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Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live with medical debt

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Re: Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live with medical debt

#131

Post by alephnan »

paxys wrote: post #120
notch656a wrote: post #80

Also known as 100M people who may have died without medical care, but were provided it despite their inability to pay for it. If you remove the ability for medical workers to seek payment for their services, most medical workers are just gonna say fuck it and not work for free. Medical care providers have families they have to feed too.

The alternative isn't denying care. It is providing the same care without having people get into debt, which every other developed country (and a lot of undeveloped countries) in the world manages to do.

> which every other developed country (and a lot of undeveloped countries) in the world manages to do.

Where doctors also make much more modest salaries

Re: Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live with medical debt

#132

Post by outside1234 »

david_l_lin wrote: post #87

Just watched John Q (2002) last night, and can't believe that despite all the attention it gets, nothing has changed at all. Can't say I'm surprised though.

The billionaires like it this way so there is no change necessary.

Re: Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live with medical debt

#133

Post by giantg2 »

peteradio wrote: post #88
bombcar wrote: post #74

Interesting: > For many Americans, debt from medical or dental care may be relatively low. About a third owe less than $1,000, the KFF poll found. I wonder how they'd count me, who puts all expenses on a credit card and pays it off each month, technically I'm going into debt ...

I wonder how they consider my family who receives bogus bills that are being mishandled by insurance or the hospital or both.

Yep. I'm dealing with a situation where speech therapy as rehab from a surgery is covered by by plan. But the hospital just submitted the claim with some general code. The insurance says they need the therapist to change the billing code. They won't allow us or the surgeon to submit anything to prove it should be covered. We have to wait for the inept therapist to change the code. All the while thousands in bills hang over our heads and we wonder if insurance will pay out.

Re: Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live with medical debt

#134

Post by jjoonathan »

bombcar wrote: post #110
sirtimbly wrote: post #77

I hate the way the health-care system works and how it's affected me and those close to me. I spent much of my adult life paying off medical debt exactly like they describe. Defrayed by parents somewhat, but still a significant burden for many years. On one hand, we have debt and bankruptcy as a tool to help individuals deal with costs that would be impossible to save up for. On the other hand, this quote from the ar…

The entirety of the US economy is tuned to create debt; healthcare is just one example of it.

Well, yeah -- once you've squeeezed all the money out of poor people, how else are you supposed to squeeze even harder?

Re: Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live with medical debt

#135

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

jasonlotito wrote: post #92
EricE wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For all the downvoters - this was also on the front page: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31767347 Downvote away though :p

Yes, I will always vote down comments talking about down votes, and the comments they reference, regardless of what they are talking about. Comments talking about voting (including this one) are worthless, and deserve every down vote they get.

So I guess we need to down vote you? And you need to down vote me?

Re: Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live with medical debt

#136

Post by culopatin »

notch656a wrote: post #119
Clent wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are assuming $1000 is easy to pay off. This is simply not true for the working poor.

$1000 is $2 / day for les than 2 years (if you can do math unlike commenter below, that's including nearly 20% APR). I'm sorry but even the poor in america can come up with some way to make $14 in a week, if nothing else by picking up some cans. I live in a city where a segment of impoverished people come up with ways to spend $20+ a day in fentanyl, and they don't seem to have much trouble coming up with that even w…

Do you get your loans at 0% APR? Where do I sign?

Re: Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live with medical debt

#137

Post by pastor_bob »

Urgent care had my girlfriend go to ER when she went in for Epinephrine shot. Because, apparently, they call an ambulance for anybody who shows up with something potentially dangerous (including EKG readings they can't read, according the the ambulance driver who took us).

We just sat on a chair for a couple hours for 'monitoring', and sure enough we got a $1700 bill from them, since she hadn't met her deductible yet.

Of course people are in debt if they get hit with bills like that.

Re: Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live with medical debt

#138

Post by ohwellhere »

bombcar wrote: post #118
ohwellhere wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At worst they'd put you as one of the 37% of people who haven't had to cut spending on food, clothing, or other basics. Of course, 63% of the people with health care debt have (according to study). So while your case is interesting from a technical point of view, it isn't really practically or morally interesting, and can only serve to detract from the important points of the study.

These studies are always self-reporting and taken at much more than they actually say. Checking the methodology is important and should be done more often, especially on surveys based on self-reporting and not on large amounts of data.

You are right. I tried to caveat my analysis with "(according to study)". My prior is not that the study is completely accurate, but that it is accurate enough to make the broader points described. I may be wrong, and you're right that everyone should be more cautious.

But I think there is a difference between cautioning neutrally (the comment I'm replying to now) versus obliquely cautioning in a way that casts doubt with negative consequences (the comment I replied to previously).

Re: Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live with medical debt

#139

Post by [deleted] »

EricE wrote: post #78
EricE wrote: post #73

Still better than dealing with rationing. The rest of the world better hope the US never goes socialist with health care - kiss innovation goodbye.

For all the downvoters - this was also on the front page: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31767347 Downvote away though :p

[deleted]

Re: Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live with medical debt

#140

Post by justinzollars »

I see any suggestion to the contrary of Socialized medicine being downvoted. Honest question. How do you propose to expand healthcare with 130% Debt to GDP and 8.9% inflation? It seems we are broke and there is a demand from the HN community to spend more? Feels like hitting the accelerator as one drives off a cliff and invokes memories of Thelma & Louise
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