Most Trusted Name? CNN Runs Outrageous Health Care Tale
CNN recently published the story of Godfrey Davies, an American without health insurance who wanted to have his nasal polyps removed: “I can’t afford surgery in the U.S, says bargain shopper.”
Davies says he got several “bids” from independent doctors, as well as from hospitals. The cheapest price he could find in the U.S. was $33,127 for the entire procedure, but Davies claims he was eventually able to locate a doctor and hospital in the UK that would perform the procedure for approximately $3,500. Davies, originally from Wales, said:
I can put up with a lot of inconvenience to save that kind of money.
In accompanying video, CNN’s Elizabeth Cohen and Davies parked alongside Northside ENT in Indianapolis. Davies stated that this was his first stop, and where he was quoted the $34,000 fee. CNN claims they followed up with Northside ENT and received the following email:
We inadvertently provided an incorrect quote for the consumer. The actual price was less than half of what we initially quoted.
Does Godfrey Davies have no insurance, and was he actually quoted an exorbitant amount from a hospital for what should be an outpatient procedure? Did he actually go to Wales for his nasal surgery?
I don’t know, but the remainder of the story is just not true.
While it’s very expensive to have a nasal polypectomy at a major hospital, the same procedure could be performed at a surgery center anywhere in the U.S. — including Indianapolis — for a lot less. Less than Davies claims the procedure cost in Wales, in fact.
CNN has been running very low on truth for some time. Basically the amount of truth in their “news” has resembled the pulse of a patient on an overdose of digoxin. Slower and slower and slower. You keep wondering if the last little blip of truth will be the last as they slide over into becoming MSNBC II.
I don’t know about you, Dr. Weiss but this patient looks terminal and their refusal to admit they even have a problem has further endangered their health.
Is it time to counsel them about comfort measures?
CNN (Caliphate News Network) is a Marxo-Islamist network dedicated to advancing Socialism, destroying America and bringing about a second Shoah.
This is just propaganda aimed at their radical leftist and radical jihadist base. Nobody besides the radicals voluntarily watches them.
“Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.”
In an example such as this, the above is a ridiculous constraint. CNN is a miserable dishonest piece of ________.
Fill in on your own.
all other health care reporting produced by this outlet needs to be more thoroughly examined.
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No, it just needs to be ignored. Like everything else from CNN.
Which, fortunately, more and more people are doing. Their ratings are tanking.
Is the point of this article to indicate that CNN was wrong, gave a story that was incorrect, or was it to let us know that anyone with or without health insurance can simply get treatment in clinics and not have concerns about cost?
After all, the writer was an advisor to a candidate who opposed health care reform when it came up for voting.
Fred, I’ll humor your snark as if it were honest ignorance.
First, the point of this article was highlight CNN’s reporting that was, at best, woefully negligent of the due dilligence one might expect from even a high school reporter or, at worst, deceptive and misleading by design and intent. Regardless of one’s predisposition toward “health care reform,” I would hope all of us could agree that a meanigful and useful opinion is best reached by honest disclosure and discussion of FACT, not gross misrepresentation, as this clearly was.
Second, as Monty pointed out, there is a vast difference between “oppos[ing] health care reform” and opposing a specific piece of legislation that proposes specific contentious measures to do so. Further, the author’s role in advising Sen. McCain was clearly stated in the biography, a more open disclosure of possible journalistic predisposition than CNN has even made.
Calling the cost-increasing, liberty-decreasing monstrosity “health care reform” reform is similar to how Stalin “reformed” the Ukraine by starving millions. An honest description of the Democrat’s notion of health insurance “reform” is government takeover. And, as the recent realization of the expansion of 1099′s show, extensions of federal intrusions into even more of private life.
And, as this article and many others demonstrate, the people have been repeatedly lied to regarding both the cost as well as the justification for this takeover. The costs in this article were an order of magnitude higher than reported. And all it took was a couple of phone calls to invalidate Davies’ lame propaganda attempt.
But the procedure described here will soon cost $34,000. Just wait until all of the price controls and cost controls embedded in the health care reform monstrosity are in place…
I hope that Fred is still here to see this comment. I fear though that the troll has gone.
The last two sentences, I believe, offer incredible insight to the inevitable.
Be very, very afraid.
I know Fred. He is no troll. But he is pretty much a lefty. I still like him.
You can find out more about him by searching Fred Lapides Good where you will find his blog “Extra Good ****” which is NSFW.
I can only say that the level of rock-headedness in your comment fits your surname perfectly.
There is a great deal of justification lacking for Obamacare. But not to worry, CNN et. al. WILL justify it, with LIES. Look for many more stories like this in the near future on network news, not just CNN or MSNBC. Your local news rag will run repeated specials highlighting the plight of uninsured (mine already does). The topic will start to crop up in popular TV programs as well, if it hasn’t already. By the time Obow-ma is shown the door, the healthcare lie will be commonly accepted as truth and you then cannot go back to the dabate about “Do we really need it?”; you will only be able to debate “How much do we really need?”. The Republican party has already conceeded on the issue!
