TIME has devoted a special issue to the destruction of health care in America. More than 35 pages are full of examples of how patients with and without insurance are being ripped. To say nothing of taxpayers. Some examples of egregious charges and profits in this fascinating story:
Charges to individuals are thousands of dollars yet with Medicare the same services would have cost a few hundred dollars.
A box of sterile gauze pads cost a patient $77.
A patient was charged $18 each for Accu-Chek diabetes test strips. Amazon sells boxes of 50 for about $27 dollars or 55 cents each.
Twenty-five percent of Americans surveyed said they skipped a recommended medical test or procedure because of the cost.
The ten largest non-profit hospitals each made from $118 million to $769 million in operating profits.
Three CT scans cost a patient $6,538 and Medicare would have paid about $825 for the same thing.
A patient was charged $24 for a 500 mg tablet of Niacin; in drug stores the pills go for about a nickel apiece.
An acetaminophen tablet was billed at $1.50 each; you can buy a hundred on Amazon fro $1.49.
A patient covered by Medicare had bills of $268,227 which Medicare disposed of by paying only $43.320, A private paying patient would be stuck for the entire original bill.
A standard saline solution was billed at $84. Online a liter bag costs $5.16.
Hospitals in Central Florida are overflowing with Medicare patients and all those hospitals are expanding and advertising for Medicare patients. "Hospitals don't lose money when they serve Medicare patients."
In 2011, the hospital and research institution of Sloan-Kettering had an operating profit of $406 million even after everything it spent on research and the education of a small army of young cancer doctors.
(The complete blog is here.)
