What happens in the US if you need treatment but have no health insurance?

[Donut417]

2 minutes ago, akio123008 said:

You mentioned a completely private healthcare system. AKA I go to doctor X, I pay doctor X for their services, completely out of my own pocket. Therefore going to doctor X now becomes a financial decision, not just a medical/personal one. I find that worrying. That's what I pointed out.

 

Therefore a system like the NHS is an excellent idea. The government pays the healthcare providers, and so they can then go ahead and negotiate with those parties over pricing,  and deal with economical aspects. The patient can just worry about their broken arm.

 

 

The reason many Americans have such a bad experience with government controlled healthcare is the crappy implementation of it. You have to realise that half-assed efforts don't work. You have to move over to a completely different system in one go to make it work. No one wants this stupid mix between privatised and regulated; companies will just seek ways to exploit the system to make a profit and it'll get worse. You need to go all the way. 

Ive never had issues with government issues health insurance. I used to be on Medicaid when I was unemployed and poor. The reason people have na issue with government healthcare is god forbid its a bit of socialism. Socialism will lead to the dark side of the force, Young padiwan. Funny enough is the people who need these services the most, are the ones who agree with those in government who are against  providing them. Because these people think that communism is going to take route. Because they never learned a damned thing in school, communism failed and doesn't work. I cant go much further in without going strait in to US politics. So Im out. 

[Blade of Grass]

41 minutes ago, SansVarnic said:

Privatization would force competition and lower pricing. Choice will promote cost ceilings and so forth.

Collective bargaining also lowers prices  it’s why a hip replacement in Ontario costs less than in the US, because our government forces competition through bids. I remember seeing a study showing that the same replacement hip costs 2-4x the price in the US vs. Canada. 

31 minutes ago, SansVarnic said:

Absolutely not. My paycheck goes to me as I earned it. I am not going to pay for other peoples medical care through increased taxation.

The only issue I see with this is that the US pays the most per capita for healthcare in the entire world. In Canada, we pay something like 35% less per person and have free healthcare. Our public/compulsory spending is similar (maybe like 5-10% different), but we get way more value for the money. 
 

1 hour ago, SansVarnic said:

This is not obvious.

 

I dont have health insurance, dont need it. Have no use for it. I pay out of pocket when I have need of a doctor.

I put a little into a savings account and when it is needed I use that to pay, the money I save is tremendous, and don't say people cannot do it. Its called discipline, monetary priority, and being responsible.

I’m glad that you + your depends have the luck of being in a position to do this, but it’s not a realistic solution to the problem. Any catastrophic event or development of a chronic condition could lead to financial hardship. Also, not everyone can do it, there are people who make just enough money to not qualify for government benefits, but not enough to save for this (it’s called the welfare cliff).  

[SpaceGhostC2C]

1 hour ago, SansVarnic said:

We need to go back to privatized medical practice and walk away from health insurance companies.

Insurance companies are private. Are you suggesting banning the insurance market?

 

1 hour ago, SansVarnic said:

In the 50's health care was pretty straight forward and affordable

I'd love to see not just a cost (we know the American private health system has driven the cost up insanely), but also a coverage (who got what) comparison.

 

1 hour ago, SansVarnic said:

A complete reboot would fix the system and the problem.

What is "a reboot"? How would it help?

 

1 hour ago, SansVarnic said:

Privatization would force competition and lower pricing. Choice will promote cost ceilings and so forth.

No, no it won't. First, it's already private. Second, healthcare is a poster child market with asymmetric information. That problem is always going to be there, bith when dealing with insurance companies and when dealing with providers directly. The underlying issue is that you are not qualified to evaluate the quality of the service you receive, jsut like with lawyers, car mechanics, etc. Private clinics becoming 5-star hotels with dubious medical value is something that's always going to arise, whether you pay out-of-pocket or hire some form of insurance.

 

53 minutes ago, SansVarnic said:

Government regulated healthcare is also the problem, Medicaid and Medicare pay out more than insurance companies do, it exacerbates the problem.

It doesn't seem to be a problem anywhere outside the US, though. You have to realize that there's something very specific about the design of the US system.

