Quote:
Originally Posted by paulskinsfan
That's somewhat misleading. Lots of independent contractors and/or sole proprietors don't have health insurance, they simply cannot afford it. Im 34, and the last quote I got for health insurance was $650 a freakin month! I cant afford that. People take for granted health insurance provided by their employers. In addition, I think its crap that an insurance company pays such a reduced amount, while someone without insurance gets stuck with the full bill. There was a Dateline story on this recently. Someone without insurance goes in for surgery and gets hit with a $100k bill, but when someone else who has insurance goes in, their insurance company pays like half that amount. Shouldn't the guy without insurance get at least as good a rate as the insurance company when its coming out of his own pocket? Just doesn't seem fair.
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Pssst... little secret from the corporate guy who works at a major urban hospital chain...
If you don't have insurance and you need surgery, yes we would charge you way more than we'd get paid by Blue Cross or Aetna if you were covered. But guess what, we'd be very happy if you came to us and said listen clowns, there's no way in hell I'm paying $100K for that surgery. But I will pay you whatever Blue Cross or Aetna would have paid you ($25,000). We'd take that in a heartbeat, because we know you're like 90% likely to skip out on the $100,000 bill anyway. I mean if your credit is going to be ruined, why pay any of that insane bill, right? We'd never see a dime in most cases. But if you negotiate, we'd drop the charge down and keep your credit free and clear if you paid us a negotiated rate.
Little secret of the healthcare system.