This is awful! Price Tag For Boy's Heart Transplant Doubles

[Blue Diadem]

SAN ANTONIO -- The family of a 7-year-old boy from Mexico who are in San Antonio in hopes of getting him a heart transplant received some bad news Monday when a hospital in Dallas doubled the price for the procedure.

The price tag went up just days after the Mexican state of Coahuila told the family that it would pay $500,000 for the procedure, which the family was initially quoted by the hospital.

"He's dying," said Christian Saucedo, the mother of Adrian Saucedo, who has been fighting for his life for several weeks at Children's Methodist Hospital. "And now they want more."

http://www.ksat.com/news/11509173/detail.html?subid=22100443&qs=1;bp=t

[crikkett]

1. good thing they came to the press with this.

I hope it's a misunderstanding - bait-and-switch is an awful thing to think about hospitals

[Buttercup McToots]

2. Well, jeeeze...

If we can raise $ for I don't know how many dozens of roses why can't we raise money for causes like this...
It's a 7 year old childs life!!
:cry:

[ck4829]

3. But we have the best health care system in the world! Right?

Apparently Mexico has that great health care system too.

[Warpy]

7. Mexico has national health

and the article states very clearly that Mexico was paying for the procedure.

Yes, even MEXICO has national health insurance.

Getting the picture, folks?

[gollygee]

4. What reason did the hospital give for doubling the price?

I'm surprised the article didn't say that.

[Blue Diadem]

5. I'm curious about that too.

I'm going to check some newspaper links to see if there is another article somewhere.

[Blue Diadem]

11. I had a hard time getting to the video, but finally was able to view it

and it sounds like the price was jacked up only because the Mexican gov. said they'd cover the cost.

I couldn't find any other articles about it.

[gollygee]

14. Oh well that sucks

"A whole country can afford more so we'll charge more"

Supply/demand. *sigh*

[Blue Diadem]

18. The country is only paying $500,000..the rest either the family will raise or

if the child is strong enough, they will attempt to transport him to Pa for the surgery(the hospital there still only wants $500,000) or they will go home to Mexico.

I don't call this supply/demand. The hospital gave a price, only when the country agreed to pay it did the amount suddenly go up. We're talking about a child's life.

[gollygee]

19. It shouldn't be supply demand

but it looks like that's what's happened. They came up with the money easily, so it seemed their supply was good, so the price went up because they knew the demand was high. It's extraordinarily sad.

[dogday]

6. This goes so far beyond supply and demand...

Profit for people's lives.. Isn't that a quaint idea.... :sarcasm:

[gollygee]

9. Yeah, it sounds like they thought "We got the first $500k easily - I bet we can get more"

but the story didn't give the reason the hospital gave for doubling the bill. I wish they'd given that information. It's a pretty big hole in the story.

[TahitiNut]

8. Well, it sounds like it's a seller's market in our good ol' free market health care system.

Isn't that just special? :puke:

[notadmblnd]

10. It is totally unreasonable

it should not cost that much

Transplant expense
Organ Cost Range Average Cost
Heart $50,000 - $287,000 $148,000
Kidney $25,000 - $130,000 $51,000
Liver $66,000 - $367,000 $235,000
Pancreas $51,000 - $135,000 $70,000
Heart/Lung $135,000 - $250,000 $210,000

Source: Battelle Institute/Seattle Research Center

[Deep13]

12. Not trying to justify it, but...

...hospitals often take a hit on these kind of things when there is only a partial payment available or none. They try to make up for it when payment is available.

This is a further argument for nationalized health care. Foreigners would not be screwed if hospitals were not always in the red.

[w4rma]

13. That's what I was thinking. I can't imagine how many times hospitals get stiffed on their bill.

That has to affect, negatively, the cost of every other procedure that they do get paid for.

They wouldn't get stiffed if we had nationalized health care.

[silverlib]

15. Exactly,

and that is why more and more health care professionals are backing a single payer health system. The (professional/decent) doctors are tired of not being able to do their jobs. Even when they are willing to do the procedures for free, the hospitals and labs and pharmacies are not and the patients go without needed treatment. The private hospitals are making the money by picking and choosing their patients (with money) and the public hospitals are going under. This group is waking up to the fact that with a single payer system, they are assured of payment and this would level out the losses of patients who refuse to pay or simply cannot afford to pay.

[johnnie]

16. Just *one* of the reasons I'm not a doner

And I'm sure this isn't the only time this kind of thing has happened.

[mudesi]

17. Supply and Demand

This is what you get when you have for profit health care. The corporation doesn't include the cost of a human life in its financial statement. The $500,000 price tag simply reflects the supply and demand intersection for the commodity, in this case, a human heart.