In the US we literally spend twice as much per capita on healthcare as the rest of the developed world, while having the worst quality of healthcare in the developed world. That extra money all goes to the insurance companies. Muigi Langione is all I can say.
What the hell kind of test was it? The boxes of tests only started costing money within the last, I dunno, 1-2 years here in Canada and they don’t even cost that much, only about $20CAD.
Ya’ll literally live in a hellhole with paintjob. It’s like an apartment that looks pretty nice until you realize that the landlord just painted over all the mold on the walls and crossed their fingers that the water leak wasn’t gunna show up until it was at least too late.
Anyway, I’m sorry that you get robbed by the very institutions claiming to be helping you.
I say paintjob because there’s still a comparatively “clean” façade compared to countries where most of the people don’t have access to clean drinking water and stuff. It’s the big reason why I hate the US; they could just choose to be better but simply aren’t and they can’t even blame famines or outside influence(well, to some degree) or war within or near their borders. The paint is absolutely flaking off but there’re still a lot of intact patches for people to look at while pretending that everything is ok.
$60k USD and needs to give a lot of that to private companies, greedy and unregulated landlords, and quite often to the automotive industry just to barely survive. That or they go live somewhere cheap only to also not be paid well or even find a job at all and then get trapped because they don’t have the money to leave.
Insurance companies can own clinics. Not in the traditional sense but via contract law they control how the clinic is allowed to interact with you, the insurance companies beneficiaries.
There are non disclosure agreements around this because the insurance company doesn't want you to know. Other insurance company's already know because its their fucking industry. They are hiding these contracts from us. The affected party.
Reminds me of a conversation I had with my doctor last month, and by doctor I mean the nurse practitioner at the clinic but then again I find them better anyway. She came up to me as I was paying on the way out and said I noticed you don't have insurance on your chart here. The prescription we put in for you is very expensive, even with insurance it could be hundreds of dollars without it we're talking over a thousand. So I told her just don't bother sending in the prescription cuz I couldn't do that at all. I mean if I paid for it I wouldn't make rent. So homelessness or this pill. She said what are you going to do? I said just fucking suffer I guess. Then we both just kind of walked away cuz nothing else to say.
Just for people who don't know, several drug companies have major discounts or assistance programs for people who can't afford it. Is worth investigating if you're on a situation like this one. It's fucking stupid to live in this world, but we do.
More people need to be educated on how to order grey market pharmaceuticals. You can't find everything, but when you can, it's often best to bypass the US pharma system entirely. Unfortunately this isn't really viable for acute conditions, but for long-term medications you are doing yourself a disservice if you don't look into overseas pharmacies.
My kid has cystic fibrosis. The one main drug alone for that condition costs €350k per year. I pay €7.20 prescription fee for it.
The kid spent 4 months in the first year in hospital. Since it was our first child, both of us opted to stay in hospital with the kid in a one-patient room. I tried to figure out how much this was going to cost and the nurses couldn't tell me. They sent me to the billing office (a tiny little room somewhere in a corner of the hospital, which was only staffed for an hour per day). The lady there told me not to worry about it. We never paid a cent for all of that.
Obviously, we don't live in the USA, but in the apparent communist hellscape that is the EU.
Yeah, but also have you seen the bill reduction that comes when you don't have insurance. Suddenly it's only $7000 to fix your broken leg instead of $173000. It's like magic
Don't have incentive to check if this is an realistic example since I live in Europe but that sounds bad. In e.g. Sweden, health care costs caps at ~$100 a year. America is supposedly richer than Sweden, should be no problem fixing this in that case
I have good coverage provided by work for me only, which wouldn't cost me anything, and is not common for people.
Add my family at the base and its good, but now a few hundred a month.
Add them to a level thats appropriate (considering kids, meds I need, stuff my wife needs, etc) and its an order of magnitude more expensive, but comes out cheaper than out of pocket for just those bits.
as a fellow swede, i have learned that you simply have to accept that america is so terrible that it's not something we can really grasp, we've been told for so long that america is at least okay to live in and it's just not true at all and it's very difficult to break through that cognitive dissonance.
The $70 Advil still kills me and it’s probably gone up since I learned about it. It’s all just a big open-air scam and most of the fuckheads in that country think doing anything about it is a bad thing.
They seem to want this, and I don’t know how to help them if that’s the case.
Middlemen Insurance companies run our entire for-profit healthcare system in the US. You have to pay your "deductible" first before they'll pay anything significant, which could be thousands of dollars. Every year. Entire families are bankrupted every year, even with health insurance. They have us over a barrel...
Insurance is the real fraud
Private for-profit insurance that is.
State-run public health insurance is pretty freaking awesome.
In the US we literally spend twice as much per capita on healthcare as the rest of the developed world, while having the worst quality of healthcare in the developed world. That extra money all goes to the insurance companies. Muigi Langione is all I can say.
What the hell kind of test was it? The boxes of tests only started costing money within the last, I dunno, 1-2 years here in Canada and they don’t even cost that much, only about $20CAD.
Ya’ll literally live in a hellhole with paintjob. It’s like an apartment that looks pretty nice until you realize that the landlord just painted over all the mold on the walls and crossed their fingers that the water leak wasn’t gunna show up until it was at least too late.
Anyway, I’m sorry that you get robbed by the very institutions claiming to be helping you.