 

53 minutes ago, SansVarnic said:

This topic is very capable of crossing into politics.

Just dont do it.

Funny you would say that  

[Falkentyne]

If you're homeless, you don't have to pay anything.  They can't make you pay and they can't jail you for being homeless or you will wind up owning part of the hospital yourself, after the lawsuits start flying (If you're still alive).

 

There was a story way back of that hospital in Los Angeles, that used to be on a street called "Santa Barbara" (when I was a child) that got renamed to Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, but she basically intentionally didn't get proper care, even got arrested, died in a police car in route back to the hospital, the family sued and the hospital got shut down.  Completely.

 

When I got extremely sick when I was homeless in 1998 and had to go to the ER, I got billed for it but couldn't pay because I was homeless.  They just ate the charge.  My credit is shit anyway and I've been homeless half my life so oh well.  Anyway I don't think hospitals expect homeless people to pay.  They can't let you die--I believe that's considered involuntary manslaughter in America.  They are required by law to at the very least stabilize your vitals if they have ER space available, or they can get sued to hell.

[TargetDron3]

On 12/19/2020 at 8:56 PM, Actual_Criminal said:

No way!

 

That is very harsh. They should make health insurance mandatory, but then I guess it would just be a tax rather than insurance which is what the NHS is.

 

Surely if you walk into a hospital in dire pain due to a broken arm or even worse, they can't turn you down? 

He's being overly dramatic.

If you go to an Emergency room, they will provide service.  You will get billed and.  To say poor people don't get healthcare in the US is a lie.  They have Medicaid, Medicare, free ER visits, and for them the hospitals typically write off the loss or accept way less than the billing rate they assign to people WITH insurance.  

The US healthcare system DOES need an overhaul, but not due to insurance or lack of coverage.  Providers should be forced to disclose costs BEFORE treatment.  Why do we base computer parts purchases based on price, but not healthcare?  Would you order a processor and wait for a bill that could be whatever the seller wanted to make their quarterly profit? $1,500 Ryzen 5 5600x?  SURPRISE!!

[spartaman64]

they will provide stabilizing care ie treating the symptom that is killing you at the moment and then send you home with a big bill to die later.

if i get any terminal illness or something im unlikely to recover from im going to write a do not resuscitate note so at least I can leave some money behind for my gf instead of being saved to live another month or so and having all that taken away by debt collectors

[Sarra]

So, sorta... Answering this question while filtering out most of what's been said:

 

"What if you need medical care, but have no insurance?"

 

The simplest answer is this: It depends on where you live. Some states (this is HIGHLY GENERALIZED, check laws on a per-state basis if you're concerned), usually the West Coast and Northern states, have laws saying that a Hospital cannot deny life or limb saving treatment due to lack of insurance coverage or money. Other states will leave it up to the provider, and have varying laws. (Edit: This does not absolve the patient or patient's representatives of paying for treatment; The provider can still take you to court to get money from you, if you have anything of value.)

 

The more in-depth, nuanced answer is: It depends on the provider. In many places, if you are low or no income, you can actually get assistance from hospital run charities to cover part, most, or even all of the costs associated with your treatment, even treatment that is not life or limb threatening, but a serious quality of life effecting condition. This isn't guaranteed. Other providers will set up a payment plan, if you have income, which may, or may not, include a lien on property (automotive, home, business, etc).

 

What happens if you get treatment, but cannot pay, and you actively refuse to even try working with the provider? They'll take you to court. If you don't show, they get an automatic judgement against you (this is also subject to certain laws), and this can result in property seizure, a lien, or garnishment of wages.

 

In my personal experience, it's extremely easy to get a provider to work with you. These providers absolutely do not want to take possession of your house, car, or other property, because in some cases, the costs associated with the legal proceedings, sales, and other such costs can actually cost the provider more than the treatment cost them in the first place, and might even work out to be more than the property they seized is worth. Example: You owe $10,000 for an operation. You have a $5,000 car. You don't pay anything, or work with the provider, so they have their legal team file in court. The costs of the legal team, taking possession of your car, storing it, selling it, might add up to $6,000. They took your car and sold it, but now your debt is $11,000. Or, more likely, they spent $4,000 on everything, so then you would still owe $9,000.

