The facility—no doubt engaging in the robust billing practices that are the industry standard—had extracted every penny it could from the federal government on her behalf. And now Jay’s choices, as I understand them, are to legally sever himself from his wife of nearly 60 years, making her a pauper eligible for Medicaid, or go bankrupt paying for her care, at which point they will both be eligible. Hooray!
Ironically enough, my aunt and uncle are ardent right-wingers, and my mother tells me that Joyce remains a devoted fan of Fox News, which she now watches all day from her bed. She and Jay believe in the virtue of unbridled capitalism, the evils of regulation and the horrors of socialized medicine. And now a triumphantly unregulated, profit-driven health-care system, exploiting the complete and helpless lack of choice that comes with sickness, is poised to suck up every dime they accumulated over a lifetime of hard work and careful saving.
Writing in Rolling Stone about the great investment banks’ role in the financial crisis, Matt Taibbi famously described Goldman Sachs as “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”
That slurping sound you hear? It’s not just the banks.
This article appears in May 26 – Jun 1, 2011.
Excellent opinion! The best I’ve read about health care in the U.S.
Given the result of the election for the House of Representatives this week in New York, it is very apparent that our Medicare health care system is a program supported by a super majority of voters.
Why aren’t our politicians improving the health care system to Medicare For All and raising taxes to pay for it? That’s rhetorical. A corporate oligarchy purchased the Federal Government a long time ago and regularly prevents majority opinions from being applied.
I too have heard the sucking sound of the medical squid vampire.
Just my 30 radiation treatments at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston were $190,000. The machine was 40 years old and paid for decades ago. Medicare demands a discount and this is why I was not offered a newer improved radiation machine I believe.
This is why Republican politicians are trying to destroy Medicare and force us all into expensive insurance we can’t afford….or die. Medicine is already rationed, there are two tiers, one for the rich and one for the old and/or poor.
If Democrats and citizens don’t stand up to the Republicans, only the rich will have medical treatment. Don’t be like Joyce and her husband vapidly watching Fox News and cheering for the rich against their own best interest. Don’t be sheep led to slaughter.
If banks and military manufacturers such as Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, KBR can financially rape us, why wouldn’t the medical industry not want to get in on it too?
With all the greed in this country, the rich feeding on the rest of us, our unregulated corporatocracy,you can see why the economy is in such bad shape. There aren’t enough of us middle class left for the rich to feed on.
What a sad, and shamefully true example of the plight of everyone except the ultra-rich in our state. However (I hate to add more insult to injury) but Medicaid will not accept her either, if our conscienceless governor Brewer and the Az. state legislature have their way!!!
Let us take the cost out of Health and return to CARE.
I’m afraid at least SOME of the outrageous bills is going to cover people who they have to treat, and who have no insurance or savings/income. So, I suppose we should be happy only PART is going to greed.
“I’m afraid at least SOME of the outrageous bills is going to cover people who they have to treat, and who have no insurance or savings/income”…
It’s easy for some of us to claim this as the big problem, but as an under-paid, under-insured, working-class mother who was forced to combine my daughter’s and my own insurance, for the ridiculous deductible of $5000, I can tell you that something more insidious is afoot here.
Who regulates these costs, does anyone really know? I don’t mean just the insurance premiums, but hospital costs, procedural costs, basic medicines? Is it really necessary to charge $200 for a “saline solution infus?” I believe it is the fault of a system out of balance: there are seemingly no checks and balances for our healthcare system, as it stands now.
It is a system in transition, and along with transition and change comes a whole lotta scrambling for another way to make a buck. What about physician/hospital malpractice insurance? That has to be pretty costly. You don’t suppose this has ANY effect on soaring medical care costs? And yes, there are those pesky illegals, darned poor people, and other ne’er-do-wells…surely they are to blame for jacking up these costs. Ummm….wait a minute, isn’t it the sworn duty of the physician to “do no harm” and actually save lives? Why should race, creed, or social standing make one damn difference?
If the hospitals, the insurance companies, urgent care clinics, pharmacies, etc., etc. continue to allow these costs to soar out of control, during times like these, they are simply going to see more “no insurance/income” types pouring out of the wood-work, because the system has thus far been unable to control itself. And if you think it’s bad now, just wait.
