A $10,169 blood test is everything wrong with American health care

[KamaAina]

http://www.vox.com/2014/8/15/6005953/a-10169-blood-test-is-everything-wrong-with-american-health-care

A lipid panel is one of the most basic blood tests in modern medicine. Doctors use it to measure cholesterol levels in their patients, probably millions of times each year.

This is not a procedure where some hospitals are really great at lipid panels and some are terrible. There's just not space for quality variation: you are running blood through a machine and pressing buttons. That's it.

And that all makes it a bit baffling why, in California, a lipid panel can cost anywhere between $10 and $10,000. In either case, it is the exact same test....

"What we were trying to see is, when we get down the simplest, most basic form of medicine, how much variation is there in price?" says Renee Hsia, an associate professor at University of California, San Francisco who published the price data in a recent study.

[steve2470]

1. The hospitals' classic reason is because of non-payments and the uninsured....

With the new law, I don't know how valid that is any more.

[closeupready]

2. The REAL reason is too high salaries for doctors and administrators.

[yeoman6987]

6. Administrators yes

Doctors I am not so sure about. I mean for what they do I would think they are paid about right. Surgery for hours at a time. I have heard 28 hours straight depending on complicated surgery.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

3. Currency over-supply always leads to inlfationary distortions.

Economics -- 101

Surprise Factor -- 0

[NikolaC]

4. I believe it

We had to take our son to the emergency room here recently on the advice of his doctor. The closest one was a well known university hospital. They had no rooms available so they set up chairs for us in a hallway. There were three doctors who came by and asked the same questions. They also ordered blood tests. The total bill for that 6 hour "stay" was over $13,000. The blood workup was over $3,300 and, after the insurance paid their portion, we are still on the hook for $2,000 of the bill.

We met our deductible that night. Thank goodness we had insurance! I cannot imagine what that bill would have been for someone who didn't.

[Comrade Grumpy]

5. Health care should be a basic right in this country, not a profit center for assholes.

[hifiguy]

7. I believe the technical term for this is

"bald-faced thievery."