alt Hacker NewsThis is a top-level example but you do not have to look at the top, really. The whole private insurance system is a scam at every level. I mean: I immigrated to US couple years ago, and I can tell you that any hospital visit, or a diagnostics, such as CT scan or ultrasound are 15-20x more expensive here than in my home country (which is in the EU).
Funny thing is: if you tell the hospital that you do not have an insurance they will charge you a price that actually sounds reasonable, say $700 for a CT scan (which is still like 2x more than in my home country, but then the US is a high cost of living place), but if you do have insurance they will try to extort as much money as possible from your insurer: initial bill will be like $10k, and then they will settle for, say, $6k.
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>...Funny thing is: if you tell the hospital that you do not have an insurance they will charge you a price that actually sounds reasonable, say $700 for a CT scan
That has not been my experience. Insurance negotiates lower rates and without insurance, the full fare price suggested price has always been higher.
I'm clueless about healthcare economics, but this sounds fishy to me. Why would insurers go along with that? In fact I would expect insurers to be in a much better position to bargain with a hospital than a private party. Actually it's if the hospital were billing the govt (not as motivated as a private party) where I would expect that overcharging to creep up and up.
This is true and I have seen it in many cases.
>The whole private insurance system is a scam at every level.
All for profit insurance must by definition bring in more than it pays out. From cars to homes to health to pets.
If instead of paying all your premiums, you'd be far more likely to be able to afford the services that the insurers are supposedly paying for. Like, yeah, there's a chance you need a new engine, and a small chance that all of your monthly car insurance totals up to less than the cost of the engine, but the entire point of the company is that they know that it is far more likely that you will end up paying more for their service than you'd have actually payed for turns out the only thing that ever went wrong was a small crack in your windshield.