Monopoly money isn't real money. You know what else isn't real money? How your medical costs are calculated.

[ck4829]

A backpack believed to belong to the man who fatally shot UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was discovered in Manhattan's Central Park containing Monopoly money, multiple outlets reported, citing law enforcement sources.

Following the Wednesday, Dec. 4, killing of Thompson, 50, outside the New York Hilton Midtown, NBC News, ABC News and The New York Post reported on Saturday, Dec. 7 that the New York Police Department (NYPD) has since recovered a gray backpack officials believe may have belonged to the shooting suspect — who has still not been identified.

https://people.com/monopoly-money-found-in-backpack-believed-to-belong-to-unitedhealthcare-shooter-reports-8757955

Monopoly money is, of course, not actual money. You can't use it for goods and services, it has value really only in the context of a board game.

So what goes into your medical bills? What creates their value?

What is behind us spending much more on other countries in this chart, but living shorter lives?

When someone declares bankruptcy because of medical bills, they are declaring bankruptcy over medical bills yes, but how was the number reached?

When someone's wages are being garnished, how exactly is that amount that needs to be garnished obtained in the first place?

When medical debt collectors are going after someone to pay medical bills they bought to collect on, what exactly are they pursuing?

You might not like the answer...

For far too many cases, it is pretty much a random number that is very high.

Adam Conover of 'Adam Ruins Everything': Most of the numbers on your medical bills are made up

Yet another TikTok video calling out the notoriously expensive U.S. healthcare system is going viral on social media. Shared by Adam Conover, a comedian and former host of the informative program "Adam Ruins Everything," in response to another TikTok about how medical bills mysteriously shrink when the patient asks for an itemized receipt, the one-minute clip explains why this suspicious phenomenon happens. The original video was posted by a TikTok user named Tre'jon Wilson and it shows him drinking something while the text overlay ponders whether the American healthcare system is a scam.

"Tell me why my hospital bill went from $4,000 to $950 all because I asked for a receipt and a list of everything I was being charged for," the overlay text reads. "They lowered my bill by 76%. Is it me or our health care system is a scam?" Conover took it upon himself to answer this question by stitching the original video and explaining why so many hospital bills are massive and why the charges seem to vanish when patients challenge them with the hospitals. "It's because the numbers on every hospital or doctor bill are straight-up fake and made up," Conover says in the video.

"If you have insurance, your hospital has to negotiate with the insurance company for the price of the services," he continues. "So they set these super high ridiculous numbers as a starting point for that negotiation. The insurance company says, 'bulls**t, we're paying you a third of that.' They haggle a bit and decide on a number.'" Conover goes on to explain why this system has the power to ruin lives. "Here's the f**ked up part. If you don't have insurance, the hospital still put that original, ridiculously high, just for negotiation number on your bill," he says in the video.

"So you could easily end up paying three, five, even ten times what the procedure actually costs," he notes. "The next time you get a medical bill, make sure you negotiate. There are even non-profits called medical billing advocates that will help you negotiate." Conover ends the video by directing people to an episode of "Adam Ruins Everything" titled "The Real Reason Hospitals Are So Expensive," in which he goes into detail about the questionable practices behind medical billing. His TikTok video touched a raw nerve for those already dissatisfied with the American healthcare system and many confirmed that negotiating the ridiculous amounts mentioned in hospital bills has brought them down to a much lower number.

https://scoop.upworthy.com/tiktok-user-explain-why-hospital-bills-shrink-when-asked-itemized-receipt

He and his wife both got cataract surgery. His bill was 20 times higher than hers

Danilo Manimtim, who has a job evaluating disability claims for the state of California, knows the health care system and keeps tabs on his health benefits. He knew he already had met his health insurance deductible for the year, so he expected a manageable out-of-pocket expense for the surgery. He calculated his coinsurance would be about $750.

Then the bills came. ($4057)

Manimtim's big bill stems from a simple decision that turned out to be a pitfall in the nation's complicated health care system: He scheduled his surgery at a nearby hospital — a hospital that happened to charge about $7,000 more for the procedure than his insurer would pay.

Manimtim has proof that it could have been different right under his own roof: Four months later, his wife, Marilou Manimtim, 66, got the exact same procedure at an outpatient eye care surgical center in Fresno called EYE-Q. It is a half-mile from Saint Agnes Medical Center but is not affiliated with the hospital. (And she was billed $204)

https://www.wgbh.org/news/national-news/2022/06/27/he-and-his-wife-both-got-cataract-surgery-his-bill-was-20-times-higher-than-hers

And one more that is also interesting, a group of people in Oklahoma wanted to buy patient debts off of hospitals in the area to forgive them. Hospitals in Oklahoma said "pass" though. Why? As a person in the group pointed out, the hospitals have no problem selling the debts to debt collectors, but why not them? A debt collector would not ask questions about the debt, but I think a person in the field of debt forgiveness would ask what exactly are they forgiving.

https://democraticunderground.com/1033804

And insurance is part of the scam.

