Re:The one HR benefit every startup should add
by bigiain on Monday August 26, 2013 @08:28PM
(#6280744)
" It's not hard at all to rack up a couple of million dollars in hospital bills if you get unlucky,"
That's at least in part due to the fucked up nature of the medical industries strange relationships with the medical insurance industry in the US. In many other countries that "couple of million dollar" hospital bill would probably not cost as much as a couple of hundred grand for exactly the same time/care/procedures/drugs/expertise.
The hospital has not actually incurred a couple of million in costs – did you see yesterday's NYTimes (I think) article about the ~$1 saline solution getting marked up to $500+, while the patient was also invoiced a couple of hundred dollars for using the emergency room and another several hundred for the staff who administered the IV drip? Saying that someone is "mooching off society" for risking defaulting on payments for things artificially marked up over 50,000% seems a little harsh.
(Having said that, I'm fully aware that those of us in "the rest of the world" piggyback freely on a lot of medical/health research that the "unusual" US health system funds…)
That's at least in part due to the fucked up nature of the medical industries strange relationships with the medical insurance industry in the US. In many other countries that "couple of million dollar" hospital bill would probably not cost as much as a couple of hundred grand for exactly the same time/care/procedures/drugs/expertise.
The hospital has not actually incurred a couple of million in costs – did you see yesterday's NYTimes (I think) article about the ~$1 saline solution getting marked up to $500+, while the patient was also invoiced a couple of hundred dollars for using the emergency room and another several hundred for the staff who administered the IV drip? Saying that someone is "mooching off society" for risking defaulting on payments for things artificially marked up over 50,000% seems a little harsh.
(Having said that, I'm fully aware that those of us in "the rest of the world" piggyback freely on a lot of medical/health research that the "unusual" US health system funds…)