Well, I finally saw the Quack.
Actually, his PA. Nice guy. I told him about the indifferent response I got the day of the accident, when I called to see about getting an emergency appointment to deal with my fresh – and gaping and bloody – chainsaw wound. About how the Frau at the desk Doc-blocked me. The PA told me that, in the future, if something like this happens again, that I should use a Special Secret Codeword to get around the Frau.
That’s what it’s come down to in these Obamacare Days. But while it’s easy to blame Obama (it does have his name on it) the fact is the insurance mafia wrote Obamacare; the presidente was just the sock puppet. It is the insurance mafia that has turned medicine into “health care” and put us all under legal mandate to have (to purchase) health insurance but the mafia under no obligation to deliver medical treatment. And when it is grudgingly provided, to finance-rape us such that we, in future, will be very reluctant to seek treatment again.
Meanwhile, we pay.
Which, by the way was part of the reason I didn’t go to either the ER or the Urgent Care joint when I was doc-blocked by the Frau. Because I knew – as we all do – that going to an “unapproved provider” for a procedure not “pre-approved” would result, at the very least, in weeks and probably months of hassling over a huge bill that the mafia would not pay until they had tortured me with their bureaucracy … for weeks and probably months.
If they ever did pay.
That plus the prospect of what probably would have been at least $1,500 for 4-6 stitches (Dr. Eric’s estimate) and some bandages kept me away – which is exactly what the mafia wants. They want your money. They do not want to spend money on you. This is the sum total of the rigged game long con that is “health care” in the age of Obama but also long before. Read up on it. Especially, read up on Tricky Dick Nixon and his doings with Kaiser Permanente. You will be edified.
As well as some other things.
So, I ended up not getting stitches. Too late for that (after 24 hours, apparently, it is Too Late) but that’s ok because the only consequence is a scar and I gather chicks dig scars. As it turned out, I did a damned decent job of treating the wound, which had closed up on its own by the time I got through the Frau screen and finally obtained an audience with the PA (but not the doc). The PA used some adhesive tape to shore up my body’s own “glue” – and assure the wound stayed closed – gave me a Tetanus shot and sent me on my way.
My leg will be ok.
The “health care” system not so much.
No matter which buffoon ascends to the Dear Leadership. The she-wolf will simply enshrine Soviet-style doctoring while the Bloated Bloviator will “reform and replace” it. Mark that. He will not rescind it.
Abandon all Hope.
PS: We’re about a third shy (35 percent on the pie chart) of being in the Green for the month with about a week left in the month.
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Despite the current clusterfuck, I like the prognosis for free market-based healthcare. There is a surgical center in Oklahoma City that actually posts prices. Kind of fun to browse – like looking for bolt-on mods for your car.
I hope more places around the country make this leap.
Ahh….”secret codeword.”
Just give us a hint…. 😉
Hi Eric,
You might be interested in this MD who has a practice near Lynchburg, Va.
He’s modeled his practice after the traditional kind where patient and doctor had a real, direct relationship. I’ve read about a number of these alternative MD’s. Reminds me of the great and uncomplicated healthcare I had when I was a kid. I loved going to visit our family doctor. He lived in this large, elegant old New England clapboard home surrounded by beautiful old trees. He had his office there, too. He was never in a rush. In fact we usually chit chatted for ten min. or so before we got down to business.
http://forestdirectprimarycare.com
If insurance companies wrote the law, Why are they bleeding billions?
The justice department is even preventing a merger of two big insurance companies to ensure that they continue to bleed billions.
Obama care is a babystep towards single payer. Government rigs the system to fail. Blames greedy corporations. The easier it is to push through socialism.
The insurance companies “bleeeding billions”? That’s news to me!
I smell a G’Lover aka Government Lover aka Clover. Same thing Same thing.
David Ward
“Government rigs the system to fail. Blames greedy corporations.”
I wouldn’t doubt there is something to that. Though it could just be typical gunvermin inefficiency causing the problems.
