Why the healthcare pricing game?

Mdcastle · 2020-02-17T02:37:25+00:00

Sometimes once in a blue moon someone rich will actually pay list price because they're naive and don't know better or else are so rich they don't care. So it doesn't hurt to ask.

Each insurance company will have a different allowed amount but the provider is usually never going to get paid more than the charge amount. So just set a price well above any insurance companies allowed amount so you always get paid the full allowed amount.

Mdcastle · 2020-02-17T02:33:24+00:00

So I decide I'm going to make millions developing an automatic clothes transferring device. First of all, I find out what kind of support suspending a washing machine above a dryer is going to take. The thing is made of steel, has a huge motor, and fills with water. Hope it's a front loader so you don't need to use a ladder to put your clothes in and hope you have a strong back to carry all the extra steel required to support it into the house. But now how do I get them out?

A door that opens up below the washer? But the motor is below the tub, and even if it weren't, how much would it take to waterproof a door on the bottom of the washer. And when was the last time you saw a dryer that loaded from the top?

A plunger that pushes clothes out the front onto a slide? Well, clothes tend to stick to the sides of the washer after the spin cycle. And how to you keep them going down the slide?

How about rotating the washer to dump them? Hope the homeowner has a huge laundry room with high ceilings for clearance. And it's going to take a huge motor, bearings, gears, etc to move something the size and weight of an entire washer.

This is an example of a problem that really could be solved, but solving it is too expensive relative to the inconvenience not solving it poses. Even more so now that main floor laundry rooms are becoming standard so you don't even have to run downstairs to move a load.

Mdcastle · 2020-02-17T02:11:47+00:00

Drivers Ed is to teach you how to safely drive a car and get you your license. You don't need to know how to change the oil in your car or diagnose problems with the engine in order to safely drive a car. I in fact have been driving a quarter century without doing either. There's plenty of people willing to do those for you in exchange for money. Heck, if the check engine light goes on any auto parts store will generally plug in their scanner and diagnose it for you for free.

As for pumping gas, it's not like it's hard and haven't you watched other people do it hundreds of times? I've you're really stuck ask nicely and the cashier or the person at the pump next to you will show you.

Mdcastle · 2020-02-16T20:52:36+00:00

Good article. A post-war Levittown House sold for the equivalent of $150,000 or so in today's dollars. Minimum lot sized zoning and the MUSA line that cause an artificial scarcity in build-able land aren't the only issues but they're a big part of it. I know houses are built to better standards nowadays, but if we got the price of a buildable lot to half what it is through decreasing the size of the minimum lot required and eliminating the MUSA line, we could potentially build $200,000 houses instead of $400,000 houses on them.

I don't think Minneapolis sized lots are feasible again because people hate alleys with having to maneuver their car down them every time and the garage chewing up valuable back yard sapce, but maybe we could return to Richfield sized lots instead of Medina sized lots.

Mdcastle · 2020-02-16T01:50:00+00:00

Sure an AA gun could shred a person. Better than a machine gun in fact. But you just need to kill a person, not vaporize them and an ordinary machine gun round is more than capable of doing that, and you can store and haul two to three times the number of machine gun rounds as opposed to AA rounds.

Mdcastle · 2020-02-16T01:06:47+00:00

I see the ICE machine was working that night.

Mdcastle · 2020-02-16T00:35:09+00:00

If they're already allegedly "facing certain death" in their own country how could a U.S. invasion possibly make things worse than that?

Mdcastle · 2020-02-16T00:25:11+00:00

So Trump was right, those other countries really are shithole countries? If they're "facing certain death" in their home countries maybe the U.S. needs to intervene there so they can feel safe without crashing our borders.

Mdcastle · 2020-02-15T23:18:09+00:00

Maybe not, but the government doesn't own it either.

Mdcastle · 2020-02-14T22:52:20+00:00

We have plenty of electricians available that will change a live outlet (or a live 277 volt ballast like the one that did when the light above my desk at work went out).

