Your claim that some cars cost 20,00 while others cost 60,000 for the same car is a bit suspect

I don't think this is a real life issue of needing a car but an attempt to make a point about socialism

You need to find some thing more realistic to push your agenda

The lack of replies indicates the forum realizes your agenda

Yes: I think Canada has a much superior system of health care cost and delivery compared to what you have

If your health care was not partially or all [IDK] paid for by your employer, you might think differently. Especially if you were self employed

My cousin worked for a large USA Corp. his entire career with health benefits and these benefits continued after retirement. His wife fell down and after, they found out she had broken her pelvis. Guess what. The 1st thing they did regardless of the pain, and what was wrong, to cause the pain, was to check out their health insurance coverage, as they were in Florida when she fell down..

I don't know what they would have done if not covered or a very  high deducible. Would have been a painful ride back to Canada but if you have enough morphine, then I suppose it would be possible

My pont about 20 vs 60k cars is exactly on point because that's exactly what we have in the US today.  I pointed that out earlier with MRI's.  With very little shopping,  you can get a 600 dollar MRI.  Or you can pay 3000.  But most of us don't bother, because we never pay for them.  Our insurance does,   if we have it. And that's the problem.

Would you buy a car without knowing the price?   Of course not.  But in this country,  we get tests, treatments, perscriptions,  etc etc   all the time,  and we have no idea what we are paying.  I dare anyone to challenge me on this.  How would knowing cost affect our decisions?    I suspect we'd approach decisions on treatments/tests quite differently.  And those choices would affect prices the providerers would charge,  as they ALWAYS do.

People keep trying to tell me that health care is somehow different..   But It's not.   The thinking that it is is precisely why we have the problems we face. Every time you buy/sell anything,  the dynamics are the same.  Exactly!! And no Virginia,  we make very few healthcare choices from the back of an ambulance. For many of us,  Never.

I've worked 1099 for most of my career and payed for my own health insurance, so no,  I have not had it provided for me most of my life.

The last 10 years+ i've been W2 with healthcare included, and I've worked for a  healthcare provider and I am more well versed on how the money is spent than most. That's why I am qualified to have an opinion.   I live it.  I do it.

I agree that Canada has a superior system to ours.  Our system sux after several decades of government nonsense. But your system is not better than ours because we don't have enough government.  It's because we have too much.  

I get that there were no reponses.   Too many people have no idea what I am talking about.  You have no idea how much it bothers me that people can't seem to grasp what is blatasntly obvious to me.  Maybe like MM and the manufactured "Climate Crisis"..   

Don't think because I, we don't reply that I don't understand Tim's point. He is exactly right and philosophically correct. Most don't see the courage to get back to a market place health care system. And  we don't play the long game anymore.

A few years ago the boy needed wisdom teeth cut out . No insurance. So he shopped around and found that paying up front cash he could get it done at a very large discount. Nobody shops around for these things Insurance pays for it. I think that the the shopping should be done when you buy the insurance. There needs to be more competition.

edit sorry for the double post

the general point is... if someone else is paying,  then a person will be far less concerned about how much it costs.  

when young,  my son was this way when we went out to eat.  if dad (me) was paying, and if we did not put a restriction on what he ordered, he would cost us a LOT more money.  

so the only way we could take him out to eat is to put strict restrictions on him before we walk into the restaurant.  dude... no appetizer, no dessert, no soda, no milkshake....  just one entre, and a glass of water.  otherwise, his part of the bill would be 40 bucks just for a visit to dennys.  

another example... 

my father-in-law had back surgery.  he is on medicare.  the govt was paying the bill.  he asked the hospital if he could look over the bill,  even tho he was not the one paying the bill. (uncle sam was paying).  there were 37 doctors who had put a charge on that bill.  but he only had seen 4 doctors total.  

he reported this to medicare, and told them he was sure there was fraud on that bill.  if he had not looked over the bill, uncle sam (american taxpayers) would have paid money to 37 doctors instead of 4 doctors.  

if i am paying the bill out of my own pocket i will be far more careful about looking over that hospital bill.  when uncle same pays the bill the cost will skyrocket, and fraud is far more likely.  

"With very little shopping,  you can get a 600 dollar MRI.  Or you can pay 3000.  But most of us don't bother, because we never pay for them.  Our insurance does,   if we have it. And that's the problem."

OK Tim, I live in Evansville IN and just got an MRI done of my right shoulder 3 days ago. Please tell me how I could have gotten it for $600 and tell me where in our town they were charging anything close to $3,000?

I priced it out 7 months  before hand using the cost of  our private insurance and with paying cash. I decided to wait until I turned 65, earlier this month so that Medicare would pay for much of it.

I will let you know what they said the cost would be and what it turned out to be when I get the bill but am interested on your take on the right strategy that I should have used.

Also, I had a rupture of the left distal biceps tendon, 2 weeks ago and needed immediate surgery. I have an orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Goris who has been doing my surgeries for the past few years and of course used him as he is my ortho doctor, familiar with my cases.

Keep in mind, with many of these specialists, they won't even see you unless you have a referral......unless you are already a patient. 

How should I have saved money on this biceps tendon surgery?

Also, I am likely going to need a right shoulder replacement surgery in the near future. What is your suggestion for me to save money and also get the best doctor to do the operation?

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

The fact that your specialist needed a referal is not his rule. Its a requirement of the insurance.  It sounds like you made reasonable effort to find price,  but it's usually nearly impossible to get an honest answer as to what the final price will be.  Usually,  the best we can do is what the "out of pocket" expense is.  That's why we need things like price transparency.

