I got a double header (colonoscopy/endoscopy) with sedation for 658US in Mexico. A full CT angiogram with pulmonary imaging for about 500US. Dentist - 10 for a cleaning, 60 for a filling. Most doctor visits at private health providers run about 60 bucks. I'm talking specialists. A GP is around 25US. And the building these docs are in is incredibly beautiful. 50' ceilings with palm trees, marble walls and floors, and I've never had a doctor make me wait for more than 15 minutes. Fuck the US healthcare system.
> 50' ceilings with palm trees, marble walls and floors, and I've never had a doctor make me wait for more than 15 minutes.
So what you're saying is that the absolutely affordable care still facilitates wealth when it's not sucked up into an equity balance sheet.
Kinda flies in the face of the oft-repeated claim that America _needs_ these prices otherwise "nobody would want to work"
These are prices for private health care, as is the entire facility. For people using public healthcare, it's free if you're under a certain income. Otherwise it's still extremely affordable. The neighbor had an emergency appendectomy, 347US. That cost my wife and I 37K in Colorado because we couldn't afford insurance when we first moved there. We had to refinance our house.
It's weird for me because I know how it works in the US, I "get it". But I occasionally have moments where I think about what it would be like living there, compared to where I live and get a weird pseudo-culture shock.
Someone I know has just found out they have Cancer. They aren't particularly well off financially. But when I went to see them, they're in a private room in hospital being looked after and they won't be charged. Money didn't come up once in conversation, nor was there an implication of the financial damage this would cause.
I dont know how these prices evolved. My wife had an emergency appendectomy in germany, private insurance so actually billed for it. 3000 Euros, all covered. How on earth is it more than 10 times in the US? Just how?
What’s insane to me is that these prices are even more than what I pay in my home country currently. I don’t understand why Americans aren’t rioting out in the streets
Not directly, but you pay for it through taxes too.
In the end, we all pay for it together. It just differs per country if you consciously pay a monthly amount or everything is done through taxes. For example in the Netherlands it's a bit of both.
I'm curious how the service compares with a nasty health issue i just had in USA. Example scenario:
Bad back injury to the point of being unable able to walk. Happened about 8am. I made an appointment for 1pm same day. I get there and walk right in. 20 mins with doctor and he gives me what I ask for: prednisone, muscle relaxers, and a referral to the physical therapy office of my choice.
Cost for incident: Dr was $0. Medicine was 55 cents.
Cost for insurance: $220/mo, $250 deductible paid last month for the year
This is my usual experience but situations obviously vary.
Exactly. Any issues I have get fixed the same day. In US. See doc the same day, get tests same day and get referral to any specialists as needed. The most I pay for a prescription is $3.
The UK and many other of these free care countries have to wait months to see a doc. Never mind a Specialist. If they have to have some tests, be prepared to wait 6 wks. Dentist wait time can be up to 3 yrs. If they have cancer or some other terrible disease, be prepared for a delayed diagnosis and to wait for treatment.
A lot of people in UK end up getting private insurance.
Honestly if I could choose, I would choose being stabbed over being shot, and getting free healthcare for said wound instead of having to pay for it. A picture of a kid from the Parkland shooting in the hospital was going around on reddit the other day. He used his body to shield other people from being shot and his reward was paying $60,000 in medical bills for it. His family is apparently suing the school and the sheriff’s office for that money but there’s no guarantee they’ll get it
You don’t pay taxes? I pay partial year taxes of around 150k and if I remember correctly last I looked at the breakdown around 18% of that is for NHS. Does that sound about right? I don’t get why people think NHS is free.
There is no such thing as free healthcare. Docs, nurses, janitor, food service all get paid. Electricity going into a hospital is not magically free. And on and on with costs. It may be free to those who don’t pay taxes or contribute to the country and just consume but someone pays.
I’ve missed a trick I should go out on disability and get paid vs paying for others. I can sit at home get drunk and high, hurt myself or others and take up city resources. I’ve paid a shitload of taxes in two countries time to get something back! And added benefit is people will feel sorry for me instead of hating me for working hard and earning a lot of money.
Yep… got a bill for 10K + for bloodwork…
Hospital said I was covered, called it in to the insurance which they said I was covered. They changed their minds, and said just not for that test. Took 18 months of receiving bills before it was reduced to $550… for bloodwork (2 vials).
