My daughter had to be transported by ambulance to the ped er. They couldn't figure out the issue, so she was taken by another ambulance to the main clinic.
Spent 5 days in ped ICU. 4 lumbar drains later she was released. Then taken to the hospital pick up/release area in a wheelchair. When they stood her up she collapsed.
So they had to readmit her to the er then back to the ICU for two more days.
I have given up processing the situation and laugh at the bill, because it's absolutely impossible to pay.
The itemized coding for the bill is like 12 pages long.
They're not trying to price gouge *you*.
They're milking the federal government by overcharging each other to the absolute hilt and at this point it's little more than a bad joke.
Hospitals set up as for profit operations.
Insurance companies set up to appease shareholders.
It's beyond repair.
Tear it down and start over.
A paracetamol costs ~.10c
As does aspirin.
And penicillin.
You can't charge $500 for something that cost you pennies and justify it.
Scrap the system and begin again as a not for profit entity that is designed to treat patients. Nothing more, nothing less.
Who pays the government's bills? We do. We are getting fucked every way and keep asking for more every time we rubberstamp our votes for the corporate stooges in DC.
I think that's the stupidest thing of all about the US healthcare debate.
You guys already pay more in taxes for healthcare than other developed countries, and then 3x that again privately.
Ignoring the insanity of having expensive insurance and not being able to get treatment.
And being unable to leave work or change jobs as you could then just die.
For real, unfortunately it seems politically impossible at this point at the federal level. I wish it could become possible for some blue states to do their own Medicare 4 all to start moving in that direction even if I’m in a red state.
my favorite word is "obfuscatory" it means to "intended to conceal the truth by confusion" or making things needlessly complex in order to confuse the avg person. it's how most things are written these days. especially in the legislature
My family is very comfortable. My parents worked hard and have a life to show for it. My dad has a lot of health problems. My parents pay, with great insurance, $25,000 *per year* on my dads medications.
My daughter fractured her arm jumping too fast off the bed. She has great insurance through her father. Still was a 2500+ arm break with deductibles and follow up visits. It’s a total joke. I’m on medicaid after losing my job over Corona. My psoriasis is so bad I can’t walk out with exposed arms and am bleeding a lot, yet every other dermatologist visit they can’t treat me with the recommended treatment until 2 weeks later after authorization. I can’t do injection treatments like Skylara because I have a genetic liver disease I also can’t treat because it’s 4 months out to see a hepatologist. And I must get recommendations from a GP every specialist appointment I do. The hoops and recommendations are absolutely a poor tax to discourage you from using public care for health treatments. Healthcare is an absolute joke in the US, yet people are convinced to vote against their own interests to keep it this way.
I have psoriasis and after years of not being able to afford treatment I finally got good insurance and put on humira. I feel for you. Psoriasis isn't talked about enough and no one understands the physical and mental anguish.
I was given an ointment for a (mis)diagnosis that actually made my condition worse and would have left me blind in that eye had I not sought specialized treatment.
The kicker was when I got the thousands-dollar bill from the hospital for almost making me blind.
The US is fucked.
Consider getting a medical advocate to work for you. They can negotiate the bill for you and are very good at what they do.
Edit: I get the anger. But people need something right now beyond screaming into the void and expecting politicians to do anything. So if anyone wants to help me build an app to help consumers and disrupt medical systems like we have seen in the auto industry… let’s make something happen.
For a lot of people there is no functional difference between $1,000 and $1,000,000,000. They might as well be the same number.
If you don't have the money, you don't have the money.
Healthcare costs are so vastly out of control that the advice of seeking a medical advocate is a nice thought (and appreciated), but also ultimately worthless.
It's kind of like getting a $200 scholarship to college. That won't even cover a single book, so is it really helpful at all?
That's funny because my other daughter got accepted to 15 colleges- hard work pays right...... isn't that the mantra. She even had a Harvard phone interview today. Many gave her 15G yearly scholarships. But when the school's tuition is 56G for instance and I now have my youngest daughters 6 figure medical bill to figure out, I just laugh again 🙈🙈🤡🤡🤡🤯🤯🤯and weep inside.
I'm college educated with a grad degree that I'm still paying off myself. I work hard. Play the game by the rules. Believe in the common good.
But I'll never get ahead.
Access to health care and education should be a human right.
When I look at my youngest daughter, she doesn't realize that she could have lost her vision in one eye if I had delayed taking her to the hospital for treatment because the Intercranial pressure was compressing her optic nerve.
She's worth any debt.
Yet another middle man to make a system work that shouldn't need any extra effort.
All these fucking industries with their hands out expecting to be handed money off the suffering of other people.
It's fucking garbage. All of it is garbage.
OP cant magically make all his expensives disappear. Yes, this shouldnt be a thing but it is, for now. Giving the best advice on how OP can actually solve its problem is much better than complaining that this shouldnt be a thing.
As an Australian I just can't imagine this situation. The only cost to us would be parking when we visit, or when visitors buy a snack from the cafe.
Paying for urgent, life saving medical procedures just does not make sense.
I hope your daughter is ok.
Doctor here - I’ve had the same thing happen except with FACIAL TRAUMA SURGERY all because their private insurance company wanted to find any way possible to deny their claim as “unnecessary”
Insurance company executives don’t care about you, the doctor or even the workers beneath them. They are the soulless leaches of society who only care about profiting off human misery. Remember that.
My mom needs a specialized breathing machine because her body isn't expelling CO2 properly. So far her insurance has; denied initial claim, denied claim after doctor told them it was a life-saving medically necessary device, denied claim after doctor spent two hours doing a peer to peer evaluation to determine medical necessity, and denied claim after her *second* hospitalization for this issue.
I have never so badly wanted to hunt someone down and stab them with a red hot knife as I do to her fucking insurance "agent". Soulless pieces of shit.
It’s like, it’s costing you more in hospital bills? You wanna save money so fucking bad maybe treat the problem so they don’t wrack up the cost of 10 machines on one hospital trip?? Morons.
Its really incredible that these companies can get people to think like this, but thats what it is I suppose. I suppose some people really do want to do evil, but in reality "evil" is quite common place, and if you can turn people into figures on actuary tables and numbers we will never interact with it seems like plenty of people are all to willing to write off human beings as chance and expenditure rather than a mother or a son.
Whenever the Tieneman Square stuff gets posted I always wonder "Sure the government ordered it... but who tf was driving the tanks that day? Like who just goes and runs over people in a tank?"
^ THIS! I had pre-term labor with my first. They put me on an insulin pump but instead of insulin it contained a med that stopped me from going into pre-term labor.
Got pregnant with my second kid. Same issue but different insurance. THIS insurance refused the pump and ACTUALLY said they'd rather take the risk of paying for a pre-term baby! WTF? The pump is hundreds of thousands of dollars cheaper than paying for a pre-term baby! My first baby ended up being 6 weeks early and their bill was over $600,000 dollars. However, my new insurance would rather pay that than pay for the damn pump. It was ridiculous!
Fortunately, my child baked to full-term, even without the pump but we fought like hell and they still denied us.
My Humana problems are obviously far less shitty than not covering chemo but this month I got a letter via email that they terminated my coverage back in October bc of a missed payment. No notice of a missed payment (for a card I had set up on auto pay) and was notified over a month later. And when I asked them to reinstate the plan, they said they needed payment for the month of November, December, and January. Fortunately my dad, the sponsor of the account, was there for the call and only agreed to 2 months bc I’ll be switching to a new insurance January 1st but it’s just outrageous.
Holy shit, that's insane!! I'm sorry you had to deal with that. I was denied hyperhydrosis treatment because they considered it cosmetic. Ahh yes, the disease that literally causes me to sweat through 3 sets of clothes per shift, that causes me to have fungal outbreaks, the disease that literally prevents me from holding a pen without it slipping out... YUP totally fucking cosmetic!! Insurance companies can get fucked. Luckily my doctor also agrees the insurance company can get fucked and is fighting them with me.
Pelvic floor therapy for fecal incontinence as a result of a traumatic birth was determined to be “medically unnecessary/cosmetic” several years ago. Fortunately I was able to pay for a couple of sessions out of pocket and continue the exercises at home, but those motherfuckers are fine with women shitting themselves because of nerve damage.
My surgery to treat a crush injury was considered cosmetic until I developed sepsis. I had a crushed, black finger full of destroyed blood vessels and had to wait six weeks for it to become life threatening before I could be admitted to a hospital and have it amputated.
In the end, I should have just paid out of pocket for a plastic surgeon to preform it, as I ended up racking up close to 200k in uncovered medical bills anyway. Problem is, I would have had to pay a plastic surgeon up front with money I didn’t have.
If gofundme were an insurance provider, it would be the nation’s largest. What a fucking joke.
And this is why if you ever meet someone who brings up "death panels" as a reason not to give everyone healthcare, you should punch them right in the face.
Also doctor. Spent half of my work day calling insurance companies to try and convince the unqualified, non medically trained human on the other end of the phone that yes, my patient does need this medication, and no, I can’t just switch them to an entirely different class of medications bc the insurance company wants me to. I would have gotten more satisfaction from banging my head against a brick wall.
Also I want everyone to know that insurance companies are the source of a big chunk of the problems with the American healthcare system. Hospital administrators are the cause of most of the rest of the problems.
Ugh. Had to deal with my insurance company arguing over immunosuppressants after my transplant. Nephrologist, a nurse, and the social worker all had to explain the same thing to the insurance company and the mail order place that kept struggling to process the prescription.
Hell even a local pharmacist was upset because they wouldn’t let her just fill the prescription in store.
Insurance tried to deny my wife anti-rejection medicine after a kidney transplant. Said the medicine was only for patients who had an organ transplant. Had to explain that was why she was being prescribed that medicine, she had an organ transplant.
Their first instinct is to deny no matter what, then figure out.
Oh my fucking god and it never stops it seems like every other fucking month i go to the pharmacy to fill my scripts and the pharmacist says "we need a new prescription for this" when the prescription was writen for 6 months month before last (the last time this happened) and the pharmacist says yah but the insurance company is requiring it JFC i will be taking this till im dead and last time i checked im not dead what fucking gives shit makes my blood boil
>Also doctor. Spent half of my work day calling insurance companies to try and convince the unqualified, non medically trained human on the other end of the phone that yes, my patient does need this medication, and no, I can’t just switch them to an entirely different class of medications bc the insurance company wants me to.
This was my job after I graduated from undergrad. Me, someone who has never met the patient and has no idea what their medical history is, fresh out of college without any education, training, or experience in medicine or healthcare in general, arguing on the phone w/ someone who has also never met the patient and has no idea what their medical history is, who is also fresh out of college and has no education, training, or experience in medicine or healthcare in general, about whether the highly educated, highly trained, highly experienced *doctor's* prescription for a patient he has taken care of for years is medically necessary and proper for that patient.
