People that don't think medical care in the US is a scam are fucking nuts
FDR pushed for a second economic bill of rights with healthcare being one of them, Nixon pushed for universal healthcare, the ACA would have had a public option if not for Joe LIeberman and the 2010 special
election, but history doesn't always turn out the way it should and America has this unique avenue of awfulness.
Nothing to see here, folks. Just your healthcare system being uniquely American once again.
Calver said the total bill for his four-day stay in the hospital, plus heart surgery, came to $164,941. He receives health insurance through Austin Independent School District administered by Aetna and his health plan only covered $55,840 of that total amount.
Well that health insurance helped a whole lot.
Clearly their aim was to give him a second heart attack when he read the bill so they can fleece him twice.
It's pretty amazing how you're fucked if you don't pay insurance, but insurance can fuck you out of money all they want
more like trying to get him stuck in a loop so they can make infinite cash. the fuckers.
He remembers being in the hospital and asking staff whether his insurance would cover the procedure.
"I'm on Seton, my Austin ISD [insurance] is Seton network, I just want to make sure I'm being covered by this," he recalled saying.
"And they said, 'Yeah we've accepted your insurance, your insurance has been contacted,' it sounded like they'd said yes," Calver said, noting at that point he'd checked insurance coverage off his mental list of things to worry about.
Totally healthy stress to have extra in the situation.
TMA suggested that people should check whether the doctors they're looking to go to are in-network because the patient will almost always wind up having to pay more for the bill if they go out of network.
Even the notion of there being different "Networks" that decide between total financial ruin or half financial ruin is astounding.
A spokesperson explained that if the Calvers apply for financial assistance, St. David's estimates the Calvers' bill would be reduced to $789.29.
Honestly even that could get a big amount of people in trouble who live just above the poverty line.
There is just so much more I could quote that is just wrong and don't forget, Americans pay way more for all this shit then any other country with mostly free healthcare.
Its just infuriating reading those stories all the time, a lot of them wouldn't even get any sort of cost reduction if it would not make any news to begin with.
Yeah but if we implement EVILISM we'll have federally controlled apartments and every person will be on welfare programs in no time, and god forbid, every car will be funded by the government!! The costs will sky rocket!
*Distant yelling can be heard*
VENEZUELA!!!
It's so sad seeing a thread title like this and without clicking on it you already know with utmost certainty it's America.
Tuesday St. David's HealthCare told KXAN that they have a financial assistance policy for patients that offers discounts based on patient income. A spokesperson explained that if the Calvers apply for financial assistance, St. David's estimates the Calvers' bill would be reduced to $789.29.
Why isn't this the default option? If the hospital is able to adjust the price depending on patient income then they should get what they can get out of the insurance company and then discount the rest based on patient income. Especially since the hospital knows they'll never see the full amount.
Is that billions?
Holy shit..
Insurance is literally a legalized protection rico racket.
The rule is essentially: if it's a politician being racist/misogynistic but still winning a primary, a school shooting or something about healthcare being bad, it's likely to be about America. Pretty depressing for Americans, I'm sure.
On the other hand, if it's about a leader spouting soundbites and having excessive caution when answering questions, it's about the UK.
us heathcare is the worst in western society
Disgusting. How can anybody look at this and honestly think this is fine?
Weird to think about how if my parents were living in the US, they'd either be dead or at least 500k in debt for all the health issues they both have.
And people still think this is a "good" system
This part is also ridiculous. "TMA suggested that people should check whether the doctors they're looking to go to are in-network because the patient will almost always wind up having to pay more for the bill if they go out of network."
Kinda hard to do in the middle of a fucking heart attack. When you call for an ambulance they don't sit with you while you make phone calls to figure out which doctors in which hospitals are in network. They take your ass to get help. And you either get stuck with a HOLY FUCK bill, or just a holy fuck bill
Come on America get it together already.
That's only from this fucking year too, and half of its going into a memory hole, we don't even know where it all goes
We spend more money on our military than any other country in the world. Even when adjusted for GDP and other economic factors, it's still proportionally more than any other country. If we took 10% of our military budget and put it towards healthcare, we'd have far more than enough per year. The extra shit topping of this is that US military personnel get paid pennies relative to how much of the budget is spent on overpriced as fuck research and development by private companies like BAE Systems, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin.
"It's his fault for not taking better care of himself. If he took better care of himself, he wouldn't have needed to go to the hospital."
That's how I've seen people defend it.
remember its up to the consumer to shop around for the best price that's the real problem with our healthcare system, transparency not more government regulations.
the more you know.
And even after asking 5 times to absolutely make sure the place accepts your insurance, the custodian isn't covered as part of the plan and you get a $2500 charge.
The amazing thing is that, and facepunch will remember this, there was a guy that went from thin to chad-beyond-fuck and died in his 20's because of a heart condition that he couldn't control
Should that guy, who was ripped and took amazing care of himself... take... better care... of himself? wait what?
What a fucked mentality
And even if that argument is technically valid for the vast majority of people, it's not close to a justification for the system we have lol
I mean, if they're gonna be that lame about it, they should have saved themselves their breaths and just chanted "Muricuh!" once or twice to really drive their point home! Status quo apologists are fucking evil.
This is the biggest joke of the entire system. I can accept having to pay for insurance. I can accept artificially inflated costs. Its retarded, but at least it makes sense as far as exploitative capitalism goes. Its not the only industry like this, education is like this.
But the fact that if you have a medical emergency, and go to the wrong hospital, or even get the wrong doctor in your normally covered hospital, you are essentially screwed. That should have been long outlawed in the healthcare reform. It should not be the patient's job to figure out where they can get help. Its fucking embarrassing that a first world country is like this.
If a provider is out of network, the insurance company should negotiate and pay just like they normally do. If anything it will incentivize them to get off their asses and actually try to make it in network to reduce overhead.
Can confirm. Last September I spent a weekend in the hospital for observation after potential heart attack symptoms. I was assured that the hospital was in-network, but one of the radiologists who saw me was out-of-network, my insurance covered none of it, and I got hit with a $1250 bill. I had to call and negotiate it down to $400 out of pocket, and I'm still appealing to my insurance to get them to cover it.
The hell was I supposed to do- ask every single person every step of the way whether they're in-network? Refuse a medically-necessary ultrasound until they could (maybe) find someone in-network?
I'm told that most healthcare providers will eventually pay out when push comes to shove, and some states have laws against balance billing, but it's ridiculous that this should be a concern in the first place. I really wish we had socialized medicine, but I'm terrified that when the day comes we'll still fuck it up and it'll be like the VA.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.
