Heart repair costs

  By Mystic | June 30, 2012 - 11:08 | ,

I have just had the bill for 9 days in the heart hospital. Everything from surgeon to telephone charges.
Total 18,500 Euro.
(I have to pay 200 of that ….. The socialist bastard government pays the rest).

Written by: Mystic on June 30, 2012.
Tagged . Bookmark the permalink.
  • snedmeister1

    Good evening Nick,

    I was curious last time you mentioned the hospital bills…
    Being that you are from the UK, worst case scenario, could you not return for NHS treatment…???

    Seems strange that someone moving to the UK gets treatment automatically, but if you were once here and emigrated, you wouldn’t qualify upon your return, doesn’t it..???

     

    • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

       I think that with my `french social card` that the Brits would do me up and charge it to the French. (or not, I am not sure …. but they would for sure repair me).

      I think it is important that the French keep a tab on all the costs ……… that must be a good thing.

      Hello Sned.

      • snedmeister1

        I’m trying to play a bit of catch up at the moment….

        This question is off topic, but reference to your last vid about the ESM, I can’t get my head around the €620B “callable” equity….

        Are they saying there is €700B effectively, so that if losses occur, the sovereigns must stump up the difference on demand, for anything over €80B losses before investors get hit..???

        Seems odd if this is the case, seeing that any demands for more equity from sovereigns, would be as a result of the poo getting deeper…
        And if the poo gets deeper, then it would follow that rather than putting into the fund, the sovereigns would actually want to take more out….!!??

        ( Or have I not quite caught up yet..?? )

        Hello….:)

        • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

           I’m not sure ….. different people say different things.
          I see it like you comment it…..80B in cash + 620B in promises (max use 500B).
          `Usable` will be borrowed from the market.

          I am sure Merkel & Co don’t understand it…..because they don’t think they have to……because they have written pages of `only if` type stuff.
          But of course, none of that `only if` stuff will wash…..because every time a `demand` is made…..there will be a choice – pen, to sign the money over; or a knife to kill the Euro.

          Big deep hole……dig, dig, dig, dig and forever dig~!

  • doc

    Ya’fuckin’ socialistics – if y’only’d’ve had to pay the whole bill, yer taxes’d be lower & ya’d be a manlier man!…

    Happy gardening!

    • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

       Thanks doc.

  • http://www.alda-architects.co.uk/ Alan

    Socialist, or is ensuring that all get care just a sign of civilisation? 

    • doc

      Is that a meeklyweak reply to me, mudderfucker? (euro-upvoted, no doubt)Listen here, Alanboy – you euroqueersocialisthermaphroditic-pussy – I’m a full-blooded, locked & loaded, Americanidiotman – so, you can firmly stuff that euro-social-civility up yer ambiguousfaggittyass – so I can have a bigger target to shoot at with my fully automatic superdupersociopathicpoopershooter!

      How’s that, for a directlymudderfuckin’ reply???!!!

      • seaviewstoScotland

         I so want to visit America.

        • Lyle

          Take a time machine to around 1957. You’d like it more.  :)

          and just now she’s quite toasty – to say the least – and many eastern states just got wiped over by a weird storm that knocked power out for around a million people in 100 degree temps. We here just a few minutes ago got power back after a 20 hour loss. And we’re the lucky ones.

          • seaviewstoScotland

             1957, not that long ago and yet it seems so different. I Love Lucy instead of Shameless.

            In this part of the world, terrible cold summer, every day it rains, often heavy, floods and Banks that can’t sort out their software, so you can’t access your account. 

  • CSArichardo

    I like the fact that they track the costs and bill you.  Then your medical insurance (French socialism) shows a payment made ?!

    They should do that in Canada too because patients need to understand the cost of what their government hospital insurance pays for.

  • John_by_the_creek

    Yeah…but did they include a stamped return envelope for your payment??  I BET NOT!  That’s how those socialist bastards are…they nickel and dime you to death!  (What’s the “Euro” equivalent of a nickel and a dime)?

    • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

       Well that is a fact …….. ya sure called em right on the old envelope scam~!

      (….don’t have small denominations, because the are Weimar printin’ the stuff up the wazzooo.  Smallest denomination is the euro (and next smallest is the euro)). 
       So, I guess we are being Euro and Euroed to death here~~!!

  • Nate

    Hi Nick
    I’m the Dallas Anesthesiologist who posts here occasionally. That is not a bad price for what you got. Was that all inclusive including the Cardiac Surgeon? In Dallas that would be about $50k.

    • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

       Yeah Nate, the masked man was included (and all his bandit friends).
      Ecographies, blood-tests, morphine and all the nurses you can eat~!

      • Nate

        I know that some may not believe me, however, in Dallas the Cardiac surgeon would get $1100.00, I would get $400.00, the rest would be the facility fee. If you don’t pay me, I tag your credit report. If you don’t pay the hospital, they put a lien on your assets, home, car, etc.

        • http://www.alda-architects.co.uk/ Alan

           To me this shows just how much more civilised the system evolved in many European countries actually is. We effectively insure each other.

          Do I mind paying in part if the old girl next door breaks her ankle or someone’s child has a chronic ailment. Of course not. I don’t want anyone to lose their home because they have the misfortune of falling ill. What I mind is if the system is not run efficiently, but that is a different issue.

          I cannot understand the fuss there is in America over this issue. To put it another way I hate like hell paying tax for foreign wars, and all the consequent death and destruction.  I don’t want any part of it. Given the US defence budget and all the fuss over health care seems to me that values are well eschew.

        • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

           Where I got my heart done, it was obvious that the surgeons had the whole place in a tight grip …… so, I can see it would be possible in a `free market` like the US as well.

          It is fine for them (In the US) to be paid so much ………. as long as they do not rig the market behind the scenes (which I bet they do~!).

  • Axel1million

    The French health system must be very efficient, 18,500 Euro seem to me to be very reasonable.
    The 18.5k probably only pays the wages of one Cardiac surgeon for a month.

    • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

      From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
      Commie swine~!
       

      • Axel1million

        These were great ideas… noble almost, and maybe before their time. Where are the great political thinkers of the 21st century?

        • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

           I think they are at home …….. watching television~!

          • Axel1million

             ”watching television~!”   The new ‘Opium of the people’.

      • http://www.alda-architects.co.uk/ Alan

         To me the phrase encapsulates a humanitarian outlook and is more rounded than market orientated mantras.

        Often wonder what pigs ever did to have so many negative connotations? 

  • Emmazedbend

    Hope your road to improvement is going smoothly Nick.  In Blighty we don’t see the cost anything; I think it would be a good idea if we did and then we would appreciated what we get more.
    I worked in a private hospital once (agency work) and if one cotton wool ball was used the patient was charged for the whole bag, it was quite tedious having to tot everything up.

    • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

       I agree.
      It would give them a thread, that would link everything up.
      And, as someone said above; it may make people think about what they are getting.

      But, all that is highly pathetical ……….. as they don’t (and never will be able to get it together).  ((NHS and computers don’t seem to go well together~!)).

      Another thing we do in France, that may interest you; is that we keep all our own records, x-rays etc.
      The doctors, hospitals keep some; but most go home with the patient and will be asked for if wanted in the future (they are kept safe, because, after all,  they are ours, because we paid for them~!)

      • Emmazedbend

        You mean they actually treat you like responsible adults!!!?

        • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

           Crazy eh~!?

      • http://www.richnewbold.co.uk/ Richard

        That’s interesting about keeping your own records. I heard an interview on one of the vegan fitness podcasts and they were talking about voluntarily getting your fitness professionally tested so you can better plan your workouts and one of the presenters threw in a caution based on his own experiences. He’d been tested and had an EKG rigged up to the treadmill whist being tested and this revealed a benign heart condition which hasn’t effected his training (wenkeback I think it was), but this is now on his “record” and he can’t get health insurance at all – he’s in the US. I wonder if such a thing would happen in France?

  • Pj

    Yeah, but you don’t have 30 million (democratic voting) illegal aliens to share services with…

  • http://www.richnewbold.co.uk/ Richard

    18,000 sounds like a bargain for a life saving procedure. For sure, the fees are probably exaggerated and rounded up (and possibly doubled for good measure) - knowing that the guberment are paying most of it. Anyone who thinks this ONLY happens when the guberment get’s involved with their “socialist” schemes is a retard though. When they have you by the balls, charging $20 for a $2 bandage is standard operating procedure everywhere in all industries. 

    I have little time for people who get all bent out of shape about socialist healthcare – mostly because they’re too dumb to realise there’s a two-teir system running and it’s easy enough and LEGAL to avoid paying in to the guberment coffers. But that’s crowd thinking for you. Just recently people have been getting all irate about comedians and other entertainers reducing their tax payments through various schemes – not helped by that tit of a prime minister of ours saying it’s “morally wrong” rather than telling the truth that these so called “loopholes” are there for a reason. At least, in these modern times, the proles  take to twitter and  commenting on the Daily Mail website, rather than picking up the pitch-forks (that would be too much effort for the lazy bastards!).

    • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

       It is an interesting subject (health-care), but not one I like to play with.
      It looks to me like a very slow moving thing. …… What we have now, was set in motion after WII.
      Too big to do much about.  The Obama thing in the States has been a mega-move.
      I don’t think we are going to see many other changes (not even in the UK). 
      All round too big to deal with.

  • lgrinaker

    My bill is currently up to $70,000 now (not all included until this month), with a cap for me at $4000.

    We get our bills too.

    And yes, we’re just at the beginning of working on costs, as is probably pretty clear via this.  Now (well maybe – we’ll see what the next election brings, ;-)), with the whole country involved to some extent with healthcare as has never quite been the case before, I imagine the scrutiny around costs will become far more strengthened than before.

    Linda

    • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

       I’ve got a tab open (but I may not use it) where a poll shows that 40% of Americans don’t know that the SC has ruled on `Ocare`.

      • lgrinaker

        (sigh)  Part of that may be due to the slow ramp up of the plan, such that not a lot of people are not directly affected just yet.

        Well, who knows what’s going to happen with the presidential election this November…  This issue has apparently heated up both the right and the left – with much of the left upset about the Act as well.  As Emma says in her own commentary, it puts private insurance companies front and center to an unprecedented extent.  And there truly is no current regulation set in place regarding what the insurance companies can do with premium rates, although there will be caps in place regarding deductibles and total out-of-pocket annual/lifetime payments, one of many new things that the insurance companies will have to comply with. (I know that they could pass on the loss of revenue due to caps elsewhere with rises in premiums, but I would imagine they can’t push that too far, so that the savings altogether should still remain better than would otherwise be the case without the Act in place).

        My guess is if the premiums get too high, and yet people are forced to pay anyway, some voices will surely be raised, now that the govt is involved.  For they weren’t involved at all before, and the insurance industry was about as regulated as the banks (not very much at all).  But now, if insurance companies end up taking too much advantage, the govt. is on the hook for the setup being what it is.

        Further, the exchanges are supposed to be set up in such a way as to make comparisons between insurance companies much easier to do.  If the costs are pretty consistent throughout the industry, then it will be a lot easier to tell which companies are raising rates in an exhorbitant fashion.

        Further, it will be very easy to opt out of in the early years (2014 is when the mandate begins to take effect).  If people are unsatisfied once opting in, they won’t be a part of it, they’ll opt out, and, in those early years, the tax penalty is something like $95/year, going up later considerably, but not to start out with.  I think that also is meant to give the overall hospital system, etc. time to ramp up – it would be too challenging to suddenly take on millions more people. 

        That’s what the phase-in was supposed to help with.  Unfortunately, nothing will be certain about it now until after the election.  And then, if Romney wins, will he have enough votes within congress to overturn it?  So the uncertainty isn’t allowing for the gradual ramp up of services, which was the intention when it was first signed into law in 2010.
         
        Anyway, I do wish it would have been done another way, such as an extension of Medicare (administrative costs, advertising costs, etc. would barely play a role vs. what will be the case with insurance companies, along with plenty of other differences).

        ~~~~~

        But at this point in time, and probably for a long time to come, I honestly don’t think anything else could have been passed, not in this country.  The Act we do have, in itself, made for some major teeth pulling to bring conservative democrats onboard, and not a single republican voted for it in the house or the senate, even though it was modeled after a republican plan of the 90′s.  And via a state model, there’s nothing closer to this current plan than “Romneycare” in Massachusetts, which is surreal as we watch Romney flail on about “Obamacare.”

        I don’t know, maybe I should have been willing to pay with my life to hold out for a different, better plan (which would have been the case for me).  Somehow, I get the feeling, however, that it would play out along the lines of the “longrun” being a very long time away, such that Keynes statement comes into play, “In the longrun, we’ll all be dead.”

        It’s very hard for me to watch this being played out as if it were simply a political/ideological football, with no real consequences at stake, but such is life in America at this time. 

        I still may have had the incredibly hard to fathom experience of landing in that “pocket of time” in which the Act was actually in effect, such that my surgery took place within that time, which otherwise, without the Act in effect, it would have cost me my home if I had gone through with it or my life if I would not have – truly surreal. 

        Linda

        • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

           Shame you couldn’t have made a post out of that.
          I don’t know enough to say much in reply (except `shit happens` and there must be a reverse on of them that covers your `window` fortune).