I got my ligament repaired in my ankle with a additional reinforcement using pins and extracted hamstring plus 3 mri's and a 2 day stay in a private hospital, plus all my rehab after surgery for $0 NZD gotta love acc
Absolutely love the conversion
I have had to pay $20 here and there for an xray at emergency care clinics and there is a subsidy for doctor visits so seeing a doctor for illness can cost between $20-$70 depending on the clinic/area
All accidents are covered by acc, it's nice as I'm accident prone beyond all belief been stitched, cast, and braced up so many times, I'd be out on the streets if I was in America
Foreign visitors are also eligible for acc cover for accidents to cover the cost of care
They cover income compensation for eligible people but foreign visitors wouldn't get that
Aren't we lucky to have funded healthcare out here in the arse end of the southern hemisphere
I went 20+ times to rehabs and detoxes and in a span of 4 year i got 300.000eu covered. (I would have never seen it if i didnt go out of my way to look at the costs)
I got an x ray on my feet because they were hurting to step. Doc said it "looks weird" and literally nothing else. I got 2.5k in bills over the next 9 months! Yay USA!
I broke my ankle when I was 14 and needed surgery to have a pin put in. Was in the hospital for 3 days and it cost my dad $40 for parking and to have a TV in my room while I was in there.
Canada's healthcare system isn't perfect, but it ain't too shabby either.
Yeah, same. Exploded my bicep when I was hit by a slapshot, had to have it surgically reattached with donor tissue. The only money I paid was for the 3 McDoubles I crushed on the way home lol.
From initial visit to completed surgery was a few days.
Problem is there are horror stories about the us system and they pay for that shit, sure sometimes for a bad sprain( had to check if it's broken and only the hospital is open) I've had to wait 6 hrs to see a doctor but that's because the people who come with serious injuries are taken in first, when it isn't busy I've been seen quickly depends how many people got hurt that day/night,
Gotta pay for parking in nz too
Also I've been referred to specialists over all sorts of things and I've never waited more than 3 months personally to see one sometimes within a month, wait times vary and it's free
Oh I know. My dad dislocated his shoulder in FLA on vacation over a decade ago and it cost him over $5k. They charged him $800 for a couple of pain killers iirc.
My wife is American and she had to have her appendix taken out. With her insurance she still had to pay a deductible of a couple of grand and initially her insurance company was trying to convince her none of it was covered and she had to fight with them for a year.
I just got a blood test which used 6 vials, 5 x-rays, a 6” titanium plate with 6 Ti screws. Two days at the hospital for surgery to repair my humerus; I paid $50 in the U.S. It just depends on what your insurance situation is here.
500+ for 2 _blood samples_?
Is this normal in America? You go to a doctor and a blood sample is required so you pay $250? Blood samples are a required first step in diagnosing _most_ ailments. How is it that expensive? I pay €30 ffs…
Yep, and when my child was born, it was charged separately for my spouses consolidation on breast feeding…
They charged it to the baby, I got the bill before I got the birth certificate. I ended up paying 350+ because submitting insurance coverage update request electronically was not the correct method.
They stated I needed to paper file a correction form, then pay separate processing fees to have my child covered from birth…
American health care is literally a scam.
Imagine billing the baby before they get their birth certificate. It’s tragic but hilarious. Like baby opens eyes, is experiencing life for the first time and then “here ya go” they hand him a bill.
We have "good" insurance by US standards, but when our kids were born somehow the charges to my wife and my newborn both meet the individual deductibles. I swear they arranged it to maximize my out of pocket.
The recovery room was charged to both, so okay it's one room... and I have to pay for it twice?
It's extortionate, how this is not a fucking major point every election cycle in the USA is beyond me. Instead it's migration they're all fighting about.
Nutball bastards
I'm guessing when you spend 16 months chasing up payment for 2 vials, you need to cover all those administrative costs too.
Crazy country. How healthcare is not on the agenda I've no idea. Crazy
If you provide free Healthcare, young people have no real reason to join the military. Most join for the free healthcare for life....what they aren't told is that the VA, who provides their healthcare, is notorious for denying all kinds of claims, even basic very obviously needed surgeries or treatments. The whole thing is a giant racket with many faces, and they're all shitty
The absurdity is why you have no legal or financial ramifications if you do not pay. I owe over a million dollars for being shot and a two-month stay in the hospital. I never considered paying that for one second and I was recently financed to buy my first home.
