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Cancer Complications: Confusing Bills, Maddening Errors And Endless Phone Calls

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Re: Cancer Complications: Confusing Bills, Maddening Errors And Endless Phone Calls

#221

Post by js2 »

Recent discussion on “U.S. Health Care Spending Highest Among Developed Countries” (50 days ago, 698 points, 522 comments):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18851823

Opinion – “A Better Path to Universal Health Care: The United States should look to Germany, not Canada, for the best model.”:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/20/opinion/health-care-germa...

Decade old Frontline episode – “Sick Around The World: Five Capitalist Democracies and How They Do It”:

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/

What I don’t know is how we get from here to there. The health insurance companies are already gearing up to fight MFA – “Health Care and Insurance Industries Mobilize to Kill ‘Medicare for All’”:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/23/us/politics/medicare-for-...

Re: Cancer Complications: Confusing Bills, Maddening Errors And Endless Phone Calls

#222

Post by mnm1 »

cletus wrote: post #34

In Australia the Leftist government of Gough Whitlam introduced health-coverage-for-all in 1975 with a scheme called Medibank. In 1984 after a couple of governments, Bob Hawke's Leftist government created the Medicare scheme (Medibank became a government provider of private health insurance), which exists to this day. The most interesting stat I ever heard about Medicare was this: prior to Medicare the number one cau…

This is the only solution. Every other developed country in the world has healthcare for its people. Politicians that don't support this are monsters who'd rather kill millions and ruin millions' more lives. They are disgusting, inhuman, immoral scum who would rather enrich their billionaire backers than help people live and recover from illness. These are the people that we should use the death penalty on because they have killed and will kill millions unnecessary. All out of greed and hate for their fellow Americans.

Re: Cancer Complications: Confusing Bills, Maddening Errors And Endless Phone Calls

#223

Post by onetimemanytime »

bubbleRefuge wrote: post #190
onetimemanytime wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If health care for all reduces prices and total cost, then yeah. Otherwise, the cost will cripple the government, and by extension taxpayers. Right now they can declare bankruptcy and just don't pay (at a great cost, no doubt) but the government will have to pay. Cancer is a fact of life,38.4% will get it in their life https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/understanding/statistics and unless costs are dramatically lowe…

The federal government cannot be crippled because it can issue currency ad-infinitem. As AOC is wonderfully publicizing, the notion that government finance works like household and business finance is finally starting to be debunked and at least talked about openly. There maybe other problems with universal healthcare, but financing it is not one of them.

nope, doesn't work that way. USA issues a lot of debt, maybe more than it should, but issuing trillions of new dollars a year is not good policy.

Re: Cancer Complications: Confusing Bills, Maddening Errors And Endless Phone Calls

#225

Post by Para2016 »

cushychicken wrote: post #62
zawerf wrote: post #9

I think that's just a corollary of "63% Of Americans Don't Have Enough Savings To Cover A $500 Emergency": https://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2016/01/06/63-of-... EDIT: My comment is in reference to the old thread title, which was something like "More than 42 percent of the 9.5 million people diagnosed with cancer from 2000 to 2012 drained their life's assets within two years"

Certainly, but the person in the article was a woman with enough savings that she had planned to retire early. If it can hit her that hard, it would be devastating to someone without $500.

Not really, if you don't have money you likely don't have insurance and you are moved to hospice care. Maybe you can get a round of palliative chemo when tumor burden is high enough to cause symptoms (shortness of breath, gastric outlet obstruction, liver dysfunction, etc). So it's less of a financial devastation and more of a life ending diagnosis.

If you have money and insurance then a hospital and insurance company will gladly work together to take what money you do have. Sort of like a chicken wishbone.

Re: Cancer Complications: Confusing Bills, Maddening Errors And Endless Phone Calls

#226

Post by dragonwriter »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #96
sschueller wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are these costs the fault of the doctors? I would think the largest blame goes to the insurances and drug makers making billions in profit. At least the drug makers are making something but the insurances are just pooling money and taking of the top for doing almost nothing.