 

of course, this is highly dependent on where it happens. Only a local lawyer would really be able to answer this question, but in general, hospitals and healthcare systems tend to have charity programs that low or no income persons, and especially families, qualify for. Not going to dip too deep into religious stuff, but places with more religious communities tend to have better programs; most hospitals in the US are either founded, or closely tied to local religious organizations. The hospital I went to when I lived elsewhere was part of a local Catholic church group, and was founded as a Catholic program originally, so local Catholic people would sometimes donate to a low/no income assistance fund. When I needed treatment, I had no job, and no assets to take, but I worked with the financial assistance office at the hospital, and the hospital applied donated money from a specially designated fund to cover 90% of my treatment, leaving me with a reasonable, manageable bill, which I was able to pay off.

 

If this doesn't make sense to you, then consider this: The hospital was originally funded, founded, and run by the church, as an investment into the future of the city. If it fails, due to financial problems, then the church loses that massive investment, therefore, local (and sometimes not-so-local) people will donate to keep it afloat, while at the same time keeping the community healthy.

 

Disclaimer: I'm not Catholic. I just used it as a real example.

[whm1974]

I bothered to read up on how Health Care is provided in the EU and the UK instead of listening to Right Wingers. What the have in nearly Worldwide but especially in Canada, EU, and the UK is better then the US, and no one goes broke.

 

Did further research and it turns out that Citizens end paying less in Taxes for National Health Insurance then they will with "Private" Health Insurance.

 

 

[WhitetailAni]

I don't remember where I heard this, but here's an analogy:
The US healthcare system is equivalent to a rotting, broken-down, mansion - where all us regular people have to live in the broken parts and the people who are in charge won't change it because they found a spot where they can stay warm and dry.

[Rybo]

On 12/20/2020 at 4:20 PM, Donut417 said:

Thats because they dont have any backbone and government officials are paid off. Citizens United anyone...... 

 

The fact is, the private sector will FUCK us 30 ways from Sunday. Because thats how the private sector has always handled things. In my option setting prices and making all hospitals public owned is the only solution. You cant trust a private business to do the right thing. That stands for hospitals, insurance companies, and big Pharma. Standing up to these guys is the only way to solve the issue. On top of it, from what I read, we pay more for health insurance, then it would cost the government to provide health insurance for all. 

 

National health care also works in many other nations. Canada anyone? Many nations in the EU, and of course are best allies from across the pond, the UK. If they can do it, we can do it. The only difference is instead of paying the health insurance providers who can deny a claim on a whim, we pay the government who's sole purpose is the serve the people. 

There's a problem with that.  We're currently in a spot where we can fight cancer.  It's ridiculously expensive to do it, but it can be done in many cases.  Without piles of money in R&D, cancer treatments just don't get developed, much less cancer cures.  Doubly so for increasingly rare diseases.  

Where does this money come from?  People increasing the prices of stupid stuff such as medicines and treatments to fund their research.  Yes, you can have a situation where the government sets prices and also picks where to invest R&D money.  We have that now in the US military: it represents something like 1/5 of the federal government and yet our military is still in decay.  With the various and sundry dysfunctions in the US system, our medical system would quickly resemble the military: bloated (even compared to what it is today) and inefficient (even compared to what it is today).  Not saying the US is a happy medium by any means or that it is currently better than government sponsored options, but up until recently the US spawned the most medical innovation.  That is, what used to just simply kill you could now be fought -- thanks to us.  It was expensive, but at least you had an option other than death.  As the government impinges on the private sector, though, that trend has slipped even as costs have gone up.  It seems all the government is doing is creating cracks and crevices for money to fall into.  

Another issue is that if you think private companies are bad with money, allow me to introduce you to government.  If you think <insert country here> does any better on account of government intervention, think again.  People still die of stupid reasons.  There are stories in Canada of a woman needing to amputate her leg because the government waiting list for diabetes treatment was too long, and people dying for the same reason.  There are stories in the UK of hospitals literally killing people who could afford to seek treatment options elsewhere because the hospital deemed it the most humane option.  The only reason these other countries poll better is because you can get the sniffles or get a regular checkup without it costing several hundred dollars.  That is an easy problem to solve: don't expect insurance to pay for those stupid services at all, and prices will quickly plummet.  

