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Goddamn. This is probably why prostate cancer is sky rocketing. I am pretty sure I got it, but I doubt I can afford to get checked. Wothless fucking life anyway.
I saw someone else in another thread post they weren’t too expensive (relatively) to get checked. I think someone said something like $1500 uninsured in USA, and googles AI answer says on average $2400.
Not cheap, but it’s not some crazy $20,000 bill kinda thing.
Nobody who can’t afford insurance can afford 2400
I don’t think that’s true.
Health insurance is expensive in the US. Many sites indicate an average monthly cost in the $400-$600 range, and given it’s average also means it can be even higher.
That’s $4800 - $7200 a year, vs a 1 time $2400 if they are in the average cost area for a colonoscopy.
It’s not great, many people can’t afford that either, but it’s not true that if you can’t afford insurance, you can’t afford $2400
Pricing is far more complicated with the old having Medicare, many of the poorest having subsidies some free, and others a range of plans mostly at least somewhat subsidized by employers.
We are a fat unhealthy folk in a country where a single hospitalization can run you 10-100k and financially ruin you due in no small part to cartel pricing.
So your various medical providers have negotiated given rates for given things that are less special rates and more what you might consider normal pricing whereas if you are not protected by such a “deal” you may pay several times more at hundreds of percent profit for the provider with the expectation that you pay up front for services or die essentially so long as your death isn’t immediately caused by their immediate neglect. Eg you can’t be allowed to actually bleed out for lack of a stitch but you can be allowed to get septic and then be admitted after it’s really too late to do anything but try to bill your family 100k and steal any inheritance from your estate if any.
So you are incentivized to buy at least the shittiest high deductible plan with an 8000 deductible just to have access to sane pricing, get treated and then billed, and limit max damage if things go bad even if you expect to not actually get much direct benefit. Plus favorable tax treatment paid in.
Whilst some may choose to risk it being literally incapable of paying a subsidized 100-300 for the shittiest plan possible means that you are poor in a state which doesn’t choose to subsidize the poor and likely illiquid. Most people in America don’t have 2500 to cover am emergency of any variety. This is true of nearly 100% of the bottom half
Furthermore anyone who needs a colonoscopy needs other things like annual checkups and medication.
The number of people who can cash pay the sucker uninsured rate but not shitty insurance is basically zero
If I’m reading this right, you’re saying there are cheaper insurance options, but the deductible would be so high it wouldn’t cover this $2400 anyway? It’s just more catastrophic things, like if this came back positive and now you needed surgery?
And ya, even if you have $2400 and think the test is important to take because you have reason to believe you might have it, it doesn’t mean you’d be able to afford the aftercare.
You are missing the primary part. Without insurance it costs several times more than it would with insurance.
Not an uninsured colonoscopy, that is the uninsured price on average.
Edit: i get youre saying it’d be cheaper if insured, but when talking about this specific thing that is the price.