The unofficial doctors union restricts funding for residency spots, thereby restricting supply of doctors, and keeping their prices high. You can be a doctor in the UK at 24, and in the US, you're at least 30. Insurance companies' profit margins are capped by law, so only reason they would be making more money is if the providers are charging more money.

> The unofficial doctors union restricts funding for residency spots

No, they don't, unless “unofficial doctors union” is a misleading way of referring to the US Congress (which has way more lawyers than doctors) which funds many of those spots through Medicare (but also some through the VA.)

> You can be a doctor in the UK at 24, and in the US, you're at least 30.

You can have an MD, having graduated from high school at 18, at 24 in the US with a 6-year BS/MD program. With a 3-year residency (typical for GPs and specialists in internal medicine and a few others), you can be in practice at 27.

Re: Cancer Complications: Confusing Bills, Maddening Errors And Endless Phone Calls

#227

Post by asark »

mruts wrote: post #200
asark wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do other wealthy states with populations who generally prefer their healthcare system to one like ours (the US) do? That'd be a good place to start looking. Plenty of examples. Like, all of them, pretty much. > The solution isn't free healthcare for everyone. I mean....

it’s not a coincidence that the US is much wealthier and home to much more innovation than socialist European countries. Clearly our system is bad, but there are multiple ways to skin a cat.

Color me skeptical that our healthcare system contributes to our being more innovative than our peers. Looking at the way it distributes risk (bumpily and with little certainty) and the immense cost of it, I'd expect precisely the opposite.

> Clearly our system is bad, but there are multiple ways to skin a cat.

I'd love to see a hyper-free-market system work for this. It'd be great. So much simpler. I'd like to see it happen somewhere else first, though. Meanwhile all our best examples are not that and I'll take something working in practice over working in theory any day.

Re: Cancer Complications: Confusing Bills, Maddening Errors And Endless Phone Calls

#228

Post by smallgovt »

golem14 wrote: post #213
lotsofpulp wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the terms you listed are easily understandable concepts clearly explained on healthcare.gov or any health insurance company's website, and they've been a thing for decades. How much clearer can maximum out of pocket be? Edit: I do think in network and out of network should be easier/faster to figure out though.

Isn't there also a maximum lifetime benefit most US insurances stipulate, that isn't that hard to reach (like $1M or so ?) My understanding is that past that point, you become mostly uninsurable, but maybe I'm wrong.

Apparently, this has been outlawed. "Under the current law, lifetime limits on most benefits are prohibited in any health plan or insurance policy."

Re: Cancer Complications: Confusing Bills, Maddening Errors And Endless Phone Calls

#229

Post by komali2 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #115
komali2 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The deductible might be huge, and there's also this magic new thing I've just discovered (or United invented out of nowhere) called "co-insurance" and "maximum out of pocket" which I call "deductible #2." Then when you actually try to use the insurance you pay monthly for (but don't get to use until you reach the deductible #1 and #2?) they may just send the bill to you with a lot of legalese that amounts to "we don'…

All of the terms you listed are easily understandable concepts clearly explained on healthcare.gov or any health insurance company's website, and they've been a thing for decades. How much clearer can maximum out of pocket be? Edit: I do think in network and out of network should be easier/faster to figure out though.

Sure. I'm lazy, I care more about being a better programmer than learning the esoteric rules around insurance. I probably could pay less taxes if I managed to Learn that, or get better return on my index funds. Or I could add another programming language to my tool belt, or learn more git commands, read a book on management... It's all choices I've gotta make. And I have the privilege of a high paid job and a 15 minute commute.

As for what's covered by my insurance, I strongly disagree that this is "clearly explained." It is not, some of it is outright "and other services," most of it is buried in pages of medical terms I don't understand.

Re: Cancer Complications: Confusing Bills, Maddening Errors And Endless Phone Calls

#230

Post by komali2 »

creaghpatr wrote: post #215
komali2 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just make it so that you always qualify for Medicare?

Because it would go bankrupt and then no one would get Medicare.

But why not make it not go bankrupt?
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