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Using AI to negotiate a $195k hospital bill down to $33k

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Re: Using AI to negotiate a $195k hospital bill down to $33k

#501

Post by arwhatever »

kwanbix wrote: post #363
georgeecollins wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the reason is that people know it is a problem but ideologically they really disagree about what to do about it. The impasse creates an opportunity for profit driven actors to fight reforms. Also, democracies do dumb things sometimes. See Brexit. But also, sometimes people from other countries-- I am thinking parts of Europe-- underestimate how well paid people in the US often are. They compare the averages,…

As a non-american (from South America) who lived in both USA an Europe: Yes, in USA you get much more money, like you said 2x~5x, but then: University is expensive as fck. Health care is expensive as fck. You have 5 days of paid sick leave per year in most companies. You have 10 days of paid holidays per year in most companies. In contrast, in Europe: University was cheap or free. Healthcare is cheap and universal. I…

Perennial “What Armenians should know about life in America (2014)” from days of HN past https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22777745

And which today must be read via internet archive

https://web.archive.org/web/20200404172130/https://likewise....

Basically explaining to Armenians at home why their relatives who moved to America don’t send better remittances back home despite their $X pay rate. Here’s why …

Re: Using AI to negotiate a $195k hospital bill down to $33k

#502

Post by zzzeek »

Aurornis wrote: post #394
zzzeek wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not sure why you're getting downmodded. People will say M4A ("medicare for all") polls at super high levels, and they're right, it does. But poll those same people telling them "would you favor that your employer-based healthcare would be rescinded and you would instead get healthcare from a new government controlled plan, where there would be no other options", which is the assumption M4A's viability is based on, an…

> "would you favor that your employer-based healthcare would be rescinded and you would instead get healthcare from a new government controlled plan, where there would be no other options", which is the assumption M4A's viability is based on No, that's just the condition for one proposal for Medicare For All. As much as Americans complain about healthcare in general, most people don't want to give up their own health…

what are the other proposals? I like everyone else would love the option.

though at the moment I'm super happy DJT does not control my healthcare.

Re: Using AI to negotiate a $195k hospital bill down to $33k

#505

Post by jack_tripper »

danlugo92 wrote: post #133
jack_tripper wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. You get a bill in any country when you're not insured not just the US. But most people in most western countries tend to be insured by default through some national system if they have a legal job, or, if their system is private like in the US, then heath insurance is mandatory for everyone, unlike in the US. US is kind of a "wild west" where people can live and work, sometimes illegally, and not be insur…

> You get a bill in any country when you're not insured not just the US. Non - sequitour. You can travel to Europe (not to a third world country mind you), get your treatment without insurance, pay in full, and fly back and still spend much much less, including cosmetic procedures and dental.

I don't think that contradicts what I said previously but feels more of an off-topic tangent.

And of course when you earn US wages you can afford to get private care in Europe out of pocket given how lower wages in Europe are in comparison to US, which is why plenty of locals like low income people and pensioners can't afford private healthcare.

Re: Using AI to negotiate a $195k hospital bill down to $33k

#506

Post by gedy »

tptacek wrote: post #496
throwforfeds wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but Americans have an incredible amount of student loan debt too. Something like $1.7 trillion. If you can get into one of the best schools in the world that has a huge endowment, then sure, you'll get grants and whatnot. It may even be free, in the case of Harvard. But then there's a long tail of schools that are honestly not that great, charging only slightly less than the top schools per year, with smaller ai…

American student loan debt skews sharply towards the top income quartile.

Yes, granted it was over 20 years ago, but I came from a pretty broke household in the United States, and I went to a cheap state school instead of a nicer university or private school because I couldn’t imagine borrowing for school. The folks I know who were much more well off, seem to have had no problem borrowing what I considered to be exorbitant sums to both pay for school and live off of.

Re: Using AI to negotiate a $195k hospital bill down to $33k

#507

Post by A1kmm »

One thing here doesn't seem right. I thought the whole thread that this was about them negotiating down how much the executor of a deceased estate would pay to one hospital making claims against it. But the thread included things like: "She had been afraid of being sent to collections and asked why we wouldn’t just take their counter-offer", which suggests a (mis)understanding that it is a personal debt of the sister's.

This suggests an 'AI can't see gorillas' problem here in that, during an AI-human interaction, identification of relevant big-picture context that a human advisor could have helped with is also missed.

Re: Using AI to negotiate a $195k hospital bill down to $33k

#509

Post by wing-_-nuts »

tptacek wrote: post #317
georgeecollins wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the reason is that people know it is a problem but ideologically they really disagree about what to do about it. The impasse creates an opportunity for profit driven actors to fight reforms. Also, democracies do dumb things sometimes. See Brexit. But also, sometimes people from other countries-- I am thinking parts of Europe-- underestimate how well paid people in the US often are. They compare the averages,…

Yes, a challenge for major structural alterations to the American system is that the median American family is probably better off under this system than they would be under any of the European-style systems: the wage premium enjoyed by many Americans and the lower tax level offsets the cost of insurance and copays. So when you're talking about how bad the American system is, you're really talking about a minority of…

>the median American family is probably better off under this system than they would be under any of the European-style systems: the wage premium enjoyed by many Americans and the lower tax level offsets the cost of insurance and copays.

If you had said the median tech worker? I might have believed you, but the median family? No way.

Re: Using AI to negotiate a $195k hospital bill down to $33k

#510

Post by lesuorac »

throwway120385 wrote: post #482
Aurornis wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also very true, and a good point. Even people in the US don't understand why those $200K hospital bills aren't real. Insurance providers (including government programs) have a fixed limit for what they pay for procedures. They pay min(billed_amount, allowed_amount) so providers don't want to risk leaving money on the table by having billed_amount So every time you see posts on the internet where people talk about the…

That depends a lot on your insurance. For example, our out of pocket for my son's birth was somewhere in the neighborhood of $10k after insurance. I've met tons of people who would be bankrupted by that amount. What you're describing isn't true for people on High Deductible Health Plans, and those plans are a bit of a racket because they're frequently paired with HSAs where the employer gets to pocket anything left i…

FSA's not HSA's are use-it-or-lose-it.

If you have a FSA I strongly suggest that you get an HSA instead.

https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/smart-money/hsa-vs-...

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