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US doctor forgives $650k in medical bills for cancer patients

bbc.com

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Re: US doctor forgives $650k in medical bills for cancer patients

#91

Post by cryptonym »

shakezula wrote: post #13
Areading314 wrote: post #11

One of the most unfair characteristics of US healthcare is that if the health insurance company does not cover a claim, then the patient is responsible for the payment. It is unrealistic in practice for a patient to know or understand the process by which claims are made (since they are made by an error prone and disinterested provider administrator, and are made in a non-transparent and highly complex way), and also…

And even if you can contest the denial, it can take days to months to get it back, meanwhile you’re shouldered with the burden of paying full price for your treatment with the _hope_ that they’ll reimburse you later. My fiancée has cancer, and we regularly joke that dealing with insurance companies is worse than the actual stage 3 cancer she has. They constantly deny her coverage for medications she’s been on for yea…

Treatment and part of my income was insured by public actors (not US). No issue, everything is automatic, didn't had to pay a single thing and it would even be possible to get unlimited free taxi rides from home to hospital, free public transport, wig, sport... even a tax cut. I'm really thankful for this.

Other part of my income was insured by a private company. They lost my files, claimed I didn't fill the forms and after months of fight and involving my employer, they magically found papers I previously sent and paid.

Private companies seek profit and would basically do anything to keep your money. You cannot build a good (fair) insurance company with this logic.

Re: US doctor forgives $650k in medical bills for cancer patients

#93

Post by gorgoiler »

Setting aside the wider context of healthcare, that’s a lot of debt for a business to cancel.

What do the final books look like for this particular cancer treatment centre in Arkansas? Is $650k the entire profit they made over 30 years, or what they’d make in three months’?

Re: US doctor forgives $650k in medical bills for cancer patients

#94

Post by chordalkeyboard »

arcticbull wrote: post #72
fraggle_sock wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideally though, all private healthcare would be banned. Aside from ideological concerns about not giving the wealthy an unfair advantage, this has pragmatic benefit in ensuring that the public healthcare system is up to standard. That is, if the wealthy and powerful are forced to use it too, it means they have skin in the game and won't just use their power to run it into the ground in pursuit of profit or from lack…

Interestingly, private healthcare isn't banned in Canada but in in reality, there's virtually none of it. The system is designed so that the public sector doesn't subsidize a potential private sector, and without those subsidies, nobody's interested. Personally, I agree with you. Private healthcare should be abolished entirely.

> Private healthcare should be abolished entirely.

Wouldn't this mean using the police to arrest people if, e.g. a person got a doctor to look at them or suggest a treatment for a condition and it wasn't something that had gone through government channels?

Re: US doctor forgives $650k in medical bills for cancer patients

#95

Post by serial_dev »

atmosx wrote: post #48

A good question would be what can be done to fix healthcare in the US ? My understanding is that most voters don't support universal healthcare. IIRC even Obamacare was labeled as controversial. Current model costs way more, the model is clearly broken, why there is no pressure to fix it? ps. I don't want to get political or anything by mentioning Obamacare. I'm genuinely curious because the problems of the current h…

I see your desire to not get political, but healthcare in the US is inherently a very political topic.

Both the democrat and republican "Media" want you to think that voters don't support universal healthcare. One would expect that from the right, but from the left? As I see, every question about healthcare reform during the democratic presidential debate had the right's frame: instead of highlighting the failures of the current system (the cost, the quality, un or underinsured people, personal tragedies due to lack of healthcare), the questions were phrased focusing on mainly the positives ("some people love their current healthcare plan").

This Fox News Voter Analysis shows a surprising number of voters support (Strongly/Somewhat favor 70%) "Changing the health care system so that any American can buy into a government-run health care plan if they want to" See: https://www.foxnews.com/elections/2020/general-results/voter...

I might be too far in my progressive YouTube bubble, but there was definitely pressure to fix it. Very recently, there was tremendous pressure on the progressive members of the Democratic Party to ask for a vote on M4All in exchange to their vote for Pelosi as speaker. You can search for #ForceTheVote on different platforms. Unfortunately, none of the progressives exercised their power, and Pelosi was confirmed.

