An x-ray such as this could cost more than $500 (Credit: dah (J E)/Flickr Creative Commons)
With the upholding of the Affordable Care Act , many South L.A. residents are expected to have health insurance by 2014. To put things in perspective, below are the charges for which an uninsured patient would be responsible at Good Samaritan Hospital in L.A., just miles away from many folks on the southside:
– A blood transfusion costs $1,500 per day
– A sling (for a broken bone, for example) costs $47
– Oxygen costs $28 an hour
– A mother giving birth who requires a Cesarean section is charged $1,600
– General anesthesia, per case, costs $2,000
If someone were to have a heart attack:
– An angiogram (picture) costs $1,700
– The placement of a coronary stent (possible solution for heart attack) costs $7,300 each
– Wheelchair management (a tutorial on how to use it) costs $110 for every 15 minutes
– A patient that has a room requiring a ventilator would be charged around $3,000
– An intensive care unit room can cost anywhere from $4,300 to $9,000, depending on how much supervision a patient requires
– A chest X-ray from two different angles costs $530
On average, someone who goes to the emergency room with a moderate issue is charged $1,500. Someone who has a severe ailment is charged around $2,200.
This data is from June 2011.