I have had to change jobs this year, take a cut in pay, and now I will probably (likely) have to drop my own medical insurance, in favor of being able to continue to pay my daughter’s premiums. Meanwhile, with Health Care Reform, the insurance companies are mobilizing to find ways to make coverage even more difficult to navigate and utilize, just to save their own skins. Why the hell are we all putting up with this? Socialize medicine, for cryin’ out loud! It may be the only way out from under this mess.
Ronni, I offer my concern for your precarious situation you share with more and more underinsured or uninsured Americans. I saw a television program on world-wide national health care or socialized medicine as some call it. Seems all modern developed countries have successful national health care. I was particularly impressed with how low costs are. For example, in Japan an MRI costs the equivalent of $60US.
USA is the only Western country without national health care I read. We only have it for seniors and disabled through Medicare and now we are told Republicans want to destroy Medicare.
No country in the world pays anywhere near the outrageous, greed driven medical costs we do. And in no other countries do medical corporations make such obscene profits and their CEOs make multimillion dollar salaries, doctors live in multimillion dollar houses and hospital administrators make million dollar salaries/perks such as free stock from chemo and drug companies, radiation machine manufacturers and medical device makers to assure their products are used.There is no regulation of medical costs in USA. That is a big problem.
Organized medicine will not allow regulation of medical costs.
Their lobbists show up with loads of money for politicians to see that there is no restriction of medical costs. And insurance companies show up with loads of money in hopes of forcing us into private insurance policies with no cap on premiums but limits on coverage. We are owned by the corporatocracy. And some say, ripe for revolution, to taking to the streets to demand we have our government back from the corrupt corporations.That is the only way I can think of that it could happen. There will be no honest politician to step up and save us, we will have to save ourselves.
Yes Renee its the big bad medical-industrial complex. Never mind that those “overpaid doctors” have not had a real raise in medicare rates since….Bill Clinton was president. What was your salary in 1999 and how about now? Doctors are now seeing more and more patients, that makes sense…not. Never mind that you said it yourself, “Since I’m insured and don’t have to pay these ridiculous bills, why should I care about the costs?” You have no skin in the game Renee, if you and all patients did those “outrageous” costs would be less likely. Very likely the free market (I know that is a dirty word here) would come to play and decrease costs. Speaking of the “outrageous” costs, was this the amount billed or the amount the insurance company actually paid. In my experience the amount paid by the insurance company is actually 10-50% of the amount billed.
People this is the crux of the issue. American health care cannot do everything for all the people all the time….period. You want a European-type system that covers all for a reasonable price (defined by the government) then very simply we as Americans will have to accept rationing….period. There is nothing wrong with that. The European system does ration but by and large in a “rationale” way. We certainly don’t. The Europeans do not pay for outrageously expensive drugs in cancer treatments. The Europoeans by and large do not allow people over 65-70 not getting dialysis or CABG’s (this is country specific). In my opinion Americans have never been accepting of this trade-off. I certainly have not seen a politician bring up this important conversation. it needs to happen but it won’t because Americans by and large a too selfish to look at what is best fro society as opposed as for themselves. Case in point Europeans are MUCH MUCH better at recruiting for cancer research studies than Americans are. Americans are infamous for not accepting anything but the most aggressive care…no matter what. Honestly Renee speaking of research do you know that recent research shows that outside of acute MI’s that medical management for coronary syndromes has the same results as stents/angioplasty. The problem is most docs know this research but also know if they counsel for less aggressive care (ie medical management) and things go south, a lawyer will be serving them. Renee, America is the land of unrealistic medical expectations. Are you really surprised at the cost? But do shoot the messenger.
How about opening up the competition for insurance? How about Tort reform? How about setting up programs that plan ahead?
Or maybe just watch MSNBC if Fox is the problem.
Ryan’s plan is a GO.
Renee, Sorry to hear about your aunt but maybe if aunt joyce and uncle jay had signed a living will or advance directive making them DNR/DNI they would not be in the predicament they are in.
You are so right on! As an old, alone, disabled and low income woman,
I am scared for my medical future. In addition to that, generics do not
work for me. I don’t feel that politicians, who could make laws governing
this mess are interested. I have a thought – let’s outlaw lobbies.
The monetary system is a phase. After it’s inevitable collapse and countless billions dead, then and only then may we be able to enter the next phase ov our evolution. When respect for all life is understood to be a real part ov who we are and what we are capable ov…wish us luck,