I never understood how grim not having health insurance can be... we've never been self employed before moving to OKC and wow.. what a horrible intro to medical costs.

I really took it for granted having health insurance.

Now, we have a useless policy with a huge deductible that we still pay over $344 a month for strictly for catastropic medical emergencies or hospital stays.

This is what bothers me.... my husband went in for a in-office visit.. he was quoted one price when they thought we had insurance... when we explained that we were self pay essentially, the price changed and lowered quite a bit.

What's up with that? Reaming the insurance companies?

Also, I can't believe what they pay Doctors and what they charge for the simplest things.

My son got 3 stitches last month... the bill? $453 Mercy After Hours... the clerk says, 'it shouldn't be more than $200 " and then the bill arrived - more than doubled what he said.

This last month, we've spent nearly $1,900.00 and we still haven't reached our deductible.

It really stresses me out.

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It's not the doctors who are overpaid... it's an out-of-control profit-driven healthcare system.

Exactly...the money from those procedures doesn't pay doctors that much, if anything at all.

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If it's a semi-public clinic like OU Physicians, the university takes a huge chunk of all the billing.

I don't think doctors are paid enough.

They have to put up with a hell of a lot of school.

The trouble is that the medical industry has an enormous overhead -- and that overhead is expanding, especially in the area of executive salaries.

How many doctors have to work so that the CEO of a hospital group can take home a 50 million in stock options?

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ditto..

i dislike micheal moore but watch sicko when it comes out on video, its a good movie that addresses simular cases to yours. the whole system is just way out of control.

Just got another letter today saying our premium ( which we've never used once btw) is going up again ( rising health costs)!

I need a recommendation and quick.. anyone have a company they use that is reasonable?

I have Golden Rule or as I fondly call them - Golden Ream..

Help! Who can recommend a decent insurance company for the self-employed ?

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Have you tried getting a quote from Blue Cross/Blue Shield? They have a good program called "Health Check Select" or something similar to that. I don't know what the prices are like for adults, but a few years ago I had this plan for my son and it was around $40-45 a month. www.bcbsok.com

Anybody seen what kind of perks the CEOs of insurance companies are getting? That's what makes me mad....we're paying almost $2,000 a month for insurance and their offices are wood paneled suites, getting bonuses of millions of dollars. It's not the doctors who are paid too much, it's the insurance executives.

too true, ceo executives probably don't have to pay over a hundred k in tuition loans plus whatever interest accumulates, and definately not malpractice insurance.

By the time I get finished, I will have been in training almost 15 years, beyond high school.

Patrick, you chose to go through all of that schooling.

Doctors are no more important than the greeters at Wal-Mart. Everyone serves their purpose in life.

I don't think doctors should get paid as much as they do.

From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs, eh Comrade?

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Mid, now you know that's not true. If that were true, someone like Patrick, whose gone through all of that schooling would be making more than Britney Spears or Kobe Bryant. People in Hollywood don't have near the abilities that a doctor has.

Still, medical costs are too high. If we paid doctors less, medical bills would decrease.

No, no, no., cutting doctor's fees will not make a difference. I'm going to post something here I posted elsewhere. If anyone has read it before, I apologize.

I'm a physician, so I realize I've probably lost half my audience with that statement. But, it does give me a window into the health care system. I don't have any magical solutions, unfortunately, but I can point out some things not everyone might realize or think about.

First of all, physician reimbursement makes up about 5 to 10% of all health care costs. Reimbursement for physician fees has been lowered for many procedures, others have been kept stable and most of the rest allowed below cost of living rise increases over the last ten to 15 years. Physicians who perform procedures, especially operations, are far better compensated for the care they provide, meaning that the physicians who treat you with their hands have much higher incomes than those that use their brains. (Old medical joke, but there's a frightening amount of truth to it). Since physician fees are such a small portion of health care costs, it would seem logical that lowering their fees would be the worst way to realize savings, but the other health care sectors have had virtually no control on prices, and that is why health care costs have risen so alarmingly.

As an example, were you in the ICU with pneumonia, the most your physician treating you could charge you for his care in a 24 hour period is around $100. The antibiotics being used to treat the pneumonia could total as much as $3,0000. The room charge from the hospital might be comparable to the antibiotic fees.

The price of pharmaceuticals and medical equipment far surpass anything most doctors are able to charge, as does the cost of hospital care. I believe, if we wish to help stop the rise in health care costs, that is where we need to start. Many physicians, by virtue of the freezes or low cost of living increases, coupled with tripling of malpractice fees and no freezes on overhead costs, are making half or less of what they made 15 years ago. Many are still working 10 to 14 hour days. So, even if you believe that physicians are overcompensated, I do not believe their reimbursement is where reduction in health care costs needs to start.

