Nah, I think he's asking how many titty dances I'd have to perform to scrape together $1k...

I'm sure its more than 400.

Yeah, I misread it ..

My boyfriend is sick and refuses to go to the doctor, but he has healthcare.  I on the other hand do not have it and would love to go to the doctor in order to get a physical.  I keep getting staph infections and I need to find out why.... get my blood checked out and such.  Oh well.... tis life.

Blood staph, ear/nose/throat staph, or open wound staph?

Yeah, can't some staph infections be life-threatening?

Yeah, can't some staph infections be life-threatening?

Yes.

Sasha?  You need to give us a little more info for us to be able to help.

Maybe this is a touch too cynical but I don't think Sasha is here for help. I think she's mainly here to complain.
I get that though. Complaining feels good.

Still though ...
ANY staph can easily spread and cause one to be septic ...

The staph I have is on the side of my head next to my left ear.  It has been reoccurring for years now!  I hate it.  It felt like the side of my face was on fire.  It is just something I have to deal with.  The doctor gave me a sulfa style medication for it.  I am allergic to sulfa's so I asked for the alternative.  It is making it go away but it is such a sloooooowwww process!  I have asked so many doctors why I get it and how to avoid it.  The newest doctor said to bathe in hibiclens every couple of days and that it is just something I have to deal with.... forever.  I am beginning to wonder if I could get something removed... surgically, so that I can stop having these "outbreaks."

You should get a head CT. If you have a cavernous malformation, an unusual mass of blood vessels in that region, it could harbor the infection in dormancy.

I know this because it happened to me in my 20s. A little surgery and you'll be fine.

Good call ...

I had one of those about a year ago when they thought my brain was bleeding since I was having fainting spells.  Turns out my brain wasn't bleeding and they just decided I was having panic attacks.  I wonder how much a CT would cost without insurance.  If I don't get a CT can I just go without one for awhile?  What would you recommend I do in the meantime?  Everyone already thinks I'm a germaphobe.

If you have a cluster that is harboring a dormant infection, you;re going to keep getting it and getting it until you build up a tolerance to whatever anti-biotic they are giving you and then the infection kills you.

Good call ...

Of course you could just have a weakened immune system from something else you have...?

Good analysis aint cheap. Neither is a bad analysis.

...  I wonder how much a CT would cost without insurance.  ...

COST?!?  Good Grief, girlfriend, you stumble in, tell 'em you're an illegal, and to send the bill to the White House, for crying out loud!

I think I might just go to the hospital tomorrow after my management test.  I developed a killer sore throat today.  I feel like I'm getting the flu.  I think the feeling sorry for myself concept has decided to wrap itself around me like a warm blanket.

This is what happens when you get clean and monogamous...

On the subject of healthcare, if Michael Moore is to be believed (sometimes his research is good, sometimes less so), the fine for denying someone for a pre-existing condition under the new bill is $100/day if they're caught.

So insurance companies have a pretty easy equation to figure out who to insure, still.  They just tack a $36,500 cost times some factor for the odds of getting caught into their existing formulas.

Been telling about that for weeks, it's apparently true.

I guess I would be curious to find out what the average healthcare cost for a person denied coverage is.

It will probably be enough to push the current insure/not insure line out somewhat. 

I would basically take the average daily healthcare cost of a person denied coverage, assume a relatively low enforcement rate (say, 25%), add in the costs of enforcement to come up with my baseline fine.

I would then take that number and add another 100% for a punitive fine.

2*(daily healthcare cost/0.25+enforcement cost)=fine

So WTF does that mean,

in DOLLARS?

This is what happens when you get clean and monogamous...

Wait ...
Wha??? ...

So WTF does that mean,

in DOLLARS?

Wendy, lets say you need a $300,000.00 surgery or you're going to die in 3 months. The insurance company has to choose between paying $300,000.00 or dropping you and paying $9,000.00.

Which one do you think they are going to choose?

My fine scenario means this:

If a company expects to actually pay $100 per day on average for an average patient's care, then the fine would be (and let's assume average daily enforcement costs 10% of the daily average cost):

2*(100/.25+100*.1)=820.

The company would have a choice between paying the $100 daily to actually insure the individual, OR pay $820 per day to be in non-compliance. 

If you're going to use fines as an enforcement tool, then you have to be sure that they're high enough to force companies to comply. 

Here's an easy example:

Let's say it costs $10 per day to park on the street in the city.  Assume, also, that you would be able to avoid the ticket 10% of the time either because someone fails to enforce it, or by appealing it through the courts.

If the fine for not paying at the meter is $8, then you should obviously take the ticket every single time.

If the fine for not paying at the meter is $10, then you should also take the fine every single time, because you won't have to pay 1 in ten times on average and you're breaking even at worse.

If the fine for not paying at the meter is $11, then you should also skip the meter every single time.  Paying 9 times out of ten, on average, means that you will save a dollar over paying at the meter.

It isn't until you hit a fine of $12 that it makes sense to consider paying at the meter. 

If you're a corporation in the US at that point, you still wouldn't consider paying the fine there.  You  would consider the cost of your lawyers/lobbyists/accounts/etc. and try to force the percentage of time you can get away with violating the law higher rather than actually paying the fine.

I am drunk posting about healthcare fines.

Ugh.,

A good example of a horrible fine structure:

Eli Lily was marketing Zyprexa for off label use in elderly people for dementia.

The US government caught on to this about 4 years after the fact and fined them $1.4 billion.  Over the same time period, Eli Lily made nearly $40 billion on Zyprexa sales.

Fines on the order of 1-3%, typical of how drug companies get fined, do very little to deter or curb unethical behavior.

You might have been drunk,

but you made GOOD sense, Emp!

Thank you BOTH for the explanation!

(I actually did that other post as a sort of jerking your chain type thing, but ended up LEARNING something!)

Woohoo  um yeah.

STFU