I guess Black Smoke “doesn’t” Matter.

Fmcsa had a comment period of blah blah ...I think they got like 6000 comments including mine .
Now they are protesting lol.
Rockheads ....sorry it's a different day and age ..adapt .

 

Medicare for all is actually Medicare for none. It's not free. Confiscatory tax rates for the average person would be over 70 percent. Actual tax rate would approach 90 percent just to pay for the socialists pipe dreams they're trying to peddle.

 

You support giving the government 90 cents on every dollar?

 

I have medicare. It would cost me approximately 154 dollars a month for just A and B. C is another 50 a month D is running about 45 a month. 245 total give or take. Then every time I see any doctor it's 45 dollars cash at the window. If I saw 10 doctors this month it's going to be 450 cash. Or it will be billed. ER is a flat 90. Ambulance membership gets paid insurance 450 or so per run, otherwise its about a thousand per call, 500 for me cash due. ER is 90 copay.

Here is where it gets expensive. Hearing aids. The prescription I require runs 2000 dollars cash copay PER ear. Times two. 4000 dollars cash. Out of 7800 total retail. (Taxes for medical device is waived by family doctor signature, otherwise it's a thousand more dollars.) Those generally are good for 8 to 12 years max. Ive been running on cheap walmart 40 dollars a pair hearing aids which happen to be in my exact hearing range 100 to 3500 hertz and 30 db boost. The rechargeable batteries in them die after 9 months to a year max. Which is why they are only 20 dollars each. The low end hearing range in hertz is really bad. I like to get down to about 17 hertz if not a touch lower. But 100 really is limiting. And I don't have the benefit of the 4200 hertz which is somewhat useful in music. They are literally disposible. Throw them away when burned up.

CO pays. 1350 flat A and B hospital. My recent surgery ran 14200 for the full hip joint implant, 5000 dollars to the two important doctors (Surgeon and life support with breathing machine doc) Charges for the room ran 20,000 for 6 days (Private room, really good to have at any price) Medicines ran 5000 dollars total. Tests 3000. I can go on. Related ER times two visits charges outside of the 90 dollar copay ran 4500 prior to surgery. (Not including ambulance) Physical therapy billed 4600 for one month home visits. They were paid 1650 flat. No ifs buts and maybes without the right to bill me personally. (This is Uncle Sam talking...) My ex was a qualified aid and CNA at one time in her life, she provided me 6 weeks 24/7 support at a retail rate at which should be 16 dollars a hour flat. But this is not something you can bill. She was able to do it and it was a very big step towards healing. Another thousand for visiting doctors and so on after.

My pain doctor is 250 flat a visit. Drug screen is either 150 or 800 billed depending on situation. First is enforcement, second is comprehensive across the board for everything in my system. Copay for him is 50. I am seeing him two times this month, we changed from a very bad medicine to a stronger morphine based on my weight and it's working much better. However we will have to change again after the second visit soon because Morphine is something a body can absolutely get dependant on. If I am without it 12 hours it's in withdrawal. (Has nothing to do with the mind, unless IV Morphine) so I can switch to either one of three known good medicines, all of which offer no withdrawal. There are days I don't take any at all. Particularly if I plan to drive.

Any other doctor is another 50 dollars. In addition to deductable, all charges 20% flat billable to me. I am waiting for approximately 4500 dollars to be billed to me from the hospital this year from that surgery. which in addition to another thousand from a previous work two years go will be about 6 years to pay off. If I need to do the other joint this year, we will repeat all those charges easily enough. The bone is already giving me warning signals so I expect to be fixed again by summer. (No big deal this time around. We already know what will happen)

Suppose I had medicare for all. Have a gunshot wound or a major heart attack. You start with 25,000 dollars from day one. Then 100,000 in first week of Trauma, full tour. You will have a nurse and a bunch of machines hooked up to you 24/7 I prefer the nurse for the most part... Not the machine. //snarky

The government will never be able to afford insurance for all. IF a 100% disabled vet gets 3000 per month, I get a little over a thousand in SSA. Vet gets everything free at the hospital regardless of price. I have to cover everything out of that thousand. I have had months where it's 600 to 800 dollars of that for medical co pays, billing etc not covered. The Government giveth and then takes away very easily from those on SSA and Medicare.

