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Simone Giertz – Back from brain surgery [video]

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Re: Simone Giertz – Back from brain surgery [video]

#31

Post by tomkarlo »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #18
mrrsm wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With most insurance I feel like you will hit your max out of pocket before you would hit that amount. Depending on your insurance plan you could be talking $3,000-$10,000 max you would have to spend.

I mean this in the nicest possible way; the casual way Americans talk about these things makes me wonder if they aren't suffering some form of Stockholm syndrome. The percentage of the population who don't have anything like that kind of money in savings is huge. And that is after you already pay huge amounts for insurance.

Medical bills are (according to some studies [0]) the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US. So not only do you have to recover from a serious accident or illness, and maybe the loss of work time associated with it, you also are left with either a crippling level of debt or the total loss of your assets, plus a lien on future income.

Additionally, the less money you make, the worse coverage you probably can afford, leaving you even more exposed.

You're absolutely right that it's insane that Americans talk about this as if it's just the only way things could work.

[0] https://www.cnbc.com/id/100840148

Re: Simone Giertz – Back from brain surgery [video]

#32

Post by RRiccio »

Having gone through all of this recently with my little brother, I can definitely relate. Her account of the pre and post surgery are spot on, as well as the worries around this operation (will he survive? will his personality change? will the operation be a success? what will be the consequences?).

And I'm glad she had insurance, even more so considering she lives in the US. In our case he had it too, but where we live the top neurosurgeons unfortunately don't accept it – you need to pay the operation yourself. It can be incredibly expensive as she mentioned.

It's great to hear she's doing fine. I don't recall ever being so happy about the health situation of someone I didn't know 10 minutes before. What a beautiful video.

Re: Simone Giertz – Back from brain surgery [video]

#33

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

JacobDotVI wrote: post #24
VBprogrammer wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean this in the nicest possible way; the casual way Americans talk about these things makes me wonder if they aren't suffering some form of Stockholm syndrome. The percentage of the population who don't have anything like that kind of money in savings is huge. And that is after you already pay huge amounts for insurance.

It's worse than that: "63% Of Americans Don't Have Enough Savings To Cover A $500 Emergency" https://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2016/01/06/63-of-...

But who would keep the predatory loan economies afloat if they couldn't prey on people in their time of need?

I constantly hear economists saying people are spending outside their means, but when the price of getting sick with a throat infection is beyond their means, or will set their savings back by months or even years, is it really the people who are at fault?

Re: Simone Giertz – Back from brain surgery [video]

#34

Post by [deleted] »

tonysdg wrote: post #2

So glad to see Simone back on her feet. The sh y robot nation needs its queen! As for that bill -- I'm curious: is there any resource I can look up to see how much of that the average Medicare/Medicaid/private insurance plan pays? I ask because I just had two teeth repaired after a bike accident and it'll cost me ~$100 after insurance covers the other ~$500. By that ratio, she'd be looking at ~$38,000 bill.

[deleted]

Re: Simone Giertz – Back from brain surgery [video]

#35

Post by goodells »

PuffinBlue wrote: post #27

We live in a world of marvels. Often we talk of the future and it's wonders waiting to be discovered, but the here and now has become equally astonishing. The breadth, depth and scale of human ingenuity and endeavour is jaw-dropping and here Simone and her story is another example. Maybe I'm being trite by looking for the good in the bad but pause for a moment and think of all that has been learned, how we have built…

The whole system is awe-inspiring. Have a medical emergency? We'll send a several-ton box on wheels speeding your way within minutes. If you're in a city, the traffic lights will turn red as the emergency vehicle approaches to make passing safer. Paramedics trained in evidence-based pre-hospital medicine will perform the interventions most likely to save you based on their field impression.

And when you arrive at the hospital it gets really cool - at a level 1 trauma center, they should be prepared to give you a CT scan and treat you in 10 minutes or less. That might involve snaking a tiny wire through your arteries all the way from your leg to your head, or administering one of thousands of drugs that has exactly the desired effect.

It's easy to take it all for granted but the technology and systems in place to take care of us are amazing.

