Legacy Thread

[basserdan]

Facts On Health Care

By Karl Denninger
2017-03-26 10:45

Friday afternoon the Republicans "pulled" the AHCA without a vote.

This is the common way that the party in power makes sure you never get a recorded answer these days as to who opposes and who supports some piece of legislation: If there is no majority to pass it, they never vote at all.

If you think about it for a bit you'll realize that's the exact antithesis of representative government. Representative government not only "works" when it passes something it works when it fails to pass something too, and the list of elected officials who did and did not support something that fails to pass is just as important and maybe more-so than those who supported (or not) passed legislation.

Why would you need health insurance if the following pricing was commonplace for the following routine medical things -- and remember to extend these representative samples to everything else in the medical field:

MRI: $275
CT scan: $167
X-Ray: $37
Mammogram: $142
Ultrasound (pregnancy-related primarily, I suspect): $94
A1c test (common for diabetics): $4
CBC (complete blood count; common for a lot of diagnostics): $3.13
Metabolic panel (common diagnostic as well): $3.50
PSA screening (common for men over 50): $7
3-Panel cholesterol (the cheap and common one): $3.94
Tetanus booster: $20
90 Prozacs: $1.98
30 Prilosecs: $1.44
30 Plavix (blood thinner; newer generation of Warfarin): $2.76
90 Zocors (which I'd argue you probably ought not take at all!): $2.16

These are not fantasy prices -- they're real. They're what you could have today, or darn close to them if we had a conversation about competitive markets in medicine. I didn't pull these numbers out of my ass; they're on a "concierge" site for a "direct care" practice in Michigan ( http://www.yourchoicedirectcare.com/pricing-fees/ ) and none of them are being provided at a loss.

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