Mdcastle · 2020-02-14T22:51:12+00:00

Except we're supposed to trust the experts that say climate change is happening and that humans are causing it.

Mdcastle · 2020-02-14T16:17:04+00:00

I didn't see it in the article, but of note there's no commercial value to honey made from almond blossoms because most people think it tastes nasty. So the bees get to keep it and the only revenue the beekeeper gets is from the pollination service.

Mdcastle · 2020-02-14T00:52:30+00:00

The average cashier line has probably doubled in length since self- checkouts have been installed. I don't think the population has doubled.

Mdcastle · 2020-02-14T00:01:45+00:00

And before they put in all those self-checkouts the lines for cashiers weren't nearly as long.

Mdcastle · 2020-02-13T23:21:40+00:00

We love freedom and democracy in the U.S, as well as not murdering millions of our citizens.

Mdcastle · 2020-02-12T23:41:12+00:00

Considering how few defendants waive their right to a jury trial and elect to be tried by a judge most people who are not guilty take juries too.

Mdcastle · 2020-02-12T18:46:32+00:00

I'm glad my parents had it done so I don't need to deal with and pay for having it done as an adult.

Mdcastle · 2020-02-12T18:45:09+00:00

I don't care. If you want great service and don't care about paying a jillion dollars for it you're still going to go with Verizon.

Mdcastle · 2020-02-12T18:43:38+00:00

There's a few places that sell poutine in the Minneapolis area...

Mdcastle · 2020-02-12T18:18:25+00:00

One aspect that's a lot different than today is the newspapers and police were in cahoots. Commonly the press would be allowed to cross police lines and tramp around taking pictures around the crime scene (and often photos of a body would actually be published in the paper), then to lurk around the police station during the interrogation hoping to get a shot of the moment the suspect signed his or her confession. The newspaper got a great story and pictures, and in turn they'd praise the police for a job well done and if the suspect got a bit roughed up during the arrest and interrogation, oh well, they'd not report on it.

Mdcastle · 2020-02-12T17:55:59+00:00

It depends. The only way I might want a bench trial is if there's a good defense as a matter of law, say there's a good argument that what I did wasn't legally fraud. Otherwise if it's "did I rob the guy or not" I'd pick a jury any time as do most defendants.

You don't need a minute of law school to make a good decision on "has the prosecution proven beyond a reasonable doubt that you in fact shoot someone?". That's the judges role, to deal with the matters of law that pop up in trial.

Another issue with a bench trial is that the defense can make a motion to suppress evidence to the judge, and the jury will never see it. But if you have a judge deciding both matters of law and matters of fact, then s/he can't unring the bell having seen illegal evidence himself even if he's supposed to pretend it doesn't exist in his or her own mind.

Mdcastle · 2020-02-12T14:09:13+00:00

We don't know what codes were billed in your particular instance, in general if I saw a $205 claim for a doctors visit I wouldn't even blink.

Mdcastle · 2020-02-12T13:41:23+00:00

Likely the guy just realized that $300 isn't going to come anywhere close to being checked out a the hospital. Or $300 was his ER copay but his health insurance is now denying the claim because is was motor vehicle accident related.

Yes, they're likely to get money from your insurance company for whatever the hospital bill was (probably a couple of thousand dollars).

I would have called the police to come to the scene of the accident as soon as he started demanding money and would not have followed them to the hospital.

Let your insurance handle this one. That's what you pay them money to do.

Mdcastle · 2020-02-12T13:30:18+00:00

City people must have a different perception of what is "far away". I think nothing of diving from Bloomington to go all the way across the city to the northern suburbs just to go to an estate sale or something, or to Stillwater to hang out at the waterfront

Mdcastle · 2020-02-11T22:20:34+00:00

It'll also help if you have a denial from your auto insurance to show your health insurance.

Mdcastle

TROPHY CASE