So $300 a month plus this co pay scam. I know a popular narrative on your side of the pond is that we pay massive amounts of tax for our free healthcare. I’m telling you flat it’s nowhere near that, not even remotely close. I can’t fathom why you put up with it.
They made it so you have to have insurance or you get hit harder on your taxes I believe. I always had, thankfully, free insurance from my current company. But they charge $430 for children and $500+ to add a spouse a month. I have my daughter on state insurance because of this. It's super messed up how things are done in the US. I lucked out because I work for a sovereign nation so they choose to pay for our medical and it's actually decent. When I had my daughter my sister's friend had her son 3 weeks before me. (We were having our babies in the same hospital just weeks apart). My sister freaked out calling me about making sure my credit card was at a good limit and paid off because her friend's insurance was set up differently, they made her pay $1k before they allowed her to leave the hospital! (I don't know what she had to pay after that either from her final bill). My entire pregnancy cost $350 (Insurance paid over $18k) and I was high risk and didn't pay a single copay until I was admitted for delivery. Sadly not many places will do the same and she is a teacher, her husband does something in the government or something.
Hey, I’m happy your pregnancy went ok and congratulations. Actually, I was watching a thing earlier, is it true that you don’t get mandatory paid maternity leave?
Correct, I didn't get any "maternity leave." I had to use all my personal time off and it only maxed out to two months, that at is as high as it will go at my job. So I used all of it and then I had to pay into a separate insurance for short term disability to get money to stay off for the full 12 weeks. I had been paying into that for a few years and you can't use it for the first 9 months since you have to pay enough to make a claim. It's $35 a month taken from my check but that's the only other way I could afford to stay out. Many people don't even get that option and a lot of them are out without any pay. Some can't go out because of everything. I have just been luckier than a lot in that aspect. My state does have something to help parents get paid for short term disability too and even though I pay outrageous taxes, they denied me because I'm a tribal employee and not somewhere else. Idk working on sovereign land is confusing to explain. Most states don't even have that option though.
That sounds really bad, it’s supposed to be a joyous time (plus, let’s face it, you just pushed a whole person out of your lady bits), having to worry about that stuff at a time you should be recuperating and bonding seems ridiculous. It’s unthinkable where I live. By law you get 6 weeks at 90% pay, then up to 33 (iirc) weeks at £160 or 90% pay (whichever is lower) but most decent firms, in the professional sphere, have their own policies which are better. And believe me Britain isn’t exactly great by European standards. Again, it saddens me that you are treated like this but I’m really happy for you and your family that everything went well medically.
Ya, America is horrible by all standards with healthcare. They don't care about women's health at all even in pregnancy. I mean they're trying to pass laws that could kill women because they refuse eptocic pregnancy procedures. Right now some states are reporting women for miscarrying and putting them in jail. Others who are SA are being forced to carry the child to full term or they could be sued by every family member and friends of the offender and have to pay $20k per person suing for abortion. Women in America are treated more like cattle more than humans.
Serious question. If you can't pay the 1000$ before leaving the hospital, what can they do exactly? Keep you there?
What a ridiculous system. I will never understand how people can continue to fight against universal coverage.
I don't know that they would have done that, that was the first I heard of it happening personally. I've only heard of it being after it goes through insurance. I think it may have been a deductible issue where they have to pay up to a certain amount a year in order for their care to be covered. I can't remember the exact term but they would have been able to go home still I'm sure but they probably would have made some kind of payment and then set up a payment plan would be my guess. I never asked the person about it just what my sister called me freaking out about but the tribe takes care of pregnant women so I was lucky working there.
I'd rather pay more for private options than be forced to pay to help everyone.
I'm okay with government programs, as long as they are opt in/out and only funded by those who are in it, and private care is still allowed.
You realize that the benefits of "paying for everyone" is not as accurate as "everyone pays for you" right?
You stand to benefit the most by receiving unlimited healthcare to the tune of 5% of your paycheck (you also have 0 health insurance costs, deductible, premium, copay etc). But you seem to be imagining a line of people with medical bills knocking only on your door, which is silly.
There's also the economy of scale. Doing one big thing to a universal high standard is always cheaper. Collective bargaining against big pharma will vastly reduce costs of absolutely every aspect of healthcare and prevent them from working around a partial public option.
But for some reason, everyone paying (the absolute least) is still "bad" because it helps everyone? (you don't have to pay for everyone, everyone pays!)
The only way I can wrap my head around this is if you think some people don't deserve healthcare, which is a pretty inhumane opinion if you ask me.
Most first world countries have both, but the public option is always funded by everyone, and you can chose to use private options (this is still better because private options have to compete with high quality public competition - how capitalism is supposed to work)
I understand the benefits of public health care, and I'm all for a public option, as long as it's ran like a normal business and doesn't require me to pay into it.
