Healthcare and….
Via Naked Capitalism and Lambert Strether:
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. –Corinthians 13:13
I posted this letter in Links, but I found I could expand on it. Spectrum Health Care’s letter to Hedda Martin speaks for itself, and for what our health care system has become under neoliberalism:
Dan Radzikowski@DanRadzikowski
(The provenance: I started with AOC, who hat-tipped @DanRiffle, who linked to the original poster, @DanRadzikowski, quoted above. From Radzikowski’s thread, Hedda Martin: “This is me”; Martin’s GoFundMe, which was successful.) In this post, I’ll focus on two things: the intriguing backstory of Spectrum Health, the institution that denied Martin care until she could raise $10,000; and the weaknesses of GoFundMe as a solution. Before I get to the main part of the post, however, I’ll point out that Hedda Martin’s example is not exception…
I thought I had seen everything, but that is astonishing and appalling.
Scripps Health is sending $137 to collections that I have not paid because it was caused by their billing error and they have ignored my repeated explanations that all they have to do is bill my secondary insurer and they will be paid. And this with a patient who has provided them with more that $50,000 in revenue in just the past two years.
And yet, living in California as I do, every time I suggest that “Health Care Reform” was not actually reformative, I am excoriated as some sort of right wing Obama hater.
More than likely you are excoriated because your tiny billing problem means health reform sucked.
@EMichael
I’m not sure what your response means, but when I make the comment about ACA not being reformative which draws the harsh response, my “tiny billing problem” is not part of the remark.
I mentioned the “tiny billing problem” above, not because I care about the stakes of a lousy $137, but to illustrate the mindless greed of the health care provider.
Bill:
I assume you kept names, times, and dates of when you talked to some one and from what institute? I also suggest you send them a letter Priority Mail and recite what you said verbally. I had the same problem with a “provider” and it was all about billing my insurance company. They were late in doing so as I checked with my insurance company too. I was not being dunned and I did not have to take their supplies as I had adequate amount of them to last a while.
I have to agree these types of issues never, never existed before the ACA! /s
BillH,
Gotta tell you, I doubt anyone reads your first post the way you think they do. Case in point, Run’s comment.
Not to mention your second post just makes it worse. Nowhere in your first post is there a single thought about a provider being greedy. Why it shows up now is a mystery to me.
Not everything in the world is the result of neoliberalism. Issues like this have existed for a long time and have a habit of being obscured by falling under this over used moniker. What has been happening and Spectrum is following the same path as many other pharmacies, hospitals, clinics, insurance companies, etc. is consolidation. CVS merged with Aetna, UnitedHealth Is Buying a Major Doctor Group DaVita, etc. There is numerous large consolidations going on in order to control the market place and negotiate. Name brands like Hopkins, University of Michigan, Cleveland Clinic, etc. can also charge higher prices because of who they are and not necessarily because of the better quality care they provide. The prospect of having to negotiate with Medicare or the government on more pricing is a threat and size counts.
Back to the topic, what comes first the operation or the drugs. The patient had a $4500 deductible which more than likely needed to be solved to pay for the operation. After that, the insurance picks up all the cost from what I read. Maybe the DeVos’s are afraid they will get stiffed by the patient for the $4500 to operate. A big hospital operation like Spectrum Health most certainly has the funding to finance this. It isn’t like one of the DeVos’s going to England and butting in line to get quicker service and being able to do so because of forking over a few thousand “quid” on the side. not sure of the financials of this person and if the heart was so bad, why would you take a high deductible? Gold plans have become lesser in cost doing to Trump trying to screw people by canceling the CSR. Charles Gaba talks about this being the case for does who are subsidized and those who are not. Too much missing information.
I did find an open letter to the new President of Spectrum Health, Tina Freese Decker as written by Lody Zwarensteyn at Healthcare Blog. It is a good read and it points out what has taken place at Spectrum Health as it abandoned its orginal role in Western Michigan as a quality low cost healthcare provider to a modern role of rent taking. Not pretty; but, it is very true in healthcare.
@EMicheal
Your repeated attempts to make me a bad guy are baffling. What did I say to offend you?
“Scripps Health is sending $137 to collections that I have not paid because it was caused by their billing error and they have ignored my repeated explanations that all they have to do is bill my secondary insurer and they will be paid. And this with a patient who has provided them with more that $50,000 in revenue in just the past two years.
And yet, living in California as I do, every time I suggest that “Health Care Reform” was not actually reformative, I am excoriated as some sort of right wing Obama hater.”
then
“@EMichael
I’m not sure what your response means, but when I make the comment about ACA not being reformative which draws the harsh response, my “tiny billing problem” is not part of the remark.
I mentioned the “tiny billing problem” above, not because I care about the stakes of a lousy $137, but to illustrate the mindless greed of the health care provider.”
Perhaps you should find an editor that can diagram your posts so they make sense, as opposed to saying something you say you didn’t say.