My $2,374 cut-thumb emergency room bill

A few weeks back, I wrote about the surprisingly speedy service I received at John Muir Medical Center's emergency room. This was on a Sunday evening after I went in for a thumb I sliced with a potato peeler. The bleeding wouldn't stop after several hours, so I figured I had to go to the emergency room to have a doctor look at it. 

I feared that a cut thumb would be very low on the emergency department's priority list, and that I'd end up sitting in the waiting room for hours.  Instead, I was seen right away. My wound was cleaned out, I received a bandage, and I was out of the hospital in an hour. I've since learned that John Muir, yes, has instituted a new system for managing the flow of its patients in its emergency room. It identifies easy to treat patients, like I was that night, and gets them into an exam room as quickly as possible, to be seen, treated, and discharged. This system helps keeps the emergency room from backing up and lets the staff focus on more serious cases.

The bill came, and I was curious, to say the least, that the total bill is for $2,374. For an hour's service. Wow!

I'm not freaking out about it because my private health insurance covers all of that amount, except for the $100 co-pay that I paid at the time of treatment. My initial thought upon receive this bill: My health insurance damn well better cover this ER visit.

That's because for the past year or so, my family and I have been picking up a huge share of my employer-provided Health Net medical coverage--to the tune of $1,400 a month. We chose this somewhat more costly Health Net route because we wanted to maintain continuity of coverage for my husband who has a chronic health condition.

With these kinds of ER costs, I can imagine the person who would be reluctant to go in for something like a cut thumb--or even something more serioius--if they had to pay much higher out-of-pocket costs.
Of course, the health care reform bill was just signed last month. I know I should be more of a health care policy wonk. If I were, I might understand how the health care overhaul might reduce this kind of cost for an emergency room visit--to my insurance company or to me.

According to HealthReform.gov, the health care reform is supposed to make health care "affordable and accessible for everyone." The argument is that by expanding health insurance to all Americans, "and creating caps on the health care expenses that people pay out of pocket, health insurance reform will make health care affordable to everyone.  ... Premiums are high, in part, because of the 'hidden insurance tax' of more than $1,000 for unpaid costs of care of the uninsured."

If any health care policy wonks--pro and con--want to chime in. If you have suggestions of anyone to bug, who might be able to tell me whether health care reform will reduced the costs of a cut-thumb visit, please let me know.