They are, on paper. This allows them to raise rates. Some probably are losing real money. The real money is made by those providing the medical services, drugs, and other materials and equipment.
The entire point of Obama care is to force the insurance companies to go under. What we are looking at is the transit model. Price controls and mandated level of service. Eventually the politics will crush the insurance companies financially and then government can take over and tell the others what they’ll get. Then they’ll collapse and the government will have the whole thing and ration it.
Having just gone through an insurance scam that denied me from getting the care I needed via insurance company for an accident in which I was the victim I’d say the insurance companies are making out like bandits.
When a service is mandated, prices invariable rise and so it was when BOcare happened, everyone’s private insurance went up to quite a degree. They also capped the amount of money an insurance company had to pay added on to the ruling during Bushco that limited payouts to injured parties. Insurance is simply another part of the banking system is it’s rigged as such. My wife and I have to now pay $325 each per year to not participate in BOcare. Then our rates last year were based on the money I made the previous year of oil field boom vs. last year of oil field bust and no work for long periods. I’d say insurance is making out like bandits. When the feds fine you to not take whatever rate they decide, then they’re in control and you AIN’T.
Its Ringos law personified. “What ever the government touches turns to shit.”
It’s a combo of big insurance, big government and big lawyers (along with some greedy doctors after a quick buck) that have ruined healthcare.
One of the reasons why a simple office visit is so expensive, is malpractice insurance. Yup, the doctor has to be insured too. My cousin is an Anesthesiologist, part of a several doctor practice. Their malpractice insurance costs $140,000 a year (they haven’t even been sued). Even spread over all the patients, its still several dollars per visit.
@richb,
A few dollars can’t account for the ridiculous fees the MD’s try to charge everyone. Like one poster stated. A procedure where the insurance paid $460 but he was billed $1666 without insurance. Either the cost is $460 or not. It can’t be both. What a racket! Maybe, I lobby aka bribe my rep with a couple of hundred million, ( of course to be paid once I have it…) to enable me to do so. Nothing so grand as being a goon for the state.
Apparently it goes something like this. The ‘insurance’ companies refuse to pay full price, insist on getting a substantial discount from list, due to the volume of business they provide the doc, or some such. So doc has to jack up his prices in order to get by on the % paid by the insurer. And of course the worst of these blackmailers is Medicare.
Only way a doc can get away with ‘billing’ the amount he actually is willing to accept is if he refuses to accept insurance. Some are going that way, but not (yet anyway) many.
It’s been 25 years ago or so when the HMO came on the scene. My parents were both having medical problems so I was frequently driving them the 130 miles to the doctor. They then had me start going to a business that was their HMO. I asked WTF an HMO was. My mother gushed they just took all the hassle out of it. How is that? Well, they bill for the doctor and work with the insurance company and blah blah blah. I said So, it’ simply another person with their hand out increasing the cost of health care. Well, not exactly. How not exactly? With a large new building full of employees that work with the doctor and the insurance company instead of the doctor’s staff(no reduction in staff)simply billing the insurance company it’s got to increase the costs. Well, they finally admitted it did but not to them(as in they wrote no check to them but it certainly increased the cost to the insured which my father finally admitted since he was the one who took care of that for 100 employees) I said, this is just another hand out between the doc and insurance company that does nothing that wasn’t done before by the insurance company and the doctor and hospitals. Oh yes, they replied.
Of course the truth was it increased what the insured would pay. If it were company insurance you wouldn’t notice it at first but eventually benefits got cut or co-pay was increased. It was, in fact, when co-pay really got its start. Prices increased by a huge amount nearly overnight and we now have syringes I buy(same brand, same type)at the feed store going for 20 times what they cost there.
Every aspect of health care is now getting rich at the expense of those who can pay and leaving out those who increasingly can’t pay. Just one more thing that separates the haves from the have nots…..and the have nots are growing rapidly.