Quote:I went for an eye appointment. Basically they did nothing for me except say I dont need glasses. Ok. I asked how much I owed before I left, they said nothing. Then later on I get billed $75. I can see they already billed my insurance about $125. I'm refusing to pay it. I haven't paid it in over a year. I'll be damned if they get paid $200 for doing nothing.
What are they going to do? Take me to court over 100$?
That'll hit your credit score nice and hard..
Quote:that small amount?
Yup. Especially if they sick a 3rd party debt collector on ya..
Quote:Yup. Especially if they sick a 3rd party debt collector on ya..
Lol too late for that. I don't really care. I can't believe this one little thing has hurt my score to an irreparable level. I have so many other debts paid on time.
Quote:Lol too late for that. I don't really care. I can't believe this one little thing has hurt my score to an unreparable level. I have so many other debts paid on time.
Of course it can be repaired. But even if you repair it, it stays on your report for a good while as a delinquent account.
Quote:I went for an eye appointment. Basically they did nothing for me except say I dont need glasses. Ok. I asked how much I owed before I left, they said nothing. Then later on I get billed $75. I can see they already billed my insurance about $125. I'm refusing to pay it. I haven't paid it in over a year. I'll be damned if they get paid $200 for doing nothing.
What are they going to do? Take me to court over 100$?
They'll send it to a collections agency, which will contact you constantly to demand payment. They won't take you to court over $75, and probably won't try to claim anything at all against you because the dollar amount is so low, but they will report you after 30 days to all three credit bureaus as having a delinquent account. That could ding as many as 125 points off of your credit score if you let it sit there, and despite what the collectors will tell you as they coerce you into paying it off, that hit will not go away for seven years.
Collections is a great business to be in if you have no soul. They "buy" delinquent accounts at 10-15 cents on the dollar, transferring ownership of that debt to themselves, then keep anything and everything they collect. They're good at collecting, too, and they're a slimy bunch. Most of what they say and do is a legally gray area--for instance, they're allowed to tell you that paying off part of the debt will help your credit score, even though they know that it'll just lessen the blow of their reporting your account by a small margin--and there's not a ton of policing. If you agree to pay off 50% of the debt, the agency you pay it to might turn around and sell the remaining debt to another agency, then on and on down the line. Some of those agencies will, very illegally, demand payment on more of the debt than actually remains outstanding, sometimes as much as 100% of your original debt. They won't tell you that they've purchased your debt from another agency, but they will tell you that because you made a partial settlement only, they're entitled to collect the remaining money, and can report you to the credit bureaus
again for the "new" debt (not true).
Basically, yeah, don't screw with collections agencies if you don't absolutely have to. The $75 you owe to the optometrist is not worth the time, energy and misery that will go into dealing with those sleazeballs.
Quote:I somewhat agree with you regarding how the cost has gone up, but let's be clear about it. I went in for a physical a couple of years ago and paid cash. It cost me roughly $60, and that was for a complete physical. Now getting blood work done at a lab cost a bit more, but it wasn't an outrageous amount.
The basic way that it works as an example for a physical... if you have "insurance" you pay your $10 co-pay or whatever, then the doctor's office bills the insurance company $125. People will immediately blame the doctors for "milking the insurance company", but that's not the case. The doctor's office staff has to get paid for their time dealing with the insurance company. The insurance company has to pay their staff, and so on... Both the doctor's office and the insurance company have to make their money as well so something that costs $60 more than doubles if "insurance" is involved. That's why if you have "insurance" a pill might cost $50. If you pay cash that pill might cost $10 or less.
Here is another way to look at it. You're a mechanic. Say 1 hour of your shop time is $60. A customer comes in for a routine tune-up, and it takes you an hour or less, you bill the customer for 1 hour of shop time. The customer pays you in cash and you can immediately deposit that money into your bank account. However, say the customer has "insurance" or a "maintenance plan". In order for you to fill out the paperwork, contact the "insurance" company and wait a couple of days to get your money, well that costs you time and so that's why you bill the "insurance" company more money.
It hasn't been my experience the prescription is cheaper if I'm paying cash. I'll give a personal example, when we had no insurance my wife had a thyroid problem, I paid the $150 for her visit, but when the doctor prescribed all these "test" to find the source of her problem it was going to cost north of $2,000. The visit she prescribed some medicine for the symptoms she was experiencing in the mean time, when I went to the pharmacy they told us the prescription was over $200 for a 30-day supply.
Now the why it cost so much that's a complex issue to which I don't claim to have the knowledge, I'm just saying in theory I'd love to say we don't need insurance for routine medicine but if that's the case we have to figure out why the cost our so far beyond the ability of the average consumer to pay.