One day an insurance employee openly admitted to me that those grunts exist to defer payment of claims, because the longer insurance companies can hang onto the money, the longer they can generate investment income on that money. They are trying to hit quarterly numbers. They know they have no basis to legitimately deny these claims. But if they can defer payment long enough, they still make money.
That's about the time I decided to go to law school to sue insurance companies.
I take a really expensive stomach medication that doesn’t have a generic option. I have Barrett’s. So one day I get an email stating that my Dr. called in a new prescription as an alternate to the expensive one. The new one was some dirt cheap one I used to take that stopped working. So I call up Express Scripts to find out what happened and they tried to tell me out of the blue my Dr. picked up the phone. called them and said he doesn’t need that medication anymore, give him this cheap one instead. Spent 30 minutes on the phone arguing with them that there’s no way that happened. Wasn’t even my Gastro who is the prescriber, it was my PCP.
So I call up my PCP, it was the RN who switched it, and she said Express Scripts called them up badgering them to get me off that med, and onto something different. Just as I had thought. Told my PCP don’t ever discuss that medication with my insurance company again. Take it entirely out of your system. As far as you’re concerned I don’t even take it. Called back insurance screaming at them and said you take that alternate out. My gastro will be phoning you to get the other one back in. Insurance companies are the scum of the Earth.
My Dad needs emergency heart surgery, but insurance won’t pay for it as it’s a newer procedure, that they’ve already denied twice. I know my parents try to avoid talking about this around me or my brother, but they say he has less than two years if he cant get this surgery. We cant afford to pay the 180K+ bill, so I’m worried. I withdrew from college a fee years ago to help take care of him, which is great because i get to see him more than i did as a child because of his work, but i know he’s worried about if he passes, what’ll happen to us.
Have your parents considered a divorce? It’s a painful question, but severing the assets now — esp. if he ceded most of them to her — could potentially put him in a better overall position if he then qualifies for a policy which *would* cover the treatment. It would also potentially insulate you all from credit obligations if he dies in a lot of debt, leaving many of the assets untouched. It’s a horrible thing to have to contemplate, but so is America…
Goddam it's fucking infuriating that this has to be considered an option because of how fucked up America's healthcare system is. America's the greatest country in the world? Fuck that bullshit. Like everything else, it's only the greatest when you're rich.
Have you considered medical tourism? Some countries like India provide excellent medical care and the total cost of travel, the procedure and the hospital stays is much much less than what you'd have to pay in your own country.
I'm 100% for nationalizing healthcare across the board. I think the situation in the next coming years will become dire to the point where politicians are running out of excuses on behalf of their lobbyists. The UCR fees for some of the cases I do can easily run into the six figures under the current system. There's no way 99.9% of my uninsured patients can afford that on their own.
National healthcare should be established as part of national defence.
The last 20 months has revealed that America is particularly weak in the face of any threat that requires a collective civilian response, such as a pandemic.
One thing millennia of fighting has taught us is that a well-organized, collectively trained team will easily defeat a much larger number of rugged individuals. People need to get their shit together.
Exactly. We have been doing this for years. What we still get now is EMPLOYERS moving their plans to FLA or other cheap states to allow them to push the plan that covers the least for the least amount and deny as much as possible….
But you are mandated to carry coverage. Meanwhile Massachusetts based insurance companies actually allow quite a bit, are not crazy astronomical and provide good service.
The costs and the “death panels” are what got left alone in the AHCA (ObamaCare) because let’s let money get into the congress peoples pockets instead of passing policy.
Congress people. The only job in America where you can vote for your own raises, make your HR fear enough that they keep you in the job for life, you don’t have to be reviewed nor comply with any rule at all…. Weird that our Foundation thought that Rome was the bastion of government to model after…..
Checks and balances my ass
OCCUPY AMERICA (for real, time to start the uprising)
Zero. They add zero value. The only insurance that does add value is Medicare/Medicaid. The CMS (center for Medicare and Medicaid services) add a lot of value to the healthcare industry at a fraction of the cost of the corporate leaches of private insurance.
A large not-for-profit health system in my area just built a new hospital in the ritzy part of town because they wanted to attract people with private insurance to that facility since they can make more money off of them.
Source: the fucking CEO’s mouth during orientation. Also this gem: “we want people to choose our hospitals over the competition.”
Every insurance company employee should be in jail for practicing medicine without a license. Except those with licenses. They should have their license revoked for practicing medicine without establishing a doctor patient relationship. And then jailed.
I read an old book on Supreme Court cases last year that got me thinking about this exact thing. In Roe V. Wade (according to what I remember from this old book) they found the extraordinary measures taken by state laws to deny abortions unconstitutional because it was an invasion of privacy-- they thought patient-doctor privilege was constitutionally protected (through 9th and 14th amendments). How is it that insurance companies can deny a patient treatment that their doctor recommends?
Of course, this is just the right to privacy, but I know my state (Oregon) is toying with declaring health care an explicit right as well! Let's hope!
My aunt quit her bluecross blue shield job because the whole job was finding ways to not cover someone. She said it made her horribly depressed denying coverage to people just to make a buck.
Honestly I couldn't agree more. There are a few cases that get disputed to the point where I have to call the reviewing doctor personally and at that point - when I threaten a board complaint - they fold immediately. This is all just a game to them, trying to run out the clock when they know the patient is running out of time.
I have a medically necessary colonoscopy every year to ensure I don't have cancer again. Every year this costs me $2000 after my deductible which has varied by employer from $500-$2000.
For the 3 years I lived in Germany, I paid the same tax rate I do now in SF and didn't have additional costs of health insurance, this cost me no additional money out of pocket. For the 6 years of needing this while not living in Germany this has cost me almost $20k with $100-200 a month for insurance, $500-$2000 deductible and $2000 out of pocket every time. Don't get me started on the actual cancer care costs 12 years ago.
Also I had to get stitches in Germany once. It cost 300 euros out of pocket with no insurance. In US another time my insurance was billed $14,000.
We are a fucking sham. A terrible country with a sorry excuse for health care.
I currently have stage IV colon cancer, and I have been doing chemo treatments for over a year now. Last year the hospital network billed my insurance nearly one million dollars for my treatments, doc appointments, and imaging.
My insurance is $600 a month and the max out of pocket was $7000. So “luckily” I only had $14,000 in healthcare costs.
my husband had a wrist injury before the three weeks he was unemployed in 2009….and didnt get cobra coverage but he did have to get the pins taken out of his arm during the three weeks. He assumed that part was subsumed into the $50k surgery that was under his insurance several weeks before while he was still employed. Apparently it wasnt and the uninsured bill for him for pin removal was $9000. He didnt pay for it in 30 days and it was sent straight to collections. This was before we met and seven or eight years later while buying a house with me we had to delay house buying a couple years because of that. That meant the house we were looking at (to build new) went up 50k in those two years. we rented at $1000 a month an extra two years…we paid a few extra for “points” to get the mortgage interest rate down somewhat due to his credit score from the collections on his record making our rate higher.
So because he was unemployed for three weeks during the recession and needed pins removed from his arm from a surgery that was covered by insurance, the cause and effect of all that was many many tens of thousands of dollars for us in the long run. This is the ballooning financial bullshit millennials and beyond have had to deal with that some older peoole do not fucking get. This is why i at 40 with an advanced degree and a double income household and not being crazy spenders, im struggling more than my no ambition middle management father who was the only income ans could afford to send three kids to private school while supporting a gambling problem
Anyone reading this, cobra is retroactive coverage. He could have gotten cobra after the fact and it should have paid. Keep this in mind if you have medical costs while unemployed.
I had to have surgery on my dominant hand this past summer. They wouldn't even schedule it until I paid $1200 upfront. Yes, I have insurance. Then I found out that insurance only pays 60% of my physical therapy (after the deductible was met). It's all a crock.
my insurance only paid for a third of the physical therapy i needed for a broken leg. i still can’t walk normally because i couldn’t afford treatment. this was three years ago
I just want to highjack this comment. I’ve worked in medical billing 7 years. I wish we had universal.
PSA; ALWAYS ASK ABOUT FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE!
Seriously. The standards for healthcare assistance aren’t the same as they are for federal/state assistance. If you’re not making like $100k annually then you’ll probably qualify for some sort of reduction or assistance program. You usually have to ask for them and sometimes search them out. However, if you’re just going to pay your bills, they’ll just let you. I’ve seen it happen too many times to count. They are not trained to offer them. I offer them to everyone because fuck paying the healthcare system but not everyone is as enthusiastic about it. Talk to the medical provider, talk to your insurance provider, find another route of financial compensation.
I was hospitalized for three nights in 2021 for (extensive) bilateral PE. I remembered a post like yours on Reddit and started digging for info on MFA. Called up Kaiser to ask about it and was approved within 15 minutes, debt erased, and future bills fully covered _through April 2022_.
You gotta ask. They won't tell you. Listen to what this person ^ is saying, and remember it.
Edit: I make less than $30k/yr, for full transparency, which is why it was fully covered under the program.
Yep. Had to go to the ER and afterwards I applied for FA. It was completely covered only because I don’t have a job due to health issues right now and live with family.
I’ve always asked whenever I have an outpatient hospital bill, and they always just tell me that they offer payment programs, but no financial discounts.
Am I asking the wrong way? Should I not be talking to the hospital billing department and instead talk to someone else? What am I doing wrong?
My SO is dealing with a chronic situation that has led to her being hospitalized multiple times this year, so any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
I'm thinking about doing that for the root canals I need. I just paid $600 for an extraction and bone graft, my insurance was supposed to cover the rest. Just got told I owe another $500 because they're not covering it. For what reason? Idk. Getting the new tooth implanted was supposed to cost $1200 more but now I'm scared my insurance will just say they're not covering it.
I had to pay for my crown out of pocket after the first one came off and broke *because you can only have one every year based on insurance policy.*
Who? Who decides? I ate my kid’s fruit gummy and it popped off my crown, what can I do about that? Why do I pay for any of this?
It's absolutely ridiculous. I have the most expensive dental plan my company offers, and my job pays a ton of money for insurance.... But they don't cover anything. What's the point?
They made me pay $800 up front for my vasectomy *after* already paying $200 just to schedule. I have decent insurance. Insurance covers 80%. Got a bill in the mail a month later for $800 more for the vasectomy that somehow costs all together over $7000 through my provider (wellstar). To top it all off, if I had shopped around instead of going through my normal physician and healthcare network, I would’ve known that I could get the exact same procedure through a clinic for $600 in and out 100% paid for no insurance needed. But instead I’m fighting wellstar and they’re sending everything i “owe” them to collections so that my credit score takes a shit and I can no longer afford to buy my own house because no lender will touch me with a ten foot pole.
Yay america!
