Staples on a dollar and a head

I was looking for information on whether it is legal to staple a $20 bill to a letter and came across a story from Florida where a woman took her 8 year old to an ER for a small head wound caused by a pillow fight, and left with one staple over the wound and a bill for $1,654, of which $754 was covered by the family's insurance. Both the article and the readers' comments are mostly filled with the outrage over the cost of medical care for such a small accident. Duh! I wonder why?

It appears that few read it, or know anything about insurance, medical care or the costs of doing business--any business. Isn't it odd that other workers seem to want to be paid for their labor, to get their benefits paid by their employer, to receive unemployment and worker's comp, but doctors, nurses, lab techs, schedulers, and janitors in clinics should work for nothing or minimum wage? Isn't it strange that your landlord, electric company, gas and water utilities, gardeners, and street pavers all need to be paid and factored into your business costs, but not hospitals (she took him to the ER) or "doc in a box" clinics. And I found it odd that most people can grasp, when they get the bill, what 4 years of college costs, but are in la-la land about tacking on another 4-8 years of medical school to those costs. It appears from the article that no further testing was done to pad the costs (regardless of what Obama says about wrong foot amputation), so we can assume the doctor recognized from his training that a superficial head wound would bleed--a lot.

That ER where Mrs. Tobio took her child is also treating people who have no regular doctor, no insurance and no intention of ever paying. By law, it has to treat them too. So that cost is picked up by the people who do have insurance. And the doctor that stapled the wound has to carry malpractice insurance so that's factored into his costs--and no tort reform will be included in the current Senate or House bill because the lawyers have a powerful lobby. Also, in order to save costs, and they've already saved a bundle, the Tobios carry a very high deductible policy--$2500--choosing instead to cover the out of pocket expenses and pocket the savings. Some years they win, and some they don't. Even a few months of savings covered that $900 they had to pay. And their state regulates who they can buy from so that reduces competition and increases cost. That too isn't addressed in the current "reform."

When I was a kid, I was jumping on a bed like a trampoline and hit the ceiling cracking my head open. I don't remember if Mom took me to Dr. Dumont or not--there were puddles of blood everywhere so she probably did. Head wounds bleed like crazy. He probably used a needle and thread. I still have a bump and it's covered by my hair. But parents would not settle for that today. Childhood bumps have to have first class, non-scarring treatment. And no one had health insurance.

The reporter did her job--she got the scoop on what the real costs are behind that little staple in Ben Tobios head, but that's at the end. Most readers commenting, never got that far.

His staple paid for all the things the hospital does not, or cannot under current laws that regulate government programs such as Medicare, charge for, Sullivan said: bed sheets, plastic medical tubing, privacy drapes.

"Staples may be something we can charge for, so those things end up with what looks like a very high charge based on what the cost is," Sullivan said.

"At the same time," he added, "what drives the cost of health care is people get in a facility and they want the best doctors, the nice MRI machine that costs $1.5 million; they want the best of everything because we have very high expectations in a time of need, and there is a cost to that."

If I make coffee at home, it costs about ten cents a cup; if I go to Panera's it's about $1.80 plus my driving costs which includes auto insurance.