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I’d be dead in America.
Affording the treatment wouldn’t have been an issue, because I wouldn’t have been able to afford the diagnosis.
When I was 19 I had thought I had appendicitis. I went to the emergency room. Once there I waited 3 hours to see a doctor while in pain. They see me, do a MRI scan, find nothing but want me to stay overnight to ensure nothing happens. The pain subsided and I left the following day.
It turned out I wasn’t on my Dad’s insurance anymore and I was billed. At 19, 1.5 years out of the house. I had 15k in debt.
Welcome to America.
Is this a joke I am too not-American to understand?
Yeah. The bill is real but st judes is a charity hospital. Joking the only way to pay his debt is rob a charity
I still don’t get it. Is 100k the bill or his account balance after the bill was payed? And if it is the bill why is it listed under “other adjustments”?
I think 100k is the amount he still owes. Looks like he had a follow up or something that added $250 and insurance covered $175. Context is he had a seizure in the shower and was in the hospital for a month. A lot of plans you have co insurance after hitting your deductible where you split any further costs with the insurance company say 80/20. So it’s possible he only ends up paying $20k of that, or his bill was much higher and $100k is what he owes after co insurance
Usually there’s still an out of pocket max, like $5000.
But I guess that could depend on your insurance
It’s such a scam and the people voting against universal care are the same ones who complain they don’t go to the doctor because it’s too expensive
Most of the people voting against universal healthcare are comfortably middle class and want to protect their ~premium coverage~ or they’re on Medicare. Few people struggling to afford healthcare even vote lol
And tons and tons are poor in red srates
No, most of the poor in red states don’t vote. That’s universally true across the country - there’s a small minority that do, but they’re not the ones stopping universal healthcare. It’s business owners, landlords, wealthy blue collar workers, farmers, and retirees.
This myth that the poor vote for their own oppression is something made up to make you hate poor people.
It is when I see this that I am grateful for having been born in a country with 100% public and universal health
I had a medical emergency yesterday that may me realize how lucky I am to live in Canada.
I’m getting weekly immunotherapy allergy shots (which are also covered by the free healthcare here) and I had a bad reaction to a shot. They needed to give me 2 epipens and some ventilator drug and stretchered me in an ambulance to the hospital where I waited about 5-10 min (I was stable at this point) for a private room. They kept me there for like 4 hours with IV drip and prescribed me another EpiPen.
Total cost was 0 with no questions asked. I know for non life threatening injuries like broken bones you might be waiting a few hours to get in, but I’d rather it be like that then have the possibility of going in massive debt.
I know for non life threatening injuries like broken bones you might be waiting a few hours to get in, but I’d rather it be like that then have the possibility of going in massive debt.
It’s not as if waiting times here in the US are any better. (In fact, they can be worse, since the profit motive has e.g. been causing rural ERs to close entirely.)
Make no mistake: us here in the States aren’t choosing to pay more to get better healthcare; we’re being forced to pay more to get absolutely fuck-all in return except for the unjust enrichment of insurance industry middlemen.
As an American I never understood the “you have to wait longer in Canada” argument. My sibling almost cut off a few of their fingers and was bleeding profusely and had to wait with a rag around their fingers for almost 4 hours in the ER before they got seen. This is in the US. I’ve had past partners waiting in large amounts of pain for upwards of 10 hours in the ER too (thankfully I brought some bugles to snack on). It’s a problem in general, I’d rather it at least be free
He should ask for an itemized bill. Then he might only owe 50 grand…
Somebody should make a law to make itemized bills obligatory for hospitals, but I guess that counts as communism as well 🤷
Here’s my American Healthcare story:
- snap finger bone, go to urgent care to get splint
- pay 50ish dollars that day
- 2 months later, get bill for 200 dollars
- ahah! everyone says to ask for an itemized bill! do that
- get itemized bill back that claims the 200 charge is for ‘visiting with a doctor with knowledge of medical history’ (paraphrasing)
- contest charge because I did not see a doctor, and splinting a snapped finger does not require any fucking context at all
- get runaround for 2 months, while being threatened with late fees
- finally they say they will adjust the bill
- get new bill for $201, ‘for a visit that did not include a doctor’ (no fucking joke)
welcome the USA, where healthcare operations are scams
(these are just 2 of the scams in my state, thanks to shell companies when one is shut, another opens)
edit: and in case anyone thinks I paid that shit, I didn’t. I sent them a polite version of a ‘fuck you’ reply. Then covid hit and I never heard from them again.