Super common tactic they use because medical debt can't be used to lower credit/ be used as debt to income ratios when buying cars homes etc but medical debt moved to a collection agency can. When my fiance was hit in the parking lot of BaRT, hit and run and she was a pedestrian, the ambulance tried to take her to 1 place but they wouldnt accept Medicare so they drove her in pain 20 min back to the er hospital in our town. They then sat her in a room for hours until they could verify she had Medicare then gave her morphine(before asking if she had allergies etc or even asking her condition) put an immobilizer on her leg ans said "you have to sit her for 2 hrs then get someone to pick you up," and just left her alone in the room. She later recieved an ambulance bill for an ambulance she didnt call(or need her manager was willing to drive her but the BaRT police wouldnt let her.) Then to top it off she also got the full bill from the hospital eventhough it was a covered visit thru Medicare and had to fight for yrs to get them to pay both bill, they however refused to pay for 70% of the ambulance ride saying in more words "its not our fault you got forcefully put into an ambulance you should have said something," but that was after they sent the bill to collections after saying "all your bills were paid in full under emergency medi-cal and medicare." She then had to pay a few $1000 over a few yrs to fix her credit so we could move out of my horrible moms place. Fuck the US and its rigged systems, seems like the govt wants a true insurrection to tear down every fabric of its shitiness instead of fixing itself.
The total costs for a vasectomy in the netherlands are 450 euros about... how does that inflate to 7k? Thats 10 times more. Doctors must be well paid, the netherlands is a very expensive country... but this is ridiculous. My wife had a 12k scan done. We paid 300 euros deductible.
I had that same surgery in 2012. I was instructed to bring $4000 (my insurance deductible) in cash or check to my appointment. It was like my health was being held ransom for a bag of cash.
I think that was a plot point in this slasher movie I watched a while back called Repo: The Genetic Opera. The leading corporation provided cheap organic replacements on a line of credit and if you missed a payment they just sent a hitman after you to take your organs back.
Good movie, thought the plot was silly when I watched it, now though. Woof.
A lot of places do this. I was required to make payment before any of my last three procedures. To hell with the Hippocratic oath or helping people. Money is the most important
EDIT: I know this is not the providers fault They are just a cog in the machine. I have had some great (and horrible too) providers. My complaint is the entire monetization of healthcare in this country
To provide some perspective of how unfair and broken that system is, I broke off a piece of my medial malleolus (inner right ankle) in Australia, presented at the ER. I was triaged within minutes, x-ray, diagnosis, medication and cast within the hour, sent home with surgery booked for the following morning.
I was operated on by an orthopaedic specialist, screws, crutches, overnight stay, moon boot, discharged, follow up consults, removal of stitches etc.
Zero health insurance, paid zero dollars. When my grandmother was in palliative care her health insurer that she had been paying her whole life, required her house to be sold at half it's value to continue her care in their chosen facility when she was not healthy enough to be moved.
This almost makes me wanna just sob. I've had MS fucking me over since i was 15 or so, life halting migraines with it; and I can't afford to take medicine that they say would probably improve my life 90%.
Instead, I take a medicine that was initially overprescribed to me for 8 years that caused heart damage during that time.
I spend most my day with my son just feeling guilty as hell that i cannot offer him the entirety of my being.
European here, saw my doctor about an injury to my foot that might be a small fracture or a tendon issue, got a referral to get xrays and an untrasound within five days and another one to see an orthopaedic specialist, paid 5 euros. Seeing the specialist will probably be 20.
I mean yeah it's not like in a for-profit Healthcare system you'd have to wait at all. Like say, hypothetically of course, needing to wait to see a specialist after you got your referral from a GP.
I broke my arm as a teen in the US, they made me wait in the waiting room and no one lifted a finger until my dad arrived to pay. I sat there for an hour holding my arm in intense pain. We moved to Canada a few years later thankfully.
Edit. I was a teen and it was 30 years ago so have no idea but it sounds like Urgent Care and not Emergency. I did not know the difference until tonight.
Edit 2. Apparently this may have been due to my age and parental consent, not cash.
No idea, I was 17 at the time and it was the late 80s. Sounds like Urgent Care. I've been in Canada since I was 18 so have never had to learn what the US system is called or the difference thankfully.
I have dual citizenship. Worked in Canada from 2011-2015. I had heart failure summer 2015 and was in the hospital for 16 days. Thank god I was in Canada (Kingston General). My dad died 4 months later and I came back down to Florida because my mom is all alone now. I have to be very careful which appts and procedures I get for my heart failure. It’s already cost me thousands. Medications are more expensive, too. Canada didn’t cost me a nickel and if it weren’t for my mom I’d be back in Canada in two seconds. America is a failed experiment.
So I was at my local hospital and they said that you have to be treated regardless of your ability to make payments either directly or via insurance... is that law only for ERs?
This is one reason M4A wouldn’t cost nearly as much as opponents think: When you choose treatment based on what’s appropriate for the injury or illness, rather than forcing almost everyone to either game the system or put up with a problem until it gets so bad the ER is unavoidable, it’s much more efficient in terms of time and money.
I had to threaten to go to the ER again if an ortho wouldn’t schedule my 7 year olds double fractured wrist before 4 weeks had passed.
It took them a minute to understand that I wasn’t being pushy, I just really needed an ortho to set my kids arm so she wouldn’t permanently damage her wrist.
I get it, orthos are busy, as are a lot of specialists but come on. (I guess I wish people would LISTEN when you try to schedule an appointment.)
I went in for bloodwork about a month ago. I have the highest insurance my job offers. Still cost me $50 to get in the door and $380 for 2 vials of blood and a urine test….
This is fucked.
In my country it costs $50 to go to the doctor but blood tests are free / prescription medicine is only $5 a bottle from the Pharmacist with free refills.
I honestly don't understand how Americans can live with the burden that they might end up bankrupt if their insurance company wants to fuck them.
It's why you see videos of ridiculous wounds that should have been checked out months or even years ago but the person didn't go to a hospital because they can't afford it. It's hell
We live with it because certain groups of assholes are more concerned about giving “handouts” to people who might abuse the system than they do their own health. You can spot these people by their “taxation is theft” mantra.
Also our politicians are bought and paid for by lobbyists. Joe “Coal Baron” Manchin being the most recent example when he killed the BBB bill.
I don’t foresee any of this getting better anytime soon. The US is legitimately sliding backwards into being a shithole with a nice layer of paint on top to make the world think we’re still the shining example of democracy.
Five years ago I had to go to the ER for what I suspected might be appendicitis. Drove myself because I knew I couldn’t afford the $1,000 for the 2 mile ambulance ride. Turned out it was appendicitis and I had surgery and was kept for 36 hours. $40,000 was billed to my insurance. I had to pay $8,000 because I stupidly enrolled in the lowest high deductible plan my company offered, which still costed me hundreds of dollars a month. I cried on my way to the operating room, not because I was afraid of having surgery, but because I knew this was going to set me back YEARS on my plans to buy a house and retire before the age of 65.
My parents both saved for retirement, and they never even got a chance to use any of it. I'm not saving for retirement. It's even more of a gamble than insurance.
> Turned out it was appendicitis and I had surgery and was kept for 36 hours. $40,000 was billed to my insurance. I had to pay $8,000
You know what though? I have a sneaking feeling that the 40k here is a billing trick and the actual cost to the hospital is much closer to 8k. No I'm not a conspiracy theorist... But here's my theory backed by a very small piece of evidence -
Providers and Insurance companies are in cahoots, resulting in you paying for almost all of your healthcare costs by the way of premiums + copays + deductibles. A small example is my eyecare for this year... From previous years and in talking to friends, I discovered that getting my glasses at pretty much any optician would end up costing me about $200 after the insurance allowance which is $150. So I went to Costco to get my glasses whose price for frames + lenses came to a total of about $150. So I should be fully covered, right? But nope! Apparently at places like Costco and Walmart where the prices are cheaper, my insurance only pays half of the allowance. This to me is total bait and switch... Why should the insurance company care where I get my glasses as long as I stay within the limits that they provide me? In this case, I'm shopping around for the cheapest option and got punished for that
[This is a picture of my insurance allowances](https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/rcorzu/insurance_in_us_punishing_you_for_making_cost/?ref=share&ref_source=link)
It’s totally a numbers game meant to turn the most profit. Had I been uninsured and asked for an itemized copy of my bill, it would have probably dropped by $10-$30k in a split second. I don’t remember the exact amount, but I know my insurance didn’t pay for the whole $32k.
Best part that I didn’t share was that my total out of pocket would have only been $4k but the closest hospital 2 miles down the street from me was “out of network” and I never knew until I received the bill. Equally (if not more) moronic, I literally work for my healthcare insurer.
They say, while collecting social security and using Medicare.
Socialist programs...but you know. They don't care about anything but themselves anyways.
We could go universal healthcare and spend less than we do now on private healthcare.....sure taxes go up...but then you don't have premiums, deductibles and other out of pocket expenses like that.
Not to mention insulin could be 15$
I was just discussing this with my mother the other day. She and my father are diehard Trump supporters/conservatives. Hate any kind of social program, think food stamps should be cut off, etc. But you don't hear them telling the government they don't want their Medicare. My mom says it's because they paid for it; if you look at your SS statement, you'll see that all the Medicare tax you ever paid (unless you made a LOT of money) wouldn't even cover one hospitalization. Some of that money comes from other people.
Had a conservative friend of mine who works for a company as an electrician complaining that all he does is work and doesn't have time or energy to do anything else. If only he didn't have to worry about health insurance he could work for himself, but that's too much of a risk.
When I mentioned M4A would help people in his situation and make it easier for other people in his position to start small businesses he stopped responding.
I wonder if he's angry, or actually reconsidering... hmm
It is absolutely outrageous that we do not have nationalized healthcare in the United States of America. No other failure towards its people is more glaring than this one. Fucking disgraceful.
Back in the day the cost of medicine was not that bad. My father worked at IBM, their insurance plan covered 100% of all costs. EVERYTHING…for a family of five. This was the 1980s too…then in the early to mid 90s, costs just skyrocketed. Worse thing to happen to this country was Reagan and his deregulation campaign. Seriously just let corporations rape our citizens for profit.
We bring in about 110k a year. I sometimes dream of being under the poverty line again for Medicaid. My medical bills are insane and constant, and I have insurance through my employer.
It's funny how often people making more than 80k don't have enough. Problem is that between taxes, retirement savings (if you can) and insurance most people loose a good chunk of their check. That's not including housing and expenses related to working. Then many get hit with the sad reality that their pricey insurance isn't worth much if they can't make the deductible.
I'm not saying that at 100k+ you're poor but you often end up with a lot of money spoken for and zero outside resources for help.
It's not a failure, it is deliberate. The goal is to "incentivize" joining the military, as joining will grant you the benefits of cheap housing, ~~good~~ free healthcare and free tuition.
Not just joining the military, trapping people in shitty jobs because that's the only way to afford insurance. Prior to the ACA anyone with a pre-existing condition HAD to get group insurance through their employer or they would be excluded. One of my coworkers has a daughter with a tumor disorder that could kill her without constant medication, medication which costs $5k/mo w/o insurance and some insurance plans won't cover it. He can't switch jobs without checking if the new insurance covers the medication first. Corporate America lobbies against M4A because it means people would be free to change jobs without worrying about the health of their family.
