Was reading the NY Times article about premiums. $15,000 for family? 40% increases? Having just spent 4 days in the hospital for a blood infection and watching what was going on I think they should randomly pick a couple thousand people and track their expenses for a given event.
I am aware of someone who has large quantities of gauze, ABD pads, tape, vac dressings, wound cleanser, etc. Maybe it's $600-700 worth not paid for by the individual.
When I was in over the last 5 months I had several MRIs, bone scan, WBC scan, gallons of IV, CAT scans, daily blood work, Clinitron for 6 wks ,etc. I wouldn't say any of it was unnecessary as I followed it fairly well as far as information
acquired was concerned. It's the prices that are out of sight.
4x4 gauze packs of maybe 15 were tens of dollars. Scans are beyond reason. The machines were not all new and probably paid for several times over. There must be room for cutting expenses.
The article pointed out that the "for profit" companies have good dividends and very well paid executives.
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/todayspaper/index.html
The flap was probably the least expensive part.
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"...only the shadow knows"
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