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Today’s Health Care Factoid That Will Make You Sick

Somebody’s bill for an appendicitis in 1932. Adjusting for inflation since 1932 the cost in today’s dollars would be $2,265.49. 

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  • BillH August 3, 2017, 1:39 PM

    Yeah, and in ’32 a lot of people died from infections gotten during simple surgery, and a lot of people died of things doctors couldn’t fix. I’m not saying medical treatment costs today aren’t out of line, I’m just saying medical treatment now is light years safer and more comfortable than back then. I know. I’ve been getting medical treatment since 1931, although I can’t remember much before 1935 or so.

  • AbigailAdams August 3, 2017, 1:58 PM

    I wonder how much uncomplicated gall bladder surgery was back then? I know that in 2015 dollars it cost $48,000.00. That was same day surgery and one night in the hospital and does not include doctors’ fees and follow-up.

  • ghostsniper August 3, 2017, 2:48 PM

    First, that bill doesn’t seem to include the cost of the actual surgery itself.

    Second, BillH, plenty of people are dying due to infections and everything else that you probably can’t imagine in the hospitals today. How in the world does a mechanic leave a socket down inside one of the cylinders in an engine overhaul?

    Lastly, there are about 90% more people collecting money by being employed in the medical establishment that have nothing what so ever to do with medical care. For each person that works in a hospital that actually has hands on experience with the patients, there are at least 9 more that you never see.

    This is standard stuff with EVERYTHING this rotten assed gov’t has hijacked.
    Extreme cost over runs, extreme waste, extreme incompetence, and extreme unaccountablity.

    But there are no shortages of nitwits running around loose wanting the gov’t to be involved even more in anything and everything, and guess what?, it probably will.

    Until it collapses under the strain.
    Then nobody will have anything except what you can carry on your back.
    Probably in your lifetime.

  • Snakepit Kansas August 4, 2017, 4:40 AM

    18 days in the hospital? About 15 years ago I had a little accident where I fell off a ladder and my leg got impaled with some sheet metal. I never had so much attention in my life with doctors waiting outside the ER doors when they unloaded me from the meat wagon. A few hours later, after it was determined that I wasn’t going to bleed any longer, muscles and skin were sewn up and they couldn’t wait to get me out of there. They had cut all my clothes off and I left wearing girls’ sweat pants. Chiefs were playing the Chargers and I remember kickoff when I was face down on the garage floor during the accident. I got home just in time to wash down a couple pain killers with a High Life when the Chiefs won the game. All that drama took about three hours. So 18 days sounds like something a bit more complex than an appendix operation. Maybe?

  • Vermont Woodchuck August 4, 2017, 5:59 AM

    That bill would be a hell of a lot higher once ObamaCare got figured in to the mix. Figure the difference between what it costs with insurance and a cash transaction.

  • scory August 4, 2017, 8:04 AM

    I had open heart surgery in January, 2016. I was in the hospital for 10 days. They didn’t get an itemized bill to me until May, 2017 (!) when they wanted me to pay my portion (co-pays). The bill came to just under $500,000.00. The co-pays amounted to $950.00. I have a friend who is a retired hospital manager that tells me that the hospital can expect Medicare to pay around $65,000.00 of that $500k total. The rest will be written off in some fashion.

  • SoilentGreen August 4, 2017, 10:00 AM

    One year ago, I suffered acute (burst) appendicitis. 5 days in the hospital but I had no insurance (because of Obamacare). My bill was $186,000.00. After some negotiation, the hospital wrote off the entire expense. I think the hospital feared that the charge might go public.

  • Amazed August 4, 2017, 10:57 AM

    Still under my mandated, government determined deductible. 🙁

  • DrTedNelson August 4, 2017, 4:42 PM

    That’s surely not in a doctor’s handwriting. The penmanship is a glory to behold. So much for progress.

  • Casey Klahn August 5, 2017, 7:16 AM

    It’s a cold splash in the face when you get old enough to recognize the idiocy of many physicians. OTOH, I’ve experienced the miracle, and the trauma, of modern surgery. The last one I bartered with the surgeon: a painting. I think that was a $900 value on the surgery, and about a decade ago.
    I can’t say enough about this surgeon, now retired. He’s a Jewish guy, and he pretty much winged my surgery and fixed me from a lifetime of pain and handicap. Brilliant, brilliant man who took a risk to square me away.
    99.9999% of medicine today: pfffffft. My wife is retired as a nurse prac. I have met enough doctors to get the cut of their jib. They’re good at schooling, though.

  • Gordon August 6, 2017, 4:42 AM

    Surgery Center of Oklahoma will do a total knee replacement for $15,499, which includes all fees and postoperative care. Also, if they need some extra screws, that’ll bump the price. But you must pay cash. Insurance billing costs more, quite a bit. They do make arrangements with people with company insurance; because the cost is so much lower, some companies will pay these guys directly rather than see the premium cost go up doing it the usual way.

    I know there’s some place in Las Vegas where you fly in, have your surgery, and recover in a hotel suite attended by nurses. It’s less expensive to have you in a hotel room than a hospital room.

  • Snakepit Kansas August 6, 2017, 6:24 PM

    My daughter was born in the Philippines 13 years ago. Long story, but my Stateside insurance said they wouldn’t pay for it. I didn’t push it but probably should have. Anyhow, even with a complicated c-section and many days in the hospital with good care, it only cost me about $2K cash for the both of them. Today my personal deductible is $5K before insurance starts paying.