[Velcade]

You don't just die.  The hospital has to take care of you, then they'll write it off.

 

If you're poor you can qualify for medicaid.

[Blade of Grass]

1 hour ago, Rybo said:

There's a problem with that.  We're currently in a spot where we can fight cancer.  It's ridiculously expensive to do it, but it can be done in many cases.  Without piles of money in R&D, cancer treatments just don't get developed, much less cancer cures.  Doubly so for increasingly rare diseases.  

Where does this money come from?  People increasing the prices of stupid stuff such as medicines and treatments to fund their research.  Yes, you can have a situation where the government sets prices and also picks where to invest R&D money.  We have that now in the US military: it represents something like 1/5 of the federal government and yet our military is still in decay.  With the various and sundry dysfunctions in the US system, our medical system would quickly resemble the military: bloated (even compared to what it is today) and inefficient (even compared to what it is today).  Not saying the US is a happy medium by any means or that it is currently better than government sponsored options, but up until recently the US spawned the most medical innovation.  That is, what used to just simply kill you could now be fought -- thanks to us.  It was expensive, but at least you had an option other than death.  As the government impinges on the private sector, though, that trend has slipped even as costs have gone up.  It seems all the government is doing is creating cracks and crevices for money to fall into.  

I don't particularly want to dive too deeply into this, but your generalizations about US research are pretty bad. 

Quote

Results. The United States accounted for 42% of prescription drug spending and 40% of the total GDP among innovator countries and was responsible for the development of 43.7% of the NMEs. The United Kingdom, Switzerland, and a few other countries innovated proportionally more than their contribution to GDP or prescription drug spending, whereas Japan, South Korea, and a few other countries innovated less.

 

Conclusions. Higher prescription drug spending in the United States does not disproportionately privilege domestic innovation, and many countries with drug price regulation were significant contributors to pharmaceutical innovation

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2866602/

Quote

In the end they were able to identify which of the 210 new drugs approved since 2010 had publicly funded science behind it. 

 

The answer? All of them.

 

"We were a little bit surprised at the magnitude we found." Ledley told CBC News. "There was government funded research leading to every single one of the drugs approved in this decade."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/drugs-government-funded-science-1.4547640

The US government funds tons of research (mostly through the NIH). Basically every notable medical advancement of the past century has been funded by a government or a non-profit group. 

• Insulin? University of Toronto professor who was funded by Government of Canada grants
• Penicillin? St. Mary's Hospital, an NHS hospital, funded by the UK government
• Hep A/B, Influenza, HPV, flu shot, Polio, vaccines? All had key funding from the NIH
• first blood pressure medicine? NIH, American Heart Association funded it
• Pacemaker? Government of Canada researcher working with Toronto General Hospital 
• MRI? US government/AHA

 

EDIT: just want to add, I’m not denying that there is a lot of good private funding for medical research, especially as you get closer to production (i.e. clinical trial funding, production building, etc). Just want to point out that it’s not like there’s some heroic private medical research industry that is breaking their back doing everything, most of their work is building upon research that is directly funded by the government. 

Quote

Another issue is that if you think private companies are bad with money, allow me to introduce you to government.  If you think <insert country here> does any better on account of government intervention, think again.  People still die of stupid reasons.  There are stories in Canada of a woman needing to amputate her leg because the government waiting list for diabetes treatment was too long, and people dying for the same reason.  There are stories in the UK of hospitals literally killing people who could afford to seek treatment options elsewhere because the hospital deemed it the most humane option.  The only reason these other countries poll better is because you can get the sniffles or get a regular checkup without it costing several hundred dollars.  That is an easy problem to solve: don't expect insurance to pay for those stupid services at all, and prices will quickly plummet.  

Select anecdotes don't provide good arguments, do you have any data on any of what you've said? You say those countries only rank higher because of polling, but have you looked at the actual basis for the calculations to see if that's how their ratings were decided?

