My surgery - a success and two rants

Like many active young men my age, a few months ago, i sprouted an inguinal hernia. I just went to one of the most respected surgeons in the country, and he operated at 1:30 today. I've already had lunch and caught the first of a series of buses back home. The pain and swelling from the incision are so minor as to be deceptive. I feel better now than I did when i walked into the surgical center with no incision.

So where's the rant? Well, let's go back a few weeks. In early January, I went to Hartford Hospital's outpatient surgical center in Hartford, CT. This was my first mistake. The surgeon told me that I would be out of work for at least a week, and then I would have to work myself back up to full capacity over the course of MONTHS.

So I told the surgery scheduler that I would need to contact their billing office to make arrangements. This is where everything went pear-shaped. I had to get prices on at least three different components: the surgeon's fee, the hospital facility fee, and the anesthesiologist's fee, plus various other fees and services, blood work, and a physical from my GP. None of the above parties could pin down a reasonably comprehensive estimate for what the costs would be, but what they told me added up to well over $17K, and I have no way of knowing how complete that number is. They didn't even know what they were going to charge me for the initial consult.

So I tried to schedule anyway, believing that I could come to an arrangement with them before the surgery. Neither their billing offices nor their scheduler ever called me back, even after a total of 38 separate phone calls to various offices.

So... I went online and found that one of the most respected surgeons in the country works out of a very similar outpatient surgery center in Rockville, MD. And get this: HIS PRICE FOR THE ENTIRE PROCEDURE WAS $1900.00. No, that's not a typo, HE CHARGES 1/8 THE PRICE OF WHAT THE HOSPITALS WANTED.

OK, so I know what you're thinking, and I was thinking it, too: "The surgery at Hartford Hospital must be better than the surgery in Maryland." I was even willing to believe it, too. But it was not EIGHT TIMES better.

Long story short, the surgery in MD was night and day is the better one. 10 day recovery time. 3 year guarantee (the prospect for failure comes in the first three weeks, so a 3 year guarantee is basically a lifetime guarantee), and far fewer side effects. Somebody pinch me because I feel great. I actually checked to make sure they didn't harvest my kidneys for sale on the black market.

Now the nagging philosophical and political questions: how could two MDs, three nurses, and a surgical facility all make a good living and turn a handsome profit on 1/8 the money? The dirty little secret is: they charged FULL FREE MARKET PRICE. They just didn't participate in all of the corporate-government Fascist crap that drives up prices in the first place. I walked in, plunked down cash, and woke up cured.

Now consider that an Obamacare plan would have cost MORE IN JUST COPAY than my ENTIRE SURGERY COST IN CASH.

And now I harken back to a conversion I had with my customers the day of my ill-fated Hartford Hospital consult. My customer works for the federal government, his wife works for a non-profit, and one of his daughters is a nursing major in college. The conversation very quickly devolved into how horrible it is in this country that health care isn't a right, and how poor unfortunates like myself can't afford adequate care, and how Bernie Sanders would usher in "Single Payer."

I held my tongue as they talked about me like I was some indigent churl until I just couldn't take it any longer and I said, "Be careful what you wish for. Nothing is as expensive as when it's free." I then laid out how I was going to pay less by paying full price for the actual medical care than an insured person would by paying a settlement price that included the medical care plus the government intervention plus the insurance company's salaries plus the billing office salaries us graft and inefficiency and waste... And, of course, I had to pay about $1000 in Obamacare "penalties" because I "refuse to pay for 'health care' (the which penalties I'm getting back come hell or high water, even if I have to seek remedy in federal court)"

Sadly, it went so far over their heads, they should enter the limbo competition now, before common sense sets in.

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My surgery - a success and two rants