Hi folks

Your going to have to help me out and fill  in some missing pieces

I thought [might be wrong] that Trump wanted transparency of different hospital bills [Surgery seemed to be what I saw but you know, memory fails me]

Any how the same procedure that I saw varied from a low of [perhaps 75,000.00] to a high of over 500,000.00 and others some where in between

I did not study this chart very much as it had no bearing on me, but the range in cost was huge, for the same procedure. What got my attention was the fact I would not want to even pay the low cost out of pocket

The chart gave maybe 5 examples of low to high of which the range in price, as said above, was huge

I am not as bad as Mike, but surgery may be a possibility for  me in the future. Involves skin grafting etc to heal a wound. Getting past the gross part, [to me any way] I would not want to pay that out of pocket. However, if there is no incentive to lower the cost to basic minimum, assuming equal results, then everybody pays with higher insurs cost. I really don't have an answer for you guys but more people should know, what is actually happening

medical pricing is one of the most horrendous things in modern economics.  obviously, it is not like a cafe.  you don't look at a menu, and see a price.   

10  years ago, i did not have insurance.  i broke my ankle.  i called around and asked doctors how much they charge, and do they take cash.   after we were all done and my ankle was healed...  I  paid ALL the charges that they told me i owed.  i said ... are you sure thats it,  and i don't owe anything else?, and they said everything is paid.  you don't owe anything else.  

5 months later, i got another bill from them... i called and argued, and they said this is part of their normal charges and i owed them another 400 bucks.  i said,  NO,  you said i did not owe anything else.   I am NOT paying it.  i insisted they take me to court so i could let a judge hear all the evidence.  they then dropped the matter,  and i did not hear from them again. 

imagine if you take you car to brake max.  have a brake job done.  and you pay the bill.  and you ask,... is that it? do i owe anything else?  and they tell you NO,  it is all done, you don't owe another dime.  

and then 5 months later,... you get another bill from brake max... saying you owe them more money.  

this is ABSOLUTELY IMMORAL !!!  but the medical industry does this all the time.  and they get by with it ,  unless you fight it.  

this is a common back and forth between insurance, and the medical establishment.  and they argue back and forth about what gets paid and how much.   this takes up LOTs of bureaucratic workers pushing paperwork.  

more on this in another post.

"With very little shopping,  you can get a 600 dollar MRI.  Or you can pay 3000.  But most of us don't bother, because we never pay for them.  Our insurance does,   if we have it. And that's the problem."

Thanks Tim but you completely avoided my question and what I was asking assistance for. 

I gave you 3 real world medical situations involving metmike of Evansville Indiana in just the last 2 weeks(the MRI order was from last July and I waited until Feb, when I turned 65 to have it done so that the government/Medicare would pay for it to save tons of money).

I am just asking you to apply your advice here to the real world vs these hypotheticals you keep giving that, honestly don't make sense at all to me, because in my decades of using and pricing the health/medical care system, I have not once come across an example even in the ball park for any price/cost of the one I quoted from you above and that you gave with your first post. 

As you can see, from my medical situation, I have tremendous experience in actually being in the system.

We have had almost a  dozen different individual health insurance plans over the last 2 decades(from shopping around and other reasons) We have gone numerous years with no health insurance to save money. 

We have also had group health insurance and am extremely familiar with all the group health insurance plans, which 2 of my kids have. One works with Toyota and if I had his health insurance plan,  I would be singing in the rain.

Almost all the people that sing praises for private health care and don't want socialized medicine have group plans like that. 

I would be interested in hearing what kind of health insurance plan cutworm has too. 

I'm sorry you feel I side stepped your question.  My point was and is,  we need price transparency and it is sorely lacking. Then we need people to take the time to look into it.

 We work with a company (Limeaide). that does the research for us,  taking medical ratings and price into account. 

Here's a chart of MRI costs by state.   Free standing Scanning stations are usually the best option.

How much an MRI costs by state (businessinsider.com)

Thanks Tim,

I know that you are being sincere but it’s very obvious that you can’t answer my question because applying your advice to all of us to shop around for all those medical procedures and doctors, like the ones me and many others actually deal with in  the real world........is impossible.

You are very welcome at any time to actually provide that advice but if it was so obvious and easy it would not be completely elusive to me(and you....when the rubber meets the road) trapped, like everybody else, paying what prices we are forced to pay because we can’t doctor shop or hospital shop or procedure shop like we can car shop as you suggested.

If your cardio doctor of 10 years wants to do a bypass.....do you tell them......”let me call around to find the best deal in town from the other cardio doctors and the cheapest hospitals”. After I find that, I’ll just book that doctor and tell them what hospital to do it at, as well as what anesthesiologist they will be using.....the cheapest one of course. Then, I’ll tell them what lab to use and order the equipment they will need.

This is the real world Tim.

You keep describing some non existent, potentially market competitive realm that could never exist.

I was against socialized medicine up until around a decade ago and have been increasingly for it since then, based entirely on the facts.....and my extensive experience using it.

I brought you into the real world here but you want to keep telling us about a theoretical world that does not exist.

This thread offers you the opportunity to provide facts and I’m still open minded.

Posting the different cost for MRIs in different states actually makes me even more convinced that government, needs to step in and fix prices.....like they do with Medicare/Medicaid. 

You must be aware that this happens today, right?

And that some doctors will not even take it because they will not be able to price gouge, (like they are doing with private health insurance plans) if the government controls their charges/rates.

The disparity in prices from state to state, you think, would be stopped with transparency?

We already know everything we need to know and what’s causing it.......it’s in a unique market, as described above and elsewhere, that does not and can never follow the same pricing structure based on consumer purchasing power, like the automobile market and most other markets.