221–230 of 534 posts
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$300 is a steal.
$300 [1] is more than I’ve spent on (non-dental) helthcare, in total, over my entire life. That includes one count of general anaesthetic and emergency surgery because of testicular torsion which happened while I wasn’t registered with any local doctor, one burned arm, one being knocked unconscious by a trampoline, and one being hit by a car. [1] “after premiums” is roughly the same as “after taxes”, right?
Not just that, they are also getting nothing in return. The US voters need to realize just how much are they getting fucked over by the military-industrial complex. I’m not against taxes, I’m against taxes that go to pay for wars as opposed to medical insurance, infrastructure and education.
That budget seems to be always nonnegotiable, despite the occasional media outrage. Realistically, how can US voters change this? As an aside, the US is the only country I've seen give military personnel priority boarding for civilian flights. With all due respect to veterans, it seems so strange to do this sort of worshiping in what is effectively peacetime.
I moved to the US from a country with socialised medicine. When you include premiums then taxes in both were roughly similar if not a little higher in the US (ignoring cost of living differences). But even that doesn't include the real sting on the tail of US medicine. You pay a fairly high health insurance premium, but if you actually need health services you then pay again through the nose even with insurance "disc…
Can't even find out what stuff costs beforehand either. I had to get a blood test. I had gotten burned before where my insurance said they covered a physical, but it turns out their definition of a physical didn't include the doctor's definition, which included blood tests. So before I had my blood drawn, I asked them to tell me what the tests would cost if my insurance didn't cover it. "It depends on how it's coded,…
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I went to the ER thinking I was having a heart attack, and it turned out there was nothing wrong. The doctor who saw me afterwards thought it might have been intestinal spams. I got to pay $6,000 for that bit of entertainment.
I really don't understand this 'labor theory of value' thinking. Just because there wasn't anything wrong doesn't mean you don't have to pay a person for their services.
How much does an ER visit like that cost in a sane country? I mean the actual cost, not the “free” that the patient might see from a socialized system. It’s nowhere near that high.
I moved to the US from a country with socialised medicine. When you include premiums then taxes in both were roughly similar if not a little higher in the US (ignoring cost of living differences). But even that doesn't include the real sting on the tail of US medicine. You pay a fairly high health insurance premium, but if you actually need health services you then pay again through the nose even with insurance "disc…
That's mostly not true if you have an HMO plan, but your employer may not offer HMO plans if it offers insurance, the HMO may not be a good one if it is available, or it may not cover good providers in your area.
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Private healthcare insurance has margins well below most profitable companies, in the us. If anything I'd hazard that the poor treatment of consumers by these entities stems from being barely able to hold the line, not because of greed. Rising medical costs, I think, have the blame elsewhere, but insurance companies sure do make a good Boogeyman for politicians, because they are very poorly understood.
Somebody's gouging us. Who? Everybody cries poor and points the finger at everybody else. Nobody knows where the money is actually going.
Insurance companies are regulated on profit margins, which means it's actually in their interest for costs to rise, since their income is limited to a percentage of the costs. Administrative overhead at the insurance company is limited by percentage as well, but I don't think that includes the overhead at medical offices required to deal with insurance billing.
Users may be able to pick between different cost options, but at best they know the direct cost to them, not the overall cost. There's also a sense of wanting to get the most the insurance will cover, because that's why you paid for it.
Doctors' compensation is certain a factor, especially since there are effective rate limits on new doctors based on the number of slots for residencies, that aren't adjusted for population growth.
Employers (who are usually the ones selecting the insurance plans) may be cost aware, but might be selecting based on direct costs to the employer and not on total cost to the employer and employee combined.
Individual US tax payers pay for most of the world's security. This is one tax of being the global super power, so it's not particularly surprising that when you include all things the US tax payer pays for privately that is taxed in other countries, you arrive at a number higher than other similar countries. In reality, there is no country with which we can fairly compare US tax rates.
Individual US tax payers pay for the largest military budget in the world - I think stating that the US's military budget equates world security isn't a fair jump. Also, bear in mind that a good chunk of that money just gets cycled into politicians via the DOD -> defense contractors -> lobbying.
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Yeah, taking a kid with a high fever to the ER in Toronto is a total no-brainer since it's 100% covered by OHIP. Now living in SF, and I've found myself mentally doing risk probability calculations, and concluding I'd be better off skipping the ER and instead following the instructions from off-the-shelf motrin because the ER visit is likely not worth the cost. My wife firmly believes the US healthcare system is a gi…
It wasn't worth the cost in Toronto, either, but you didn't care because it wasn't you who paid the cost.
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The reason for this is that if one state has better social programs then another and higher taxes the poorest are going to move there, and the high earners are going to move away.
This doesn't seem to be a major problem for the EU, which has unrestricted internal migration but social programs are administered by the individual member states. The idea that the poor will mass migrate to California and the rich will mass migrate to South Dakota is pretty unrealistic. The poor can't afford to live in California even with social assistance, and the rich don't want to live in South Dakota no matter…
I might be off the mark here, but from my understanding wasn't unrestricted migration one of the big drivers behind Brexit? Or at least the idea that the "poor countries" were "taking advantage" of the "rich countries"?
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> My family in Germany throws a fit when they have to pay 50 Euro for something. Socialized insurance rates in Germany are 15% of income. Unless your family doesn't earn any money, they have been paying far more than 50 Euros. > In the US you can happy if your cost for seeing a doctor is less than 4 digits. That isn't generally true. Every insurance plan is different. Cheap plans have a high deductible. It's similar…
"It's basically like this: If you're gonna be poor, go to Germany. Everyone else will pay for you. If you're going to earn well, leave Germany, otherwise you're going to be paying for everyone else." You should add this to your algorithm for location choice: If you get a serious health problem and want to become poor, come to the US.
However, if I were to get seriously and chronically sick I would back to my home country. Not that i couldn’t get very good care in the US, but the system here is just a massive burden compared to countries with universal coverage.