The government, in an attempt to contain costs, has instituted all sorts of oversights of physician charges. This has generated a massive beaurocracy, and it would not shock me were I to learn that the cost of the oversight meets or exceeds the savings generated.

If you look at the fact that the government has been cutting physicians fees regularly for years, or allowing increases less than the annual rise in cost of living, the fact that medical costs are still rising at an alarming rate demonstrates that cutting physician fees has little if any effect on health care cost containment.

There are lots of docs, but only one Britney Spears.

*gag*

I'm not trying to be flippant, really, your comparison is off base. These entertainers/athletes provide a unique product and are paid at a rate the market determines. To say that they're not worth what they're worth goes against all the facts -- Spears and Bryant are paid those millions because that's what people are willing to pay so that they'll do what they do. Are you going to question the business judgment of someone who is willing to fork over that kind of cash for a service? Do you not think the Lakers or Spears' production company profit from their services? Would you argue that either Spears or Bryant produce less than your average doctor?

What exactly is your argument? We're not paid in America based upon how long we've been to college. We're paid what we're worth.

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And Thank God for that.

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What I want to know is this: How much does Kobe Bryant's doctor make?

If I get paid like a greeter at Walmart, do I get their hours too? When you start paying doctors like greeters, don't be thinking you can go to the ER at 3 a.m. for a problem, or that they'll be checking in on grandma on Saturday when she's in the hospital. Also, why be a doctor if you get paid like a greeter? Why go through 8 years of college and med school and three to eight years of residency? Why be on call every fourth night, up all night, and every single weekend during your entire residency? I'd rather be a greeter for the same money and start right out of high school.

Just my perspective.

Doctors save lives everyday, and many hold lives in their hands everyday. Meanwhile, Britney acts absurd, and collects a fat paycheck for doing so.

Yes, I'd say Spears and Bryant produce less than doctors. Life would go on without Spears and Bryant. Lives are saved by doctors.

If we're paid on what we're worth, Spears deserves nothing. She's worthless.

Greeters at Wal-Mart work all hours of the day just like doctors, so moot point.

Why go through all that schooling and training? Because many want to be doctors because that's what they enjoy doing. They enjoy helping people and saving lives. You must be in it for the money though, or so it sounds.

By the way, if you really work all of these hours, how do you have so much time to participate here?

Look at the lifestyle most doctors live. They drive fancy cars and live in huge houses, and make 6 figure incomes, while we're paying for the rest of our life for that unexpected surgery we had to have. Maybe if we cut out all of that extravagant living and made doctors live like ordinary citizens, we wouldn't be paying so much for healthcare.

Karried is right. "Also, I can't believe what they pay Doctors and what they charge for the simplest things. "

jsenter, we're not in it for the money, but I think it's nice to be fairly compensated for my training, education, etc. Although I'm not in it for the money (trust me, I'd do something else if I wanted to make big bucks), I do think that for all of the work I've done, I deserve getting paid more than a WalMart greeter.

Would I be a doctor if it paid the same as a WalMart greeter? Probably not. Too much responsiblity, liability, too much education, etc. That's not to say I wouldn't want to do the job. It's saying that, I couldn't see going through all of that schooling when I could get paid the same being a WalMart greeter.

And betts is right. Physicians get very little of the actual bill spent for services. Most of the money goes to insurance companies, corporate hospital giants, pharmaceutical companies, etc.

The observation that there is one price for insured and another for noninsured helps make the case that giving health insurance to everyone, at goverment expense, does nothing but put money in the pockets of the health care industry. I don't say that I have an answer because I don't.

<<Look at the lifestyle most doctors live. They drive fancy cars and live in huge houses, and make 6 figure incomes, while we're paying for the rest of our life for that unexpected surgery we had to have. Maybe if we cut out all of that extravagant living and made doctors live like ordinary citizens, we wouldn't be paying so much for healthcare. >>


How would you "make" doctors live like ordinary citizens? That is kind of a scary proposition. Are we going to garnish their wages? Jail them? This is American, after all. We all make choices on how we are going to live and where we are going to devote our time and resources. Doctors made a choice to get a medical education and devoted their time, energy and money in that direction. Someone who chose to go into a different direction or didn't put the effort in to be paid well really is not in a position to complain, seems to me. I know a young doctor and she wasn't born with a silver spoon in her mouth and did not come from a family with doctors in the family. She worked hard, saved her money, put off short term gratification and got that MD. She will be paying off loans for years.