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She paid husband's hospital bill. A year after his death, they wanted more money

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Re: She paid husband's hospital bill. A year after his death, they wanted more money

#41

Post by maerF0x0 »

We simply need a sort of statute of limitations for B2C transactions.

- Your employer can incorrectly pay you for a long time and then demand the money back.

- A hospital bill can come (afaik) anytime in the future

- You can dispute charges, the provider can fail to provide customer service, but your credit score is negatively affected.

Etc.

We need bills that focus on favoring the "little guy" in the fight so that wealth, dominance, and power are mitigated in justice.

EDIT: actually the bit about employer overpay being for "Decades" and demand back was not entirely true, depends on the state, ranges from weeks to 15 years according to my googling.

Re: She paid husband's hospital bill. A year after his death, they wanted more money

#42

Post by gaulish »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #30
gaulish wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love my quality of care in the US. My insurance is quite reasonable compared to what my increased tax burden might look like overseas. I can’t imagine living in a nation that would make me wait months for something like an MRI, I love living in a nation where I can get an MRI for myself and my dog in the same day. I also enjoy living in a nation that doesn’t suggest I kill myself over trivial situations and backlog…

The reason you have those things is because others don't have access to them. You being able to get an MRI in a week might have the social cost of 3 people not being able to get an MRI at all.

[flagged]

Re: She paid husband's hospital bill. A year after his death, they wanted more money

#43

Post by boringg »

rwmj wrote: post #4

I really don't understand why the US doesn't have a grown up healthcare system. Do you just not see how much better healthcare is in the rest of the developed world?

Clarification.

US health is great if you are employed, have a good income or are retired and on medicare. If you don't fall into those categories it is pretty tough

Re: She paid husband's hospital bill. A year after his death, they wanted more money

#44

Post by hulitu »

grecy wrote: post #24
sydbarrett74 wrote: post #3

To the hospital systems and insurance companies, the confusion is a feature, not a bug. They assume most patients and their families will just knuckle under and pay what they're told they owe. Since the health care sector is one of the largest political donors, elected officials have little incentive to fix anything, so they nibble at the edges and call it reform.

> largest political donors You pay politicians, and you get the outcomes you want. Every other country in the world calls it bribery.

> Every other country in the world calls it bribery.

This is, unfortunately, not true for the majority of "democratic" countries.

They call it "lobby". They avoid to call it "conflict of interest".

Re: She paid husband's hospital bill. A year after his death, they wanted more money

#45

Post by maerF0x0 »

rwmj wrote: post #4

I really don't understand why the US doesn't have a grown up healthcare system. Do you just not see how much better healthcare is in the rest of the developed world?

Canadian chiming in here. Sorry, but it's just not true of at least Canada that the single payer&provider system is working or working well. We get better _average_ outcomes because we do some preventative work, but if you're really sick you get far better care in the US if you can afford it.

There's probably some nice middle ground around having a national preventative program (screening, weight loss, nutritionists etc), and allow insurance to cover "you're fucked" scenarios like Cancer, Heart attacks, car wrecks, Gun shot wounds etc.

Re: She paid husband's hospital bill. A year after his death, they wanted more money

#46

Post by maerF0x0 »

boringg wrote: post #43
rwmj wrote: post #4

I really don't understand why the US doesn't have a grown up healthcare system. Do you just not see how much better healthcare is in the rest of the developed world?

Clarification. US health is great if you are employed, have a good income or are retired and on medicare. If you don't fall into those categories it is pretty tough

This. Which is why US averages are so bad, on average folks have shitty insurance and thus healthcare.

But if you purchase, or negotiate excellent coverage you can get excellent care. (You still have to do some research to find the best providers)

Re: She paid husband's hospital bill. A year after his death, they wanted more money

#47

Post by selimthegrim »

b112 wrote: post #35
Workaccount2 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never really thought about it, but you could effectively use sick people to import money into your desolate community. In the same way that tourists bring tourists dollars, sick people bring government dollars.

There are some poorer countries, which do specialize in excellent health care for economic reasons.

Cuba?

Re: She paid husband's hospital bill. A year after his death, they wanted more money

#48

Post by beej71 »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #20
causi wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quality of care you did receive in those countries may have been lesser, but what could you have gotten if you paid as much there as you pay in the US?

> but what could you have gotten if you paid as much there as you pay in the US? If you ignore the fact that I was already paying substantially more for it with higher taxes, the answer is still nothing. Countries with public healthcare don’t have expansive private healthcare systems, and nowhere in the world has a healthcare system that offers the level of service that the US system does. For example my sister was g…

Last I checked, Americans already pay more tax for health care than anybody except the Norwegians.

Re: She paid husband's hospital bill. A year after his death, they wanted more money

#49

Post by causi »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #20
causi wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quality of care you did receive in those countries may have been lesser, but what could you have gotten if you paid as much there as you pay in the US?

> but what could you have gotten if you paid as much there as you pay in the US? If you ignore the fact that I was already paying substantially more for it with higher taxes, the answer is still nothing. Countries with public healthcare don’t have expansive private healthcare systems, and nowhere in the world has a healthcare system that offers the level of service that the US system does. For example my sister was g…

The maternal mortality rate for the US is 4.7 times higher than New Zealand's. The infant mortality rate is 61% higher.
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