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$8k to Give Birth

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Re: $8k to Give Birth

#31

Post by sparrish »

cdubzzz wrote: post #25
sparrish wrote: post #15

With our daughter, we shopped around and prepaid at a private hospital $5k, no insurance. We ended up not making it to the hospital in time (35 min labor and delivery) and I delivered the baby at home (not recommended). We took mama and baby into the hospital to get checked out and were out of there 5 hours later. I later contacted the hospital and asked for a partial refund because my wife and I did the hard part. T…

That sounds extremely interesting. I’d love to hear more details about this — e.g. Where do you live? How did you arrive at the decision to go this route? How did you even know it was an option? Is this common in your area/anywhere? I’ve never heard of doing it this way. And that price would be cheaper than my deductible, hah!

At the time, we lived in Phoenix, AZ USA. We just called up the hospitals and asked what programs they had for private-pay child delivery. Most had post-paid financing but a couple had prepaid programs that were cheaper.

Re: $8k to Give Birth

#32

Post by martin_a »

Yetanfou wrote: post #22
martin_a wrote: post #2

Yeah, so what? I think we have often enough discussed that the US healthcare system is broken. People should never have to worry whether they can financially manage to go and see a doctor when they are in need of one. Doesn't care if you've broken your arm, am expecting a child or if you're chronically ill. I don't know what else to say about this. Get that shit together and become a first world country.

> People should never have to worry whether they can financially manage to go and see a doctor when they are in need of one. Doesn't care if you've broken your arm, am expecting a child or if you're chronically ill. I live in Sweden. Sweden has socialised health care so in theory it should be possible to go and see a doctor when [I am] in need of one . That's right, in theory. In practice the waiting times can be so…

> Public health care is affordable but often not available. Private health care is available but often not affordable.

Well, we both know that those are the same in the end. It's not like there are seperate CT scanners for private insurance patients, but the later are treated with priority as they can be billed more.

> How can these two goals - affordability and availability - be met in one system?

I think this is a problem of prioritizing and financing.

For one, I would immediately stop and forbild all private health insurances in Germany and make being member of one of the public health care insurances mandatory. Also public employees would have to pay their share for all social services. All of them, just like any other employee.

This will right away stop this whole BS with prioritizing private patients over those with public healthcare and it will also fix lots of financing issues in the long run.

Once that is done, pay the same money for everything at all places and also pay all (equally qualified) doctors the same. Obviously some kind of expert council will have to decide a fair price for everything, but in the end a CT scan should cost the same around the whole country.

If we have established this, lots of problems will solve themselves: Doctors will move out to the rural areas too, because the money is the same. Also with more money, we can pay better prices, build up new medical infrastructure and what not.

We provide and finance so much infrastructure because we find this to be a fundamental part of our society, but we fail so hard on medical infrastructure. That just doesn't fit together.

Re: $8k to Give Birth

#33

Post by ap3 »

martin_a wrote: post #30
ekianjo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah, so what? I think we have often enough discussed that the US healthcare system is broken. You think giving birth is free? There are usually 3 or 4 professionals present, along with a bed for the day, instruments to measure various things, drugs for (pre) and post delivery, etc... it's far from being like a regular doctor visit.

> You think giving birth is free? There are usually 3 or 4 professionals present [...] Of course it's not free. It's about who takes care of the costs. You should not see a bill from the hospital as your health care provider should fully take care of this. Story time: When I was a little kid, I stumbled with a glass jar in my hand, fell into the shards and cut my right hand open. Half a centimeter more and I'd have l…

>Whatever happens to you, professionals will take of you and you won't have to worry whether your family will go bankrupt because you stumbled as a kid or not. Because the society as a whole has build a net that will catch you when things like this happen.

Why?

Who builds the net?

Re: $8k to Give Birth

#35

Post by martin_a »

ap3 wrote: post #33
martin_a wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You think giving birth is free? There are usually 3 or 4 professionals present [...] Of course it's not free. It's about who takes care of the costs. You should not see a bill from the hospital as your health care provider should fully take care of this. Story time: When I was a little kid, I stumbled with a glass jar in my hand, fell into the shards and cut my right hand open. Half a centimeter more and I'd have l…

>Whatever happens to you, professionals will take of you and you won't have to worry whether your family will go bankrupt because you stumbled as a kid or not. Because the society as a whole has build a net that will catch you when things like this happen. Why? Who builds the net?

