Hmmm... I'm gonna need more information.

If I were your radiologist, I believe I would want a second look, too!

Very glad you are okay, with you in dismay at the stupidity of modern American healthcare. Of course.

Thanks. I hate the stress of it. My back was in such pain last night; I'm hoping I can figure it out myself. Just a few years ago, I would have been able to go to the doctor and get treated.

I think one way costs are being kept down -- artificially -- in medical care is this way, by people realizing they can't afford their deductible so they'd better just suck it up (whatever's wrong with them).

$700 for an MRI? Wow...
I guess we'll all have to go back to the practice of consulting fowl entrails for answers instead...

Perhaps there's some administrative chicanery your primary physician can think of to cast it as something that can be underwritten more fully.

My regards

No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.” ― Mark Twain

This was never so true as when those idiots lead by Nancy Pelosi and Barak Obama, both lying through their teeth, put this horrible bill over on the American People with the help of all of the Democrats. I will never vote for a Democrat again, even if they seem reasonable, because as a group they are like a cross between lemmings and a pack of Hyenas.

Senators and Congresspeople who won't pass a huge, costly, and damaging shift in healthcare that they didn't even bother to read.

Ummm...that's a "feature" not a "bug".

It's about control. Since they've placed themselves in the middle of your health care, they are also in a position to dictate to you what you can eat, drink, smoke or otherwise ingest. For your own good, because of your health.

And if they can control that, what's left?

People don't like to be meddled with. We tell them what to do, what to think, don't run, don't walk. We're in their homes and in their heads and we haven't the right. We're meddlesome.

Yet that thought will not cross our "betters" minds.

I think one way costs are being kept down -- artificially -- in medical care is this way, by people realizing they can't afford their deductible so they'd better just suck it up (whatever's wrong with them).

Posted by: Amy Alkon at January 22, 2015 5:00 AM

But meanwhile, the people on Medicaid and Medicare with no skin in the game, are still stopping in at their local emergency room every time they have the sniffles, and mild chest pain from indigestion.

And the cost of your deductibles will keep going up to cover all this *free* care. Until the system collapses, because there are too few paying customers.

I do several of these exercises at night (along w/slow deep breathing) before bed and they have helped my herniated disk problem (and tension).

Also suggest using a VERY supportive bra since you are not overweight. Gaining a few pounds brought on my back pain pretty quick so a little help here/there seems to be important (to me at least).

http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/adult-health/multimedia/back-pain/sls-20076265

Another way that rationing is being enforced is through artificial paperwork and procedural barriers. I had to switch doctors late last year, and I'm now going through the bother of getting my prescriptions renewed. For one of them, I had to go see a specialist. He told me that he used to be able to write prescriptions for that drug for a year. Then the government limited it to 6 months, then 3 months, and he's being told that this year they will probably reduce it to 30 days, no refills. That means I'll have to go back to him every month, just to get a piece of paper that gives me permission to continue as a human being for another 30 days. Oh, and there will have to be a blood draw every month, because he needs to be able to prove medical necessity when the DEA comes knocking.

Additionally, this medicine is very expensive, about $450 a month. A generic for it just came out, which will be far less expensive. Guess what? The insurance company will not authorize the generic, and I was told yesterday by a rep that they have no plans to do so. WTF? Normally, insurance insists on generics and makes doctors jump through hoops in order to prescribe name-brand-only.

Clearly, containing costs is not the goal here. I'ts something else. The goal is to make care difficult to obtain. Rationing is here, folks. It won't be too long before it's formalized. "Shortages", you know. Can't have those pesky middle class people consuming resources that the political elites might need.

@CousinDave

Watch your pharmacy too. King Soopers institutied a nice little scam to go along with the requirement for more frequent prescriptions for refills.

It was a ten dollar per prescription and refill co pay not covered by insurance. There were also other hidden charges.

After 1200 dollars worth of co pays on my 90 year old mother's prescriptions in 2013, we switched pharmacies on January 1 of 2014, and had zero co pays for 2014 on the same group of drugs. Insurance covered it all.

