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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

#121

Post by washadjeffmad »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #110
malfist wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Last year, maerF0x0 said they were $age years old. This year, they said they were $age+1.

Which is it, maerF0x0? Where do the lies end?

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

#122

Post by maerF0x0 »

washadjeffmad wrote: post #121
maerF0x0 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Last year, maerF0x0 said they were $age years old. This year, they said they were $age+1. Which is it, maerF0x0? Where do the lies end?

nice attempt.

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

#123

Post by AmericanChopper »

grecy wrote: post #92
AmericanChopper wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could also cherry-pick some statistics to try prove a point. But the point I’m actually making is that 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. Complaints about systemic issue of healthcare costs in the US are perfectly valid (and there are other somewhat unique problems with it as well…

> the healthcare I had access to in the US was far better than the healthcare I had access to in New Zealand No, it wasn't. Factually, your sister is 4.7 times more likely to die giving birth in the US than in New Zealand. The outcomes in US healthcare are terrible, and it's extremely expensive.

> Factually, your sister is 4.7 times more likely to die giving birth in the US than in New Zealand.

Factually, that’s completely wrong, and I don’t think you know what maternal mortality is. It’s any death that occurs during pregnancy, during or with 42 days of childbirth. There’s a lot of reason that the number is so high in the US (including unequal access to healthcare in the first place), but the quality of the healthcare provided isn’t one of them.

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

#124

Post by junofan »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #23
junofan wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not donations. It’s the fact that the largest employer in nearly every congressional district is a healthcare system. Heard this from a guy who worked on the ACA.

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.

They’re price makers in a local area. They don’t need to import sick people.

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

#125

Post by junofan »

peteradio wrote: post #115
mdorazio wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even beyond employment, healthcare represents a ridiculous 18% of the US GDP these days.

I struggle how we can include that into GDP. It should be a number we are attempting to reduce not grow because its a massive tax on the citizens.

It’s a shadow tax that goes to decent-yet-useless $60–90k jobs to buy political influence. There’s no countervailing influence.

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

#126

Post by grecy »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #123
grecy wrote: post #92

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 No, it wasn't. Factually, your sister is 4.7 times more likely to die giving birth in the US than in New Zealand. The outcomes in US healthcare are terrible, and it's extremely expensive.

> Factually, your sister is 4.7 times more likely to die giving birth in the US than in New Zealand. Factually, that’s completely wrong, and I don’t think you know what maternal mortality is. It’s any death that occurs during pregnancy, during or with 42 days of childbirth. There’s a lot of reason that the number is so high in the US (including unequal access to healthcare in the first place), but the quality of the…

> There’s a lot of reason that the number is so high in the US... but the quality of the healthcare provided isn’t one of them.

In one sentence you acknowledge that the US has a VASTLY higher maternal mortality rate than developed countries, then you say that has nothing to do with the quality of healthcare provided.

That's.... impressive.

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

#127

Post by throw10920 »

INTPenis wrote: post #21

What baffles me are these people who constantly show up to defend the US health care system, when there is clearly a plethora of real end user testimony showing how detrimental it is to the health of most United States citizens. Maybe HN isn't the best site to discuss this on, I'm guessing most of you work for some large tech sector business that offers good insurance. But most of the world is not made up of tech wor…

Where are these

> people who constantly show up to defend the US health care system

that you're claiming exist? I don't see any of them.

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

#128

Post by bob_theslob646 »

drewg123 wrote: post #67

The worst experience I've had is one where I interacted with a provider, I paid my co-pay, they billed my insurance, my insurance paid the remainder, and it seemed to be done. Roughly a year later, the insurance company audited the bill, determined that the provider coded something wrong, and (somehow) took back their money. So the provider turned around and billed me 18 months later. I called the provider, who had n…

Wow! That is quite a ride. You know there's a problem when an organization has to hire a billing coder in order to decipher what to bill patients. The whole thing just seems sad

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

#129

Post by sydbarrett74 »

junofan wrote: post #17
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.

It’s not donations. It’s the fact that the largest employer in nearly every congressional district is a healthcare system. Heard this from a guy who worked on the ACA.

Good point. Although I still think donations play a decent part.

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

#130

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

moribvndvs wrote: post #100
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.

Absolutely. I work in HIT for small to medium size practices. We all know how badly insurance is treating us as patients, but what’s not as well known is how much they squeeze medical providers (example [1]). Hospitals and networks have the weight to navigate insurance, but small independent offices don’t and are also getting absolutely fucked over. In addition to staffing issues, rising operational costs, excessive…

> local doctors are selling to networks and hospitals

My primary care physician did this a couple of years ago. He still works at the practice and I still see him. When I asked him why he sold, he said he wants to do what he loves - practice medicine - not spend most of his time working with insurance companies.

The worst part is all my records from years of visiting him did not transfer to the new system. It’s as if I’ve been seeing him for 2 years instead of 10 because no one can access my old test results and records. So much for continuity of care. Now I download all documents in their portal and save locally.

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