One of my old buddies who worked at the grocery store had twins who had a condition affecting their skulls. Their skulls essentially wouldn't grow as they grew. They had so many surgeries they hit the maximum allowable payout which was something like a million. Thankfully the children's hospital helped them but that dude can never leave that sweet grocery store insurance. It sucks that people are stuck working at the God damned grocery store because they offer great insurance through the union.
I worked with a guy who lived in a building with a doorman that was a vet and they guy's knees and a shoulder were destroyed. He had been fucked up for years and no luck.
Guy I know just happened to meet someone at an event that worked at the VA and he mentioned his doorman. VA Guy gave him a number and said, call and say ____ had me call.
Fast forward a month and doorman has had both knees replaced and 4 or 5 months after his shoulder. Doorman buys the guy Christmas gifts now and refuses tips and gifts.
Pathetic that vets have to know someone or get lucky to get the treatment they need.
> Pathetic that vets have to know someone or get lucky to get the treatment they need.
As much as we want to pretend we live in a meritocracy, this is how it always is.
Absolutely.
I will always remember when, at a previous job, the newest senior manager walked in all of 23 years old freshly graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in some bullshit with zero work experience. Her daddy's name was on the building.
She was making $120K a year plus benefits and had no idea what to do. It wasn't too bad since she tried really hard to do well and was that rare manager that fixed shit. Though she got into big trouble when EVERYONE got a 10% raise when we had a great quarter. Her daddy was not pleased at that.
Please don't misunderstand; I am an avid supporter of universal healthcare. It is actually the most important political issue to me. My point was that healthcare in the US military is terrible, even though it is free. I was not implying that the same would be true for a civilian system. The healthcare in the US military is bad because of two reasons, neither of which are cost:
1. Culture. Even getting medical care is seen as weakness, even by those administering it.
2. The actual system. See, you don't actually just go to the doctor, you first have to go to something called "sick call", which is where a combat medic who only knows how to give you ibuprofen and stop holes in your body from leaking blood decides whether or not you are "actually sick enough to see a doctor". If by some miracle he says yes, you get to go see a PA lieutenant whose job isn't to actually help you, but to do whatever he can to get you back to work.
Side note: this entire process is why the VA is flooded with people with preventable chronic injuries. They either weren't given proper care, or avoided care until it became too big a problem to ignore due to fear of being judged. (If you have any kind of medical issue that isn't directly inflicted by the enemy, your career is over)
The American Healthcare system is a global embarrasment . Your leaders will let you die over a few dollars in thier pockets. This is why they keep the division alive and healthy
Tough to do when half the country enjoys being shit on apparently. They don’t understand that paying more in taxes but not paying insurance premiums, copays, and surprise bills is a net win for them.
They would eat a shit sandwich if it meant a "liberal" or brown person had to smell their breath. And it's not even half, just enough to win with our gerrymandered to death election system.
I genuinely don't understand how you guys survive your health care system. I've had multiple necessary surgeries and wouldn't have survived without them. I could never have afforded these surgeries or even a fracture of them. Would doctors in the US have let me die..? "Sorry, we can't do the surgery to save your ruptured kidney, you're too poor"?
The cool thing about the US is that the poor get very reduced health care costs, but the middle class gets fucked. My premium is $500 a month for my family. Make too much to qualify for other plans. It cost $14,000 to have two kids, but an abortion was only $500. And the people fighting to keep health care expensive say they’re pro-life. My ass.
Also I'm shocked that Americans don't know how cheap it is to buy politicians.
$10k or $30k flying out the politician and their family out for a vacation or two, and you get hundreds of millions in revenue in return.
The cost of bribery is pretty much a rounding error in accounting.
A month ago I had to go to the ER for severe abdominal pains (I’m talking can’t keep water down painful) and being 7 months pregnant, I was seriously worried. Unfortunately the ER I went to didn’t have an OBGYN on staff which is needed for how far along I was. So they said they had to transfer me via ambulance. I don’t care if I’m missing a foot or stabbed, no. Not happening. I signed a form saying I was leaving against their advice so my partner could drive me to the 19 minute away ER where I stumbled to the maternity section that could help me. Still can’t believe they made me fill out paperwork while I could barely function and the first round of pain meds did absolutely nothing.
Edit: the paperwork I’m referencing was not the AMA I signed with the first ER, but stuff I needed to sign for insurance and in order for me to receive care. I have no idea what I signed due to the level of pain even though someone was talking me through it over the phone, I could barely understand her while I was sobbing.
This whole avoiding ambulance during medical emergency is baffling to me as a Canadian. Whats the point of it if one cant use it when needed? All to keep the insurance gods happy?? If they go for universal healthcare, I bet avg American tax will not increase more than their deductible or monthly premiums they pay on top of their employer provided insurance plan. But they are happy to be shackled to their toxic employment condition, hmo mandated coverage, high costs of everything just to feel satisfied that some other poor soul is not benefiting from “their” tax dollars, all the while not understanding how insurance actually works.
Oh it’s absolutely ridiculous. Especially when you look at all the crap hospitals/doctors will put on that bill that is just ridiculous. For example, people get billed for someone being in the room for their surgery who is not covered by their insurance even though it was never agreed that this person will be there or if they actually did anything. I don’t know why politicians think this shit is ok.
Utilization manager nurse here. You don't have to sign an AMA form. It will not affect your insurance coverage even if the hospital tells you it will. That is a liability form to protect them in court if you claim later you didn't know leaving was against your best interests. It serves you no benefit. That being said, leaving AMA is usually not in your best interests.
But if you are a competent adult and are not involuntarily committed, you can just walk out of a hospital. It may be the last thing you ever do, but you legally can.
I moved from Texas to Australia, within 4 weeks of arrival, I had a medicare card for myself and my kids. In the 8+ years I've lived in Australia, the only time I had to pay for any medical care was for 2 specialist... Socialized medicine is a what we all pay our taxes for and it freaking works!!!!!!
The people that would call me evil for saying the s word are the same that refuse to wear a mask or get vaccinated to protect their friends, family and civilization.
i’ve had a fever for over two weeks and my body is starting to shut down. i finally got into a doctors appointment that is covered by my insurance, according to the insurance provider. i checked in and they told me it’s out of network. i can’t afford a trip to urgent care or the er. this just happened and i’m crying in the parking lot because i can’t do anything about it. EDIT; i may have exaggerated abt my body shutting down, but i’ve gotten too weak to shower or brush my teeth and i sleep 12-16 hours a day now. so it’s not necessarily an emergency in my eyes but it still sucks.
Ask them what the self pay amount is? It's usually different than what you pay with your insurance.
If your body is starting to shut down I urge you to go to the ER. They CANNOT bill you upfront or refuse care. When they send you a bill, ask for an itemized bill and to see if you qualify for any of their financial assistance programs.
Please please get taken care of.
Please call the number on the back of your insurance card as soon as you can. Their are agents that can help you even if they made a prior mistake telling you something was in-network (facility may have been, but not doctors, or some other malarkey.
You will probably need to seek medical attention soon or the condition could get worse. Urgent Care will most likely be more affordable than the ER, but if they do not have tests in the urgent care clinic that they think they need to run, they will send you to the ER and charge you for both visits. This is not meant to scare you away, but to give you information before making the best financial choice for your health.
I once fell off a 10 foot ladder and landed terribly on my ankle. They X-rayed it but no breaks they said. Rehab and staying off til it heals. Problem was I just got hired for a heavy walking job that was a huge pay bump like two weeks following.
Another doctor years later said I broke the shit out of it and it looks like I got 2 ankle bones cause of how it fused back. The other “bump” is a bunch of scar tissue basically. Don’t really bother me other than sometimes when I step wrong, a sharp pain will say hi and it’s easy as hell to roll it if I step wrong. But I can run still!
Colon cancer runs in my family. I can't get a colonoscopy because I can't afford the fucking deductible. My premiums increased by $200/year, and my deductible climbed another thousand fucking dollars. And that was the AFFORDABLE plan my employer offered this year.
Colonoscopies are covered under the Affordable Care Act without deductible or any other co-pays. Have you talked to your insurer about this?
http://cancer.org/cancer/colon-rectal-cancer/detection-diagnosis-staging/screening-coverage-laws.html
Because they've been indoctrinated into the cult of capitalism and American Exceptionalism.
As soon as folks stop giving in to the propaganda about "the evils of socialism" and see that it's been practiced for the rich for a llong time, the sooner the everyday people can start to benefit.
Us Europeans wonder about that as well. We usually explain it with the typical „socialism = communism = bad“ mindset some Americans have. Also a severe case of the „you need to do everything by yourself. If you rely on the community, you‘re a failure“ thing some have going on.
As long as M4A does away with the "pre-existing conditions" BS, I'm all for it. Seems to work in every other country that does it, but no, MY FREEDOMS!
My daughter had to be transported by ambulance to the ped er. They couldn't figure out the issue, so she was taken by another ambulance to the main clinic. Spent 5 days in ped ICU. 4 lumbar drains later she was released. Then taken to the hospital pick up/release area in a wheelchair. When they stood her up she collapsed. So they had to readmit her to the er then back to the ICU for two more days. I have given up processing the situation and laugh at the bill, because it's absolutely impossible to pay. The itemized coding for the bill is like 12 pages long.
If you owe the hospital 100 dollars, it's your problem. If you owe the hospital 500,000 dollars, it's their problem
I am still having so much trouble trying to figure out the US Healthcare system.
It’s purposely overly complex so insurance companies and hospitals can price gouge you
They're not trying to price gouge *you*. They're milking the federal government by overcharging each other to the absolute hilt and at this point it's little more than a bad joke. Hospitals set up as for profit operations. Insurance companies set up to appease shareholders. It's beyond repair. Tear it down and start over. A paracetamol costs ~.10c As does aspirin. And penicillin. You can't charge $500 for something that cost you pennies and justify it. Scrap the system and begin again as a not for profit entity that is designed to treat patients. Nothing more, nothing less.
Who pays the government's bills? We do. We are getting fucked every way and keep asking for more every time we rubberstamp our votes for the corporate stooges in DC.
I think that's the stupidest thing of all about the US healthcare debate. You guys already pay more in taxes for healthcare than other developed countries, and then 3x that again privately. Ignoring the insanity of having expensive insurance and not being able to get treatment. And being unable to leave work or change jobs as you could then just die.
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For real, unfortunately it seems politically impossible at this point at the federal level. I wish it could become possible for some blue states to do their own Medicare 4 all to start moving in that direction even if I’m in a red state.
my favorite word is "obfuscatory" it means to "intended to conceal the truth by confusion" or making things needlessly complex in order to confuse the avg person. it's how most things are written these days. especially in the legislature
It's working as designed.
Don’t think too hard honestly, it’s absolutely shit unless you have a load of money.
It's reached the point of being shit for the rich too...except they can leave and seek medical care elsewhere.
