Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) said:Antihero (Forum Supporter) said:Ive driven the roads here for 20 plus years and have the best tires you can get for these conditions. If I'm driving slow your Subaru with no seasons should be driving even slower
That is awesome
In reply to Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) :
Yeah, that's pretty much a perfect description.
In reply to Scott_H :
I'm in commission sales and can make all the money I want but our branch is screwed up so more means a lot of headaches. A fricking lot!
Management pushes for more business but I just let them know "I'm working on it" but really I've lost my enthusiasm for this place.
Once a manager went around the table and asked - what would you fix here? Many departments or processes were mentioned. Doh! Later I thought - fix the morale - everyone's pissed and annoyed with this place.
Make this make sense. And Mark Cuban's pharmacy is even cheaper than Amazon.
Make this make sense. How is it more expensive with insurance than without?
In reply to mtn :
I had to have a nuclear stress test several years ago. The in-network copay was $1700. I had the test done at an out-of-network doctor's office for $300 cash. It took 5 minutes on the phone to save $1400.
It's a shell game. The doctors and hospitals purposely hide the actual cost of services behind a copay to keep the patients in the dark. I do love the confused look on their faces when I ask what the price of a service is. I love the look on their faces when I tell them I'm going to have to make a few phone calls and see if I can get a better price. I honestly think doctors and hospitals are worse than used car salesmen when it comes to shuffling numbers and treat them accordingly.
You price shop for tires, phones, and just about everything else in life. Why not medical care. Until people pay attention to what their medical care actually costs, it won't get any better.
In reply to Toyman! :
Most doctors/hospitals/medical care places I've been to as an adult let you make payments, especially on big ticket item, like open heart surgery or gluing an arm back on.
Not one dentist I've been to as an adult will do the same. Not one. Mr. Appleseed, you have 3 cavities, 3 missing molars, you need 2 crowns, and a root canal, why haven't you been in to see us?
Motherberkeleyer, I've got the monetary equivalent of a new Hyundai Elantra worth of work in my mouth and you want payment in full. That's why.
In reply to Appleseed :
Yes, they (hospitals) will.
The dentist will at least tell you upfront what the price will be. They even have a price sheet that lists what a cleaning costs, or a cavity, or a crown.
Ask the hospital in advance what that heart surgery will cost. You will get a bunch of waffling and a blank stare. And it's not because they don't know the costs, it's because they don't want you to know. They will tell you what your out-of-pocket max is or what your copay is, but they will not give you a hard number. That way they can charge the big numbers and by the time you see them, you get to make that monthly payment for decades.
Edited for clarity.
Toyman! said:In reply to Appleseed :
Yes, they (hospitals) will.
The dentist will at least tell you upfront what the price will be. They even have a price sheet that lists what a cleaning costs, or a cavity, or a crown.
Ask the hospital in advance what that heart surgery will cost. You will get a bunch of waffling and a blank stare. And it's not because they don't know the costs, it's because they don't want you to know. They will tell you what your out-of-pocket max is or what your copay is, but they will not give you a hard number. That way they can charge the big numbers and by the time you see them, you get to make that monthly payment for decades.
Edited for clarity.
I had the weirdest experience during Tunawife's surgery last time. I got a phone call out of the blue from Emory hospital: "Hello Tuna, this is randoaccountant from Emory, we don't have the details yet but your wife's surgery bills are starting to come in, and the total cost to you is $Texas but if you pay today it's only $New Mexico" So I did, after brief checking to make sure it was really Emory. It happened three times, and all told, I saved some $5K by being able to pay immediately.
I do not understand why or how.
In reply to Toyman! :
I had to get an MRI about 10-15 years ago. It was right when HSAs were a new thing. Knowing that I'd be paying for it with my own funds, I asked them "And how much does that cost?".
Silence.
"Excuse me?"
I mean, like, as thought I had come up with the most irrational question that could ever be asked. And they had absolutely no way of telling me. "Well, we'll just send it to your insurance".
When I called my insurance company to ask them what it would cost - because the doctor's office said they couldn't tell me, I'd have to talk to Anthem - I was told that they were not allowed to tell me because that was confidential information. Now understand that after I had my MRI, Anthem was going to send me an EOB that stated in black and white what my portion of the bill was going to be. It's not like I wasn't going to find out.
I will say that in the intervening years, they have gotten a lot better about it. There's even a website I can go to where I can search providers based on what Anthem has negotiated as a cost.