Actually there is a system where at a mechanic shop I deal with something like the "insurance" company's it's when we have fleet accounts for national fleet managements. I end up billing them probably 2/3rds less than what an average consumer pays because they have negotiated prices in order for my company or any company to provide them with services. Now that might reflect in some of the cost that is passed onto everyone else which maybe that's why in my experience "Cash" customers without insurance are hit with such high cost in order for them to recover lower negotiated services provided to insured customers?
To me the insurance companies are the biggest problem, anytime you have a middle man be it the government or private parties cost go up across the board. That's why the idea of Obamacare drives me so crazy, instead of finding a way to create a system where we can eliminate or significantly reduce the roll of the middle man, we made it IMPOSSIBLE to cut out the middle man.
Imagine if everyone was required to hire a fleet management company before they brought me a car to fix. It would take twice as long to get anything done and now you're paying twice the amount of people to do the same job, the employees of the fleet company negotiating products and services and the employees of my company performing the product and services.
Quote:You'd think that since I'm at least partially covered, and in this case am meeting like 90 percent of the MEC requirements, that I would only get a partial fine. It's ridiculous that I have to be fined so much just because my insurance isn't covering a couple little things. The entire system truly is a rotten mess. What are the chances it's repealed before fines come due?
Zero. As much tough talk as there is about Obamacare, no one has the stones to actually repeal it without a plan of their own guaranteed passage.
Shame you guys don't have a public system the private providers have to compete with...
The plan meets like 90 percent of the MEC requirements. I don't get why they can't just make their plan compliant instead of having you purchase an entirely different plan at the $50 per month cost. In other words, I'm having to pay $300 now instead of $250, but if they simply added screenings, the unlimited diagnostic tests and immunizations to their plan, the whole things would probably only cost $260. It does sort sound like a scam to get my money by using the Obamacare fine as leverage. Is anyone here a lawyer? There might be some class action that can be taken here.
Besides, federal health officials should take notice because the $250 plan's refusal to cover immunizations is a public health threat. Without coverage no way would I get immunized, but if you understand some of the basics there, a society needs to be like 98 percent immunized against a disease in order to create a zone where it can't spread effectively. This plan is a slap in the face to officials trying to reach near perfect levels such as in California where it's now illegal to not get immunized.
BTW, the company does offer major medical, but they don't allow for you to add your spouse, and with my new job not allowing me any tax credits/subsidies, I can't afford to have my plan plus pay $375 for her to be on a separate plan. It's also a thorn in my side that any major medical plan now comes with insanely high deductibles. That Kaiser plan was the cheapest plan that includes a $2000 deductible for the both of us, or it would be $1000 just for her. There are cheaper plans with higher deductibles up to $3000 per person, but that's too much of a burden. I was recently faced with a procedure that cost $450 when I was under a major medical plan, and to my shock I got a bit for $400. They said outside of office visits they don't cover me at 80 percent until my deductible is paid, and now I still have to pay off this amount not even having that insurance meaning what I pay (most likely eventually to my friendly Columbia credit agent) won't even go towards a deductible. I realize this new $250 or $300 plan will quickly cap out in the event of major surgery, but it's sure nice knowing I can get a procedure like what I just described taken care of and covered immediately.
I miss the days before Obamacare when you could actually get health insurance for reasonable rates with deductibles around a few hundred.
Obamacare is a mess. But so was healthcare before obamacare. For profit healthcare is not working.
Quote:Obamacare is a mess. But so was healthcare before obamacare. For profit healthcare is not working.
que the call for single payer system that was the entire purpose of obamacare.
Quote:Obamacare is a mess. But so was healthcare before obamacare. For profit healthcare is not working.
For profit healthcare works fine, we've had socialized medicine for longer than you've been alive.
Quote:que the call for single payer system that was the entire purpose of obamacare.
The issue is that ALL healthcare is based on a government-set fee schedule created by CMS. All contracts, all work, all prices are set according to that fee schedule and the ridiculous concept of Relative Value Units. Wanna get a head ache? Google that term and feel yourself go cross-eyed.
Quote:Shame you guys don't have a public system the private providers have to compete with...
Yes, because it's reasonable to tax everyone to pay for the public system and then force private industry to compete.
Quote:Read it again. The author states that you will owe the money. The claim is that the ACA does not allow the IRS to collect the money by force (all sorts of loopholes in those 2000+ pages). Suppose you owe the IRS (say) $1000 in unpaid taxes and they fine you $600 for insufficient health insurance. If you pay the $1000 they can't force you to pay the rest. They can't take you to court or garnish your wages for the $600. That debt will remain on their records, but as long as you aren't owed a refund they have no way of forcing collection.
At least that's how I understand it, and that article wasn't the only place I read this.
But I agree. 02 should just pay the additional $50 per month. The government has the guns, we are just subjects.
I guess that's true. They won't charge you interest on that balance, so in theory you could just let a balance grow year after year and not pay it without repercussions or until you get a refund. Seems like a risky move.