Teacher facing $108,951 hospital bill after suffering heart attack - Sensationalist Headlines

Honestly every time I read a story about healthcare in the US it baffles me how people can tolerate such an obviously broken and evil system. Not that I'm saying everyone does, but clearly not enough for there to be any meaningful change.

Only 3.1% of your GDP tho.

Neither candidate in our last election had any desire to change the system. The one Democratic contender who did have universal healthcare as a platform policy, Sanders, was essentially cheated by the party he was running for. Obama pushed for the ACA and Congress was happy to undermine it until it was an ineffectual half-assed measure rather than what it could have been. Both our major parties are run by corporate interests. Public healthcare isn't profitable to those interests. Things will continue to be shit until an actual outsider with desire to reform the system becomes popular enough to win.

Must feel good being a doctor and knowing that every time you treat someone you might ruin them financially.

Because people here believe it is the best system in the world. And to a certain degree, they are correct. The actual healthcare is damn good. But everyone gets caught up in the horror stories that happen in public healthcare. So nobody wants it, because they are afraid of crazy long wait times to see specialists. Or they are blatantly misinformed that they have to wait hours in the ER. The problem is, private healthcare does not make those problems go away. I had to wait about 3 months to get suspicious lesions removed from my foot. There simply aren't enough dermatologists for demand which is where the real problem lies. Wait times for specialists tend to be longer in public, because more people see their doctors. So demand goes up, go figure.

Imagine putting all of that towards healthcare and education... I do wonder what would happen tbh.

Best case scenario here is because it's an instance that hit mainstream he might get support and such but nothing will be done to change the system that ended him up there. I really wish there was more and louder public outcry against the insurance system, since it just seems to be a left leaning person's complaint.

Knowing what I know about the military, probably still full of dysfunction and unnecessary waste. I feel bad for some of the shit our troops put up with. I think to a certain degree, its a systemic problem. Money alone won't fix it. It needs to be majorly reformed.

What about in terms of conflicts? Would it actually make any difference in the way the US is a major military power? 700 billion is a lot, but does the US actually need THAT much to be what it is? Obviously some of those funds are either overly bloated or diverted but... I mean, they have to be, right? 700 fucking BILLION, and people in Congress just throw it at the military as if it was daily breakfast. And iirc, the budget was decreased aswell, right? Did that actually go through or is it still the exact same as before?

Yeah lemme just take a window shop for coverage when I'm en-route to A&E for a life threatening event. My bad guys, stop the ambulance, I gotta have a bit of a shop for good coverage.

I was given an extra strength tylenol and a saltine cracker when i went to the hospital for a 10 day migraine. $400, nothing else other than 30 minute conversation with a nurse and the tylenol/cracker.

This is why bullshit platforms need to be challenged in neutral forums. Talking about customer pricing transparency makes great windowdressing at a convention but flies in the face of the grim reality everybody in this country has faced when they go to the hospital.

What you need to do when you get billed is ask for an itemized list of charges. They'll write out that your consultation was $200, your Tylenol was $150, and your saltine was $50. Then you can go line by line and call bullshit or negotiate. Most times the hospital will go 'oh, yeah, I guess that's dumb' as if it was all an innocent mistake and they'll knock the charges down. It's idiotic that you have to play this game but it's worth your time to try.

Fun fact that the U.S spends over 3 trillion a year on healthcare and we are still ranked one of the worst countries for healthcare. Makes you wonder who is getting all that money!

In and out of networks should never be a thing and is a cancer to the already fragmented US healthcare system.

Also beyond the whole "in-network" thing https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/aet Insurance companies really shouldn't be public for-profits, because it's kind of bad that the "rational" thing to say here is "aetna is doing fantastic." (as they serve stockholders first and foremost.) There are health systems that rely on people buying insurance (e.g. germany) but to my knowledge they seem to mostly require them to operate as non-profits.

I had a mate at work get injured, workman's comp paid out and everything, except he went to the hospital and despite giving them his workman's comp number multiple times they just sent him to collections with a $36k bill instead of running the workman's comp number. Good shit really, they even denied that his workman's comp number is valid despite him having called and verified the number is right for his case, etc.

US healthcare is about as good as everyone else’s. There are areas where you do better, and areas where you do worse. I guess that still qualifies as “damn good”, but you mostly end up getting the same care as people in comparable countries.

Pfft. Shouldn't have been mortal then.

quality of care is good its coverage and how people access that care that is the problem. opponents of reform often scare people against change by claiming that care quality will collapse if we expanded coverage.

Yeah, I know.

Should've said no to the cracker and you would've saved $20. The American system isn't broken you just gotta know how to navigate it smh

It's hard to tell if you're being facetious, but if not, I'd like to hear your explanation for how I could have avoided an out-of-network bill for medically-necessary ultrasound during an emergency hospital visit, as I described on the last page. I've heard stories from people who were unconscious being given five-digit bills because they were operated on by out-of-network doctors. The system is broken.

I'm sorry my state ever elected that chucklefuck. yeah it's ridiculous. I fell on a dock over the summer and sprained my wrist. After going to the Orthopedic they gave me a brace for it, and if I didn't have insurance I would have been billed $750 for that brace, yet I can go to Walgreens or CVS and get the same exact one for twenty dollars.

It was a joke.

My bad, sorry mate. I see a lot of people unironically defend the current system who have never had to deal with just how messed up it is, and it really drives me up the wall.

America needs to do away with the two-party system it and the UK suffer from and introduce a 3rd and 4th party. So democracy can actually work and the majority can finally /vote/ for things they want like /free healthcare/ or at the very least a healthcare system can actually works.

There are already third and fourth (and more) parties in both the US and UK it's just that not enough people vote for them. Seems like people need to change first.

The problem is both countries force you to vote strategically, which over time tends to kill third parties just due to math. I don't really know of any countries with a proportional system that have the problem of being stuck with 2 main parties that everyone hates, because if people hate them, they're actually more free to punish them (e.g. see the SPD's polling in germany rn)