Re: Simone Giertz – Back from brain surgery [video]

#36

Post by jandrese »

ryanmercer wrote: post #7
mosselman wrote: post #6

Yikes, what a bill. My mother had brain surgery a few years ago and didn’t have to pay for anything besides the insurance she always pay for which amounts to a few hundred euros a year.

>Yikes, what a bill. Yeah, cancer-related bills can add up fast. Worse, they'll send you bills for years after the fact... my father had been dead almost a decade from his cancer and the occasional bill would still come and my mom would have to spend hours arguing with them on the phone "uh yeah, he's dead, he's been dead, this happened a decade ago, get your shit together" and they'd usually be all 'oops our bad' al…

The worst thing about this is that it teaches patients to ignore bills from hospitals, because so much of the time the bill is bullshit. They're just fishing for rubes that will pay it without realizing that the insurance is already paying for it.

Then when a real bill comes they get angry at you for ignoring it, even though it was mostly indistinguishable from their bullshit bills.

Re: Simone Giertz – Back from brain surgery [video]

#37

Post by HarryHirsch »

viraptor wrote: post #15
tonysdg wrote: post #2

So glad to see Simone back on her feet. The sh y robot nation needs its queen! As for that bill -- I'm curious: is there any resource I can look up to see how much of that the average Medicare/Medicaid/private insurance plan pays? I ask because I just had two teeth repaired after a bike accident and it'll cost me ~$100 after insurance covers the other ~$500. By that ratio, she'd be looking at ~$38,000 bill.

I remember someone on HN recommending to send a copy of the bill to some health billing transparency project, but I can't find the right link. Google comes up with https://www.fairhealthconsumer.org/ although I'm pretty sure it's a different service (they don't use the submitted bills from what I understand)

What's with the strange wording, why do they call patients "healthcare consumers" now?

Re: Simone Giertz – Back from brain surgery [video]

#38

Post by brixon »

mrrsm wrote: post #4
tonysdg wrote: post #2

So glad to see Simone back on her feet. The sh y robot nation needs its queen! As for that bill -- I'm curious: is there any resource I can look up to see how much of that the average Medicare/Medicaid/private insurance plan pays? I ask because I just had two teeth repaired after a bike accident and it'll cost me ~$100 after insurance covers the other ~$500. By that ratio, she'd be looking at ~$38,000 bill.

With most insurance I feel like you will hit your max out of pocket before you would hit that amount. Depending on your insurance plan you could be talking $3,000-$10,000 max you would have to spend.

This type of surgery has likely hit her max out of pocket, so she should be clear of medical expenses for the rest of the year.

Re: Simone Giertz – Back from brain surgery [video]

#39

Post by cobookman »

tonysdg wrote: post #2

So glad to see Simone back on her feet. The sh y robot nation needs its queen! As for that bill -- I'm curious: is there any resource I can look up to see how much of that the average Medicare/Medicaid/private insurance plan pays? I ask because I just had two teeth repaired after a bike accident and it'll cost me ~$100 after insurance covers the other ~$500. By that ratio, she'd be looking at ~$38,000 bill.

Many insurance plans have a yearly max you pay for covered services. For my plan it's way less than 38k. I believe it's something like 10-12k

Re: Simone Giertz – Back from brain surgery [video]

#40

Post by cobookman »

bloopernova wrote: post #16
cptskippy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of the way insurance tends to work in America, care providers tend to throw shit at the wall to see what sticks. In other words the first bill is always an outrageous amount of charges that may or may not be valid. Additionally there's something called a negotiated rate that an insurer has with the care provider, usually the care provider's bill does not show this rate but rater some fiction that not even tho…

> added stress of the huge bills I really wish people would talk about these sorts of soft costs more often. I grew up in the UK, moved to the USA in my mid 20s. While growing up, my parents divorced and my mother had to take care of me and a sibling. All 3 of us had medical conditions that needed regular care/checkups. Not once did my mum ever spend hours on the phone chasing down bills or insurance rejections. We n…

On the flip side people living in socialized healthcare Countries have other stresses.

In the usa my insurance lets me go to 10 doctors for differing opinions. I can go straight to a specialist. When I need non urgent surgery it's scheduled with a few weeks instead of months.

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