purely anecdotal, do not read tl:dr
It's time to see the system for what it is, a broken waste of mountains of our money.
I am an International Union of Operating Engineers member some 29 years now. Due to the weather dependent nature of our trade, we employ a money bank system to carry our benefits across the lean wet winter months. Employers contribute 1.x per month, and that .x difference builds up that bank, up to 8 months. After that it gets absorbed by the "system", supposedly covering for the actual costs. All of that is buried somewhere in the annual report.
A month of coverage costs $1006 of that money bank until June, until it gets recalculated based on those costs. I have been out of work since mid-December due to a shoulder surgery. IF the rate does not go up too much, I will have coverage through August.
After the surgery I got a message from the hospital about a small amount that had been settled between my insurance and the providers, with me owing $56 for that tiny portion of the surgery costs. That is inconsequential, but what I saw while I was logged in was mind boggling.
There was an informational line item for $125,600 for my outpatient surgery, a blanket grossiosity that would induce a coronary in anyone less informed by the broken system and processes.
$125,600
I was there 6 hours total.
We know that the actual money that will change hands is a fraction of this, but the fact that this figure exists anywhere is testament to the greed and profiteering in the US health care system. Some without insurance will be seeing this bill as reality, as a life of bankruptcy and ruin.
The hospital is Good Samaritan, and they turn no one away. There is a big fund of nonprofit money to help out, but my insurance, everyone's insurance foots the bill for the uninsured and underinsured.
It's time to forget about " we got ours" and think about the reality that everybody is already getting a piece of what we think is "ours".