Ignoring public opinion (polling ?) the US actually ranks below Cuba (35th place) for healthiness https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/02/these-are-the-world-s-healthiest-nations/ 

Edited January 26, 2021 by Blade of Grass

[JZStudios]

On 12/19/2020 at 7:40 PM, Fasauceome said:

Hate to say this but

 

You die, usually (or just live with whatever happens to you). People who are impoverished have to try their hardest to not get sick. They won't call ambulances when they're in danger because they won't recover financially from the bill.

Wow. That's not even remotely true. They get treated at no cost to them and it's offloaded to the insurance companies of wealthier people or state welfare.

Without getting political, they 100% treat illegals for free.

 

Actually, the irony is that self pay without insurance is significantly cheaper up front, and the vast amount of cost is the hospital itself charging exorbitant amounts for no reason other than to offset the completely free healthcare. For me I had to use state welfare and self pay the doctor wanted like $2000 for surgery and the hospital wanted $10k to stay in an empty room for 2 hours. Once the state took over the hospital charged $40k. Biggest reason I don't support government healthcare and wish we'd de-regulate some stuff so it would just be cheaper.

Living near the border it's easier and cheaper to head to Mexico where they don't overcharge as much and it's easier to access medications with less BS restrictions.

On 12/19/2020 at 7:56 PM, Actual_Criminal said:

No way!

 

That is very harsh. They should make health insurance mandatory, but then I guess it would just be a tax rather than insurance which is what the NHS is.

 

Surely if you walk into a hospital in dire pain due to a broken arm or even worse, they can't turn you down? 

That's a total lie. And as I stated, it's insurance that ramps the price up. There's no reason the specialist surgeon should be payed 5-20x less than an empty ward.

Getting a broken arm set and casted is a couple hundred bucks. It's no big deal.

On 12/20/2020 at 2:20 PM, Donut417 said:

Thats because they dont have any backbone and government officials are paid off. Citizens United anyone...... 

 

The fact is, the private sector will FUCK us 30 ways from Sunday. Because thats how the private sector has always handled things. In my option setting prices and making all hospitals public owned is the only solution. You cant trust a private business to do the right thing. That stands for hospitals, insurance companies, and big Pharma. Standing up to these guys is the only way to solve the issue. On top of it, from what I read, we pay more for health insurance, then it would cost the government to provide health insurance for all. 

 

National health care also works in many other nations. Canada anyone? Many nations in the EU, and of course are best allies from across the pond, the UK. If they can do it, we can do it. The only difference is instead of paying the health insurance providers who can deny a claim on a whim, we pay the government who's sole purpose is the serve the people. 

Because the government never overspends.

[Rybo]

1 minute ago, Blade of Grass said:

I don't particularly want to dive too deeply into this, but your generalizations about US research are pretty bad. 

I don't want to go into specifics either, but you're wrong.  

See?  Not productive.  There's plenty to be said for not engaging if you don't feel like arguing it out.  Lord knows I do it all the time!
 

Quote

In the end they were able to identify which of the 210 new drugs approved since 2010 had publicly funded science behind it. 

US Healthcare had been turned into a caste system by then, and honestly, I don't know if drug introductions are a good proxy for medical innovation writ large.  Lastly, of course a government funded system will have successes -- only demagogues claim that one system is a categorical failure versus other options.  I'm arguing that the private market by its nature will focus limited resources where they will alleviate the most suffering, and it will do it at a lower cost.  

If you want an example of the type of progress I'm talking about, think of laser eye surgery.  It's a concierge service -- no insurance covers it -- and the quality has skyrocketed as prices have plummeted.  Plus there are no waiting lists.  I got wonderful service at a cheap price with no waiting lists, forms, approvals or anything.  Just a visit to verify if I could benefit from the procedure and the visit to get the operation two days later.  

 

Quote

Ignoring public opinion (polling ?) the US actually ranks below Cuba (35th place) for healthiness https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/02/these-are-the-world-s-healthiest-nations/ 

That's a measure that has virtually nothing to do with the healthcare system, and I sincerely hope you're not implying that Cuban healthcare surpasses that in the US.  But yes, the US is the past master of being fat and hedonistic, so I can easily believe that we're less healthy.

