Pete's BLOG-Day26,569. Part II-Medicare going broke.

Today is Saturday, August 17, 2013. My stats today: 10 minutes of yoga, 10 minutes on the ball and 27 minutes of walking = 2.0 miles for an August total of 26.0 miles. My weight was 163.2 pounds.

MY THOUGHTS today continue on the bill we got from the Anamosa Hospital for Ruth Ann's 2-day stay in the hospital in May. Yesterday, I vented about the physical therapy part and the drug costs part. Today I want to show the rest of this draconian bill. Here goes:

Part 4:The part called MEDICAL COSTS was for $621.00. Question: What exactly does that mean?
Part 5: The part called RADIOLOGY had two charges: $299.15 and $266.52.
Part 6: The LABORATORY had six charges: $200.25; $113.55; $179.85; $181.15; %25.50; and $113.55.
Part 6: The EKG/ECG was $157.47.
Part 7: The OBERVATION ROOM had three charges: $150.84; $16.76; and $362.77. Questions: Where is the OBSERVATION ROOM?  Who was observing and what is particular were they looking for?
Part 8: The EMERGENCY ROOM had two charges: $932.78; and $27.97.
Ruth Ann was there for 3-4 hours total. Maybe that is the observation room!!!!!
Part 9: The IV THERAPY had four charges: $111.94; $124.39; $732.00; and $311.12
Part 10: This is the real mystery: There was a charge labeled N/A for $263.00. Question: What in the hell does N/A mean?

Part 11. The total was $5,578.65. But they did expect Ruth Ann to pay $56.75 - which is about 1%. And, in my opinion, man of these charges are inflated.

Hey, I'm grateful for the care she got and I'm grateful Anamosa has such a wonderful medical facility. And the care she received was wonderful and doctors and nurses were great. And I also realize that they have to make money so they can pay all the employees and pay for the utilities, etc. But why can't they make these damn bills understandable and explain in simple words what these things mean?

Thank God for Medicare and supplemental insurance. One of the reasons I'm a Democrat is it is the Democrats who gave us Medicare in 1965. I'm grateful to the Democrats for providing the majority of the votes to get it passed. And there were some Republican who also voted for it. It was President Lyndon Johnson and Vice-President Hubert Humphrey who pushed it through the Congress - I'm grateful to those two men.

If Medicare paid the total bills from doctors and hospitals they would've been broke years ago. Medicare does not pay the entire bills because Medicare officials know that doctors and hospitals inflate their bills in humungous ways. It is true that Medicare is hurting financially. I read in TIME Magazine that Medicare gets up to 3 million bills  every day from doctors and hospitals. And they approve $1.5 billion every day in the form of wire transfers to these doctors and hospitals. What Medicare doesn't pay our supplemental insurance usually pick up the rest - and I'm grateful for that also.

Brad, our son, lives in Denmark. Denmark has universal health care for every citizen. from the day they are born until the day they die. YES, it is government run health care. And you know what? It works. The results of their system is that Danes live  longer than we do and they have a lower baby death rate than we do. Also, Danes consider themselves the happiest people in the world - one of the main reasons is they have health care and they will never have to file bankruptcy to pay a medical bill.

Doctors in Denmark do not make as much money as our doctors do. However, they do not have to make as much money as our doctors. First of all the government pays for their tuition through 8 years of university/medical school so they don't come out of med school with $300,000 to $500,000 worth of loans to pay back. Secondly, doctors in Denmark do not have to pay malpractice insurance - if a doctor screws up in Denmark a disabled person will be put on welfare and will enjoy a decent life the rest of his/her days.