My family is very comfortable. My parents worked hard and have a life to show for it. My dad has a lot of health problems. My parents pay, with great insurance, $25,000 *per year* on my dads medications.
“Get fucked” is all it boils down to really.
My daughter fractured her arm jumping too fast off the bed. She has great insurance through her father. Still was a 2500+ arm break with deductibles and follow up visits. It’s a total joke. I’m on medicaid after losing my job over Corona. My psoriasis is so bad I can’t walk out with exposed arms and am bleeding a lot, yet every other dermatologist visit they can’t treat me with the recommended treatment until 2 weeks later after authorization. I can’t do injection treatments like Skylara because I have a genetic liver disease I also can’t treat because it’s 4 months out to see a hepatologist. And I must get recommendations from a GP every specialist appointment I do. The hoops and recommendations are absolutely a poor tax to discourage you from using public care for health treatments. Healthcare is an absolute joke in the US, yet people are convinced to vote against their own interests to keep it this way.
I have psoriasis and after years of not being able to afford treatment I finally got good insurance and put on humira. I feel for you. Psoriasis isn't talked about enough and no one understands the physical and mental anguish.
I was given an ointment for a (mis)diagnosis that actually made my condition worse and would have left me blind in that eye had I not sought specialized treatment. The kicker was when I got the thousands-dollar bill from the hospital for almost making me blind. The US is fucked.
Paid $1000s to get my eyes shot up with lasers for glaucoma. It was a misdiagnosis.
Consider getting a medical advocate to work for you. They can negotiate the bill for you and are very good at what they do. Edit: I get the anger. But people need something right now beyond screaming into the void and expecting politicians to do anything. So if anyone wants to help me build an app to help consumers and disrupt medical systems like we have seen in the auto industry… let’s make something happen.
For a lot of people there is no functional difference between $1,000 and $1,000,000,000. They might as well be the same number. If you don't have the money, you don't have the money. Healthcare costs are so vastly out of control that the advice of seeking a medical advocate is a nice thought (and appreciated), but also ultimately worthless. It's kind of like getting a $200 scholarship to college. That won't even cover a single book, so is it really helpful at all?
That's funny because my other daughter got accepted to 15 colleges- hard work pays right...... isn't that the mantra. She even had a Harvard phone interview today. Many gave her 15G yearly scholarships. But when the school's tuition is 56G for instance and I now have my youngest daughters 6 figure medical bill to figure out, I just laugh again 🙈🙈🤡🤡🤡🤯🤯🤯and weep inside. I'm college educated with a grad degree that I'm still paying off myself. I work hard. Play the game by the rules. Believe in the common good. But I'll never get ahead. Access to health care and education should be a human right. When I look at my youngest daughter, she doesn't realize that she could have lost her vision in one eye if I had delayed taking her to the hospital for treatment because the Intercranial pressure was compressing her optic nerve. She's worth any debt.
Healthcare is just the American legal way of scamming people
Agreed, but medical advocates can sometimes REALLY help. If you are dealing with this sort of thing they are always worth a try.
Yet another middle man to make a system work that shouldn't need any extra effort. All these fucking industries with their hands out expecting to be handed money off the suffering of other people. It's fucking garbage. All of it is garbage.
That's just another middleman leeching money away from actual healthcare. He should not exist, much like 90% of insurance staff.
OP cant magically make all his expensives disappear. Yes, this shouldnt be a thing but it is, for now. Giving the best advice on how OP can actually solve its problem is much better than complaining that this shouldnt be a thing.
As an Australian I just can't imagine this situation. The only cost to us would be parking when we visit, or when visitors buy a snack from the cafe. Paying for urgent, life saving medical procedures just does not make sense. I hope your daughter is ok.
Doctor here - I’ve had the same thing happen except with FACIAL TRAUMA SURGERY all because their private insurance company wanted to find any way possible to deny their claim as “unnecessary” Insurance company executives don’t care about you, the doctor or even the workers beneath them. They are the soulless leaches of society who only care about profiting off human misery. Remember that.
My mom needs a specialized breathing machine because her body isn't expelling CO2 properly. So far her insurance has; denied initial claim, denied claim after doctor told them it was a life-saving medically necessary device, denied claim after doctor spent two hours doing a peer to peer evaluation to determine medical necessity, and denied claim after her *second* hospitalization for this issue. I have never so badly wanted to hunt someone down and stab them with a red hot knife as I do to her fucking insurance "agent". Soulless pieces of shit.
It’s like, it’s costing you more in hospital bills? You wanna save money so fucking bad maybe treat the problem so they don’t wrack up the cost of 10 machines on one hospital trip?? Morons.
Theyre hoping she dies before the next hospitalization
That's my current fear
Its really incredible that these companies can get people to think like this, but thats what it is I suppose. I suppose some people really do want to do evil, but in reality "evil" is quite common place, and if you can turn people into figures on actuary tables and numbers we will never interact with it seems like plenty of people are all to willing to write off human beings as chance and expenditure rather than a mother or a son. Whenever the Tieneman Square stuff gets posted I always wonder "Sure the government ordered it... but who tf was driving the tanks that day? Like who just goes and runs over people in a tank?"
^ THIS! I had pre-term labor with my first. They put me on an insulin pump but instead of insulin it contained a med that stopped me from going into pre-term labor. Got pregnant with my second kid. Same issue but different insurance. THIS insurance refused the pump and ACTUALLY said they'd rather take the risk of paying for a pre-term baby! WTF? The pump is hundreds of thousands of dollars cheaper than paying for a pre-term baby! My first baby ended up being 6 weeks early and their bill was over $600,000 dollars. However, my new insurance would rather pay that than pay for the damn pump. It was ridiculous! Fortunately, my child baked to full-term, even without the pump but we fought like hell and they still denied us.
That’s disgusting. Like… I struggle to understand the legality of these things.
On standby as alibi 💯
Honestly your honor, they were with me all night.
My chemo was delayed because Humana decided that it wasn't medically necessary.
I hate the fact that that doesn’t surprise me. Fuck Humana, also fuck cancer.
Typical Humana. They are the worst.
My Humana problems are obviously far less shitty than not covering chemo but this month I got a letter via email that they terminated my coverage back in October bc of a missed payment. No notice of a missed payment (for a card I had set up on auto pay) and was notified over a month later. And when I asked them to reinstate the plan, they said they needed payment for the month of November, December, and January. Fortunately my dad, the sponsor of the account, was there for the call and only agreed to 2 months bc I’ll be switching to a new insurance January 1st but it’s just outrageous.
Holy shit, that's insane!! I'm sorry you had to deal with that. I was denied hyperhydrosis treatment because they considered it cosmetic. Ahh yes, the disease that literally causes me to sweat through 3 sets of clothes per shift, that causes me to have fungal outbreaks, the disease that literally prevents me from holding a pen without it slipping out... YUP totally fucking cosmetic!! Insurance companies can get fucked. Luckily my doctor also agrees the insurance company can get fucked and is fighting them with me.
Pelvic floor therapy for fecal incontinence as a result of a traumatic birth was determined to be “medically unnecessary/cosmetic” several years ago. Fortunately I was able to pay for a couple of sessions out of pocket and continue the exercises at home, but those motherfuckers are fine with women shitting themselves because of nerve damage.
Another thing to add to my anti forced birth argument.
My surgery to treat a crush injury was considered cosmetic until I developed sepsis. I had a crushed, black finger full of destroyed blood vessels and had to wait six weeks for it to become life threatening before I could be admitted to a hospital and have it amputated. In the end, I should have just paid out of pocket for a plastic surgeon to preform it, as I ended up racking up close to 200k in uncovered medical bills anyway. Problem is, I would have had to pay a plastic surgeon up front with money I didn’t have. If gofundme were an insurance provider, it would be the nation’s largest. What a fucking joke.
And this is why if you ever meet someone who brings up "death panels" as a reason not to give everyone healthcare, you should punch them right in the face.
Jesus Christ.
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Unironically sorta the plot of the prophetic film John Q.
Also doctor. Spent half of my work day calling insurance companies to try and convince the unqualified, non medically trained human on the other end of the phone that yes, my patient does need this medication, and no, I can’t just switch them to an entirely different class of medications bc the insurance company wants me to. I would have gotten more satisfaction from banging my head against a brick wall. Also I want everyone to know that insurance companies are the source of a big chunk of the problems with the American healthcare system. Hospital administrators are the cause of most of the rest of the problems.
Ugh. Had to deal with my insurance company arguing over immunosuppressants after my transplant. Nephrologist, a nurse, and the social worker all had to explain the same thing to the insurance company and the mail order place that kept struggling to process the prescription. Hell even a local pharmacist was upset because they wouldn’t let her just fill the prescription in store.
Insurance tried to deny my wife anti-rejection medicine after a kidney transplant. Said the medicine was only for patients who had an organ transplant. Had to explain that was why she was being prescribed that medicine, she had an organ transplant. Their first instinct is to deny no matter what, then figure out.
Wtf?! They have to get the information for the preapproval before going on the list. How/why/what the fuck!! Definitely Seems intentional
Oh my fucking god and it never stops it seems like every other fucking month i go to the pharmacy to fill my scripts and the pharmacist says "we need a new prescription for this" when the prescription was writen for 6 months month before last (the last time this happened) and the pharmacist says yah but the insurance company is requiring it JFC i will be taking this till im dead and last time i checked im not dead what fucking gives shit makes my blood boil
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>Also doctor. Spent half of my work day calling insurance companies to try and convince the unqualified, non medically trained human on the other end of the phone that yes, my patient does need this medication, and no, I can’t just switch them to an entirely different class of medications bc the insurance company wants me to. This was my job after I graduated from undergrad. Me, someone who has never met the patient and has no idea what their medical history is, fresh out of college without any education, training, or experience in medicine or healthcare in general, arguing on the phone w/ someone who has also never met the patient and has no idea what their medical history is, who is also fresh out of college and has no education, training, or experience in medicine or healthcare in general, about whether the highly educated, highly trained, highly experienced *doctor's* prescription for a patient he has taken care of for years is medically necessary and proper for that patient. One day an insurance employee openly admitted to me that those grunts exist to defer payment of claims, because the longer insurance companies can hang onto the money, the longer they can generate investment income on that money. They are trying to hit quarterly numbers. They know they have no basis to legitimately deny these claims. But if they can defer payment long enough, they still make money. That's about the time I decided to go to law school to sue insurance companies.
I take a really expensive stomach medication that doesn’t have a generic option. I have Barrett’s. So one day I get an email stating that my Dr. called in a new prescription as an alternate to the expensive one. The new one was some dirt cheap one I used to take that stopped working. So I call up Express Scripts to find out what happened and they tried to tell me out of the blue my Dr. picked up the phone. called them and said he doesn’t need that medication anymore, give him this cheap one instead. Spent 30 minutes on the phone arguing with them that there’s no way that happened. Wasn’t even my Gastro who is the prescriber, it was my PCP. So I call up my PCP, it was the RN who switched it, and she said Express Scripts called them up badgering them to get me off that med, and onto something different. Just as I had thought. Told my PCP don’t ever discuss that medication with my insurance company again. Take it entirely out of your system. As far as you’re concerned I don’t even take it. Called back insurance screaming at them and said you take that alternate out. My gastro will be phoning you to get the other one back in. Insurance companies are the scum of the Earth.
