Moderator: I don't intend this to be political. If you determine it is or should be elsewhere, please move or delete at your discretion.
I know health care has been the big issue for some years now and it's all politics, but beyond the whole political fight, what's the deal with the actual cost of things?
We got a bit of a double whammy in the last month or so. My youngest daughter had to have wrist surgery last month, and then my wife just had a procedure for kidney stones. We haven't gotten all the bills yet for the wrist surgery, but what blew me away was the cost for the minimally invasive, outpatient procedure for kidney stones. The bill from the hospital alone, not including the doctor or anesthesiologist, is $24,000! Is the billing department dipping into the narcotics cabinet before making up these prices??
With our lousy coverage now this last month and a half is going to take us years to pay off, unless I sell off a whole bunch of guns and reloading gear. I don't mean to whine and gripe (well maybe a little), but it really has gotten to a shocking level. I know a lot of folks here have been through the same thing and worse.
Again, I don't mean to get political at all or talk about who and how pays for what, but I really have to wonder why everything costs so much? Why is it that they can do something for $500 in Mexico that costs $20,000 here? Yes, I know, politics and lawyers, but beyond that I just don't get it!
I know it's hard to keep politics out of this kind of thing but that's been hashed and rehashed so that's not what this is about. I'm just talking about real costs to real people. It's just frustrating that you have to go into major debt just to set foot into a hospital nowadays.