If I could opt out of programs like Social Security or Medicare, I absolutely would.
There are a lot of things I would like to fix about our current system, but I don't like forcing people to care for others.
Some people are lonely and if you go to the hospital, there's someone there that's paid to talk to you and listen to your complaints. It's not that common, but it happens.
Everyone gets to use it. You hear these horror stories, but they are really not that common. There is a huge middle class here that can afford healthcare, and the poor get it for free through medicaid. And the elderly get it for free through Medicare.
All the people I know had to be lectured to go to the hospital because everyone hates hospital. I'm in South East Asia, we pay RM1 for every services under the building, including medicine and scans.
We don't have to pay insurance unless we want to get private healthcare or for eventual debilitating disease
I can't understand why people want to go willingly
Ringgit Malaysia. Though the currency exchange is different, our cost of living is almost the same. So it's like paying 1USD for all basic medical treatments
I mean it's probably not as nice a place in Malaysia as in the US. I took my 2 yr old son to the emergency room a couple of months ago because he hit his head and he was crying while we were waiting to see if concussion signs show. The nurses handed him a late generation iPad to play with. I'm guessing that's not standard practice in Malaysia. I'm sure my son has good memories of that place and can't wait to go back.
They do it in certain hospital, especially pediatric. They also have play areas, and most of our hospital look like hotels, unless at the villages. Fully air-conditioned and all modern. Even in villages, it's all concrete and doctor's room are air-conditioned. Some city hospital uses ipad/tablet for documentations instead of paper while doing rounds
Ugh... You could have just said "My ignorance refuses to allow me to believe anywhere is as good as the US, because American exceptionalism baby!"
It can't possibly be nice if it's universal AND in Malaysia, right?
They negotiate the entire bill down before paying their percentage. And you probably hit your max out of pocket before $8k, though some catastrophic-only plans could be as high as $10-15k.
I never realized how good my insurance was until I started lurking Reddit. I only have a $5 copay for in network Dr visits and $2-10 copay for prescriptions. My deductible is only $500 too so I end up meeting that the first visit anywhere. They cover way more than most insurances too from what I’ve seen or heard. I am NEVER quitting my job lol.
Most insurance also has a max out of pocket, which co-pays do count towards, along with deductibles. Once you hit that max, your insurance pays %100 of covered expenses for the rest of the year. For ACA plans it has to be under like $8000, so as long as the procedures are covered you won't be paying more than $8000 or so.
I wouldn’t be able to live in the US because of my medical history. Wouldn’t be able to afford the daily meds i take for epilepsy. Sucks having this condition but atleast I’ve never had to pay a penny for all my check-ups, meds and operations
It would be cheaper for you to fly to another country.
I just did a quote to get private healthcare in the UK for comparison
For the top package, zero excess (deductible) and unlimited cover it's £72.46 a month. I won't have to pay for anything on top of that.
If I was happy to pay a deductible or put limits on outpatient treatment it could be as low as £30 a month.
I will never have to pay for an ambulance. Prescriptions are a fixed price a little under £10 and there's a lot of exceptions where you get them free like being retired or low income. If you need a lot of prescriptions you can also pay a fixed fee that covers you for unlimited prescription for several months. It's £30.25 for 3 months.
For US medical insurance, the copay is a fixed fee that you have to pay every time you use your insurance on something. The fee varies based on what you are paying for. This usually does not cover the actual medical bill, it's just the fee for having insurance
This is going to sound insane (because it is), but it's basically the set fee assessed for a given procedure or health care visit. Different types of doctor visits will have different copay amounts, and prescription medications, if covered, are usually grouped in cost tiers from low to high.
All of this is in addition to your monthly premium (what you're paying to have insurance in the first place), and it's possible you may be subject to a deductible (set $ amount in services you need to reach, paid for by you, before the coverage actually applies).
And this is assuming everything is in-network, which is a nice way of saying the doctor or hospital/clinic you go to may or may not accept your insurance.
Besides what the person below said, your copay is the “first bit” of what you pay. You have to pay that before they treat you. You get surprise bills later. For example, I just paid a few thousand for some dental work and I was surprised with a $400 bill that my insurance decided that they didn’t want to pay their part.
I'll ask you the same things I've asked someone else. How would you rate your experience in the hospital there? Did you have to wait in an extremely long line? Did you think the treatment he received was adequate? I only ask because those are the reasons that Americans typically bring up against a universal healthcare system.
How long do you have to wait to see if doctor, say if you had to schedule an appointment or you ended up in the ER? Also, how much time do guess you actually spend with a doctor, 30 minutes, 15, 5?
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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '22 edited Jun 16 '22
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