Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

text.npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 149 posts

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

#101

Post by malfist »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #45
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…

Are you sure you're canadian? You talk about having insurance for US Healthcare here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36818747#36819112

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

#102

Post by pmyteh »

TRiG_Ireland wrote: post #97
hulitu wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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".

In principle, there's nothing wrong with lobbying. Legislators cannot be specialists on everything that needs to be done. Bat conservation charities lobby the government on issues related to bat conservation. Deaf associations lobby the government on issues related to education of Deaf students and Deaf accessibility. Lobbying from commercial interests is infinitely more suspect, of course, but still sometimes reason…

There's also a need to stop lobbying being used as a cover for bribery: either openly or as a quiet quid-pro-quo. Your firm's argument for the importance of a regulatory change may be useful, but the associated $10k "donation" is just corruption.

I've been reading vol. 3 of Robert Caro's biography of LBJ and the amount of illegal money routed from various Texas oil tycoons via Johnson in support of various causes is astonishing.

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

#103

Post by causi »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #80
causi wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the healthcare I had access to in the US was far better than the healthcare I had access to in New Zealand (or anywhere else), regardless of how much I was willing to pay. Can you back that up with data?

You mean like my healthcare records?…

The numbers I've seen do not support your position. If your opinion is based on evidence, show me that evidence. I'm willing to change my mind, but not based simply on "trust me bro".

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

#105

Post by deprecative »

sampo wrote: post #90
spicyusername wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll probably go to collections and their credit score will tank for no reason.

The credit score of the dead person, or the spouse?

Spouse under the assumption they either accept ownership of the debt or they already were the owner of the debt.

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

#106

Post by deprecative »

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

Right, then you get cancer and lose your job, savings, retirement, and start from zero.

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

#107

Post by stusmall »

tomrod wrote: post #65
stusmall wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have great insurance through my employer. Last week my spouse was suppose to go in for a surgery that multiple doctors made it clear she needed. We were on the books for months for the surgery. Insurance denied it the day before, throwing all our plans up into the air. The surgeon suggested getting a different surgery that wouldn't fix the problem. The idea is that when it didn't work it would act as evidence to co…

Get the surgery, get notarized items from multiple docs, talk to a lawyer. Healthcare insurance doesn't get to dictate your healthcare directly. They aren't doctors, and open themselves up to liability if we don't push back.

Woooofftt. That's bad advice and in an even worse order. There are a bunch of steps in between getting denied and just YOLOing it out of pocket. It looks like going through the insurance company's peer to peer process is probably going to work out. It is still a bit up in the air but its looking positive. We'd already started down the route of getting connected to lawyers in case it doesn't.

I don't think "do it out of pocket and try and claw the money out of them after the fact" was ever on our list of options. I wouldn't consider that unless the lawyers suggested it. We were looking into going overseas to have to done, which honestly its another big indictment of this system.

The point still stands about how insanely inefficient this whole system is at the macro level. The fact that lawyers are getting involved in routine medical procedures or doctors are suggesting what they know is incorrect treatment is a sign of deep inefficiencies. We aren't an outlier either. It is profitable for the insurance companies to jerk you around, fight you, try and sneak past denials were they can.

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

#108

Post by HDThoreaun »

rwmj wrote: post #99
HDThoreaun wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American culture places a lot of importance on individualism. This means people are free to make choices that will lower their life expectancy without fear of judgement. So Americans don't live as long. Doesn't really prove anything about the quality of health care.

I can assure you that eating and drinking yourself to death is entirely possible in France too :-)

Us obesity rate 36%, france 17%

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

#109

Post by ianburrell »

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…

Lots of countries with universal healthcare have private insurance and healthcare. Public healthcare is pretty rare, Britain and Canada are the main examples, and Canada is only one that bans private healthcare. Switzerland is good example of country with required private health insurance. France is mostly public insurance but healthcare is mostly private.

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

#110

Post by maerF0x0 »

malfist wrote: post #101
maerF0x0 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Are you sure you're canadian? You talk about having insurance for US Healthcare here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36818747#36819112

Nice attempt.

Canadian, former resident of Canada (for decades), and lately in the USA on a visa. Plenty of connections and family in Canada who can vouch first hand for what I'm saying, both as patients and as care providers.

Post reply on HN