If you are on medicAID... then you essentially have nothing. Pain medicine is limited to three a day unless you are in hospice. (This is the only exemption. Otherwise you are just going to have to hurt bad, they have more medicines to stop your complaining if need be Thorazine comes to mind) You are provided everything at doctors orders at the absolute cheapest rate. You are not allowed to have 2000 dollars worth of property or cash or assets in your control. You have to have nothing in order for Medicaid to work.

I can go on. But it's worked for me. For a while anyway. I remember some of the blue cross blue shield insurance policies I have held in my life time with 10,000 dollar deductables and so on. It's not going to happen. Not with a 400 dollar a month premium.

My ex when she worked at a medical facility she purchased state insurance for medical insurance. Because it was a family rate we paid 550 a month for a couple of years. We like to think we got that back with my eye surgery which was a cool 18000 dollars in 2009. If I needed to do this surgery again on the other eye which eventually will happen, it's going to be 24000 and 3000 dollars cash due up front copay. I will stay with my out of network surgeon because he uses nothing but the absolute best. Not the cheapest and worst.

 

Yeah right. So scared.

 

Amazing how many healthcare experts we have

 

I seen on a new report the Chicago group had like 30 truck ! They have 27,000 members on their Facebook group. That's pretty bad turn out

 

I am not a freaking expert. I am learning the system hook, crook and billing. Bleeding dollars instead of blood.

There is a department inside the hospital. Inside that group of offices sit a group of computer servers inside a MDF room for the entire hospital. Every patient including me has records on there going back 20+ years. My file is 2 inches thick on paper. When I felt better, I went there and asked specifically for the detailed medical records, the exact medicines used, who prescribed them or what services (So I can write thank you letters properly...) and so on so forth etc. Its all there under a account number for me, a billing account for amounts due, stands at 490 this month, about 4500 pending charges for a total of 5000 expected dollars that I must pay. The hospital has written off in excess of 20,000 dollars and the insurance removed another 30,000 in payment negotiations.

When you go into a auto shop to replace a alternator, it's 1.5 hours labor at 70.00 hour total 120 dollars labor, the alternator will be around 405 or 500 dollars special order, one built to order in three weeks and the other is capable of being factory fitted but with a minimum of 320 amps output.

So it's about 700 dollars after taxes to put the thing in. If you get the wiring kit that is larger than stock to accommodate the power, it's 90 dollars more plus tax.

HOWEVER....

If you walk into a hospital like I did with a broken Joint and cannot walk then surgery is necessary to chop out the bad part and fit the new assembly into it. It's major surgery. If you did not have insurance, retail billing is going to hit you with a minimum of 45000 dollars in charges which is including semi private room for 10 days max. A private room is twice that one with a nurse like I had even more. Most hospitals have a ICU floor or a surgery floor. They have nurses in the service desk area for the wing, all of which are subject to call by anyone any time. When you have 3 nurses a day (1 every 8 hours) and just those three only, you can settle down and they get to know you very well. The medicines, reporting, explaining the problems etc is kept to a minimum.

But the hospital has a set of billing codes that is a state secret. They will not tell you that the full hip joint assembly is right around 14000 dollars retail for the type that my surgeon ordered specifically for me. His bill to install (Labor...) is a cool 3500 for a hour and half. Anesthesiologist and life support machinist gets 1500 for a hour and half. If they had to do this 24 hours then it's going to be about a 30,000 dollar day keeping me alive. That's why I leave specific instructions limiting that kind of grotesque billing and heroic measures. If it's time it's time.

A expert I am not. Never will be. But WHAT I AM is sharing this information online so that anyone else who is told they require a full hip replacment knows already what they are getting into.

I just got a letter from insurance regarding hearing aids. The new copays now stand at 4000 dollars each for certain prescription only models that run me about 8000 for two. And wireless, controlled by smart phone and so on. (BS Fancy frou frou.) Driving up the prices to a annual income of a disabled person. BLEAH. I just as soon go without. It's nice and QUIET as well as peaceful without all that yelling.

 

No politics here. I specifically talked about cost. Example compared a car part and labor price known versus the unknown until you get through the surgery.

Let me know if that;s ok.