Average cost per day for hospital stay in the US.

I was talking to an old friend of mine from back in the day. One of his lungs collapsed while we were in High School. That would have been in 1964 or 1965. He said he spent 2 days in the hospital and the bill was $75.

Then in early 1974 I was just about to get out of the Air Force and our squadron commander was giving a small group of us the re-enlistment pitch and telling us what a great benefit we were going to lose with our free medical care. He told us that on the outside a stay in the hospital might be as much as "$100 a day!"
 
I don't know how much my second stay was for 3 days. Nowhere near as much I guess because everything was listed individually in my claims. Back in November it was just one listing.
 
Auctioneers have a saying, there is only so much money in the room.

Before Medicare was implemented in 1965 many many people paid out of pocket for healthcare or had a very simple restrictive major medical policy that cover catastrophic events and costs as well as care were much more basic.

After Medicare the bean counters took over the medical profession and turned it into the healthcare industry, prices began to climb.

I have mixed feelings about it. Today we don’t see nearly as much suffering and deformity in our day to day life which is definitely a blessing but I still feel that we would be better off if we accepted a less costly more human comfort care approach to medicine and our eventual death.
 
When something was wrong years ago, simple tests or xrays were usually done to determine a course of action, which started right away.

About a month ago, a friend who has always been healthy developed what he described was a weakness in one leg and the feeling he was about to fall. In fact, he did fall, twice (no injuries). IInitially, the doctor did an xray but gave him no results, then put him on muscle relaxers, which haven't helped, then scheduled an MRI, which was done 2 weeks ago. Nothing has changed for the better and he still knows no more than when it all started.

We've made great progress in the field of medicine.
 
MACKTEXAS said:
When something was wrong years ago, simple tests or xrays were usually done to determine a course of action, which started right away.

About a month ago, a friend who has always been healthy developed what he described was a weakness in one leg and the feeling he was about to fall. In fact, he did fall, twice (no injuries). IInitially, the doctor did an xray but gave him no results, then put him on muscle relaxers, which haven't helped, then scheduled an MRI, which was done 2 weeks ago. Nothing has changed for the better and he still knows no more than when it all started.

We've made great progress in the field of medicine.
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How did you make that last sentence so foggy.?
 
Michael Z said:
Why has this cost so exceeded inflation?
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I’m not sure how much is real and how much is just smoke and mirrors.

It gauls me that often times people without insurance are expected to pay much higher prices for tests and procedures while health insurance companies pay much much lower negotiated rates for the people with coverage.

In fairness, some hospitals provide financial aid/relief for people that understand it’s available and how to apply for it.

Finally, we can never be sure how much of this is simply written off as uncollected debts/losses.

We have great health care but a lousy system for managing the costs and payments.
 
We do have a lot better treatments in this day, that is for sure. And all of that factors in. But the cost of a room should not have increased as much as it has.

So we went from $80 for ten days to $30,000 for ten days now? 9 doublings in 80 years. A doubling every 9 years. This amounts to 8% inflation over the entire 80 years whereas the actual inflation has not even been half that.
 
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Some people go along with every diagnostic procedure put before them. I just don't. My doctor accepts that and works with me accordingly.

One lady I know has been hospitalized 5 times this year and has had every diagnostic test imaginable. She does whatever tests they tell her to do . . . so it's good for her (I guess) that she has traditional Medicare and a supplement, because many of her tests problably wouldn't make it through an advantage plan pre-authorization approval.

And after all her tests - colonoscopies, MRI's, ultrasounds, etc. (and some tests I can't pronounce or remember) she still doesn't really know what all is wrong with her, except that she says she doesn't have cancer. Yet, her health has steadily declined. Something went very wrong in her last colonoscopy, causing her to need corrective surgery for something that was punctured, and it didn't go well - but, she said "thank goodness they got the polyps." Well, maybe that helped, maybe not, because now her bowels are pretty much dysfunctional. Somehow I have my doubts she will still be around a year from now.
 
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