Qwitcherbitchin', Crybabies

Burning Platform has some whiny rant (and coming from me, that's really saying something) about a guy billed $426 for an $8 can of OTC pain spray.

Well, gee, no shit, Sherlock, and if you'd seen the report from MIT on the topic, or drove by Homeless Depot any time since 1986, you might have noticed those 200 Julios standing outside their branch in Greater Aztlan Assland, which heritage Mexican homeland apparently stretches all the way to Anchorage AKand Bangor ME. (Who knew?) And unlike whom, you have actual insurance.

Oh, and back awhile, your congressweasel voted in EMTALA, mainly in response to anesthesiologists passing gas for docs doing C-sections on pregnant migras who were crowning, and getting sued by them afterwards, but never actually getting, y'know, paid for their twelve years of higher-education services or their $1M expertise. Those bastards!! Doctors should work for free, amIright??
Occupy!

Short story long, if you show up at the ER, yours, mine, anybody's, you get to play, but you don't have to pay. At least, not up front. Unlike, say, your doctor's office, Urgent Care, or - waitaminute - every other commercial establishment in the flipping country, including the DMV and the Post Office.
Well-played, Fucktard Minions of Stupidity.

So, by the by, exactly how long d'ya suppose Mickey D's or Burger King would be open as a business anywhere, if tomorrow Congress passed the WAAH! My Tummy's Rumbling Active Hunger And Deadbeat Wimpy Act of 2018, dictating that anyone who wanted a hamburger now could get it now, solely on the promise to pay for it next Tuesday?

And if you worked at a business similarly burdened, how long would you have a job when that enterprise subsequently went tits-up, in about a New York minute??

And if the pharmacy at Wal-Mart had to hand that spray out for free, how much d'ya figure they'd start charging for kettle corn bags and underpants to subsidize that largesse? Say, somewhere around $426 dollars, just mebbe?

Anyways, they go on to knee-jerk call the price of the pain spray to government regulation and socialism(!), rather than all y'all getting the system you pissed and moaned for, and now finding out you're getting it good and hard.

Then, a couple of comments down, this nugget:

"Husbands bill was over $2000 to tell him his arm wasn’t broken.
Xrays were separate, about $50.
$256.00 for a tetanus shot.
For comparison, i can get a tetanus shot for a horse at tractor supply for $4.00
Tetanus boosters have been around for decades. Not like they’re rare or anything.
This is after sitting there for 4 hours among a couple dozen non English speaking persons."

Some people cannot put two and two together, and come up with the answer.
Let me help:

And that's why you're paying $256 for the shot.
You're paying for all the Julios and Marias and Wangs and Achmeds and Crazy Homeless Alcoholic Eddie guys with no insurance.

And of course they get a bill too (despite another idiot commenter suggesting we don't bill them).
Which we can't make them pay.
If they gave the right address.
If they gave the right name.

And also, because if your husband got an infection from poor injection technique, or they hit a nerve or blood vessel, or the sun was in your eyes, it was $256 to offset insurance premiums, because you'd then sue the hospital for a gazillion $$$. So you have a doctor ordering it, a pharmacist stocking it, and an RN giving it, rather than you grabbing a dose at Tractor Supply, and doing it yourself.

And of course, if he'd just gone to your doctor and gotten the booster himself, on time, months ago, it could have been had for maybe $20 co-pay, or even less than that, right?

Make your congressweasel pass tort reform, stop suing everybody for everything, build the frickin' Wall at the border, start throwing people back over it, get your annual checkups, and quit using the ER for drive-thru Urgent Care.  Now, how much of that is within the hospital or ER's control, and how much is within yours?

Otherwise, pony up. Walking in the door at any ER worth the name starts at about $1500.
If it was open, depending on day of the week/time of day, you could've gotten the same X-ray and treatment at any competent Urgent Care for a few hundred bucks.

People will price-shop for a ten dollar difference on a cell phone, but they won't use common sense about an ER bill of $2K vs. one at Urgent Care of $500.
Genius, right there.

(And if Urgent Care wasn't available for you, for any reason, then let's be reasonable. You had no choice about the ER, that injury hurt - a lot, and you wanted to know now. Fair enough. You want care now, you pay now.
We take cash, check, almost any insurance, and VISA/MC. Tell me they do things different at Burger King and Target when you want a Whopper or a pair of jeans.)

But don't bitch when you got the gold-plated care you demand, at prices your insurance company mostly pays, while you rarely see 10-20% of that cost.

This is the system you wanted, and now it's not so bitchin. I get that.
Now go fix it, as outlined.

I'd chat further, but I'm on duty at the ER tonight.
Where, if someone comes in with a heart attack, and we save their lives via the Cath Lab and first-world medicine that should be the envy of every Swinging Richard in human history since Adam, the only thing they'll remember afterwards, and go online to bitch about afterwards, is that the baby aspirins we gave them were billed at $20@.

So don't take this the wrong way, but as someone who couldn't have made two car payments in their life if they received $100 for every "thank you" heard from patients or families in 20 years of saving actual lives, if you complain about anything but gross negligence or egregious harmful malpractice, like having the wrong leg amputated, please, I beseech you most humbly and sincerely, go and fuck yourselves up the ass with a lit flamethrower, m'kay?

Because If I gave you that enema, I'd bill you for it at the price you deserve, and laugh while I did it.

Maybe when the shift is over, if I feel like it, I'll tell what you ought to be doing, and bitching about.
Knowing full well the odds of you taking such concentrated experiential wisdom is about as good as the odds of you listening to the discharge instructions you get.