Man i've about had it with health care costs in this country. Just got a bill for a procedure that doctor advised for me to get since every now and again I need to go on acid reflux meds. I told her, like I told the person at the place where the procedure was done that I will do it but if its going to be expensive I want to know before hand how expensive its going to be. It isn't a life saving thing I need. No one indicated it would be much higher than normal tests i've had done in the past when I told them my out of pocket was a few hundred bucks.
Just got the bill (should note I haven't even got the test results back yet) $3,500 for me... my insurance covered 8k. WTF..... how does that not fall under the tell me how much it is if it is an expensive test. I shudder to think what the cost will be if I need to get actual surgery from the results. The #1 reason people declare bankruptcy in the US for a while now has been crushing medical debt. I'm not saying that this will make me go into bankruptcy or anything like that but to a different person it could, and $3,500 is not a cheap thing for them to just not tell people up front what they will have to pay for a non-emergency procedure. The money to pay this is money I had squirreled away to finish the 3fe and ship the 80 here.
We've done it to ourselves I guess, we refuse to make the government regulate healthcare costs.