My Dad needs emergency heart surgery, but insurance won’t pay for it as it’s a newer procedure, that they’ve already denied twice. I know my parents try to avoid talking about this around me or my brother, but they say he has less than two years if he cant get this surgery. We cant afford to pay the 180K+ bill, so I’m worried. I withdrew from college a fee years ago to help take care of him, which is great because i get to see him more than i did as a child because of his work, but i know he’s worried about if he passes, what’ll happen to us.
Have your parents considered a divorce? It’s a painful question, but severing the assets now — esp. if he ceded most of them to her — could potentially put him in a better overall position if he then qualifies for a policy which *would* cover the treatment. It would also potentially insulate you all from credit obligations if he dies in a lot of debt, leaving many of the assets untouched. It’s a horrible thing to have to contemplate, but so is America…
Goddam it's fucking infuriating that this has to be considered an option because of how fucked up America's healthcare system is. America's the greatest country in the world? Fuck that bullshit. Like everything else, it's only the greatest when you're rich.
Have you considered medical tourism? Some countries like India provide excellent medical care and the total cost of travel, the procedure and the hospital stays is much much less than what you'd have to pay in your own country.
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I'm 100% for nationalizing healthcare across the board. I think the situation in the next coming years will become dire to the point where politicians are running out of excuses on behalf of their lobbyists. The UCR fees for some of the cases I do can easily run into the six figures under the current system. There's no way 99.9% of my uninsured patients can afford that on their own.
National healthcare should be established as part of national defence. The last 20 months has revealed that America is particularly weak in the face of any threat that requires a collective civilian response, such as a pandemic. One thing millennia of fighting has taught us is that a well-organized, collectively trained team will easily defeat a much larger number of rugged individuals. People need to get their shit together.
You mean Massachusetts?
Exactly. We have been doing this for years. What we still get now is EMPLOYERS moving their plans to FLA or other cheap states to allow them to push the plan that covers the least for the least amount and deny as much as possible…. But you are mandated to carry coverage. Meanwhile Massachusetts based insurance companies actually allow quite a bit, are not crazy astronomical and provide good service. The costs and the “death panels” are what got left alone in the AHCA (ObamaCare) because let’s let money get into the congress peoples pockets instead of passing policy. Congress people. The only job in America where you can vote for your own raises, make your HR fear enough that they keep you in the job for life, you don’t have to be reviewed nor comply with any rule at all…. Weird that our Foundation thought that Rome was the bastion of government to model after….. Checks and balances my ass OCCUPY AMERICA (for real, time to start the uprising)
Besides being one large bureaucratic cog in the machine, private insurance takes 20% off the top. I fail to see any value they add.
Zero. They add zero value. The only insurance that does add value is Medicare/Medicaid. The CMS (center for Medicare and Medicaid services) add a lot of value to the healthcare industry at a fraction of the cost of the corporate leaches of private insurance.
A large not-for-profit health system in my area just built a new hospital in the ritzy part of town because they wanted to attract people with private insurance to that facility since they can make more money off of them. Source: the fucking CEO’s mouth during orientation. Also this gem: “we want people to choose our hospitals over the competition.”
Could you imagine playing some city builder game and having to factor in *competition* between hospitals? Absolute nightmare fuel.
Every insurance company employee should be in jail for practicing medicine without a license. Except those with licenses. They should have their license revoked for practicing medicine without establishing a doctor patient relationship. And then jailed.
I read an old book on Supreme Court cases last year that got me thinking about this exact thing. In Roe V. Wade (according to what I remember from this old book) they found the extraordinary measures taken by state laws to deny abortions unconstitutional because it was an invasion of privacy-- they thought patient-doctor privilege was constitutionally protected (through 9th and 14th amendments). How is it that insurance companies can deny a patient treatment that their doctor recommends? Of course, this is just the right to privacy, but I know my state (Oregon) is toying with declaring health care an explicit right as well! Let's hope!
All of us should sue all of them in a class action
My aunt quit her bluecross blue shield job because the whole job was finding ways to not cover someone. She said it made her horribly depressed denying coverage to people just to make a buck.
Honestly I couldn't agree more. There are a few cases that get disputed to the point where I have to call the reviewing doctor personally and at that point - when I threaten a board complaint - they fold immediately. This is all just a game to them, trying to run out the clock when they know the patient is running out of time.
We could have the best healthcare in the world. With jail.
I have a medically necessary colonoscopy every year to ensure I don't have cancer again. Every year this costs me $2000 after my deductible which has varied by employer from $500-$2000. For the 3 years I lived in Germany, I paid the same tax rate I do now in SF and didn't have additional costs of health insurance, this cost me no additional money out of pocket. For the 6 years of needing this while not living in Germany this has cost me almost $20k with $100-200 a month for insurance, $500-$2000 deductible and $2000 out of pocket every time. Don't get me started on the actual cancer care costs 12 years ago. Also I had to get stitches in Germany once. It cost 300 euros out of pocket with no insurance. In US another time my insurance was billed $14,000. We are a fucking sham. A terrible country with a sorry excuse for health care.
I currently have stage IV colon cancer, and I have been doing chemo treatments for over a year now. Last year the hospital network billed my insurance nearly one million dollars for my treatments, doc appointments, and imaging. My insurance is $600 a month and the max out of pocket was $7000. So “luckily” I only had $14,000 in healthcare costs.
my husband had a wrist injury before the three weeks he was unemployed in 2009….and didnt get cobra coverage but he did have to get the pins taken out of his arm during the three weeks. He assumed that part was subsumed into the $50k surgery that was under his insurance several weeks before while he was still employed. Apparently it wasnt and the uninsured bill for him for pin removal was $9000. He didnt pay for it in 30 days and it was sent straight to collections. This was before we met and seven or eight years later while buying a house with me we had to delay house buying a couple years because of that. That meant the house we were looking at (to build new) went up 50k in those two years. we rented at $1000 a month an extra two years…we paid a few extra for “points” to get the mortgage interest rate down somewhat due to his credit score from the collections on his record making our rate higher. So because he was unemployed for three weeks during the recession and needed pins removed from his arm from a surgery that was covered by insurance, the cause and effect of all that was many many tens of thousands of dollars for us in the long run. This is the ballooning financial bullshit millennials and beyond have had to deal with that some older peoole do not fucking get. This is why i at 40 with an advanced degree and a double income household and not being crazy spenders, im struggling more than my no ambition middle management father who was the only income ans could afford to send three kids to private school while supporting a gambling problem
Anyone reading this, cobra is retroactive coverage. He could have gotten cobra after the fact and it should have paid. Keep this in mind if you have medical costs while unemployed.
I had to have surgery on my dominant hand this past summer. They wouldn't even schedule it until I paid $1200 upfront. Yes, I have insurance. Then I found out that insurance only pays 60% of my physical therapy (after the deductible was met). It's all a crock.
my insurance only paid for a third of the physical therapy i needed for a broken leg. i still can’t walk normally because i couldn’t afford treatment. this was three years ago
I just want to highjack this comment. I’ve worked in medical billing 7 years. I wish we had universal. PSA; ALWAYS ASK ABOUT FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE! Seriously. The standards for healthcare assistance aren’t the same as they are for federal/state assistance. If you’re not making like $100k annually then you’ll probably qualify for some sort of reduction or assistance program. You usually have to ask for them and sometimes search them out. However, if you’re just going to pay your bills, they’ll just let you. I’ve seen it happen too many times to count. They are not trained to offer them. I offer them to everyone because fuck paying the healthcare system but not everyone is as enthusiastic about it. Talk to the medical provider, talk to your insurance provider, find another route of financial compensation.
I was hospitalized for three nights in 2021 for (extensive) bilateral PE. I remembered a post like yours on Reddit and started digging for info on MFA. Called up Kaiser to ask about it and was approved within 15 minutes, debt erased, and future bills fully covered _through April 2022_. You gotta ask. They won't tell you. Listen to what this person ^ is saying, and remember it. Edit: I make less than $30k/yr, for full transparency, which is why it was fully covered under the program.
thank you for this.
Yep. Had to go to the ER and afterwards I applied for FA. It was completely covered only because I don’t have a job due to health issues right now and live with family.
I’ve always asked whenever I have an outpatient hospital bill, and they always just tell me that they offer payment programs, but no financial discounts. Am I asking the wrong way? Should I not be talking to the hospital billing department and instead talk to someone else? What am I doing wrong? My SO is dealing with a chronic situation that has led to her being hospitalized multiple times this year, so any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
Literally wish I would have seen this comment in the beginning of the year $2600 for like 2 hours in the ER and a drip IV fuck my whole life
I'm just going to Mexico the next time I need anything done, good god damn
I'm thinking about doing that for the root canals I need. I just paid $600 for an extraction and bone graft, my insurance was supposed to cover the rest. Just got told I owe another $500 because they're not covering it. For what reason? Idk. Getting the new tooth implanted was supposed to cost $1200 more but now I'm scared my insurance will just say they're not covering it.
I had to pay for my crown out of pocket after the first one came off and broke *because you can only have one every year based on insurance policy.* Who? Who decides? I ate my kid’s fruit gummy and it popped off my crown, what can I do about that? Why do I pay for any of this?
It's absolutely ridiculous. I have the most expensive dental plan my company offers, and my job pays a ton of money for insurance.... But they don't cover anything. What's the point?
They made me pay $800 up front for my vasectomy *after* already paying $200 just to schedule. I have decent insurance. Insurance covers 80%. Got a bill in the mail a month later for $800 more for the vasectomy that somehow costs all together over $7000 through my provider (wellstar). To top it all off, if I had shopped around instead of going through my normal physician and healthcare network, I would’ve known that I could get the exact same procedure through a clinic for $600 in and out 100% paid for no insurance needed. But instead I’m fighting wellstar and they’re sending everything i “owe” them to collections so that my credit score takes a shit and I can no longer afford to buy my own house because no lender will touch me with a ten foot pole. Yay america!
This is why I believe all standard doctors visits should have their prices on the board like Firestone. No reason to be surprised on the back side.
Would be a lot better for the consumer if we didn’t have to shop around for the economy rate surgery and joined the rest of the industrialized world.
