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Politics : A US National Health Care System?
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To: TimF who wrote (1933)9/1/2007 9:24:16 AM
From: Road Walker  Read Replies (2) of 42652
 
re: They can only garnish wages after a successful judgment against you. In other words they have to sue you first. In practice they are likely to settle for less than that $940, at least if you really are poor. If you reasonably wealthy (at least solidly middle class if not better) and you just decided not to get insurance, than maybe they push you for the $940 sometimes, but often people without insurance or even people with insurance that doesn't cover the procedure, get billed less than the full official rate.

No, in practice they bill the full rate. And not just the hospital, also the doctors that may read the tests, often without ever seeing the patient.

I actually have experience with this, trying to negotiate discounts for someone I know. She was uninsured and had to go to an emergency room because the local clinics wouldn't take her. The emergency room performed a battery of tests that turned out to be unrelated to her problem, didn't treat the problem, but did arrange for home health care to visit her and treat it. The bills were over $5000, the home health care portion was only about $400 if I remember right.

The hospital eventually gave a 10% discount; the doctor wouldn't budge. She was afraid of being sued and also ruining her credit rating so she paid. I would be surprised if an insurance company would have been billed over $500 for the same stuff.

Just one of many things that really suck about the US system...
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