You do realize that Obamacare is designed to fail don't you? They don't want anything but single-payer but Americans have been refusing that nonsense for too long. So the Communists in the Capital decided to build an unworkable nightmare that will fail so they can say "See, we tried the free-market way and it didn't work, so now we have to go single-payer and tax America into poverty to pay for it".

As for your back unless you have suffered an injury I would suggest a Chiropractor (a good one, not some new-age twit who thinks he can cure cancer). Also have you checked for symptoms of Kidney Stones? As a sufferer myself I am quick to check that
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidney_stone
I do hope not for your sake but best to figure it out quickly to fix or discount it, hope you feel better soon.

Amy, for the back pain, it might be worth seeing if you can find a good, relatively cheap, chiropractor. Worth their weight in gold! I have one in the area who charges something like $37 for out-of-pocket patients for a regular adjustment (first intake/eval appointment is a bit more I think, but it is also much longer).

Unless you think you damaged something, it will probably be the safest, fastest, way to ease your pain. Also, because chiro is often not covered by insurance, there are more market forces, and cost tends to be more reasonable.

We're struggling with huge medical bills now thanks to our new ACA insurance plan. We pay $1200 a month in premiums alone. We currently have $10,000 in medical bills and will have a few thousand more when my daughter has surgery in a few months. On our old insurance (which was ACA compliant by the way) we would have paid $600 a month in premiums and only owed $2500 in bills. I love how much more affordable our care has gotten. :/

Amy, I say with all due respect and affection: Passing grade? From the pictures of you I've seen, I'd have to give you an A+.

wellllll, ain't nothin free, someone's gotta pay.

So, even tho your old pricing would have been less... the amount in physical money that 'gram costs, probably doesn't change much.

The issue is that almost no-one knows how all that sausage gets made, and perhaps they DON'T want to know.

My own doctor give me a blanks stare when I ask how much something costs, and when I say, "well I can't afford that." she just doesn't know what to say.

so she says: "but you need to do that..."

No, I need a tank of gas in my car, and to go buy groceries, DON'T YOU GET IT?

On top of all that, Doctor says, you'll need to get a blood test... I say OK.

6 months later, I get a bill for $500

WTF? Insurance says: experimental, doc says: not my problem...

Lab company says, pay up, sucka, or a collection agency will help you find your wallet.

The only reason I actually go to a reakin' doctor is to get my asthma inhaler, which? Thanks to getting rid of CFC's now you mus have a prescription for.

so you have to go to a doctor.

The two letters I'm thinkin' of are "C" and "F"

I googled "cheap MRI" and found this:
www dot dailyworth.com/posts/1750-get-that-mri-cheaper

An article about low-price providers. One of the links is:
www dot newchoicehealth.com/

It looks ok to me. A suggestion, not a recommendation.

oh, and? Amy, have you ever had a kidney "stone" before?

I had some back pain that was so bad, I thought I had thrown a disk... I've had similar back pain beofre, but this was to a limit.

1 ER visit later? "nothing big, just a kidney stone" ?!?

Doc said he got them once in a while... I haven't had one since. Supposedly they're due to diet, but what thing?

Dunno, it was just the kind of thing where it never occurred to me to wonder, as it felt like mus/skeletal, but wasn't. It was a tiny little hard thing, going through some piping that isn't supposed to have hard things in it, and hurt enough it made me puke a couple of times.

Hopefully you've just been sitting wrong, or for too long, and some stretching will get you right as rain. ;)

I R A : +1 for quoting young River Tam!

The issue is that almost no-one knows how all that sausage gets made, and perhaps they DON'T want to know.

Yeah, I was thinking about that regarding the $700 MRI. My SIL is a paramedic who works at a radiology clinic. Once you amortize the cost of the equipment, add in the salaries of the receptionist, paramedic, and doctor to read results, I wonder what a MRI would really cost. They see a ton of patients from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. or so but that does mean two staff shifts.

I could see a few hundred, easily, maybe more.

Hey, at least you're now subsidizing someone else's crappy healthcare.

I worked at a medical facility and we were told the actual cost of an EKG (equipment, tech, radiologist, building upkeep, etc.) was $67. Medicare reimbursed $14 of that. I don't know about other things.