In reply to tuna55 :
I had that with my hernia surgery about a year ago. Only in that case, they called me before the surgery and offered me a pretty major discount to pay up front. I took that deal in a heartbeat, although I was a little concerned that they were worried that something would happen that I wouldn't be around to pay up afterwards....
I don't think the blame, at this point, should really be on the hospitals. They definitely have a significant impact, but to me this is obfuscation by the insurance companies to cover up the fact that medical care is a E36 M3ty use case for insurance. My wife can tell you exactly how much a consult from her costs because she's a bariatric dietitian, and her services are elective. Same with the surgeons. They make the hospital money. Their pricing is pretty damn black and white, assuming you don't go through insurance. Include insurance, and it gets berkeleyed to high heaven.
mtn said:Make this make sense. How is it more expensive with insurance than without?
Health insurance has to spend a certain percentage of their intake on claims. By inflating the claims and letting hospitals make more profit, they in turn can make more profit as well.
It's like car sales. You're not the customer, you're a cog in the wheel. The main two players are the insurance companies and the health care providers.
Example one
Example two
There is another example about how somebody was hired to reduce costs for a state plan in Montana or Idaho or one of the Dakotas or something, and they negotiated down to the Medicare fixed rates and saved the plan a metric berkeleyton of money. I'm too lazy to look it up.
conspiracy theories make me upset
A combo of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" and paranoid and unwilling to accept the world for what it is.
The latest silly is people saying they would never drive an EV because something something free market something something politics, as if oil subsidies, automaker bailouts, unionized workforces, chicken taxes and other strange import taxes never existed. As if EV=socialism and ICE=capitalism. The same people that were yelling about conspiracy theories within the oil industry are now clamoring for more. It's all very sad.
In reply to tuna55 :
You're not wrong. As far as conspiracies, the only one I really believe is that those in power are working to keep the little guys at each other's throats and are profiting off both sides. Unfortunately, they're really good at pushing folks to farther and farther extremes and getting them to dig their heels in more along the way.
tuna55 said:A combo of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" and paranoid and unwilling to accept the world for what it is.
The latest silly is people saying they would never drive an EV because something something free market something something politics, as if oil subsidies, automaker bailouts, unionized workforces, chicken taxes and other strange import taxes never existed. As if EV=socialism and ICE=capitalism. The same people that were yelling about conspiracy theories within the oil industry are not clamoring for more. It's all very sad.
This is infuriating. I don't think I can respond and add to this without politics, so I'll just say that the tribal nature of it, unwillingness to ever admit that maybe the other "side" is right about something, has degenerated discussion so much that it is pointless now.
A coworker of mine had his wife leave him after 11 years and three kids for a guy she started working with a month ago, which, hey, that sucks. But, dear god, I do not need to hear the play-by-play every morning. He seriously walks around the shop and tells everyone the latest development, which is something like "Well, she came over last night to drop off the kids and was all over me and told me she's not seeing that guy anymore, but then I go to drop the kids off today and he's there at her apartment." Dude, I don't want to tell you that I don't give a berkeley, but I do not give a berkeley.
In reply to NickD :
Sounds like his wife is the one giving the berkeleys
In reply to NickD :
That’s a hard thing to deal with.
I generally give someone in a position like that around three months of a kind ear.
The end of third month small harmless jokes get made. Start of month four I tell them I don’t want to hear about this.
You never know what someone else is going through. Even if they try to tell you.
Ive known strong men that lost everything they ever worked for. Most dealt with it very destructively.
I found a place that had Bilstein HDs for an A2 Golf for $117.
I cannot find them again.
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
Tire rack had them on sale last week
In reply to NickD :
Think of what will happen if he bottled that up.
I bought a new riding mower for $2000.a couple of years ago.
It has under forty hours on it.
Wht the berkeley does it need transmission work???? Really? Essentially brand new mower, and no gears. berkeleying berkeley.
Dusterbd13-michael said:I bought a new riding mower for $2000.a couple of years ago.
It has under forty hours on it.
Wht the berkeley does it need transmission work???? Really? Essentially brand new mower, and no gears. berkeleying berkeley.
Probably a tuff torq, they designed it with metal gears but to make it hit the price point it was made with PLASTIC gears. Usually you can drain it and refill with 10w50 racing oil and it'll work fine. Or buy the metal gears and install them.
In reply to chandler :
Its a hydro trans. Apparently an rs800. From a Google search, it appears that best case scenario i pull the trans out, tear it down, and hopefully all the linkages under the debris shield are packed solid witn dirt and hardened grass clippings. Thats best case....
Add rug burn to the list of things you don't want to get on your hootus.
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