Fuck you - that paint job flaked off decades ago.
I say paintjob because there’s still a comparatively “clean” façade compared to countries where most of the people don’t have access to clean drinking water and stuff. It’s the big reason why I hate the US; they could just choose to be better but simply aren’t and they can’t even blame famines or outside influence(well, to some degree) or war within or near their borders. The paint is absolutely flaking off but there’re still a lot of intact patches for people to look at while pretending that everything is ok.
Believe me, we're doing our level best to get there.
Oh I’ve heard of the, uh, efforts. Quite inspiring if one aspires to be a burnt-out husk of despair and cruelty.
$60k USD and needs to give a lot of that to private companies, greedy and unregulated landlords, and quite often to the automotive industry just to barely survive. That or they go live somewhere cheap only to also not be paid well or even find a job at all and then get trapped because they don’t have the money to leave.
Insurance companies can own clinics. Not in the traditional sense but via contract law they control how the clinic is allowed to interact with you, the insurance companies beneficiaries.
There are non disclosure agreements around this because the insurance company doesn't want you to know. Other insurance company's already know because its their fucking industry. They are hiding these contracts from us. The affected party.
Reminds me of a conversation I had with my doctor last month, and by doctor I mean the nurse practitioner at the clinic but then again I find them better anyway. She came up to me as I was paying on the way out and said I noticed you don't have insurance on your chart here. The prescription we put in for you is very expensive, even with insurance it could be hundreds of dollars without it we're talking over a thousand. So I told her just don't bother sending in the prescription cuz I couldn't do that at all. I mean if I paid for it I wouldn't make rent. So homelessness or this pill. She said what are you going to do? I said just fucking suffer I guess. Then we both just kind of walked away cuz nothing else to say.
Jesus fucking Christ.
I get the feeling this Jesus fellow would very much be against the idea of for-profit healthcare.
Curing lepers? Jesus would be barging into insurance company board meetings and cursing everyone there with leprosy.
Just for people who don't know, several drug companies have major discounts or assistance programs for people who can't afford it. Is worth investigating if you're on a situation like this one. It's fucking stupid to live in this world, but we do.
There's also that one pharmacy the billionaire runs. Cost Plus Drugs I think? Not to shill, just hoping to help people.
More people need to be educated on how to order grey market pharmaceuticals. You can't find everything, but when you can, it's often best to bypass the US pharma system entirely. Unfortunately this isn't really viable for acute conditions, but for long-term medications you are doing yourself a disservice if you don't look into overseas pharmacies.
My kid has cystic fibrosis. The one main drug alone for that condition costs €350k per year. I pay €7.20 prescription fee for it.
The kid spent 4 months in the first year in hospital. Since it was our first child, both of us opted to stay in hospital with the kid in a one-patient room. I tried to figure out how much this was going to cost and the nurses couldn't tell me. They sent me to the billing office (a tiny little room somewhere in a corner of the hospital, which was only staffed for an hour per day). The lady there told me not to worry about it. We never paid a cent for all of that.
Obviously, we don't live in the USA, but in the apparent communist hellscape that is the EU.
€7.20 prescription? Fuck that is so cheap. I had to pay £9.90 for a prescription fee as I don't get them for free since getting full time employment.
... and it's capped to 2% of my yearly income.
Over here in America you void pay a few thousand out of pocket to sit in the hallway for an hour or two. Not even a room.
well...
Well!
Ah, we're using webm instead of PNG now?
I hate being American.
Insurance would most likely decrease the probability of going bankrupt?
Yeah, but also have you seen the bill reduction that comes when you don't have insurance. Suddenly it's only $7000 to fix your broken leg instead of $173000. It's like magic
Don't have incentive to check if this is an realistic example since I live in Europe but that sounds bad. In e.g. Sweden, health care costs caps at ~$100 a year. America is supposedly richer than Sweden, should be no problem fixing this in that case
And Blue Cross Blue Shield are one of the better ones :/
That fucking sucks. I'm sorry
For my wife's PT, I received a recent bill of $5300. Insurance reduced to $1100. I owed the copay.
That said, just for PT for my wife, I'm past your cap every month of the year, and I pay extra for the coverage I have.
Yeah its bad.
Oh definitely.
I have good coverage provided by work for me only, which wouldn't cost me anything, and is not common for people.
Add my family at the base and its good, but now a few hundred a month.
Add them to a level thats appropriate (considering kids, meds I need, stuff my wife needs, etc) and its an order of magnitude more expensive, but comes out cheaper than out of pocket for just those bits.
Its horrendous.
as a fellow swede, i have learned that you simply have to accept that america is so terrible that it's not something we can really grasp, we've been told for so long that america is at least okay to live in and it's just not true at all and it's very difficult to break through that cognitive dissonance.
The $70 Advil still kills me and it’s probably gone up since I learned about it. It’s all just a big open-air scam and most of the fuckheads in that country think doing anything about it is a bad thing.
They seem to want this, and I don’t know how to help them if that’s the case.
MiddlemenInsurance companies run our entire for-profit healthcare system in the US. You have to pay your "deductible" first before they'll pay anything significant, which could be thousands of dollars. Every year. Entire families are bankrupted every year, even with health insurance. They have us over a barrel...No, yes, yes, no.
It's a sad state when you can do more harm than good calling EMS for someone who has collapsed.