This is not unlike the reporting we were seeing last year about the cost savings of preventative medicine. Anyone with a basic understanding of math will realize that mandating colonoscopies for everyone to catch colon cancer that occurs in 1% of the population is not a cost cutting measure… or even possible.
The end result of such “preventative care” in Canada and the UK is rationed preventative care that makes everyone wait on excessively long waiting lists rather than provide the diagnostic tools to those who actually would get immediate benefits (ie. those with symptoms, or family history to warrant the screening).
It ends up saving money by limiting care, not eliminating disease. And becomes a LESS useful preventative measure in the process.
Fred: There is a very big difference between opposing “health care reform” and opposing the monstrosity regurgitated by this corrupt Congress.
Fred, I think the point of this article is really very clear. Do you dispute the facts of the article? Your ad hominem attack is irrelevant.
Certified Nasty Newstwisters is a sociopathic collective incapable of truthtelling. Rattlesnakes hatch bird eggs more frequently than CNN tells it like it is. But there is an upside. Some sources say that, in one of the deepest pits of Hell, one is forced to watch CNN continually, for all eternity. Reportedly, the screams of anguish from that sector are more heartrending than from any other. The pit is located somewhere on the left hand of God.
You are correct – That hellish place is called Atlanta Hartsfield Airport.
The MSM is not just innocently biased anymore; today, they are out and out liars — and all to prop up a political party and agenda. Guess which one… when you lose the press to demagoguery on one side, your country is in serious peril.
I’m impressed that anyone could get a quote. The last time I went to a specialist I asked how much they charge a cash customer. The receptionist didn’t know. Billing didn’t know. Two days later I got someone to call me back but they gave me the wrong amount.
A basic reason for difficulty in finding a cash quote from most doctors is that, if they take Medicare, it is illegal to offer a price for a service that Medicare covers that is less than the Medicare price. The second part of this problem is that Medicare then pays the doctor from 10% to 25% of that price. Thus, if a doctor participates in Medicare, the cash price they MUST quote is four times or more higher than Medicare pays. Most insurance companies follow Medicare’s lead although they pay at a higher level, not full price, mind you, but somewhat higher.
This is the reason so many doctors are dropping Medicare and some are dropping all insurance. That includes many specialists who choose to charge a cash price that is equal to the Medicare payment. The difference is that they don’t have to wait two years to receive the check and they can lower overhead because they no longer need a half dozen employees to bill all the insurance companies.
When I retired from surgical practice some years ago, I had 276 different contracts with insurance companies and various HMOs. All had differing co-pays and preauthorization rules. We needed a computer system just to keep track. I was once fined $500 by an HMO for sending a $16 lab test to the “wrong” lab.
There is a growing trend of doctors dropping out of the whole insurance system and going to cash practice. Massachusetts is now trying to pass a law to make that illegal so you know it must be getting momentum.
As good as the comments are on this article, yours is the best.
CNN = terrorist ministry of propaganda. C 1989
…had a procedure in the hospital…three day stay cash price = $30,000. Insurance paid the hospital $2,500…(do not remember exact number)…Doctor bill was the same ratio…If the cash price were the same as the hospital takes from insurance, we would not need health insurance…
In Canada, the cash price to see a doctor is the same as the co-pay amount in the USA…
Canada wait times can vary from a few days to a long time. I think the key is being referred and perceived as a real patient and not a real/perceived law suit seeker, but I am not sure. I know some get a colonoscopy scheduled in a few weeks, and emergency care is quick; hypochondriacs wait and wait for sure.
Bubblehead predicts it will pop up in TV shows. It already has. I watched Law and Order SVU the other night for the first time in a long time. The female head detective apparently has (had?) cancer, and it shows her and her husband wondering how to pay for the cancer treatment that she either needs, or has already gotten. How ridiculous. A senior member of the New York Police Department, and of course a member of the police department union, doesn’t have complete coverage for major medical? Not likely.
This is exactly why I stopped watching the otherwise very enjoyable Law and Order shows. They are determined to preach…unfortunately, I don’t pray to their god.
Actually, I found that CNN’s coverage of Saddam’s rape rooms and living conditions in Baghdad to be excellent. I still don’t know how CNN got access to that country when most professional news organizations weren’t let in. Did they have some kind of clever arrangement that got them access?
And just look at CNN.com! All the truth you can handle! About American Idol, Paris Hilton, how to keep your lover satisfied, top ten ways to prove he’s cheating!
Fred: the point is that CNN is lying. And that point was proven. You seem to think someone has no credibility because they took the view that Obamacare was a bad idea. So you think the majority of Americans have no right to criticize someone who is willing to lie.
That’s how disgusting your partisanship is. Get over it, and try to find a more honest source or news.
