The real wtf is that they consider $33k for four hours of 'treatment' a win.
Using AI to negotiate a $195k hospital bill down to $33k
721–730 of 954 posts
Re: Using AI to negotiate a $195k hospital bill down to $33k
#722Earlier quoted context omitted.
High fractions of Europeans speak English, eg Poland has 50% of population speaking English (for those of working age it’s probably much higher) whereas the fractions of Americans speaking non-English European languages is much lower (0.25% for Americans speaking Polish). If 50% of Americans spoke Polish by the shake of a wand, I bet there’d be more Americans in Poland than Poles in Poland.
Your wand would also need to erase the reason people speak (or don’t speak) the languages they do, otherwise what you said would already be true for the UK, Australia, etc.
Would it? People don’t exclusively learn English to migrate to the US.
What language do you think Germans and Spaniards use to do commerce with each other? There needs to be a common language, there’s no bandwidth to learn all languages, so due to historical and modern reasons, English prevailed.
Re Australia, Australians have highly preferential options to move to US which is not reciprocated.
Re: Using AI to negotiate a $195k hospital bill down to $33k
#723Earlier 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…
It's evident that you're saying this as a non-European, as there's no "European healthcare".
Many (most?) European countries have private healthcare systems. Switzerland has it and offers some of the best healthcare in Europe and in the world. Similar systems work great in many other European countries as well. The problems with American healthcare are not because it's market-based, it's because how that market is managed.
Some other countries have public universal healthcare. It can work well, but it requires a high-income country with both wealth in abundance and significant government efficiency. It only truly works well in Scandinavia so far. This is not "socialist healthcare" as some will dubiously claim, it's sort of the opposite, which is why it works.
Re: Using AI to negotiate a $195k hospital bill down to $33k
#724Earlier quoted context omitted.
Life expectancy tells you basically nothing about the quality of health care in the US. It's dominated by car accidents, homicide, and then CVD --- but CVD varies dramatically across the United States (from states in the south with drastically worse CVD outcomes to states in the north with outcomes on par with the Nordics) despite the same health care structure across all those states.
There are plenty of other countries with car accidents, homicide and cardiovascular disease. They also do worse than the US in life expectancy.
Do you need a cite to back up the analysis I just gave you? Because it will be easy to provide.
Re: Using AI to negotiate a $195k hospital bill down to $33k
#725To me, in the UK, it sounds like there is an opportunity here for some sort of centralised representation and/or app that can fight claims for people
Bureaucracies begrudgingly allow a few shortcuts to exist so they can respond to regulators and media attention. But once enough customers realize it exists they will shut it down and raise the bar to keep the vast majority of peasants herded down the profitable happy path.
Re: Using AI to negotiate a $195k hospital bill down to $33k
#726Earlier quoted context omitted.
High fractions of Europeans speak English, eg Poland has 50% of population speaking English (for those of working age it’s probably much higher) whereas the fractions of Americans speaking non-English European languages is much lower (0.25% for Americans speaking Polish). If 50% of Americans spoke Polish by the shake of a wand, I bet there’d be more Americans in Poland than Poles in Poland.
OK, but by that logic lots more USA citizens should be moving to the UK, Ireland, Spain than the other way around. That's just not the case, at least until very recently. I could see that the appeal of Ireland can be increasing and Poland sounds cool. I'm not saying that the USA is great, it has tons of problems.
Net migration US/Ireland is positive to Ireland.
UK numbers yes, though maybe gloomy weather plays a role? Just kidding. That said, Brits are slightly more likely to move to Spain than US despite it being a tiny country in comparison and not necessarily easier to move to after Brexit.
Spain, not sure. It’s tricky to compare since non immigrant Spanish speaking population in US is probably significantly lower than Spaniards speaking English. But yeah, you probably have a point on that one.
Re: Using AI to negotiate a $195k hospital bill down to $33k
#727> So the hospital had billed us for the master procedure and then again for every component of it. Uh. Call me naïve, but how is this not fraud?
Fraud is knowingly deceiving others for material gain.
Re: Using AI to negotiate a $195k hospital bill down to $33k
#728Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Though why do you Americans put up with all this? I have heard the US is a democracy. So then insurance-based healthcare is what American people truly want? It's because our politicians are largely owned by our corporations and spend a ridiculous amount of money protecting their interests [1]. We almost had a public option with the original "Obamacare", but it was forced out of the bill [2]. Also, just turn on Fox…
FoxNews has only been the number one TV news channel for the last 20 something years because almost everyone under 40 doesn't watch TV anymore. Yes, there are a lot of conservatives in the US, but the demographics is really skewed if you just look at people who watch TV and have cable.
Yes, but older people vote and young people don't. I haven't owned a TV my entire adult life (in my 40s now), so I agree with you, but it's hard to imagine Trump and the current Republican party without Fox News.
Re: Using AI to negotiate a $195k hospital bill down to $33k
#729Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have never heard this term before, but to clarify what I mean (it's so weird to bring race into this!): I have worked with dozens of native born dutch, german, french people etc. and lots of latin people etc. But I know almost very few that I grew up with, went to school with, who moved from the US to another country. I am not saying this is good, the US is good etc. I am saying you have to understand the revealed…
> I am saying you have to understand the revealed preference vs what people tell you. And what they're saying is that this isn't just an indication of how awesome the US is compared to other places, but also of how averse Americans are to learning other languages compared to other people.
Very uncharitable way to phrase that, American second language prevalance is similar to other English dominant countries like the UK or the Australia.
Americans in general don't speak as many languages as Europeans because they already speak arguably the most useful language. I've lived in 20 countries, and in every single one for them I've been able to find someone who speaks English. People are so ingrained with the need to know the language that I've actually met people who are embarrassed about their English talking to me in their own native country.
If you grew up speaking Greek, Romanian, or even something like Italian, this absolutely would not be true. Maybe you could find a person or two to talk to, but definitely not dozens casually in everyday situations. So you have to learn multiple languages by necessity. And since European countries are so small, close together and all have their own languages, you also end up picking up your neighbors languages.
Re: Using AI to negotiate a $195k hospital bill down to $33k
#730Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is why quality of life in Europe, is so superior. That's very subjective, and I would rather have my freedoms instead of your/their liberties, thanks!
The only major differences I can think of are gun ownership and abortion. What freedoms were you referring to?
Speech?