> Does Germany have free public healthcare? Yes, all Germans and legal residents of Germany are entitled to free “medically necessary” public healthcare, which is funded by social security contributions. However, citizens must still have either state or private health insurance, covering at least hospital and outpatient medical treatment and pregnancy.
Obviously not; if they're billing 72 hours a day, that's fraud.
If my procedure goes long because of a complication, I'd still prefer they not wake me up mid-procedure for a credit card and signature.
But it was presented in popular media as if the insurance company was trying to shift the cost of overlong procedures onto the patient, rather than onto the anesthesiologists. Thankfully there was a public outcry and the anesthesiologists won, well-deservedly so considering they must be barely scraping by on a median income of $470,000/year.
The policy even had a path for the anesthesiologist to justify the overrun so that portion could be covered too. No doubt Anthem would scrutinize the justification closely and reject cases where they detect abuse, and the incentives are for Anthem to be too strict, but there was nothing wrong with the policy on its face. These sorts of things are absolutely necessary in order to drive healthcare costs, which are absolutely obscene, down.
This is just completely not true. Take France and Germany for example.
> Guess how many people get told their anaesthesia won’t be covered for their full surgery. That shouldn’t even be a question, and yet the US system makes it one.
So anesthesiologists should be able to ask for any amount their heart desires and the insurance is the bad guy if they don’t want to pay it? Anesthesiologists have a profit motive too, you know.