          It is a `cluster`, but it really was a `can’t get to there from here` type of situation in the negotiation stages.
          I can’t see many votes being won by tampering with it too much ……. there will be too many `positive` stories going round, like yours.

          • lgrinaker

            Hey, you called the Supreme Court decision, which I did not see coming *at all* due to the consensus view after the oral arguments and the way the justices reacted, all of which played out last March, so as far as your call on the election this November, well… ;-).

            Linda

            • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

               I did not `see it` down the river.  It would have been too much fuss, for so little gain (no gain).
              Someone had to `make the river run right` (but yes, I thought it would be `Whats-his-face` not `Roberts`).

              There is a very similar thing brewing over in Europe.
              Germany has to pay for the piggies or the Euro breaks up ….. blah blah.
              The German politicians will not have what it takes to make the big negative splash ……
              So, it will fall on the German something-or-other court to decide …….
              It will be clear that the law is against Germany paying ……..
              but it will go through (because the river cannot be so disturbed).

              Something like that.

  • Flig_in_Detroit

    The official “bluebook” value of cardiac bypass surgery with a 10-day hospital stay is $53,000.00-nearly twice what you paid.  Back in 1990, my grandfather had bypass surgery and I remember the cost was $44,000.00.  He had worked his entire life as a farmer.  When he retired, he sold his farm for about $120,000.00.  I remember him saying that he didn’t think his life was worth 1/3 of what his farm had sold for. 

    • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

       If I get you right ……. Your father thought the surgery too expensive (and had the nasty choice of paying it and depriving the children of a big cut of their inheritance~?).

      • http://www.alda-architects.co.uk/ Alan

         Is it not more than that? It is quite a profound statement in that context. It is about the value of a life of labour, the value of the land cared for, and how much others can extort by comparison. Is there profound sadness and disillusionment in a statement like that?

        • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

           There is sadness and disillusionment is the statement, because it forces one to think on a level most people spend their life studiously avoiding  (probably because, at the first few visits, it causes only sadness and disillusionment).

          • http://www.alda-architects.co.uk/ Alan

            It must be part of most peoples’ genetic code to be able to ignore obvious truths. Not questioning, fatalism, and similar must help them survive, or perhaps it helps society to exist. If everyone questioned would it be beneficial or just chaos?

            But if put in the form, ‘don’t encourage sheep to question, they are less happy for it?’ that sounds very wrong, in fact worrying, as it has shades of 1984 and totalitarianism.

            Sorry getting well off subject.

      • Flig_in_Detroit

        No…this wasn’t about inheritance.  The proceeds from the sale of his farm constituted the majority of what he and my grandmother had to live on for the rest of their lives.  I think he was trying to equate 50 years of sweat on a farm with 10 days in a hospital and then comparing the value of his life with that of the hospital workers.  Please understand that he was not very highly educated-only a 5th grade education.  But he was a good farmer-one of the best in his area.  I think there was some regret in having retired.  I remember him alluding to the fact that he wished he could be my age again-lots of interesting things left to do.  He was a self-taught metal machinist and mechanic.  He could overhaul engines and he even built his own bean harvester (he modified an old Avery combine-called it “The Beaner”.  He taught me a lot of things-things that have made me money and have also helped me in other ways.  His most ernest advice to me though was “Don’t give away your work for nothing…”   It wasn’t that he was opposed to helping people.  He just felt that people value that which they are willing to pay for.  Sorry for all this rambling on.  I think he was mistaken in equating his monetary worth with the value of his life.  He was also a teacher and good teachers are invaluable.  By the way, I have to say that either my monitor has improved or your color looks better than it did before.  I hope you are feeling better and will keep on teaching.

        • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

           I `get it` now.
          Imagine what he would say if he could have know what his farm would have been worth today~!?
          (with not much more work put into it)

  • Flig_in_Detroit

    Sorry for not being clear on what I was trying to say with the bluebook values of heart surgery etc.   What I was trying to say is that these are American costs.  Why does it cost so much more in the US for the same treatment?

  • http://www.alda-architects.co.uk/ Alan

    There is a comparison of Health Care in France and the United States by Dr. Victor G Rodwin  here;

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1447687/

    There is also a book on the subject by Paul
    V. Dutton

     http://fh.oxfordjournals.org/content/24/2/302.extract
     

    • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

       Thank you Alan,
      I hope it is wonderful (I will not be checking it out …… I think the health-care debate is a nightmare~!).