Between Obamacare and the Republicans stuck in 1950's abortion-makes-jesus-mad mode, I'd say we're in a race to the bottom.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/22/politics/house-abortion-vote/index.html

Hubby works for Siemens healthcare, and Simens used to offer their employees "Cadillac" plans at a very small cost to the employee, as part of the ompensatino, because that's what Siemens wanted to do. We could go to a Dr for $15, a specialist for $20, and a hospital stay was a copay of $150.

Now, seeing as Siemens did not want to pay the government for the priviledge of offering the old plan, we now have a sack of shit. My daughter got the flu last week. No hospitalization, nothing, and it was hundreds of dollars. Other DD got salmonella and DID have to be hospitalized, that's multiple thousands. I had a hysterectomy in dec to the tune of about $12000. One more illness or surgery and we'll be getting bankruptcy due to medical bills. Wasn't that something Obamacare was supposed to solve? Fuck you, Obamacare, Fuck you Obama voters, fuck you illegal alines, fuck you fuck you fuck you.

Oh, wait, that's how the progressives wanted to make it "fair": bankruptcy for all!!!

And, sorry for the typos. Trying to cook and type...

In response to

"But meanwhile, the people on Medicaid and Medicare with no skin in the game, are still stopping in at their local emergency room every time they have the sniffles, and mild chest pain from indigestion.

And the cost of your deductibles will keep going up to cover all this *free* care. Until the system collapses, because there are too few paying customers.

Posted by: Isab at January 22, 2015 6:23 AM"

I'll agree that people who are on MediCAID have, as you say, "no skin in the game" because Medicaid requires you to be indigent and it covers absolutely everything.

However, to apply the comment to people on MediCARE is wrong headed and stupid. Even after a lifetime of paying the taxes that entitle one to Medicare, there is a monthly premium that must be paid. After that, Medicare still only pays a maximum of 80% of costs and yes, there are co-pays for every g****mned thing. You can get Medicare advantage plans that will cover some portion of the cost of cheaper prescriptions - some help - but the co-pays on the top tier drugs are sometimes enormous. And yes, there are monthly premiums for most of the Medicare Advantage Plans on top of the premiums one pays to Medicare itself. A short hospital stay will cost you thousands of dollars while you languishing on "free" Medicare.

Adding a MediGAP plan will cover everything but their monthly premiums are pretty steep. So after all is said and done you're paying hundreds of dollars a month for what you so blithely call *free* care.

Should I mention that Medicare rules only allow a doctor to spend 15 minutes with you? Or that if you don't sign up when you're 65 you have to pay a 10% surcharge for every year you are late - forever. Yes they even charge you extra if you DON'T use their insurance.

Wake up and smell the coffee friend. We're all getting taken to the cleaners - that is all of us who are stupid enough to work for a living.

Should I mention that Medicare rules only allow a doctor to spend 15 minutes with you? Or that if you don't sign up when you're 65 you have to pay a 10% surcharge for every year you are late - forever. Yes they even charge you extra if you DON'T use their insurance.

Alex, part of the reason that the rest of us are paying so much is because medicare reimburses at below the rate of the cost of treatment.

Therefore they quadruple up on the rest of us.

A lot of the doctors won't take medicare patients because of it. Guess where those people end up?

That's right, in the emergency room, where they can only be charged about a tenth of the cost of actual treatment (by law)

The medicare insurance payments are minscule compared to the cost of an Obamacare policy which pays for almost nothing.

And if you are over 65 and poor, you quickly qualify for Medicaid.

This sucks. You can shop around for an MRI (and other tests) - independent labs tend to be cheaper (never have ANYTHING done in the hospital you can do somewhere else) but who the hell has time for all of that?

Also, pharmacies vary widely in their costs, so also worth checking out. But again, I already have a full time job...

I feel your pain in the dense breast department. I always have to go back and have 2 markers in the right one from biopsies. Now the left one is getting the stink eye. In September I had 8 mammograms - with the last one they said "I am going to need you to lift it and twist it as far to the right as possible." Ow. Ow. Then I got an ultrasound and the let's look again in 6 months. Stress, but they are super serious about catching something and I dig it.

My insurance also went from $220 a month to $660. So I can pay for the maternity care I don't need. However, it never seems to pay for everything. Never.

