This falls under the category of no good deed goes unpunished. Treval Hall, 17, saved a drowning boy in Kenosha, Wisconsin and was taken to a hospital with the boy. His reward for saving Aaron Puente, 14, was a bill from Aurora Medical Center for more than $2000.
Hall pulled Puente to safety after finding him face down in the water. Both Hall and Puente were taken to the hospital. Hall was taken just as a precaution because he swallowed a little water during the rescue.
Aurora Medical Center spokesman Adam Beeson insisted “Our goal is to work with the patient to find an equitable solution.’’
What is particularly notable is the ridiculous level of bill inflation perpetuated by these hospitals. A teen swallows a little water in a rescue and leaves with a $2000 bill for just having doctor’s examine him. The hospital insists it performed a battery of tests, including chest X-rays, an electrocardiogram and blood work.
The question is who will now rescue Hall.
Source: Sun Times
Yissil,
“This shows why free market economics don’t work for the health care system: there’s only one way a hospital can charge $100 for a box of kleenex. It has to have a monopoly.”
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… and then there’s “price fixing” for those who claim to be in competition …..
Passing the cost of health care for people who can’t pay their bills onto those who can is not news. What’s news is that they admit it. Some people refuse to go to hospitals who minister to indigents for that reason. The insurance companies have bargained for charges for everything down to a band aid, so they’re not a source of the revenue needed to make up the shortfall. So, they pass it onto the the uninsured.
We charged you $100 for a box of kleenex to make up for the people who don’t pay their bills.
There is so much wrong with that I don’t know where to begin. Well yes I do.
This shows why free market economics don’t work for the health care system: there’s only one way a hospital can charge $100 for a box of kleenex. It has to have a monopoly.
I reviewed a hospital bill a long time ago and found a charge of over $100 for a box of Kleenex. I questioned it; and, was given the explanation of how prices are jacked up for the people who don’t pay their bills. I told them I might possibly by that explanation; but, they did not provide me with “real” Kleenex. I was given little sheets of paper that were as rough on my nose as the real tree might have been. The “real” Kleenex is soft. The U.S. health care system leaves a lot to be desired. And, the people who run it out to have to spend one week a year at a hospital.