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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

#111

Post by lotsofpulp »

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…

> ps. I don't want to get political or anything by mentioning Obamacare.

Then try referring to the legislation by its actual name, ACA - Affordable Care Act.

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

#112

Post by lazyasciiart »

chordalkeyboard wrote: post #94
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.

> 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?

Perhaps at an extreme point, but most white collar crime is dealt with by fines and licensing rather than arrests and jail. E.g minimum wage laws.

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

#113

Post by lotsofpulp »

toast0 wrote: post #78
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…

> My understanding is that most voters don't support universal healthcare. Medicare is almost universal healthcare for the elderly and disabled. Expand that and there you go. Obviously, expanding it to the whole country in one fell swoop would cause a lot of problems. Instead, I would drop the age requirement over many years, to give the systems time to adapt, and allow for oversight and addressing of problems. Poten…

Medicare is universal health care for hospitalization (i.e. emergencies. The second you’re not in the hospital, you’re dealing with means testing and various insurance company offerings.

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

#114

Post by Chris2048 »

JimTheMan wrote: post #69
Chris2048 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> even Obamacare was labeled as controversial Obama lied about it: https://www.factcheck.org/2017/01/obamas-whoppers/ Also, some like to point at European countries (e.g. France) as proof that universal healthcare works, ignoring that a) some of those countries are very different from the US, and b) even the "successful" ones aren't proven viable for the future, i.e. rising costs. If you want to improve things, how?…

They've proven cheaper and more effective in other countries for decades... Healthcare costs are rising everywhere as well, it alone isn't enough to somehow wipe away the fact the US pays about double for worse care.

Decades isn't long enough. If Healthcare costs are rising everywhere, then no-one has a stable solution.

And I'm talking about universal healthcare, not American healthcare; the difference being that there are more than one factors that goes into the end-result of American healthcare, so if you start talking about universal specifically and then switch to American outcomes, you are implying the one follows from the other, and the burden is on you that that outcome is purely due to that one factor (and not, say, a culture of litigation; or cultures of corporate lobbying/corruption etc).

I'd also wonder which part of my post drew downvotes. I hope it's not that I dared suggest that Obama lied. But that was one reason it was controversial, and that future efforts at something similar are now damaged; who'd trust a similar proposition when even wunderkind Obama couldn't be straight about the deal?

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

#115

Post by arcticbull »

refurb wrote: post #104
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.

Disagree on private healthcare being abolished. If people want to spend their own money outside the single payer system, why not let them? It doesn't absolve them of contributing to the public system, so the public system benefits when they decide to go outside it. And in Canada, there isn't much private healthcare because of the way Medicare is set up. A doctor has to choose - practice in the public system or the pr…

It varies from province to province [0]. What you're saying is true in some provinces but not all. However, even in the provinces without material barriers, no private sector exists. The article actually provides some solid theories.

Your information about MRI waiting times isn't accurate in general - or rather paints only part of the picture. Even with the COVID situation happening now, in Ontario... Patients who should be scanned immediately receive a scan, immediately. Patients who should be scanned within 2 days are in fact scanned within 2 days. Patients who have a target of 10 days for a scan wait closer to 18 (but 53% are scanned within the SLA). Patients who have a target of 28 days wait closer to 90. [1].

If you don't need one now, you're wasting capacity by getting one now. This capacity should be allocated 100% to the public sector on a need basis. That would reduce wait times for all priorities. This is in fact what the British Columbia government did [2] to excellent effect [3].

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC80881/

[1] https://www.hqontario.ca/System-Performance/Wait-Times-for-D...

[2] https://globalnews.ca/news/4481951/b-c-to-purchase-two-priva...

[3] https://globalnews.ca/news/5256655/wait-times-mri-procedures...

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

#116

Post by simonh »

FpUser wrote: post #18
shakezula wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>"It’s a racket, plain and simple. Medical care should never be tied to personal wealth, period." In agreement. Still Government covered medical care has their own methods of avoiding / delaying procedures. In the end it all comes down to money.

You may not have meant it to come across this way, but "The alternative isn't absolutely perfect in every way, therefore both options are equivalent" isn't a useful contribution.

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

#117

Post by [deleted] »

chordalkeyboard wrote: post #97
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.

[deleted]

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

#118

Post by metters »

cryptonym wrote: post #91
shakezula wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 an…

What's the name of that insurer?

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

#119

Post by amitport »

hliyan wrote: post #29
amitport wrote: post #24

Why is this an article? People and organizations (even banks) and governments erase debt all the time. Sometimes it's from kindness, sometimes for PR, usually because they're unable to collect it. You can't really tell the difference among the cases.

I'm a long time HN reader interested mostly in tech content, but I was happy to hear this story. Yes, it speaks to a systemic issue. Yes, there are many others doing this. This is one person basically giving up half-a-million dollars. I worry about a world where a story about that needs justification.

Yes, how the debt was created is interesting. I'm having trouble with the framing of the article in relation to "forgiving" a debt.
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