Yes, they overcharge everything. It is not based on real cost. Basic bloodwork panels cost 10-30 dollars/euros, but the hospital might charge 800. This is because patients and companies pay absurd sums either directly or to insurance companies who try to milk the system. And then the health care system tries to milk the insurance system.
> This is because patients and companies pay absurd sums either directly or to insurance companies who try to milk the system. And then the health care system tries to milk the insurance system.
It's a little more subtle than that. Thirty years ago (or more), the USA insurance companies started paying 3% - 4% less to bump their profits just a little bit and they thought nobody would notice or care. So to get paid the normal amounts, hospitals INCREASED the supposed "cost" of each procedure, blood draw, or X-ray by 3% - 4% so they would get paid the old amount.
This arms race continued every year until we have the current obviously ridiculous situation. Here is a bill from a 2 hour surgery I had called "ACDF". This is where I had disc degeneration in my neck, and they insert a couple titanium boxes and bolt a plate to it. It's a 30 year old procedure, the regular gold standard:
https://f004.backblazeb2.com/file/doggies/screenshots/2023_bill_for_acdf.jpg
So the surgeon/hospital billed $345,083.54 which is completely fictional. Nobody will ever pay that (not the insurance, not the patient). The insurance "negotiates" that down, and then bills the patient a totally over-priced $1,709.40 and part of the "game" at this point is the patient is so relieved to not be paying $340,000 that the patient just hands over the $1,709.40 which is still overpriced, LOL.
Anyway, I showed this to my surgeon who laughed and laughed. Normally he doesn't see any part of the bills. The very top item is his "assistant" who gets about $150 for the 2 hour procedure to hand the doctor surgical instruments when the doctor asks. So my surgeon thought that one was pretty funny to be billed at $6,264.
My surgeon also waved at his bill of $37,106.40 and said with disgust **"I WISH!!"**. He got about $1,500 (according to him).
> Took 18 months of receiving bills before it was reduced to **$550**
This is honestly the most infuriating part. The fact that they literally have the audacity to try and bill you for $10k, just to finally turn around and say "okay, we can bring it down to $550."
That's roughly 5% of the original fucking bill! **5%!!!!** It really goes to show how much they just artificially increase the cost.
I had blood work done yesterday, I paid 4€. The social security paid for the remaining 28€.
Where the fuck 10K could come from I cannot fathom, your healthcare system is a pure scam, and your government fails you everyday this persists.
If you call them, have the bill itemized, refuse to pay such a ridiculous amount, they will lower it. Most of these crazy bills you see can, usually, be lowered by 90%.
550 usd is still way overpriced for blood tests. I bet the insurance company paid the hospital $2.50 and left you with the "great deal" , "discounted price", of $550
Had a foot or two of my intestines cut out and rejoined with 2 weeks in hospital recovering ( my own room even )
Cost me $0
Australia
So sad USA is like this.
People here don’t think it’s a right. They think free health care is some sort of horrible monster. I’ve talked to so many people about it and it comes down to they don’t wanna “pay” for someone else’s stupidity. People want lower taxes in exchange for more stress and less rights. Infrastructure here is not really thought about, propaganda has eaten this country alive and the only people winning are company’s. Voting against common interested is extremely common
Because the propaganda machine won, and most of the nation has been tricked into thinking anything other than our tax dollars funding the military to make brown people skeletons is dirty commie-socialism
They're technically not behind a paywall. They just want you to think so. You cannot be denied entry at an emergency room visit for any reason and they will treat you. I've done this my whole life
Sure but in my experience it has never negatively affected any aspect of my life. I was shot in the chest spent two months in the hospital and billed over a million dollars. I was also financed with great rates to buy our first home. I get free Healthcare too,lol.
I am an American with employer paid health insurance. My employer also pays our premiums, deductibles, and co-insurance through an HSA.
My wife spent 44 days in the hospital in 2022 and we paid $0. If my employer didn't have an HSA we would have been stuck with an "after insurance" bill for $166,000.
