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The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER

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Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER

#321

Post by blntechie »

dragonwriter wrote: post #320
blntechie wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany is public-private healthcare insurance driven healthcare model compared to the pure play private insurance or out-of-pocket driven healthcare model in the US and other poor countries. Germany has statutory public insurance while the examples I’m quoting including the US don’t have any such. For a private driven healthcare system, it’s strange there are no smaller, cheaper and nimble competitors.

> the US and other poor countries. the US is not a poor country, it is an astonishingly rich country whose elites want poor (and working-class more generally) people insecure so as to maximize the degree to which they can be exploited via economic coercion.

Of course the US is not a poor country. Sorry if my sentence structure meant that way. The US is in a special cohort when it comes to healthcare where rest in the group are all developing or under developed countries.

Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER

#322

Post by xboxnolifes »

herval wrote: post #310
xtracto wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly! For me it is the peace of mind: not having to worry about deductibles... will it be covered? What hospital can I go to? Ambulance or uber... so much stress. On top of your ailment. I prefer to pay 35-40% in taxes and not have to worry about that. I worry about my work and my systems. They pay me for that. I pay my money so that I dont have to worry. Paying (a private insurer) to get additional worries? No th…

> I prefer to pay 35-40% in taxes and not have to worry about that The biggest irony is that’s in line with the taxes we pay in the US (probably more if you’re in tech and live in CA or NY), so it’s not like you pay lower taxes in the Land of the Free anyway.

Truly hard to say without knowing the commenter's income. I know that's significantly higher than my effective tax rate.

Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER

#323

Post by CryptoPunk »

The market for healthcare needs to be completely unregulated and open to competition. The licensure barriers to providing drugs, medical devices, and medical services leads to far less innovation toward more efficient ways of producing medical products/services than there otherwise would be.

Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER

#324

Post by spants »

I am in the UK. My father-in-law has just been treated for almost cutting a finger off with a chainsaw (the safety gear was sitting on the floor next to him). He went to the emergency dept (saturday) for initial checks and xray and then to a plastic surgeon today (sunday) who operated on his finger. Total cost to him was £0.

Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER

#326

Post by nameunimportant »

chrisseaton wrote: post #236
nameunimportant wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I got my tonsils removed my options were the $75k surgery at the private hospital, or waiting 3 months at the public hospital. I actually stopped consulting and took a job so that I could get insurance, and had the surgery two weeks later. A few years back I broke my wrist while bicycling across England. I was patched up and casted a few hours later, I think the bill was about $200, as a foreign tourist. It wasn…

Weren’t your tonsils a pre-existing condition? How did the new insurance cover it?

I lied to my doctor to an extent, and he lied to the insurance company to an extent.

All you have to do is ask a doctor "Please don't put any of this in a file until I have insurance next week". It doesn't mean anything to him to add the dates later. It's in his best interest, otherwise he won't get the cheddar.

Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER

#327

Post by nameunimportant »

trixie_ wrote: post #197
nameunimportant wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I got my tonsils removed my options were the $75k surgery at the private hospital, or waiting 3 months at the public hospital. I actually stopped consulting and took a job so that I could get insurance, and had the surgery two weeks later. A few years back I broke my wrist while bicycling across England. I was patched up and casted a few hours later, I think the bill was about $200, as a foreign tourist. It wasn…

The free market didn’t make your operation 75k. The government giving a blank check to hospitals and the lack of price transparency did that. Both are as far from the ‘free market’ as you can get.

Sure, whatever. Shit doesn't happen in socialized countries. The only libertarian countries that ever exist are that short vacuum of power when a banana republic dictator fails and the new warlords haven't chosen a new dictator. But yeah, sure, can't criticize something that doesn't exist. Good argument strategy.

Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER

#328

Post by minhazm »

sjogress wrote: post #150
edgyquant wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case it seems like the steep price is to prevent frivolously using the emergency room. You can get covid tests dirt cheap (or free) if you schedule and appointment at a hospital or one of the testing sites. Emergency room has to have capacity to take on actual life threatening emergencies.

It seems like you've done the research here: how do you know how you are supposed(?) to do the test in the US? Here in my municipality in Norway the media keeps repeating how/where/when to get tested, and if anything important changes the municipality will literally send a SMS to all its citizens to ensure as many as possible are up to date. From my admittedly limited experience with the US (NYC/tri-state area) I get…

It’s very easy to find where to get a Covid test. First result on google will tell you exactly where to go. Almost every drug store also offers them.

Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER

#329

Post by dheera »

hsbauauvhabzb wrote: post #308
dheera wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, so a $200 surcharge every time they have to deal with butts. $100 for urine, $50 for vomit. Charge it to the insurance anyway, they're used to paying $40000 a day for a hospital bed, they can pay $200 for dealing with a butt. Plumbers have to deal with the aftermath of butts MUCH more often and they don't have the luxury of someone's insurance they can just throw arbitrarily high charges to.

You realise there’s medical professionals who deal with poop right? There’s also the whole ‘all your clients are sick, some are contagious’ thing. I’m not saying america isn’t insane, but to try and pretend plumbers have it far worse isn’t quite accurate.

Okay, so pay those poop-doctors double salary? They're basically gastrointestinal plumbers.

Re: The ER charged him $6,589.77 for 6 stitches, cost that led his wife to avoid ER

#330

Post by nameunimportant »

adnmcq999 wrote: post #247
nameunimportant wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WHen I stopped living in the USA, I realized that there is only one reason the USA is behind the rest of the developed world when it comes to healthcare, a social safety net and education. The USA likes it that way. The American culture is one of rugged individualist pioneering cowboys who won't be told what to do, even if you're warning them that if they take another step they'll fall off a cliff.

In just what century did you live here?

1979 - 2015, I finally escaped and haven't returned since, happily.
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