I always think of an ex bf who, when I complained about the experiment my school was doing allowing able bodied healthy adults on welfare go to school for free at my college while I broke my back working and paying for my school while exhausted, he said, but you CAN pay, so you SHOULD pay. I thought no, they can work ( one in my class was a volunteer at some BS cause, but on welfare), but they are told they don't have to. They dropped out after a semester or a year/$2-4,000 of tuition wasted. School dropped failure program. It is still BS that I am paying for those who CAN pay And SHOULD pay. SOMETHING.

Oh please, I wish I had my mom's Medicare plans. For a total of $200 a month she gets $10 copays for everything including prescriptions and a max out of pocket of $1500 for the year. My max out of pocket for the year is $6350 individually, costs over $300 in premiums individually, $40 copays, $30 drugs, and 30% of any imaging and diagnostics. Only some if that applies to out of pocket max. We pay $1200 a month for our family and the family max out of pocket is $12,700.

Last night on the radio they kept teasing a story about how the government healthcare site is selling consumers information. Never got to hear the story. The few links I found that sounded like it were blocked so I don't know if it is a real story or not.

Anybody hear about this?

This reminds me of a time when I went to get a CT scan for a cat (I was very disappointed they didn't call it a CAT scan, I had so many jokes lined up). It cost over $1000. My ex was shocked and remarked "But I had an MRI and it didn't cost anything!" As I said to her, yes it did, it's just that with a pet you're finding out what it really costs. Someone paid for it. And you had to wait 10 months for the test (state pays always means rationalising). So we got better health care for our cat than she had got.

30 years on a health insurance plan and you're getting these sorts of out of pocket costs? That sucks. Unfortunately, if you'd known, you might have been better off self insuring and putting the money away privately. But, who could predict changes to the law that would fuck up your plan so badly? You made the right decision at the time, I guess.

Hmmm, that was an especially badly written and incoherent comment. Hopefully the point got across.

I got your point Ltw. And in my experience if you can save you will always do better self insuring/self pensioning/self ...ing. The key part being able to save.

In a lot of ways health insurance is like a pension. And for the exact same reasons most people switched to 401ks and individual accounts. If you switched jobs your pension went away. But a 401k follows you. Pensions are always underfunded and in danger of bankrupting people, just like current health insurance.

Health savings accounts initially promised to be the 401ks of heath services, but then they killed it by confiscating your money at the end of the year.

Without an individual account to work against you will always get ripped off since the system just won't be stable.

Isab, I made a note of your statement about the pharmacies. I have seen that before. One thing I'll add is that the mail-in pharmacies aren't necessarily any better any more. Our insurance harasses the hell out of us to use Express Scripts -- we've been getting messages left on our home answering machine, every day, for months. I called and asked them what it would cost for me to get the expensive medicine through them. Guess what: it's the exact same as what the pharmacy charges, plus I have to deal with the hassle of mailing in a paper prescription (for which the doctor's office charges $10 extra). And, the times I've used that service before, I've found that in the summer, the medicine often gets exposed to excessive heat during shipping, which reduces its effectiveness.

Sorry to those recommending Chiropractic, but it is utter nonsense. No science anywhere has shown medical benefit. (http://skepdic.com/chiro.html).
"Adjustments" are quackery. Those claiming that it helps are experiencing the placebo effect or just the benefits of relaxing and getting a massage.

You don't know what you are talking about Wambut. It is entirely possible to get things out of alignment and need a little help to straiten out again.

But there is a lot of variation in the quality of chiropractors. Some do push that non-sense your link complains about. But many do not. The best chiropractors I know of have a background in mechanical engineering. The look for poor skeletal alignment (not just spine) and range of motion. A good practitioner will be upfront when they can't help you.

I do agree that anyone recommending regular adjustments is probably a quack.

If you claim to have been surprised by the confusion attending the health care debate, I suggest you are significantly naïve. There is money to be made in such confusion, and those who know this are not going to tolerate the system being organized efficiently. Meanwhile, you should offer a solution.

@CousinDave.

I have never done mail order. If you have one accessible try either Sams Club or Costco. Sams doesn't even require you to have a membership to use their pharmacy.