I live in Australia and suffered an A.V. malformation in my brain that burst one day in 2021. I was flown to a major hospital in the city for emergency brain surgery. I woke up again 1 week later with a bunch of tubes coming out of me and no idea where I was or how I got there. After they took the tubes out of me a few weeks later I found out I had to learn to walk again. I was released for out-patient care 3 months later, the whole thing cost me exactly $0.
America really screwed over it’s own people.
America is the disturbing confluence of Virginia colony’s desire to make some money no matter the spiritual cost and the Massechussets colony’s desire to control the spiritual life, no matter the cost in money.
But like, think how rich 10 guys get off that. They’re so cool.
In America it costs about $20,000 to have a baby.
https://www.babylist.com/hello-baby/childbirth-without-insurance
Thats a rough average of with, without insurance, need a c section or not, etc.
Thats also about 1/3 of a median US yearly salary/wage.
Meanwhile, politicians seem to mostly have no idea why childbirth rates are going down, but they are also mostly sure that they hate immigrants.
Our country is a dumpster fire, please do not come here, you will regret it.
One of the terrible things is that they will bill you much more if you don’t have insurance, or if you have insurance but they are not in your insurance “network” (which is basically your insurer acting like a union to negotiate prices down for it’s members).
Yep, its convoluted and confusing as fuck.
My routine colonoscopy was over $1000 and insurance covered alllll but $300.
I went to a Dr for the first time in 3 years to have my shoulder looked at. Spent about an hour at the place, and saw the Dr for maybe 5 minutes. I ended up getting prescribed maximum daily dose of acetaminophen, and some steroids (cheap garden variety). All in it cost me 167 dollars, which was within my deductible, so after a month, I finally got a bill for the full amount. The 200 bucks a month for my insurance and it didn’t cover shit (my employer pays most of it, but my contribution is still like 240 dollars a year).
Health insurance in the US is a racket.
I know the feeling, when my kid was born we had to spend 5 days in hospital and it cost me £10 per day in parking. Daylight robbery.
And you should see the price of a pack of biscuits in the hospital shop!
It only cost me a bankruptcy and a foreclosure. You can’t put a price on health, unless you’re an insurance provider.
Not to mention the cost of the ride there! My mom had to go to the ER a few years ago. We called 911 and an ambulance came to our house and transported her to the local hospital. After she got out, she got a bill for the ride for $2800 (which is actually pretty cheap for an ambulance ride). Then, a few weeks later, she got another ambulance bill for $2800 from a different ambulance company. It turned out this second company was the one affiliated with the hospital, and this made them feel entitled to bill people for a ride even if a different company’s ambulance showed up and actually provided the service.
My mom was all set to pay this second bill because she’s from a generation where they just pay any bill that shows up no matter what. I was like no fucking way are you paying this, and I called up this ambulance company and allowed myself to get really angry on the phone. They threatened to send it to collections but they never did, maybe because I yelled “fucking do it!” to them over the phone. Just the shittiest pieces of corporate shit I’ve ever encountered, sending out completely illegitimate bills to old people because they know some fraction of people will just pay it.
I unfortunately had no insurance and needed to go to the er cause I had a staph infection on my leg. 1 visit, I was there 1.5 hours. The dr drained/cleaned the infection gave me antibiotics and now im in debt 6k
Make it make sense. I’m fighting it, trying to get a lower number
Well if we say the doctor was getting paid a very generous $300 an hour for that work, that’s $450.
Plus seeing the front desk person for a few minutes, we’ll give a generous $50.
So that’s $500 for some very well paid employees.
We’ll throw another very generous $50 in for the antibiotics, making it $550.
Double it so the hospital can take a very large cut, and your total is $1100.So even leaving massive profit margins with those numbers, you still got ripped off an extra ~$5000.
Many year ago I lost my job and just as I got a new job but before my insurance could kick in, my appendix ruptured. I had to get surgery and was in the hospital for 3 days, the bill came to something like $25,000.
I negotiated with the hospital, they reduced it to $11,000 and set me on a payment plan. After I paid off the $11,000 they sent me to collections for the other $14,000. Those fuckers.
I refused to pay it and it tanked my credit rating, which made it difficult to get a home loan five years after.
Fun fact, the stay itself isn’t entirely covered in my country. Being in the hospital costs like 20€/night (regardless of what procedures and tests they do, those are fully covered).
That’s a pretty decent rent for a room, probably also including meals?
Yeah. I think it must be partially covered, otherwise Id expect a higher price. Wifi is extra though (unless you have eduroam hehe)
I mean, this is just a given.
Half a day in the ER in the Nordics might cost the same as a night at a cheap motel in the US. While the same time and treatement in a US ER could pay for a weekend in some of the more expensive hotels in the world.
The ridiculous thing is that many TV shows make it look as if it is not that expensive and it’s fully covered by insurance.
In Friends for example, Joey needed to only do one acting thing and get covered for anything and for a long time.