 

Quote

do you have any data on any of what you've said?

Sorta.  If you look at various metrics -- I just pulled up cancer survival rates and treatment wait times -- even the US in its current state of being an utter dumpster fire pretty consistently ranks above most European countries for outcomes, and that's while we're simultaneously living as one of the most irresponsible peoples in the world as far as personal health and fitness decisions are concerned.  

Given that outcomes aren't really that different between developed nations (and the US is often better despite an unhealthy population), I'd say my conjecture that people don't like paying out of pocket for simple treatments is a reasonable conclusion.  

[Blade of Grass]

2 hours ago, Rybo said:

I don't want to go into specifics either, but you're wrong.  

See?  Not productive.  There's plenty to be said for not engaging if you don't feel like arguing it out.  Lord knows I do it all the time!

Not sure what this is exactly in response to, you seem to acknowledge (by replying) to the brief counter arguments I provided. Also not sure why you feel the need to misconstrue what I said and escalate the conversation by being snide. 

Quote

US Healthcare had been turned into a caste system by then, and honestly, I don't know if drug introductions are a good proxy for medical innovation writ large.  Lastly, of course a government funded system will have successes -- only demagogues claim that one system is a categorical failure versus other options.  I'm arguing that the private market by its nature will focus limited resources where they will alleviate the most suffering, and it will do it at a lower cost.  

Well, I brought that up as you had specifically talked about pharmaceuticals. I suspect it would be difficult to analyze medical devices, since you end up in a scenario with government research is no longer able to iterate the technology due to patented technology, so the government letting private companies which produce the device to continue iterating on it. I would definitely be interested to see more data on this though. 

 

My point more so is that the “breakthroughs” generally stem either from or directly from government funded work, at least in some of the easily identifiable sectors like pharmaceuticals. 

 

Why will the private market do as you say it will?

Quote

If you want an example of the type of progress I'm talking about, think of laser eye surgery.  It's a concierge service -- no insurance covers it -- and the quality has skyrocketed as prices have plummeted.  Plus there are no waiting lists.  I got wonderful service at a cheap price with no waiting lists, forms, approvals or anything.  Just a visit to verify if I could benefit from the procedure and the visit to get the operation two days later.  

 

That's a measure that has virtually nothing to do with the healthcare system, and I sincerely hope you're not implying that Cuban healthcare surpasses that in the US.  But yes, the US is the past master of being fat and hedonistic, so I can easily believe that we're less healthy.

I did a brief search about laser eye surgery just out of interest, and I feel like this is actually counter to your point about market efficiency. From my brief search I see laser eye surgery is between $1k-$3k per eye, so $2k-$6k for both. (nvision centre data)
I expect this cost far exceeds the average Americans ability to pay (considering more than 50% of American can’t afford a $400 surprise expense, I would say this is fair—source NYFed), and given the experience you had, it largely seems like the private market has over-allocated capacity for laser eye surgeries, beyond the demand for them, which seems economically inefficient. I also saw that there has been a significant drop in demand for laser eye surgery over the past decade, seems the market has been slow to reduce capacity.

edit: Paging @SpaceGhostC2Cdoes this seem to be allocative efficient to you? 

 

You’re right, the measurement isn’t specifically of healthcare, but more generic about the healthiness of the population.
I guess for this argument this paper is better:

https://www.who.int/healthinfo/paper30.pdf

Spoiler: US ranks below the rest of the developed world again (minus New Zealand, who’s below the US), but beats Cuba this time.

Quote

Sorta.  If you look at various metrics -- I just pulled up cancer survival rates and treatment wait times -- even the US in its current state of being an utter dumpster fire pretty consistently ranks above most European countries for outcomes, and that's while we're simultaneously living as one of the most irresponsible peoples in the world as far as personal health and fitness decisions are concerned.  

Well, here’s another place where we might diverge. I don’t particularly think that wait times are bad, unless of course it leads to worse health outcomes, but of course that would then show up in the healthcare outcome data. 