Mine was when I cut the tip of my finger off… Bottle broke and sliced my middle finger from the middle of the nail down to the corner. Only thing holding it on was the nail itself. I go to urgent care because it’s closer than the hospital. The doc soaks it in iodine and alcohol, checks for glass, then says he can stitch or glue it. He opts for glue. I get a wrap and splint to protect it, “keep it dry and unwrap it in a few weeks to make sure it took.” Couple weeks go by and I get a bill. $8,000 for superglue and a bandage! A little less than 1/4 of what I made in a year at the time. Best part? “Payment in full is expected one month from receipt.”
Fucking greedy bastards…
Meanwhile, I was hospitalized due to covid and bronchitis combo, paid less than 20 dollars because Government covered all my ass.
And I am in a third world country.
Meanwhile in austria even the dentist is covered
The UK used to have that. This year, 98-99% of NHS dentists shut down or became private. Conservatives, eh?
American healthcare is a fucking joke.
I’m so lucky that I live in a country where it’s covered and I don’t have to worry if i get sick.
St Jude’s is a charity hospital that does not charge patients or their families. They accept insurance payments only and the rest is covered as charity.
No big deal. You have until August. Just skip the avocado toast until then and you’ll be fine.
fuck america and its dogshit insurance scam industry 🖕 cannot wait for this shitstain country to collapse
A country collapsing wouldn’t exactly make things easier for its people. I’d prefer just fixing the problem, y’know.
America has proven time and time again that it can’t be “fixed”, it’s rotten from the ground up. The longer it stays around the more people it harms. My entire life has been nothing but financial crisis after financial crisis, war after war, a rapidly deteriorating climate, all in the name of profits, and nobody in power seems to want to do jack shit about it. The only way to fix it is to dismantle the structures of power and replace it with a structure where capital doesn’t pull the strings.
Insurance companies are a joke. I hate it here. I worked at a certain restaurant for years who make an entire thing out of getting donations for St. Judes a few weeks a year. What are we donating for if people still get bills like this?
This isn’t a bill from st judes but you should know you were just soliciting a tax write off for your company. That’s why they do that stuff
The company doesn’t get to tax write off other peoples donations.
You think so huh?
Why don’t you show me any proof otherwise if you know so much.
In fact if you have any proof otherwise why don’t you send it to the IRS they pay actual bounties on actionable tips on tax evasion.
They make a donation and use people’s money to cover the cost
No. That isn’t how it works either. Well they might use that to meet the pr pledge but that isn’t the same as taking the deduction.
As I told the other person if you actual have any proof to back that up report it to the IRS and collect your bounty.
Yesh the article I linked mentions a tiktok/meme that went around 2 years ago probably where I got it. Basically misinterprets companies getting pr with a tax writeoff
American health care is fucked. That said:
I watched a promo for St Jude a few years back. They cover all expenses for families so they can focus on their kids. You should donate. They’re awesome.
I feel like it’s a no win situation.
Here in Canada, my coworker has needed back surgery since last year in September. He just got into a specialist for a consultation last week to get surgery scheduled. He’s been living for almost an entire year on light duty at work with back pain.
I feel over the past 10 years our Government has mismanaged their financials and our healthcare and education systems have taken the beating for it. Public services are only as good as the people who are trusted to safeguard them.
Sounds like your coworker is getting healthcare.
In America he’d just suffer for the rest of his life and then off himself when he was too old to handle the pain and still work.
It doesn’t have to be this way
But no one will seriously confront it until there’s competition from other parties, you can’t have real competition for votes in a 2 party system.
More parties can be viable if the USA can shake off FPTP voting. Some states have already.
The existing 2 parties have entrenched themselves like ticks. Here’s just 1 example of how they are dug in https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2251&context=caselrev
That’s why I vote single issue for better representation. Whatever other issues we think are important simply will not happen until FPTP is gone. Without better representation, any progress we make on other issues will simply be undone.
We have a ton of problems. This not being a democracy is the problem.
I don’t know exactly what voting single issue for representation means. To me it sounds like voting for women and people of color believing they will be more sympathetic to our causes, but then I see people like Kyrsten Sinema, Clarence Thomas and I think - that shit don’t work. But maybe that isn’t what you mean. (also, not that I don’t vote for women and POC, but I don’t vote for them BECAUSE of that anymore, integrity, knowing their incentives, and actions are all I care about)
Now I think of the whole thing as a system and I seek to put in place incentives that push the representatives to fight for our approval. Right now we fight for their attention. If there’s 5, 6, 7 viable political parties and few barriers to entry, any time they get off the rails into lala land we can vote for whoever is choosing to make sense that cycle. With 2 parties, extremism is incentivized.
(Silent_clash answered correctly)
Only right extremism is incentivized, with the other party being center-right. There is basically no far left in the USA. Being for sale gives candidates a competitive advantage.
We fought hard to elect a man who stood for “hope and change”, only to see him build the surveillance state and tax the poor for the private medical industry. And we thought he was too far left.
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