Why DrugWonks' Campaign to Demonize Michael Moore Will Fail

The pro-industry bloggers at DrugWonks have been on a tear, insulting and denigrating Michael Moore and his movie Sicko at any chance they get. (This isn't surprising as the blog is paid for with drug biz money -- Peter Pitts is employed by pr firm Manning Selvage & Lee, where his clients are drug companies.)

The DrugWonks people seem to believe that if they can just remind us enough times that it is ironic that a clinically obese man has made a film about healthcare, that somehow nobody will watch or believe it.

But here is what DrugWonks just doesn't get: Moore gets one thing right -- it is a nightmare being a patient in the American healthcare system.

Yesterday I mentioned that I was trying to schedule an MRI, and that the pricing structure for MRIs at my local hospital (in Hoboken NJ) worked out so that it was cheaper to pretend to have no insurance than it was to use your insurance.

So this morning I made a few phonecalls -- funny how everything in US healthcare revolves around endless phonecalls -- in an attempt to find out what, exactly, my out-of-pocket costs would be if I got this MRI at a different place (Union City NJ). I've had an MRI there before and was only charged $50 in out-of-pocket costs -- on the same insurance plan.

The Union City company told me that they would charge my insurance company, United Healthcare, $600-700. United has previously told me they would cover 90% of the costs after meeting a $250 deductible. So that would mean I might have to pay $295 for a $700 scan.

Those numbers are far different from the ones I cited yesterday at the facility in Hoboken, where I was offered $580 out-of-pocket on a bill of about $2600, or to pay $450 in cash without insurance.

So, I called United to see if they could tell me -- exactly -- how much the charges would be  at the Union City site, which seems to be cheaper. After giving all my code numbers and reconfirming my date of birth -- twice -- I spoke to two people who both declined to give me a straight answer. One of them pointed to their website, myuhc.com, where there is a cost estimator. The estimator revealed that my out-of-pocket expenses could be $186.

See how insane this is:

Hoboken: $580
"Uninsured": $450
Union City (less than a mile away): $295
United Healthcare's estimate: $186

But the most infuriating thing was that United declined point blank to tell me what the cost would be. I put it to the woman on the phone that as soon as the MRI people sent them the paperwork, then United would know EXACTLY what my costs would be, and that the company was basically lying to me be saying it "didn't know" what my costs would be.

This process took about an hour. I still have no idea what the charges will be. This is why Americans have come to hate US healthcare -- it's time consuming, complicated, contradictory, expensive, and no one can ever give you a straight answer to a straight question.

And until DrugWonks gets that, all the mud they're throwing at Michael Moore will make them look Antoinette-like: a bunch of guys in suits who don't understand why we don't all just eat the cake.

Comments

[John Mack]

Jim,

You have pointd out a problem that I don't think many of us thought much about. In fact, not even Michael Moore's movie exposed this guide of craziness! The cases he cites were mostly people who were flat out denied coverage at all! But he could have made a much better case if illustrated what you are currently experiencing.

John

[Peter Pitts]

Some of your points are well made. Others, well not so much. Our podcast asked a simple question and we got straight answers. The endgame here is that fixing our health care system is not going to be fixed via Moore-ish demagogy.

[thistle]

"The endgame here is that fixing our health care system is not going to be fixed via Moore-ish demagogy."

I'm sure trashing Michael Moore and people who point out the ridiculousness of Health Care industry pricing strategies isn't going to make a damn bit of difference either.

Rube Goldberg has a post up over there which appears to be a response to this one, to whit:

"Now some have nothing better to do than price MRIs."

How much sneering hatred of the average consumer of medical services can you pack into one sentence? Ostensibly, this is a direct swipe at the author of the post above, but how does it look when you show it to those struggling to pay their medical bills and, say, rent?

"Non-partisan" indeed.