You're going bankrupt, you're e-begging on GoFundMe, you're getting your wages garnished, and you're going to an early grave... and it's for a lie.

[bucolic_frolic]

1. It's a very valid OP

The cost of anything is time and materials, including overhead, costs of production, living wage for personnel at all steps of assembling the final service. Overhead includes a tiny fraction of buildings, rent, insurance, utilities. If it could all be calculated down to the penny.

It's most obvious in housing. The intrinsic value of a home is land, labor, materials. Everything else is profit - for the builder, the mortgage company, the bank, the rent (interest rate) on the money.

But the guy that fixes your home wants $250 to look at it, then presents a walk-away price to repair it. You're out the inspection fee either way. You could fix it yourself for materials and a couple hours. But you just spent $3000.

Health care is no different. Yet look at what we pay.

[XanaDUer2]

2. Isnt M anti capitalist game from Depression

[ck4829]

3. I believe so, yes

[misanthrope]

16. It was supposed to be

but America's perverse society gleefully embraced the very vices it sought to highlight.

[Yavin4]

4. The whole concept of privatization was to make matters more efficient.

That concept is at the heart of every privatization push, but the opposite is always true. In any human endeavor, there will always be mis-management, waste, and inefficiencies. The difference with public services is that those inefficiencies are known or easily discoverable by the public.

[benfranklin1776]

11. Yes and public pressure can then eliminate them through the democratic process.

Whereas private insurers respond primarily to the needs and wants of their wealth engorged class of private equity stockholders-namely, profit uber alles, human carnage be damned.🤬

[eppur_se_muova]

14. *Selling point*, not concept. Efficiency is seldom a valid criterion for health care.

Efficiency compares the cost vs value obtained.

If you get almost nothing of value and paid little for it, that's efficient. It's just not effective, which is the more important criterion.

When your life is in danger from a medical condition, you want the treatment to be as effective as possible. If cutting corners will bring the cost down, but increase the risk of an unsuccessful outcome, is that what most people will want ? It's just human nature to say "damn the cost, save my life!" but when the costs are wildly inflated, that removes the possibility of choice for most people. Privatization leads to effective treatment only if you can afford it, but will give you a more affordable treatment that still lets you die, thereby not running up further costs -- and leading to claims of efficiency, which is true only in the monetary sense. In terms of your invaluable life, it's nightmarishly inefficient.

[dalton99a]

5. Kick

[anciano]

6. Excellent OP .......

and YES, medical bills are negotiable. Never pay the sticker price. There is an excellent book available from Amazon called "Crush Medical Debt" by Virgie Bright Ellington, MD. It's the best $15.99 that I have ever spent.

[yourout]

7. I used to get my CPAP supplies with my insurance until..

I found i could buy them cheaper online than the deductable.
Exact same items.
That's the big scam.

[surfered]

8. We had an emergency room visit lately and we just got the bill...

…they ran some blood tests. Each test had a price . Ex: $2,200, but the insurance says that test should only be $300. The hospital takes it. The difference just disappears.

It’s like car sticker prices of yesteryear, no one pays the sticker price.

What if we didn’t have insurance, but we had to pay out of pocket? Would we have to pay the $2,200 or the $300? In the emergency room, we don’t have time to negotiate prices before each procedure.

[OldBaldy1701E]

9. And again, I offer this little tip.

Always, always demand an itemized bill from any medical office or hospital you visit. Also with the ambulance ride, if there is one.

So far, it has removed over a hundred dollars or more from bills I have had. They just cannot help themselves.

Always make them explain their numbers. You will find they usually change once you do.

[paleotn]

10. This! +10,000

[TBF]

13. Absolutely - and don't pay anything until they give you all the details

and your claims rep has negotiated with the doctor/hospital. If you pay right away it's hard to get funds back. Just hold off a bit and make sure it has all been processed properly.

[ck4829]

15. Good info

[TBF]

12. The one time I had a good experience with UH was a hospitalization

out of the blue. It ended up being 8 days, total price a little over $200K. It was definitely an emergency out of the blue, and I was in critical condition initially. We pay very high premiums (probably due to my chronic condition), but at least we were able to get this paid. When the bills started arriving I didn't pay any. I went on the UH website, made an account, and messaged the claims rep. She told me not to pay anything yet, just let her work with the hospital on this claim. In the end that bill became about $65K that UH paid, and I paid no more than $5K out of pocket. That is how insurance should work when you have a true emergency. And I was very grateful, given the other horror stories I have read. But the $200K+ was never real, more than half of that just went *poof* when they negotiated.

[Meowmee]

17. Great post 😁

This is fraud and should be illegal, but apparently no one cares enough to stop it and so many are beholden to ins and pharma lobbys etc. Hospitals etc. are part of the problem.