Here’s another example: CNN’s Rick Sanchez was responsible for spreading the false story that General Petraeus had said that Israel’s failure to make progress on the peace process was putting American lives at risk. After the story went viral, General Petraeus set the record straight that the whole story was “flat wrong” and had been made up by a blogger known to sympathize with Hezbollah and Hamas terrorists. CNN’s Sanchez described the blogger as a “solid reporter” and presented his false claims as fact.
Unfortunatly, like the terrrorist ministry of propaganda (aka:cnn) General Petraeus does not love us (Israel) I suggest you pull up his comments in full, maybe c-span…
Peter, your points are well taken and the figures that you publish are in line with those here in D.C. I would urge you to contact CNN and demand an audience to refute their rediculous “reporting”. CNN will undoubtedly deny you the pleasure of fact-checking and you should make this known.
Will be interesting to see if cnn acknowledges this. They won’t.
Thank God for fair and balanced fox news.
The news is the news.
The mainstream media continue to erode their credibility with lies and stupidity. If you were sitting at home and watched that story, would you *really* believe nasal polyp removal costs $34,000? Americans are smarter than that and can smell bullshit ten miles away.
This is why CNN has no viewers.
So, you’re saying that CNN made up the story with bogus numbers and never attempted to check the actual cost possibilities for this type of surgery in the USA? …. and your point is?
Who listens to or pays attention to CNN these days?
The plain fact is that healthcare costs are several orders of magnitude greater than the income of a middleclass American. You all know that, but instead of admitting it and trying to help your desperate fellow citizens avoid bankruptcy for medical costs, you cruise the news looking for discrepancies, ignoring the simple facts–like this one: 60% of all bankruptcies in this country are due to medical costs. That’s obscene. And it’s a fact. But it doesn’t bother you, apparently.
The best part in this one is that it’s
(a) clear you don’t have a single fact here
(b) clearly think you’ve got facts that are half-remembered talking points that you don’t even get right (like the 60 percent of bankruptcies one, which actually overstates even the most liberal numbers, and is something more than double the probable real number)
(c) clearly haven’t bothered to ask yourself “if most Americans have health care bills that are orders or magnitude greater than their income, where exactly is the money supposed to come from for government health care?” and
(d) aren’t real clear on what an “order of magnitude” is.
Citation? I hear this a lot, but I don’t believe it for a moment. I think it’s arrived at by assuming every bankrupt who leaves behind an unpaid doctor bill was driven into bankruptcy by that doctor bill, not by his lost job and his underwater mortgage. Thanks, Charlie Martin, for putting a pin in this balloon.
Agreed. I work in the billing office of a hospital and a lot of the folks who present us a bankruptcy notice were well known by the local collection agency long before they ever incurred that hospital bill.
Shef, you do realize that 85% of Americans actually DO have either public or private healthcare insurance to cover most of those “several orders of magnitude” higher healthcare costs…
And you DO realize there’s a difference between opposing healthcare reform and opposing Obamacare, no? Or is Obamacare the ONLY possible solution to our healthcare problems?
Insofar as that 60% medical bankruptcies number, it came from a 2 shoddy papers by David Himmelstein (2005 and 2009) -repeated by CNN, of course…. The 2009 paper assumed a bankruptcy was “medically related” if individuals had either had more than $5,000 (or 10% of their pretax income) in medical bills, or mortgaged their home to pay for medical bills -regardless whether this was the primary reason for declaring bankruptcy or not. In other words, an individual making $40,000 a year who had $4,000 in medical bills- but also had $10,000 in credit card bills- would be deemed to have had a “medically related” bankruptcy. Yeah… Also included were those who lost significant income due to an illness. But loss of wages -for whatever reason- will drive people into bankruptcy. Even if healthcare were free, many of these folks could go under. Thus, the paper’s definition included people whose main problem was not that they were sick (i.e. a “medically related” reason), but rather that they weren’t generating income.
Here’s a great review: http://www.aei.org/speech/100071
“The reason for the high number… is partly driven by the fact that the authors ascribe any remotely medical factor as causing the bankruptcy filing, not just medical debts. The survey results shown [in the study] clearly state that only 29 percent of the respondents believed that their bankruptcy was actually caused by medical bills. However, the authors chose to add to this number the percent of people who lost weeks of work due to illness, the percent of people with more than $5000 in medical bills, and the percent of people reporting any medical problems. This is clearly an overstatement of the problem.”
Contrast that to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, a comprehensive, longitudinal study on bankruptcies. The primary reasons for declaring bankruptcy in this study were:
High credit card bills: 42% -another 9% ascribed it as a secondary reason
Job loss: 13%
Divorce/separation: 12%
Medical bills: 9% -another 7% ascribed it as a secondary reason
Illness/injury 6%
Unfortunately, having high credit card bills is just not as sensational as having crushing medical bills drive you into bankruptcy. So CNN will run with the latter any day of the week.