When my son was born in 1999, the bill showed two prices - one was the price for the insurance company, which was around $5000, and one was the price without insurance, which was about $20,000.
Luckily, we had the insurance, so it was covered, but I asked about it anyway. I was told that the hospital had negotiated a lower price with the insurance company, so I said that presumably they still make a profit from the insurance payout, so why do uninsured patients pay 4x more for the exact same service? They literally looked at me like I asked in a foreign language, and repeated that they had negotiated a lower price with the insurance company.
“I understand that,” I kept saying, “but why can’t you offer that price to your uninsured patients?”
“Because we negotiated a special price with the other insurance companies.”
When my son was born in 1999, the bill showed two prices - one was the price for the insurance company, which was around $5000, and one was the price without insurance, which was about $20,000.
Luckily, we had the insurance, so it was covered, but I asked about it anyway. I was told that the hospital had negotiated a lower price with the insurance company, so I said that presumably they still make a profit from the insurance payout, so why do uninsured patients pay 4x more for the exact same service? They literally looked at me like I asked in a foreign language, and repeated that they had negotiated a lower price with the insurance company.
“I understand that,” I kept saying, “but why can’t you offer that price to your uninsured patients?”
“Because we negotiated a special price with the other insurance companies.”
“I understand that, but…”
Fucking predators.
That’s fucking lame. Hey we wanted to charge you 20000 but instead we’ll let you off with 5000. That’s literally extortion
They actually turn around and will slash the cost for the uninsured the second you dispute it. They don’t actually expect people to pay that much
It’s a weird dance with insurance companies, they say it’s costs 20k and then insurance says “ok, I’ll pay 7k” and you pay 5k
An uninsured person might get away with paying even less than $5k when it’s all said and done. It’s not a real healthcare system