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Total Cost of Her Covid-19 Treatment: $34,927.43

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Re: Total Cost of Her Covid-19 Treatment: $34,927.43

#21

Post by Havoc »

alexhutcheson wrote: post #16

The face values on medical bills in the US are like a bizarre joke - to a first approximation, no one ever pays them. Everyone with insurance gets insurer-negotiated "discounts" to around ~10% of the listed cost. It's tougher for people without insurance - my understanding is that you can negotiate with the entity that sent you the bill to get significant reductions, but I don't have first-hand experience doing this.…

>Everyone with insurance gets insurer-negotiated "discounts" to around ~10% of the listed cost.

That whole setup is downright cruel & evil. Pretty much guarantees the most vulnerable get fk'd.

Re: Total Cost of Her Covid-19 Treatment: $34,927.43

#22

Post by yread »

dangus wrote: post #11
redis_mlc wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the USA, acne and pregnancy are often disqualifying conditions. Services are often "out-of-network." So it doesn't matter if you pay the pemiums or not - you get massive surprise bills.

I agree that the US health system is beyond fucked up, but the statements in this comment are dramatization and not accurate on their own without a ton of qualifiers and clarifying statements. “Out of network” doesn’t mean your health insurance plan doesn’t pay for anything. It usually just changes coinsurance rate. Anyone who has a major expensive hospital event while insured will just hit their maximum annual out o…

It seems maximum "maximum out of pocket" is 8200$ [0] I find it strange that it's not tied to salary. For people earning 30k/year 8200 per year is a lot.

https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/out-of-pocket-maximum-li...

Re: Total Cost of Her Covid-19 Treatment: $34,927.43

#23

Post by xiphias2 »

dangus wrote: post #5

The bill is crazy, but this person won’t have to pay a 10th if it if they call the billing department. Being uninsured is actually something of a blessing in the United States in this situation. If you have health insurance (often with bad coverage and high deductibles), you’ve agreed to waive your ability to negotiate and to pay whatever bill they’ve sent you. Not so for the uninsured. The whole billing system in th…

To me this sounds like buying fake watches on the street in Thailand.

We both know that the price is to be negotiated, it's just a joke price.

But healthcare is not a joke even there.

Re: Total Cost of Her Covid-19 Treatment: $34,927.43

#24

Post by cj »

alexhutcheson wrote: post #16

The face values on medical bills in the US are like a bizarre joke - to a first approximation, no one ever pays them. Everyone with insurance gets insurer-negotiated "discounts" to around ~10% of the listed cost. It's tougher for people without insurance - my understanding is that you can negotiate with the entity that sent you the bill to get significant reductions, but I don't have first-hand experience doing this.…

Lab test are particularly baffling to me. Except strangely, if buying lab tests without insurance (and without a doctor) using a company like https://www.directlabs.com you can get a panel of 100 tests for $150-300 (cholesterol panel, vitamins, thyroid, testosterone, etc - the whole works).

Yet when my doctor refers me to a lab for 1 or 2 specific tests, each individual test is billed at $150+ with a $60 copay paid to the lab.

With lab tests in particular, it’s sometimes cheaper to buy them without going through a doctor / without insurance.

Re: Total Cost of Her Covid-19 Treatment: $34,927.43

#25

Post by umvi »

sumofi wrote: post #3

Not having health insurance is not an excuse. In Germany you are required by law to have it.

> In Germany you are required by law to have it.

Obama basically made this happen, but the net result was that all of healthy young adults (the kind that least needed insurance) were forced to start paying for insurance to subsidize the unhealthy older adults (or pay a penalty).

So basically it was just a disguised tax targeting the young and healthy.

Re: Total Cost of Her Covid-19 Treatment: $34,927.43

#26

Post by t0mas88 »

tetromino_ wrote: post #4
sumofi wrote: post #3

Not having health insurance is not an excuse. In Germany you are required by law to have it.