In case of Germany those laws are in effect since 1884, not sure what your favorite translator might make out of [0], but it's been established for a long time and therefore a well respected and valued achievement of the earlier times.

So, obviously since 1884 the society has build this net with their monthly dues. Currently it's around 15% of your loan.

[0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geschichte_der_Sozialversicher...

Re: $8k to Give Birth

#36

Post by Youden »

Yetanfou wrote: post #22
martin_a wrote: post #2

Yeah, so what? I think we have often enough discussed that the US healthcare system is broken. People should never have to worry whether they can financially manage to go and see a doctor when they are in need of one. Doesn't care if you've broken your arm, am expecting a child or if you're chronically ill. I don't know what else to say about this. Get that shit together and become a first world country.

> People should never have to worry whether they can financially manage to go and see a doctor when they are in need of one. Doesn't care if you've broken your arm, am expecting a child or if you're chronically ill. I live in Sweden. Sweden has socialised health care so in theory it should be possible to go and see a doctor when [I am] in need of one . That's right, in theory. In practice the waiting times can be so…

I've lived in the US (fully private), Australia (universal healthcare) and Switzerland (a weird system somewhere in the middle of universal and fully private) and I've only had issues like you describe in the US. So based on this (very small) sample, it seems like there's little correlation between the funding system and the quality/access to care.

I don't even think it's a matter of funding. For good care, Australia has relatively low spending, while Switzerland has quite high spending. For bad care, the US and Sweden both spend quite a lot (per OECD [0]).

[0]: https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm

Re: $8k to Give Birth

#37

Post by shermozle »

Yetanfou wrote: post #22
martin_a wrote: post #2

Yeah, so what? I think we have often enough discussed that the US healthcare system is broken. People should never have to worry whether they can financially manage to go and see a doctor when they are in need of one. Doesn't care if you've broken your arm, am expecting a child or if you're chronically ill. I don't know what else to say about this. Get that shit together and become a first world country.

> People should never have to worry whether they can financially manage to go and see a doctor when they are in need of one. Doesn't care if you've broken your arm, am expecting a child or if you're chronically ill. I live in Sweden. Sweden has socialised health care so in theory it should be possible to go and see a doctor when [I am] in need of one . That's right, in theory. In practice the waiting times can be so…

Sounds like Sweden have fucked it up, not that public healthcare is a broken concept. You should try the British NHS. It's not perfect but it's pretty fucking good, and free.

The problem in Australia is right-wing ideologues chipping away at public health to enrich their donors in the private health "insurance" scam industry, subsidising it and forcing people into it when it provides almost no benefit.

Re: $8k to Give Birth

#38

Post by nojvek »

It cost me $4k out of pocket after having employer insurance in US. Absolutely absurd. Prolly one of the reasons i’m gonna stick with only one kid.

Kids are really really expensive in US. You wanna be rich. Don’t have kids.

Re: $8k to Give Birth

#39

Post by kmlx »

lazysheepherd wrote: post #21
kmlx wrote: post #3

as people already know by now, the US medical system is subsidising the rest of world, along with medical innovation (new drugs etc): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7xmkzVU29Q

Oh do we? No one asks US to be drug martyr of the World. Economy is a living thing, just stop paying double or triple for drugs, and market will level itself across all customers in no time. IF, you can stop that is: because IMO whole thing rather smells corruption, not martyrdom.

it's not about asking the US to be the martyrs. it's about the state of the matter. right now, by asking US citizens to pay exorbitant prices, and thus boosting innovation and bringing new products to market, you are actually helping places like the EU get better and cheaper medication. of course you can change that.

Re: $8k to Give Birth

#40

Post by yownie »

k__ wrote: post #18
lm28469 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fascist When did "fascism" became a tag for "things I don't like" again ? edit: I can't reply to your reply but you should research more on fascism, it goes way beyond "bad people are bad", most of these regimen were actually pro healthcare/welfare. I'd be glad not to make it meta but every single controversial article turns into that kind of lame "oh that's fascist!" thing when it almost never is related to fascis…

Fascism is just exreme elitism and only allowing the elite to breed sound rather extreme to me. Also, could we please not make this meta?

perhaps don't be hyperbolic then?
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