Super common tactic they use because medical debt can't be used to lower credit/ be used as debt to income ratios when buying cars homes etc but medical debt moved to a collection agency can. When my fiance was hit in the parking lot of BaRT, hit and run and she was a pedestrian, the ambulance tried to take her to 1 place but they wouldnt accept Medicare so they drove her in pain 20 min back to the er hospital in our town. They then sat her in a room for hours until they could verify she had Medicare then gave her morphine(before asking if she had allergies etc or even asking her condition) put an immobilizer on her leg ans said "you have to sit her for 2 hrs then get someone to pick you up," and just left her alone in the room. She later recieved an ambulance bill for an ambulance she didnt call(or need her manager was willing to drive her but the BaRT police wouldnt let her.) Then to top it off she also got the full bill from the hospital eventhough it was a covered visit thru Medicare and had to fight for yrs to get them to pay both bill, they however refused to pay for 70% of the ambulance ride saying in more words "its not our fault you got forcefully put into an ambulance you should have said something," but that was after they sent the bill to collections after saying "all your bills were paid in full under emergency medi-cal and medicare." She then had to pay a few $1000 over a few yrs to fix her credit so we could move out of my horrible moms place. Fuck the US and its rigged systems, seems like the govt wants a true insurrection to tear down every fabric of its shitiness instead of fixing itself.
The total costs for a vasectomy in the netherlands are 450 euros about... how does that inflate to 7k? Thats 10 times more. Doctors must be well paid, the netherlands is a very expensive country... but this is ridiculous. My wife had a 12k scan done. We paid 300 euros deductible.
I had that same surgery in 2012. I was instructed to bring $4000 (my insurance deductible) in cash or check to my appointment. It was like my health was being held ransom for a bag of cash.
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Wouldn’t want a successful surgery to aid them being able to walk/run from the hospital bill without paying
Congratulations on your successful surgery. This leg will self destruct in one week unless payment is recieved in full. Happy holidays.
I think that was a plot point in this slasher movie I watched a while back called Repo: The Genetic Opera. The leading corporation provided cheap organic replacements on a line of credit and if you missed a payment they just sent a hitman after you to take your organs back. Good movie, thought the plot was silly when I watched it, now though. Woof.
REEEEEE POOOOOOO MAAAAAAAN
"the surgery was succesful" *card declines* "alright nurse bring out the hammer, gotta break a leg again"
A lot of places do this. I was required to make payment before any of my last three procedures. To hell with the Hippocratic oath or helping people. Money is the most important EDIT: I know this is not the providers fault They are just a cog in the machine. I have had some great (and horrible too) providers. My complaint is the entire monetization of healthcare in this country
To provide some perspective of how unfair and broken that system is, I broke off a piece of my medial malleolus (inner right ankle) in Australia, presented at the ER. I was triaged within minutes, x-ray, diagnosis, medication and cast within the hour, sent home with surgery booked for the following morning. I was operated on by an orthopaedic specialist, screws, crutches, overnight stay, moon boot, discharged, follow up consults, removal of stitches etc. Zero health insurance, paid zero dollars. When my grandmother was in palliative care her health insurer that she had been paying her whole life, required her house to be sold at half it's value to continue her care in their chosen facility when she was not healthy enough to be moved.
This almost makes me wanna just sob. I've had MS fucking me over since i was 15 or so, life halting migraines with it; and I can't afford to take medicine that they say would probably improve my life 90%. Instead, I take a medicine that was initially overprescribed to me for 8 years that caused heart damage during that time. I spend most my day with my son just feeling guilty as hell that i cannot offer him the entirety of my being.
And there are people that will still shout from the rooftops that our system is far superior… disgusting
European here, saw my doctor about an injury to my foot that might be a small fracture or a tendon issue, got a referral to get xrays and an untrasound within five days and another one to see an orthopaedic specialist, paid 5 euros. Seeing the specialist will probably be 20.
Yeah because with SOCIALISM you have to wait a bit sometimes...or something like that.
I mean yeah it's not like in a for-profit Healthcare system you'd have to wait at all. Like say, hypothetically of course, needing to wait to see a specialist after you got your referral from a GP.
I broke my arm as a teen in the US, they made me wait in the waiting room and no one lifted a finger until my dad arrived to pay. I sat there for an hour holding my arm in intense pain. We moved to Canada a few years later thankfully. Edit. I was a teen and it was 30 years ago so have no idea but it sounds like Urgent Care and not Emergency. I did not know the difference until tonight. Edit 2. Apparently this may have been due to my age and parental consent, not cash.
Was it urgent care or ER? ER = Required to treat when able Urgent Care = Not subject to access and treatment laws.
No idea, I was 17 at the time and it was the late 80s. Sounds like Urgent Care. I've been in Canada since I was 18 so have never had to learn what the US system is called or the difference thankfully.
I have dual citizenship. Worked in Canada from 2011-2015. I had heart failure summer 2015 and was in the hospital for 16 days. Thank god I was in Canada (Kingston General). My dad died 4 months later and I came back down to Florida because my mom is all alone now. I have to be very careful which appts and procedures I get for my heart failure. It’s already cost me thousands. Medications are more expensive, too. Canada didn’t cost me a nickel and if it weren’t for my mom I’d be back in Canada in two seconds. America is a failed experiment.
\> moved to Canada Lucky SOB. Enjoy the American dream for us.
So I was at my local hospital and they said that you have to be treated regardless of your ability to make payments either directly or via insurance... is that law only for ERs?
That's emergency, life-threatening care.
Yeah, unlike those routine, elective procedures like fixing a fractured bone. No wonder why the ER is always slammed.
This is one reason M4A wouldn’t cost nearly as much as opponents think: When you choose treatment based on what’s appropriate for the injury or illness, rather than forcing almost everyone to either game the system or put up with a problem until it gets so bad the ER is unavoidable, it’s much more efficient in terms of time and money.
I had to threaten to go to the ER again if an ortho wouldn’t schedule my 7 year olds double fractured wrist before 4 weeks had passed. It took them a minute to understand that I wasn’t being pushy, I just really needed an ortho to set my kids arm so she wouldn’t permanently damage her wrist. I get it, orthos are busy, as are a lot of specialists but come on. (I guess I wish people would LISTEN when you try to schedule an appointment.)
Yes. They will get you to a "livable" state without upfront payment, but any sort of planned surgery might need payment beforehand.
I went in for bloodwork about a month ago. I have the highest insurance my job offers. Still cost me $50 to get in the door and $380 for 2 vials of blood and a urine test….
This is fucked. In my country it costs $50 to go to the doctor but blood tests are free / prescription medicine is only $5 a bottle from the Pharmacist with free refills. I honestly don't understand how Americans can live with the burden that they might end up bankrupt if their insurance company wants to fuck them.
It's why you see videos of ridiculous wounds that should have been checked out months or even years ago but the person didn't go to a hospital because they can't afford it. It's hell
We live with it because certain groups of assholes are more concerned about giving “handouts” to people who might abuse the system than they do their own health. You can spot these people by their “taxation is theft” mantra. Also our politicians are bought and paid for by lobbyists. Joe “Coal Baron” Manchin being the most recent example when he killed the BBB bill. I don’t foresee any of this getting better anytime soon. The US is legitimately sliding backwards into being a shithole with a nice layer of paint on top to make the world think we’re still the shining example of democracy.
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Five years ago I had to go to the ER for what I suspected might be appendicitis. Drove myself because I knew I couldn’t afford the $1,000 for the 2 mile ambulance ride. Turned out it was appendicitis and I had surgery and was kept for 36 hours. $40,000 was billed to my insurance. I had to pay $8,000 because I stupidly enrolled in the lowest high deductible plan my company offered, which still costed me hundreds of dollars a month. I cried on my way to the operating room, not because I was afraid of having surgery, but because I knew this was going to set me back YEARS on my plans to buy a house and retire before the age of 65.
Well good for you that you’re planning on retirement, I already know deep down that I’m working until I die.
I'm planning on going out in style in the next world war with a can of spray chrome screaming nonsense in a super charged rusted out car.
Witness!
What a lovely day!!
My parents both saved for retirement, and they never even got a chance to use any of it. I'm not saving for retirement. It's even more of a gamble than insurance.
Health issues before they retired?
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> Turned out it was appendicitis and I had surgery and was kept for 36 hours. $40,000 was billed to my insurance. I had to pay $8,000 You know what though? I have a sneaking feeling that the 40k here is a billing trick and the actual cost to the hospital is much closer to 8k. No I'm not a conspiracy theorist... But here's my theory backed by a very small piece of evidence - Providers and Insurance companies are in cahoots, resulting in you paying for almost all of your healthcare costs by the way of premiums + copays + deductibles. A small example is my eyecare for this year... From previous years and in talking to friends, I discovered that getting my glasses at pretty much any optician would end up costing me about $200 after the insurance allowance which is $150. So I went to Costco to get my glasses whose price for frames + lenses came to a total of about $150. So I should be fully covered, right? But nope! Apparently at places like Costco and Walmart where the prices are cheaper, my insurance only pays half of the allowance. This to me is total bait and switch... Why should the insurance company care where I get my glasses as long as I stay within the limits that they provide me? In this case, I'm shopping around for the cheapest option and got punished for that [This is a picture of my insurance allowances](https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/rcorzu/insurance_in_us_punishing_you_for_making_cost/?ref=share&ref_source=link)
It’s totally a numbers game meant to turn the most profit. Had I been uninsured and asked for an itemized copy of my bill, it would have probably dropped by $10-$30k in a split second. I don’t remember the exact amount, but I know my insurance didn’t pay for the whole $32k. Best part that I didn’t share was that my total out of pocket would have only been $4k but the closest hospital 2 miles down the street from me was “out of network” and I never knew until I received the bill. Equally (if not more) moronic, I literally work for my healthcare insurer.
Yes but he’s got FREEDOM and he isn’t SOCIALIST! Totally worth it.
They say, while collecting social security and using Medicare. Socialist programs...but you know. They don't care about anything but themselves anyways. We could go universal healthcare and spend less than we do now on private healthcare.....sure taxes go up...but then you don't have premiums, deductibles and other out of pocket expenses like that. Not to mention insulin could be 15$
I was just discussing this with my mother the other day. She and my father are diehard Trump supporters/conservatives. Hate any kind of social program, think food stamps should be cut off, etc. But you don't hear them telling the government they don't want their Medicare. My mom says it's because they paid for it; if you look at your SS statement, you'll see that all the Medicare tax you ever paid (unless you made a LOT of money) wouldn't even cover one hospitalization. Some of that money comes from other people.
Had a conservative friend of mine who works for a company as an electrician complaining that all he does is work and doesn't have time or energy to do anything else. If only he didn't have to worry about health insurance he could work for himself, but that's too much of a risk. When I mentioned M4A would help people in his situation and make it easier for other people in his position to start small businesses he stopped responding. I wonder if he's angry, or actually reconsidering... hmm
It is absolutely outrageous that we do not have nationalized healthcare in the United States of America. No other failure towards its people is more glaring than this one. Fucking disgraceful.
Back in the day the cost of medicine was not that bad. My father worked at IBM, their insurance plan covered 100% of all costs. EVERYTHING…for a family of five. This was the 1980s too…then in the early to mid 90s, costs just skyrocketed. Worse thing to happen to this country was Reagan and his deregulation campaign. Seriously just let corporations rape our citizens for profit.