In Germany, does your health insurance cost >$600 per month for 1 person if your employer or government doesn't subsidize it (for example, if you are self-employed and earning more than minimum wage from it)? Because that's the case in the US.

Similar to Germany here: Insurance costs around € 100 per month per adult, kids under 18 are free. If you have a low income (below roughly 40k per year) you effectively pay less all the way down to zero (if your income is below about 14k per year), because the government pays part of your premium for you.

Re: Total Cost of Her Covid-19 Treatment: $34,927.43

#27

Post by t0mas88 »

ackbar03 wrote: post #17
dangus wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This person is actually going to pay less than many people who are insured precisely because they’re uninsured. Someone who is insured in the US is not allowed to negotiate. This person can call the billing department and say “I can’t pay” and watch that bill plummet. The 50% or so of Americans who get their healthcare from solid employers will exhaust their deductible but otherwise be generally fine. Then there’s an…

Wait so there isn't a Healthcare cost problem in America then? I don't live in US but if your uninsured and can just call, say I can't pay and pay much less or just have your insurer pay, it seems to be OK either way?

It doesn't work like the comment described at all. If you can't pay you end up in debt collection and then get a lot of extra fees on top of the already ridiculously high bill. In the end it will bankrupt a lot of families.

Re: Total Cost of Her Covid-19 Treatment: $34,927.43

#28

Post by zamalek »

krapp wrote: post #18
moosey wrote: post #10

After this is over, the saddest possible outcome is if America returns to the same systems, having learned nothing. I don't expect it at all, but I've been more surprised in the past.

Unless there are millions of deaths in the US from this, a return to the status quo seems like the most likely scenario, as people will assume the scope and danger of the pandemic was overblown by the media all along.

Things would stay the same even with millions of deaths. "Socialism is nothing more than communism" and "communism is evil" are two concepts that are deeply embedded here.

Re: Total Cost of Her Covid-19 Treatment: $34,927.43

#29

Post by dangus »

vsareto wrote: post #13
dangus wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This person is actually going to pay less than many people who are insured precisely because they’re uninsured. Someone who is insured in the US is not allowed to negotiate. This person can call the billing department and say “I can’t pay” and watch that bill plummet. The 50% or so of Americans who get their healthcare from solid employers will exhaust their deductible but otherwise be generally fine. Then there’s an…

>This person can call the billing department and say “I can’t pay” and watch that bill plummet. I don't think it works this way that often. It might just get sent to a debt collector. They might give you a lower fee, but it won't be by that much.

I think it works that way, you think it doesn’t work that way. So in that sense there’s no way to know based on “trusting random commenters.”

But I can tell you this: there aren’t a lot of ways in which that debt collector can collect. They can’t take your home, they can’t take your car (as if the uninsured person even owns their car outright), and I don’t even think they can garnish wages.

The statue of limitations on debt is as short as 3 years in some states, and it won’t even affect your credit score beyond 7 years.

If that person never answers the phone and never admits to the debt, it basically just goes away on its own from my understanding.

Even if they decide to settle, that debt collector purchased the debt for pennies on the dollar. That person settling is not paying anything close to the full cost. The hospitals know that a bill going to collections is already a lost cause, and is basically written off as charity care.

Re: Total Cost of Her Covid-19 Treatment: $34,927.43

#30

Post by t0mas88 »

Havoc wrote: post #21
alexhutcheson wrote: post #16

The face values on medical bills in the US are like a bizarre joke - to a first approximation, no one ever pays them. Everyone with insurance gets insurer-negotiated "discounts" to around ~10% of the listed cost. It's tougher for people without insurance - my understanding is that you can negotiate with the entity that sent you the bill to get significant reductions, but I don't have first-hand experience doing this.…

>Everyone with insurance gets insurer-negotiated "discounts" to around ~10% of the listed cost. That whole setup is downright cruel & evil. Pretty much guarantees the most vulnerable get fk'd.

Welcome to America, where the dream is that everyone can make it but reality is that large groups of people really can't.
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