I understand that Norway waives nonrecurring fees on electric vehicles, including the VAT and purchase taxes. No wonder there are so many electric cars there.
When a harsh, highly critical and skeptical view is taken of all government programs, especially those that you personally support, even the most outrageous programs of European governments doesnât look so outrageous.
Think ethanol in gasoline and chicken tax.
State Farm told me that if/when I cancel my auto insurance in Texas, if I ever come back to the USA and buy car insurance, I will be slammed on high risk insurance, no matter how good my driving record was/is.
I have heard of families clobbered with high health insurance premiums, and still have $5,000 deductibles under the Obamacare plan. It was designed to force healthy people to pay more so those who are unhealthy get to pay less. It is perfect socialism.
When I came to Mexico, I asked my best friendâs wife (he is a doctor) about health insurance since Medicare doesnât pay in Mexico. She told me that anything that happens that I can survive will not cost more than $5,000 USD. So, I didnât buy health insurance here. We went low carb (Atkins) and we have not much need for health care. Even when my wife fell off the ladder she did not break her hips due to 1500 mg of calcium a day, and it only cost around $150 for x-rays and pain killers.
A few months ago in Texas our daughter took her son to the hospital after he did something to one of his legs in soccer. For 3 hours the bill before write-down was $14,000.
I read a URL which said in most states, health care for a couple after age 65, runs in the area of $400,000.
âThe quest for universal health coverage: achieving social protection for all in Mexicoâ
'Mexico is reaching universal health coverage in 2012. A national health insurance programme called Seguro Popular, introduced in 2003, is providing access to a package of comprehensive health services with financial protection for more than 50 million Mexicans previously excluded from insurance.
http://download.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS014067361261068X.pdf
The Lancet, Volume 380, Issue 9849, Pages 1259 - 1279, 6 October 2012
Could be you are put on a high risk plan if a new customer, could be.
Yep there are many tales of medical payments. I pay $115 a month for Blue Cross plus the $114 for Part B, plus a little for dental and long term care. I donât think thatâs too bad with $100 or so deductible. It was actually cheaper since I dropped my retiree group plan. I had outpatient surgery a couple years ago and the total bill was $2000 and I paid $100. Of course the wifeâs leg with labor and hardware and everything was $20,000 but still my part was only $1500. All without the help of the government. Then again I know someone with a bill of 2 million for many surgeries and several months hospital stay. Like they say, there are as many stories as there are people in the naked city.
I know a couple of people who drive down to Mexico for their dental care because it costs so much less. Maybe the the question we really should be asking is not how we can be covered for our medical costs but why it costs so much in the first place. Why does walking into an emergency room for an injury that was for the most part treated by giving you a tetanus shot cost you close to $1000 dollars in America? Does the doctor get paid that much? Is that tetanus vaccine that expensive?
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We want it that much.
One reason is because people with no insurance use the emergency room like a doctorâs office and we all end up paying for thatâŠanother reason is they are charging what the market will bear, not costs plus some reasonable profit.
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I believe another reason is because Medicaid and Medicare, etcetera, will only pay a fixed amount that is often far below the higher prices charged to a paying customer or his/her insurance company. Somebody has to take up the slack!
And, of course, there are boat payments, kidsâ college, vacations, etcetera, factored into it. Also, itâs a captive audience of consumers. 
CSA
Itâs not the vaccine thatâs expensive. Itâs the bill for the doctorâs time and expertise, staffing costs, operational costs, etc. One day stay in an ICU is typically $20,000 before insurance
Emergency rooms are a gold mine for many hospitals. A good friend works in an emergency room and says when the curtan is drawn the $$$$$$$ begin to roll up very quickly. And while there are a great many causes for the high cost of medical care many hospitals offer only the 5 star level of accomodations even though the vast majority of their patients are just a paycheck away from broke. Single payer is inevitable as costs continue to increase while more and more of US see our incomes in decline. Some of US are lucky enough to enjoy adequate âsocializedâ medicine already.
An option with my companies insurance company is for any elective surgery we have the option to have it done someplace in the states, or theyâll fly us to India and spend 2 weeks convalescing in a nice resort near the hospital (all expenses paid). Still cheaper then having the surgery done in the states.
I know one person who did it for a knee surgery. She loved it. Her doctor went to Harvard Med and his surgical residency at Dartmouth-Hitchcock.
Emergency care costs 10 times higher than a visit to a general practitioner. Added cost comes from acute care versus preventive care. Poor people that visit the emergency room donât go until the situation is dire, driving up the cost of curing the ill they showed up with.
We all do pay for the uninsured in this situation. The hospital canât pay for it and finds a way to divide it up in their charges to everyone else. My health insurer provides a breakdown of the cost of service when I see a doctor or have a procedure or test done. The supplier tells the insurer that they want up to twice what the insurer allows. It seems to me that while the provider doesnât get that money right now, it does go into determining the rates for next year.
We have a lot of these acute care places around here. Much better then the emergency roomsâŠand cheaper too.
Iâll second that. They only charge your normal office visit deductible and no appointment necessary.
Everyone has their story and their opinion. I think the last tetanus shot I got cost $40 but MDs usually donât give shots but nurses do. Of course flu shots are free to me. At any rate itâs my opinion the ACA was doomed to fail and the designers knew it which would usher in the real agenda which would be a single payer system. Working real well in the UK? Folks in DC were rubbing their hands with glee in anticipation of a whole new infra-structure to handle a single payer system and are very upset now. Think about how a single payer system would work for car repair. Of course some of us would end up paying more into the system so that those poor people could get their cars fixed free. Itâs just Econ 101 but most people have no idea how economics actually works.
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Thereâs a bit of a game going on as well. Itâs like when your selling something and the buyer agrees immediately to your price and you think- darn, I should have asked more!
The suppliers request absolutely exorbitant fees from insurance and the insurer brings them back to (almost) reality with their UCR amount of what they will pay. Ask for the moon and settle on something lowerâŠ
Case in point- I had a routine blood draw for typical analysis. I went to a new place and found out the hard way they were out of network. I was shocked to see they requested $300 for drawing a single vial of blood! Of course my insurer said out of network so you pay 80% of full amount. However, weâll generously deduct that amount from your out of network deductibleâŠNow this is normally sub $50 and results in a bill to me for around $2.50. There is no way to justify charging 6x the UCR amount unless youâre fishing for the max they will pay.
Is healthcare in the UK substandard @bing? Everything is relative and somewhat determined by the situation and location. Somewhere in all government policies there must be consideration for âthe greatest good for the greatest numberâ as opposed to the free marketâs catering to the well to do offering lavish accomodations and grand treatment.
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Not necessarily substandard but they are broke and need a huge influx of tax money to stay afloat. As they say though nothing is free. Someone has to pay for it somewhere. Isnât that the communist meme though? To each according to his need and from each according to his ability? Sounds nice but doesnât work very well in real life or in free car repairs.
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Survival of the fittest, i.e. wealthiest, and the rest be damned is a somewhat inhumane and uncivilized extreme but it is becoming trendy.
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