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Insured, but Still Owing $109K for a Heart Attack

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Re: Insured, but Still Owing $109K for a Heart Attack

#321

Post by gowld »

fredsanford wrote: post #245
achoped wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not always. My mom had a quadruple bypass about 6 years ago during a gap year where she stopped working but didn't have Medicare yet. Unlucky. I think she was billed for around $180k. She told them "I'm on Social Security for $1000/mo, I'll pay you $50/mo". It was basically that or sending it to collections and never getting a dime from a retiree. So they accepted and told her a "non-profit" paid for the doctor's por…

I'm not sure I believe that debt over a year old is not pursued. Anecdotal, but... I've had 4 different cell phone numbers in my lifetime. All of them were still getting debt collection calls or still are up to 15 years later. I've had my current number for over 15 years. I'd love to meet Tanya who ran up the bills for my current number. Also, I had my appendix rupture right after getting laid off and going on COBRA.…

If you tell them to stop calling you they are legally required to stop or you can sue them for statutot damages

Re: Insured, but Still Owing $109K for a Heart Attack

#322

Post by gowld »

UncleEntity wrote: post #264
defen wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just let it go to collections. You'll get harassed for a little over a year. Debt older than a year is almost never pursued by collections agencies. I don't understand. Is there no penalty to not paying other than a hit on your credit score? Can't you end up with wage garnishments or liens or something like that?

Where I live (Arizona) there's a statute of limitations on consumer debt, think it's 2 years for random bills and 3 years for recurring payments...or something similar.

That sounds like legalized theft. Why pay any non recurring bills ever?

Re: Insured, but Still Owing $109K for a Heart Attack

#323

Post by gowld »

mrguyorama wrote: post #247
jfk13 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is not correct, as I understand it. Under the ACA (Obamacare), health plan providers had to ensure that at least 80% of premiums were paid out for patient services. That leaves 20% for overheard, including profit and compensation. Doesn't this imply that it's in the interest of health plan providers for patient services in general to be as expensive as possible? That means premiums will have to be correspondin…

That's been one of the biggest complaints about Obamacare, yes. Other than the "I shouldn't have to pay for my neighbor's wellbeing" complaint

How is an 20% cap worse than no cap? Obviously if this scam works it would also work with less regulation.

Re: Insured, but Still Owing $109K for a Heart Attack

#324

Post by alphabettsy »

krupan wrote: post #236
alphabettsy wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HSA’s are available and most people don’t effectively use them, part of the problem is most people don’t/can’t save anyway. You’re not all wrong, but you’re talking about changing behavior which is much harder than just making the system work for how people actually behave.

HSA's are horrible. Way to much government nonsense with limits on contributions and providers and tying them to particular insurance plans. Completely ineffective. When you see that you could save some money for future medical expenses, but you don't qualify for any tax breaks because the amount you want to save is too much or your health insurance doesn't allow it, it's very demotivating for saving at all. The thou…

Only having catastrophic coverage for most people over 35 does not work, maybe younger too. We’ve already seen this.

You are basically guaranteed to receive care in the United States, doesn’t mean it’s affordable. The people that can’t afford the ~$300 screening or basic healthcare end up waiting until it’s major then we’re back to catastrophic level. People who can’t or don’t pay their medical bills still cost everyone using the health system money, it’s just hidden in fees, higher costs, tax write-offs, etc.

Re: Insured, but Still Owing $109K for a Heart Attack

#325

Post by mabbo »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #101
mabbo wrote: post #63

If you owe a 6-figure amount of money because of a health issue, you don't actually have health insurance.

You do, it just doesn't cover you at all medical providers in all 50 states.

If you send me a bill for anything over $100,000, you might as well send me a bill for $10 trillion. It doesn't matter, I can't pay. I'm bankrupt now. Great, you get my house and my retirement savings.

The point of insurance is to prevent that from happening. I pay a small amount so that if I get unlucky, I'm not ruined. I don't care if "oh the bill was actually much higher before" because the number never mattered- me being ruined is what mattered. If I still am, then the insurance did not do what I wanted it to do.

Re: Insured, but Still Owing $109K for a Heart Attack

#326

Post by defen »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #313
defen wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just let it go to collections. You'll get harassed for a little over a year. Debt older than a year is almost never pursued by collections agencies. I don't understand. Is there no penalty to not paying other than a hit on your credit score? Can't you end up with wage garnishments or liens or something like that?

Nope. Wage garnishments and liens only happen with debts to the government such as unpaid taxes, child support, or fines.

Ok but can't the hospital (or the collections agency) take you to court? Let's say you have 100k bill from the hospital that you just ignore. They sell it to a collections agency for 60k. You refuse to pay the collections agency. Now what happens?

Re: Insured, but Still Owing $109K for a Heart Attack

#327

Post by fredsanford »

gowld wrote: post #321
fredsanford wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I believe that debt over a year old is not pursued. Anecdotal, but... I've had 4 different cell phone numbers in my lifetime. All of them were still getting debt collection calls or still are up to 15 years later. I've had my current number for over 15 years. I'd love to meet Tanya who ran up the bills for my current number. Also, I had my appendix rupture right after getting laid off and going on COBRA.…

If you tell them to stop calling you they are legally required to stop or you can sue them for statutot damages

The debt keeps getting resold. I'd have to be able to predict the future...

Re: Insured, but Still Owing $109K for a Heart Attack

#328

Post by fredsanford »

1stranger wrote: post #277
fredsanford wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I believe that debt over a year old is not pursued. Anecdotal, but... I've had 4 different cell phone numbers in my lifetime. All of them were still getting debt collection calls or still are up to 15 years later. I've had my current number for over 15 years. I'd love to meet Tanya who ran up the bills for my current number. Also, I had my appendix rupture right after getting laid off and going on COBRA.…

> COBRA is another scam. $1650 per month that my employer was paying ~$600 for. COBRA is whatever the employer was paying + 2% administration fee.

Sorry, you're wrong, unless my former employer is lying to the gov't. I believed a similar story

Re: Insured, but Still Owing $109K for a Heart Attack

#329

Post by crististm »

sctb wrote: post #272
crististm wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snowflakes downvoting f-bombs. Pathetic.

I'm sorry but could you please not post like this here? It's against the guidelines. > Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

You are right. Let me rephrase that.

Snowflakes get offense at f-bombs. Pathetic.

Re: Insured, but Still Owing $109K for a Heart Attack

#330

Post by lacker »

bmmayer1 wrote: post #133
lacker wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to respond saying that most hospitals are nonprofits and aren't actually making a great profit margin off this sort of overcharging. But then I looked it up and St. David's, despite having a religious nonprofit-sounding name, is actually owned by HCA Healthcare, which is a for-profit that has almost 4x'd its stock price over the past five years while acquiring more hospitals to grow. So, yeah, this one is…

> squeezing money out of insurance companies because they can FTFY. But seriously, how can it possibly be the hospital's fault for doing exactly what the law and market incentives give them every reason to do? There's almost no downward pressure on prices: little competition, no transparent pricing, huge barriers to market entry, and third party payers.

For what it's worth, I'm not interested in blaming the corporation for trying to raise profits. I just think that clearly the system is not ideal, and the right way to fix the system is probably different depending on whether the diagnosis is 1/ inefficiently-operating nonprofits or 2/ non-consumer-happiness-optimizing corporations.
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