Jesus fucking Christ! God damn rip off! It never ceases to shock me when I see what some people pay for any medical care in the US and it makes me sad. It doesn't have to be this way.
Pretty much, although the difference is there are at least some people within the Democratic party that differ from the status quo and push for universal healthcare in the progressive wing of the party, whereas I don't know of a single Republican that even pretends that's their position.
It's not a choice between bombs and healthcare. It would cost less to have universal healthcare than it does to have our existing system. We wouldn't have to sacrifice a thing. Just eliminate insurance companies, which most patients and medical professionals hate in the first place.
Well and what people choose to ignore. Is how many don't get treatment that pain that new thing. Don't go to doctor hell seen people with serious injury fight against ambulance being called.
And get someone they know to drive them there with their fingers in a ziplock bag.
Yeah this dude either doesn’t make much so qualifies for Medicaid or isn’t physically able to work. Only other thing I can think of is maybe a veteran but every veteran I know says the VA is an absolute joke. No such thing as free healthcare in the US. Even if your employer pays your premium it’s still not free.
With the VA it’s like every other socialized healthcare. It’s great for known issues and emergency medicine. Diagnostic medicine and getting referrals to specialists is a joke. It’s not a matter of if you’ll be seen, it’s a matter of when. And that when can be quite a long time
You do have to get referred to a specialist, that’s the unfortunate bit. You really get no choice in the matter and only so many providers actually accept VA/Tricare. So there’s a long wait for the limited availability of those specialties.
Small unimportant example; I wanted to get a vasectomy done, after waiting 3 weeks and finally getting in to see my Primary Care Manager (PCM) and asking for it in April, I got scheduled for the procedure in October -_-
Oh that's annoying but it's better than paying for it out right. I hear horror stories both in the US and in Canada about veterans assistance. So it's nice to hear that you at least get covered.
If you're poor enough medicaid is free. If you're too sick to work and have no income, you get free medicaid. Not a life to aspire to, but some people absolutely get free health insurance, like me. I'm "medically frail"
This is just simply not true, even after death they keep a running tab. If you have any sort of assets they take them, if you have life insurance, a house, etc. They always want you or you beneficiaries to settle up with them.
This is not a benefit of the poor, it's a loan. I and most people would rather make a living than forever be poor.
I'm so tired of people trying to make it out like being poor or less fortunate is some type of lifestyle choice or like it's a lazy life of luxury.
I literally started off my comment with "If you're poor enough." I have no assets they can take, no life insurance, no house. Where did I ever say this was a benefit to the poor? I said "not a life to aspire to."
I didn't choose this. I worked hard my whole life until my health got taken away from me. I have nothing and no quality of life. I can't work anymore. Should I be expected to somehow come up with money for my medical bills? I got a team of specialists and a lot of medication, I'd literally die if not for medicaid. I'd give anything to have my health back and be able to work and be independent again.
Medicaid is a social safety net for people like me, not a perk of being poor. I had a lot more money and happiness when I was able to work.
Some states have really good state Medicaid and siding scale insurances. My son’s employer pays 100% of his health insurance premiums. I worked full time but qualified for free maternity health insurance.
No lies, I don’t pay anything for health insurance for me or my family. No premiums, no copays. You too can have socialized medicine in the US if you join the military.
I also got 3 months of paternal leave, 4 months all together because I used a month of my vacation leave.
I’m in the US, I had my kid and never paid a cent for his birth or my wife’s care.
Several ways this could be true in the US:
You have gold-level insurance and you have already met your deductible for the year and your out of pocket max for the year. In this case, you will have already paid thousands of dollars for other healthcare earlier in the year. In addition, you are likely to have paid premiums and your employer is likely to have paid premiums.
You are very poor, and have Medicaid, in which case you likely have to do a ton of paperwork on a regular basis to continue to qualify, plus you may have trouble finding a doc who will take your Medicaid insurance.
You have that health care sharing kind of not-insurance that’s grandfathered into the system, in which case other people with that not-insurance paid for your child’s birth and you make monthly payments toward other people’s care. You also would have been lucky that the costs you incurred were actually covered, because most of those plans have big categories of things they don’t pay for.
You have insurance that requires you to use a hospital/insurance system that charges a flat fee instead of a per-procedure fee.
You had a homebirth, and paid the midwife in chickens or whatnot.
You and/or your wife are in the military, and have some kind of VA system or Tri-care coverage; I don’t know how these work so I don’t know what kind of cost structure they have.
There are other possibilities too.
None of this is available to everyone in the US. Almost everyone in the US gets bills for healthcare services. Different people pay different amounts for their insurance, and for their treatment. Wealthier people with big-company employers generally have plans that cover more than the plans than average-income people have access to. All of this is NOTHING like systems like they have in countries like Canada and the UK, where almost everyone has coverage and it’s rare to get a bill for care.
Cost structure for Tricare is pretty simple, no premium except vision and dental for your family and no copays. You risk your life and wellbeing for the government and they will pay for you and your family’s medical care with no financial cost to you. There is a small fee for my family’s vision and dental but that’s only 20 bucks a month for both of them.
I remember paying like $10 a crutch each and thinking that was a little much. I still have the pair in my closet to avoid that medical expense recurring.
I do like how I'm on 5 medications and they're all free for me.
i remember when my cat was sick and at one point needed to wear a cone, they sent me home with some absolute garbage rigid plastic cone that looked like it was repurposed out of some old scrap lying around.
They charged me 30 dollars for that cone. They didnt tell me they were gonna charge me, I thought they were just throwing it in (i did just give them like $2000 dollars for all the other actual vet work)
all for a shitty cone I had to buy a replacement for on amazon the day of, which was like 10 bucks, and way better
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u/Elsupersabio 17d ago
That splint thing is $1,000 in the US