Re: US doctor forgives $650k in medical bills for cancer patients

#96

Post by arcticbull »

jjeaff wrote: post #84
arcticbull wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some (who don't understand the value of money) may even visit the US. My question is do you have some good examples of this, particularly where efficacy is disproportionately better?

I could be wrong, but I believe one of the few metrics that the US outperforms in is cancer survival. I have heard that there are quite a few wealthy people (even from places like canada and the uk) that come here for cancer treatments that are not provided in their country because the public health system will not pay for them.

That's a funky one, and I'll be the first to say that America does have some very good cancer treatment clinics if you don't mind bankruptcy (although the same is true if you break your leg).

Part of that has to do with how cancer survival rates are measured and what role screening has in the various systems. This came up with Giuliani a while ago and is well described here [1]. tldr: The statistics are quite misleading as cancer survival is measured in 5-year survival rates, and the US has aggressive (sometimes medically unjustified) early screening programs. Early detection of some kinds of cancer, such as prostate cancer, doesn't change the mortality rate but it does change the 5-year survival rate as the disease is detected earlier.

If you have more data, or this isn't what you were referring to, I'd love to read it!

[1] https://www.factcheck.org/2007/10/a-bogus-cancer-statistic/

Re: US doctor forgives $650k in medical bills for cancer patients

#97

Post by chordalkeyboard »

tomaskafka wrote: post #92

$650k gets you something like measuring of temperature and prescription of Paralen in the US, right? (I am always amazed how an act or treatment that costs around $20 in Europe costs thousands of dollars in the US and no one seems to mind.)

> no one seems to mind

Oh we mind alright, we just don't have effective means of changing the system.

Re: US doctor forgives $650k in medical bills for cancer patients

#98

Post by arcticbull »

beagle3 wrote: post #90
arcticbull wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't commenting on the NHS there, I was making my comments with reference to the Canadian system. I retracted my comment because I made it overly board. If you'd like to learn more about the legality of private cover within the Canadian system you can do so here. [1] In Canada, while in general private cover is not illegal, for covered health services, it roughly speaking does not exist and my statement that you…

> In Canada, while in general private cover is not illegal, for covered health services, it roughly speaking does not exist and my statement that you "have nowhere else to go" holds. The key is “covered health services”. E.g. a friend who broke his arm in Israel (which has an NHS like medical system) needed to have it cast; a standard plaster cast was covered, but for an extra $150 or so, he was able to pay and get a…

> The key is “covered health services”.

Covered health services in Canada is substantially all health services.

This is addressed in the link I provided.

Re: US doctor forgives $650k in medical bills for cancer patients

#99

Post by serial_dev »

Pfhreak wrote: post #16

This is a prime example of a feel good story that is papering over systemic problems. We're meant to read this and think this doctor is a good person (and they are, at least for this act) rather than, "how is it possible there was this much medical debt for cancer treatment to forgive?" Yes, debt forgiveness is great and something we can all do as mutual aid, but we also need to acknowledge that the deeply flawed ide…

Exactly.

I feel the same way about GoFundMe campaigns for medical bills. On one hand, I'm happy that some of them can get outside help, on the other hand why is a GoFundMe campaign necessary to stay afloat?

Re: US doctor forgives $650k in medical bills for cancer patients

#100

Post by arcticbull »

fraggle_sock wrote: post #88
arcticbull wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, private healthcare isn't banned in Canada but in in reality, there's virtually none of it. The system is designed so that the public sector doesn't subsidize a potential private sector, and without those subsidies, nobody's interested. Personally, I agree with you. Private healthcare should be abolished entirely.

Thank you for the information - it is interesting to learn of a case where discouragement and disincentivisation, in lieu of abolishment, has turned out to be a reasonable and pragmatic secondary option.

Looks like I forgot to link you to the write-up (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC80881/) but I suspect you'll find it interesting!
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