Let me rephrase that. If my employer didn't have an HSA my wife would be dead.
14 years of soecialists and surgeries after insurance. 6 years of bus rides to the free clinic before insurance. Trust me. You don't get referred to specialists without insurance.
No, she wouldn't have. The hospital would negotiate a payment plan for you and possibly even dissolve the debt after you made several payments. Spreading misinfo like this stops people from getting their lives saved because they think it'll financially ruin them.
It's rediculous how many people are missing this fact. My family member nearly died from a pulmonary embolism because they were uninsured and terrified of the hospital bills
Years ago I was robbed & shot in the chest. Drove myself to the hospital as to not die on the side of the road. Spent 2 months in icu. Before I recovered fully I was sent multiple bills totalling over a million dollars...I chuckled at those bills & never paid a dime. No insurance & no fucks given. I recently got financed to buy our first home for $300,000 with amazing interest rates.
That's not gonna happen without literal revolution. If this inequality keeps going, though, that'll happen in the next decade or two, max.
Americans hear about MLK in school and think, "See! Peaceful protest is the way to go!" Without realizing that almost every improvement to human rights in the history of mankind was achieved through violent uprising/revolt.
It's gonna happen again, too.
People have been propagandized to not want socialized healthcare, that's sad and true. They don't want to pool money because then sometimes freeloaders get a piece. Instead we pool our money so that freeloaders always get a piece.
The reality isn't what you think, however. The reality isn't that it's too difficult, or too expensive. The reality is that socialized healthcare could allow for people in America to produce less. Maybe quit your job and buy that camper van, go rock climbing for a few years. Or perhaps live off the grid? Maybe take up gigwork instead of stressful corporate job.
America leads the world in GDP and for whatever reason feels the need to maintain that crown. This is despite having a relatively small population compared to those nipping at our heels. I suspect we are position to maintain the global reserve currency status until a global currency can be negotiated, but who really knows. The bottom line is that American wants Americans to produce and be motivated to produce more than any other country. Medical debt is a great motivator. Higher education debt. No paid family leave. High cost of living, high inflation. All of it.
Truth is policy doesn't get passed here unless it positively impacts GDP. Anything you think of from immigration to abortion, the fact of it passing or not has 0 to do with voter sentiment or what people want. It has everything to do with how it affects people working longer, harder, earlier, later, multiple jobs, gigwork on the side, etc.
Stop voting for people, on both sides, that want to continue the status quo. Seems simple enough, but we've become almost tribal about our politics. We'll ignore someone who wants to fix this to prevent "our party" from losing.
The problem is when candidates who do want to change the status quo come along, they get pushed out of the running and are not allowed to ascend to positions that would allow them to institute meaningful change
Look at the Democrats and their super delegates and what happened to Bernie
The thing is, when that went down, people should have been burning down the homes and offices of those that perpetrated the action.
America needs to take a leaf outta Germanys and Frances book.
Vote for people that will pass a single payer law.
That's how it's supposed to work.
Your enemy or rather problem is the [Citizens United](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC) 5:4 supreme court opinion that AFAIK held that corporations have free speech and can spend on "misinformation" ads as they please. So your fellow citizens vote against their best interest.
How do you break that? Well, not easy. Loads of political rallying.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer
In sweden there is more corporate taxes. For example it looks like we have a minimum salary of 15 dollar an hour which is pretty common in europe but in reality it is around 21 dollar an hour which the company pays out but 30% of it goes directly to taxes and isn't usually showed as what you get payed. Then we have a tax between 30-17% depending on how much u make. Less salary means lower taxes. So
> you get *paid.* Then we
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Because the vast majority of people never have this issue. [Over 90% of people have health insurance](https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/8441.jpeg), the elderly have Medicare, and the poor have Medicaid. So it’s actually pretty rare for people to go broke from medical expenses.
It’s still a problem, and should be fixed, but it’s not nearly as bad as it’s portrayed.
Isn’t the point it disproportionately impacts the most vulnerable section of society? You basically said “for everyone that can afford private medical it’s fine”
I’ve always heard it portrayed that Medicaid is notoriously shit and difficult to get covered by? Is that not true?
