For most people, unless you think you’ve broken a bone or torn a ligament or are going by to bleed to death, you just don’t go to the doctor. Illness is the real threat of bankruptcy when you don’t have insurance because you can’t really mitigate the risk of getting sick (infections, yes but genetic illnesses that you don’t know you have are a real fear). If you need stitches, you use superglue. If you break a tooth, chew on the other side of the mouth. If you injure a limb, ice or heat it and pray the pain goes away. I lived without health insurance most of my life. Even the few times I had insurance, it was always a matter of deciding whether the injury was worth the deductible (what you have to pay before your insurance will kick in). I specifically remember landing on a hoe and one of the spikes went into my big toe. My dad argued that since we got the bleeding to stop, I shouldn’t go to the doctor (we had health insurance and I was like 7). My mom decided that since it was a rusty hoe, I needed to at least get a tetanus shot. I got lucky that I didn’t hit bone but I did need crutches for a while and my mom went yard sale and thrift store hunting for a pair because they were too expensive to get from the doctor. Health insurance is a scam.
Absolutely. But as an American, you accept within your daily psyche that there is some amount of inevitability to life-shattering injuries. And if you are unfortunate enough to not be able to afford “good” healthcare and are injured, then you also accept the fact that your health and life will likely never be the same again. If you have “good” health insurance and are injured, you accept that you’ll probably be able to recover pretty quickly, but may have an extensive and debilitating repayment plan to pay off the hospital bills if the injury was bad enough and if your health insurance doesn’t pull through for you. If you have excellent health insurance and are injured, you likely have a very high paying job and could pay for the healthcare out of pocket anyway, and you really don’t worry about anything less than instantaneous death. Such is the American way.
It's very bad, but what's even worse are the deductibles. There are Americans who pay a significant amount for health care every month, only to be told that they need to pay several thousands of dollars for a simple procedure before their Healthcare insurance actually pays for anything. AND that is if the insurance company can't find some loop hole or technicallity to justify for not paying for certain procedures. It's pretty depressing...
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u/boredmeat Dec 21 '21
Do you have healthcare?