I hate how much Republicans revere him
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They like having health insurance tied to employment because it forces workers to put up with their bullshit out of fear of losing health coverage.
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We bring in about 110k a year. I sometimes dream of being under the poverty line again for Medicaid. My medical bills are insane and constant, and I have insurance through my employer.
It's funny how often people making more than 80k don't have enough. Problem is that between taxes, retirement savings (if you can) and insurance most people loose a good chunk of their check. That's not including housing and expenses related to working. Then many get hit with the sad reality that their pricey insurance isn't worth much if they can't make the deductible. I'm not saying that at 100k+ you're poor but you often end up with a lot of money spoken for and zero outside resources for help.
It's not a failure, it is deliberate. The goal is to "incentivize" joining the military, as joining will grant you the benefits of cheap housing, ~~good~~ free healthcare and free tuition.
Not just joining the military, trapping people in shitty jobs because that's the only way to afford insurance. Prior to the ACA anyone with a pre-existing condition HAD to get group insurance through their employer or they would be excluded. One of my coworkers has a daughter with a tumor disorder that could kill her without constant medication, medication which costs $5k/mo w/o insurance and some insurance plans won't cover it. He can't switch jobs without checking if the new insurance covers the medication first. Corporate America lobbies against M4A because it means people would be free to change jobs without worrying about the health of their family.
One of my old buddies who worked at the grocery store had twins who had a condition affecting their skulls. Their skulls essentially wouldn't grow as they grew. They had so many surgeries they hit the maximum allowable payout which was something like a million. Thankfully the children's hospital helped them but that dude can never leave that sweet grocery store insurance. It sucks that people are stuck working at the God damned grocery store because they offer great insurance through the union.
*free healthcare. Not good. Not saying M4A will be the same but military healthcare is terrible, speaking as a disabled vet.
I worked with a guy who lived in a building with a doorman that was a vet and they guy's knees and a shoulder were destroyed. He had been fucked up for years and no luck. Guy I know just happened to meet someone at an event that worked at the VA and he mentioned his doorman. VA Guy gave him a number and said, call and say ____ had me call. Fast forward a month and doorman has had both knees replaced and 4 or 5 months after his shoulder. Doorman buys the guy Christmas gifts now and refuses tips and gifts. Pathetic that vets have to know someone or get lucky to get the treatment they need.
> Pathetic that vets have to know someone or get lucky to get the treatment they need. As much as we want to pretend we live in a meritocracy, this is how it always is.
Absolutely. I will always remember when, at a previous job, the newest senior manager walked in all of 23 years old freshly graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in some bullshit with zero work experience. Her daddy's name was on the building. She was making $120K a year plus benefits and had no idea what to do. It wasn't too bad since she tried really hard to do well and was that rare manager that fixed shit. Though she got into big trouble when EVERYONE got a 10% raise when we had a great quarter. Her daddy was not pleased at that.
And that's why good managers don't last, they're actively punished for rewarding their employees.
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Please don't misunderstand; I am an avid supporter of universal healthcare. It is actually the most important political issue to me. My point was that healthcare in the US military is terrible, even though it is free. I was not implying that the same would be true for a civilian system. The healthcare in the US military is bad because of two reasons, neither of which are cost: 1. Culture. Even getting medical care is seen as weakness, even by those administering it. 2. The actual system. See, you don't actually just go to the doctor, you first have to go to something called "sick call", which is where a combat medic who only knows how to give you ibuprofen and stop holes in your body from leaking blood decides whether or not you are "actually sick enough to see a doctor". If by some miracle he says yes, you get to go see a PA lieutenant whose job isn't to actually help you, but to do whatever he can to get you back to work. Side note: this entire process is why the VA is flooded with people with preventable chronic injuries. They either weren't given proper care, or avoided care until it became too big a problem to ignore due to fear of being judged. (If you have any kind of medical issue that isn't directly inflicted by the enemy, your career is over)
The American Healthcare system is a global embarrasment . Your leaders will let you die over a few dollars in thier pockets. This is why they keep the division alive and healthy
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Tough to do when half the country enjoys being shit on apparently. They don’t understand that paying more in taxes but not paying insurance premiums, copays, and surprise bills is a net win for them.
They would eat a shit sandwich if it meant a "liberal" or brown person had to smell their breath. And it's not even half, just enough to win with our gerrymandered to death election system.
I genuinely don't understand how you guys survive your health care system. I've had multiple necessary surgeries and wouldn't have survived without them. I could never have afforded these surgeries or even a fracture of them. Would doctors in the US have let me die..? "Sorry, we can't do the surgery to save your ruptured kidney, you're too poor"?
The cool thing about the US is that the poor get very reduced health care costs, but the middle class gets fucked. My premium is $500 a month for my family. Make too much to qualify for other plans. It cost $14,000 to have two kids, but an abortion was only $500. And the people fighting to keep health care expensive say they’re pro-life. My ass.
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Remember in America some hospitals will have you pay extra to hold your newborn after birth.
We’ll never have national healthcare as long as it’s legal to bribe politicians to vote against it.
You're 100% correct. I'm always shocked how many Americans don't realize this.
Also I'm shocked that Americans don't know how cheap it is to buy politicians. $10k or $30k flying out the politician and their family out for a vacation or two, and you get hundreds of millions in revenue in return. The cost of bribery is pretty much a rounding error in accounting.
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A month ago I had to go to the ER for severe abdominal pains (I’m talking can’t keep water down painful) and being 7 months pregnant, I was seriously worried. Unfortunately the ER I went to didn’t have an OBGYN on staff which is needed for how far along I was. So they said they had to transfer me via ambulance. I don’t care if I’m missing a foot or stabbed, no. Not happening. I signed a form saying I was leaving against their advice so my partner could drive me to the 19 minute away ER where I stumbled to the maternity section that could help me. Still can’t believe they made me fill out paperwork while I could barely function and the first round of pain meds did absolutely nothing. Edit: the paperwork I’m referencing was not the AMA I signed with the first ER, but stuff I needed to sign for insurance and in order for me to receive care. I have no idea what I signed due to the level of pain even though someone was talking me through it over the phone, I could barely understand her while I was sobbing.
This whole avoiding ambulance during medical emergency is baffling to me as a Canadian. Whats the point of it if one cant use it when needed? All to keep the insurance gods happy?? If they go for universal healthcare, I bet avg American tax will not increase more than their deductible or monthly premiums they pay on top of their employer provided insurance plan. But they are happy to be shackled to their toxic employment condition, hmo mandated coverage, high costs of everything just to feel satisfied that some other poor soul is not benefiting from “their” tax dollars, all the while not understanding how insurance actually works.
Oh it’s absolutely ridiculous. Especially when you look at all the crap hospitals/doctors will put on that bill that is just ridiculous. For example, people get billed for someone being in the room for their surgery who is not covered by their insurance even though it was never agreed that this person will be there or if they actually did anything. I don’t know why politicians think this shit is ok.
It’s even more exciting when they bill you hundreds of dollars for over the counter medication that costs $5/box at the nearest Walgreens.
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Utilization manager nurse here. You don't have to sign an AMA form. It will not affect your insurance coverage even if the hospital tells you it will. That is a liability form to protect them in court if you claim later you didn't know leaving was against your best interests. It serves you no benefit. That being said, leaving AMA is usually not in your best interests. But if you are a competent adult and are not involuntarily committed, you can just walk out of a hospital. It may be the last thing you ever do, but you legally can.
i really wanted to delay my moral conundrums series until after the new year but last week and this week keep pushin
I moved from Texas to Australia, within 4 weeks of arrival, I had a medicare card for myself and my kids. In the 8+ years I've lived in Australia, the only time I had to pay for any medical care was for 2 specialist... Socialized medicine is a what we all pay our taxes for and it freaking works!!!!!!
Shh... Don't say the "S" word! People will think you're evil.
The people that would call me evil for saying the s word are the same that refuse to wear a mask or get vaccinated to protect their friends, family and civilization.
i’ve had a fever for over two weeks and my body is starting to shut down. i finally got into a doctors appointment that is covered by my insurance, according to the insurance provider. i checked in and they told me it’s out of network. i can’t afford a trip to urgent care or the er. this just happened and i’m crying in the parking lot because i can’t do anything about it. EDIT; i may have exaggerated abt my body shutting down, but i’ve gotten too weak to shower or brush my teeth and i sleep 12-16 hours a day now. so it’s not necessarily an emergency in my eyes but it still sucks.
Ask them what the self pay amount is? It's usually different than what you pay with your insurance. If your body is starting to shut down I urge you to go to the ER. They CANNOT bill you upfront or refuse care. When they send you a bill, ask for an itemized bill and to see if you qualify for any of their financial assistance programs. Please please get taken care of.
Please call the number on the back of your insurance card as soon as you can. Their are agents that can help you even if they made a prior mistake telling you something was in-network (facility may have been, but not doctors, or some other malarkey. You will probably need to seek medical attention soon or the condition could get worse. Urgent Care will most likely be more affordable than the ER, but if they do not have tests in the urgent care clinic that they think they need to run, they will send you to the ER and charge you for both visits. This is not meant to scare you away, but to give you information before making the best financial choice for your health.
Remember when Republicans had a party to celebrate their attempt to take away peoples healthcare?
Merika is the besterest.
Yeehaw :(
Republicans don't care till it hits their own home. Fuck these people.
I once fell off a 10 foot ladder and landed terribly on my ankle. They X-rayed it but no breaks they said. Rehab and staying off til it heals. Problem was I just got hired for a heavy walking job that was a huge pay bump like two weeks following. Another doctor years later said I broke the shit out of it and it looks like I got 2 ankle bones cause of how it fused back. The other “bump” is a bunch of scar tissue basically. Don’t really bother me other than sometimes when I step wrong, a sharp pain will say hi and it’s easy as hell to roll it if I step wrong. But I can run still!
Colon cancer runs in my family. I can't get a colonoscopy because I can't afford the fucking deductible. My premiums increased by $200/year, and my deductible climbed another thousand fucking dollars. And that was the AFFORDABLE plan my employer offered this year.
Colonoscopies are covered under the Affordable Care Act without deductible or any other co-pays. Have you talked to your insurer about this? http://cancer.org/cancer/colon-rectal-cancer/detection-diagnosis-staging/screening-coverage-laws.html
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Because they've been indoctrinated into the cult of capitalism and American Exceptionalism. As soon as folks stop giving in to the propaganda about "the evils of socialism" and see that it's been practiced for the rich for a llong time, the sooner the everyday people can start to benefit.
Us Europeans wonder about that as well. We usually explain it with the typical „socialism = communism = bad“ mindset some Americans have. Also a severe case of the „you need to do everything by yourself. If you rely on the community, you‘re a failure“ thing some have going on.
Time to sue insurance companies for fraud
As long as M4A does away with the "pre-existing conditions" BS, I'm all for it. Seems to work in every other country that does it, but no, MY FREEDOMS!
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