Regarding cancer, that’s still just a singular cherry picked example, albeit I don’t disagree it’s an important one to be good at. On average, the US still has worse mortality rates versus comparable countries:
https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/mortality-rates-u-s-compare-countries/

Quote

Given that outcomes aren't really that different between developed nations (and the US is often better despite an unhealthy population), I'd say my conjecture that people don't like paying out of pocket for simple treatments is a reasonable conclusion.  

See above. 

[spartaman64]

3 hours ago, Velcade said:

You don't just die.  The hospital has to take care of you, then they'll write it off.

 

If you're poor you can qualify for medicaid.

they have to provide stabilizing care ie defibrillation, blood infusion etc but they dont fix the problem. after they decide you are in no immediate danger of dying they kick you out with a huge bill for you to die a few months later. and after you pass away they are going to collect the payment from your estate so your SO and children are left with nothing to inherent. 

much better to die and leave something for your loved ones imo

[Velcade]

5 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

huge bill for you to die a few months later. and after you pass away they are going to collect the payment from your estate so your SO and children are left with nothing to inherent. 

This is simply not true.  If you don't make enough money you medical expenses are free.

[spartaman64]

33 minutes ago, Velcade said:

This is simply not true.  If you don't make enough money you medical expenses are free.

you need to make around 138% the federal poverty level ($17,609 annually) to qualify for states that expanded medicaid. and in some states they didnt expand the program so basically if you are over 21 you are out of luck with the income eligibility 

 

[Quackers101]

You just have to be lucky in the US or just RIP.

Also a lot of things that your average european might not care about compared to an US citizen.

To how each side do their taxes and spend those tax money.

Each hospital and doctor could charge you differently. (don't know about each state relationship)

 

links:

CBS - Hospital bill after coronavirus test "infuriates" actor Daniel Newman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5KBnPBgruA

NBC - She Had COVID-19, But No Insurance. Her Treatment Cost $34,972.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3QKqMh4gjI

CNBC - Why Medical Bills In The US Are So Expensive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NvnOUcG-ZI

 

VOX - The real reason American health care is so expensive

doctor mike - Response to Adam Conover’s Tweet

https://youtu.be/USqGmoXjU-I?t=236

 

[Actual_Criminal]

(Sorry to revive an old thread, but had a similar question and thought I would post it in the same thread for relevance.)

 

Do peeps in the US have to pay for Fire Service and/or Police call outs, including minor things like a cat stuck in a tree or a minor domestic incident? - Or does the state fund all the costs?

[Donut417]

Just now, Actual_Criminal said:

Do peeps in the US have to pay for Fire Service and/or Police call outs, including minor things like a cat stuck in a tree or a minor domestic incident? - Or does the state fund all the costs?

I think it depends on the department and the situation. I know when our garage burned down it only costed about $500. 

[Actual_Criminal]

4 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

I think it depends on the department and the situation. I know when our garage burned down it only costed about $500. 

No way! That's crazy, already at a loss due to a fire and then they slap you with a $500 bill.

[Donut417]

2 minutes ago, Actual_Criminal said:

No way! That's crazy, already at a loss due to a fire and then they slap you with a $500 bill.

Well in some places of the US you have a choice not to pay for fire services (taxes) and if your home catches on Fire they dont do a damned thing. They will come out to make sure it doesn't spread but just let the building burn. 

 

You have to understand. Fire department's are funded based on taxes. If you don't have a lot a tax revenue you will need to cover those expenses somehow. I mean hell we don't even have enough Fire Fighters in our department that is required under Federal Law. To get around this we share fire resources with Detroit Metro Airport. Consider this, even if you have medical insurance you still might have to pay a portion for the services rendered. The Fire Department is the same, when they provide services you will need to pay. 

[thrasher_565]

On 12/20/2020 at 12:41 PM, Donut417 said:

 healthcare system is not about healing people. Its about money.

hmm sound like every  business ever...

[Watercooledguy]

I am in this very situation right now. I can't get on my wife's insurance through her work till Nov. and I have high blood pressure. I had to stay on my medicine so I paid 330 bucks to go to a Dr. and tell him I needed blood pressure medication. He looked at my chart and said, where do you want me to call the prescription in for you? That's literally all he did, 15 sec. of work and his office made 330 bucks. Thank sweet baby Jesus that my pills aren't expensive.