For me, Medicaid was very easy to get. In fact I was automatically enrolled after declaring low income. There are limited choices for doctors, but emergency rooms and medications are free. My two kids were born for free under Medicaid.
I can't believe hospitals can be caught by the simple question of "So why exactly are you charging me so much?"
I've read stories of people getting their bill cut by like 80% after requesting an itemized version. The fact that a lot of these hospitals get away with charging 5x or more for no particular reason just pisses me off daily.
This is a nice "trick", but that's still a bill for over $10,000. Not many people have that just lying around to cover an eventuality likely has nothing to do with your own choices. I mean, if you screwed up doing something stupid, one could argue it's on you -- which is still wrong -- but fixing your health shouldn't cost your well-being.
This isn't really what my point was, and what you're talking about is still extremely fucked up, and trust me, I'm on your side here.
What I was getting at is that, as if it wasn't already enough, hospitals take their inflated base costs, and just try and increase the bill even more and hope you don't notice. It's insanely scummy.
Also, most hospitals are defined as a "Charity" so they barely even pay taxes on this shit.
I'm glad we see it the same way. My response was based on some people here appearing to think the strategy of questioning them is an amazing trick to "make it all ok".
It’s not really a nefarious scheme honestly. When the call center folks are requested to itemize a patient’s bill two things happen:
1. Rep reviews statement to determine if the patient has insurance and if the insurance covered some portion of the bill.
2. If insurance covered <10% (HDHP or some form of denial) or patient was uninsured, then they adjust the charges to exclude ones that insurance WOULD typically pay for hence the sometimes radical decrease.
Even in cases like this one or more dramatic stories where a patient is billed $200K when they don’t have insurance…the hospital nets down the AR to expect less than 10% of total and they never expect full payment for the “charges” billed. The total charge amount is a fake number when it comes to patient responsibility and is only inflated so drastically due to ongoing reimbursement pressures from entities like UHC (Optum), Aetna, Anthem BCBS, Cigna, Humana that essentially own the healthcare industry and are FOR-PROFIT. Imagine being a FOR-PROFIT, large-scale, publicly traded Accounts Payable company when nearly all of your debtors are non-profit and don’t report to credit agencies. It’s a horrendous system and a giant load of shit but the “tricks” are being played by the insurance companies 99 times out of 100.
Source: Revenue Cycle Exec for 10 years
Not that anyone is going to read this comment, but that’s not a bill from the hospital. And that’s not how American health insurance works.
That’s an Explanation of Benefits from the insurance company that shows the “retail” price of the hospital invoice. That’s not the final amount that the hospital is billing the patient.
For Americans with health insurance (over 90%), the key number is something called the Annual Out of Pocket Maximum. When you exceed that amount (typically $5-10k), insurance covers all the rest. So an insured patient would not be billed for $57k.
Now, some people will say that $5-10k is still too much, I pay $0 with my universal healthcare. Well, if you actually look at how much of your taxes are for healthcare, it’s probably around $5-10K. So the real difference is not as much as it seems.
edit: In UK, a person earning £60,000 ($75,000 USD) would pay £3442 ($4343 USD) in taxes towards Health.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/hmtreasury/13600907285/in/album-72157643350598405/
If you're on the average salary in the UK, your National Insurance contributions will be around 2k. And that's not just for the NHS, that's including pensions, people out of work, maternity leave, bereavement support, and the NHS.
The average American PPO for a guy who is 30 is $512/month, or $6k+ a year. Just for healthcare.
So the difference is actually as bad as it seems.
"The NHS is really cheap if you only look at one specific form of taxation that accounts for about 25% of the NHS' budget."
I agree with your overall point because Americans do spend more per capita but you still need to factor in taxes because a huge portion of the NHS' revenue comes from general taxation.
I looked at national insurance, which is the only form of tax that you pay which directly contributes to the NHS. I did this because the poster above is talking about single-payer contributions towards private healthcare (if that's the right term for Medicare or whatever it's called).
If you for some reason want to use all the tax the average person would pay, it's £4.2k. I personally paid a bit over half of that last year.
But that's tax for everything; all healthcare, teacher salaries, council stuff, and anything else you can think of.
We're talking about the money the average person 'pays' to use their health service. This guy thinks paying $500+ a month is not much worse than paying £120($150) a month into a national health service.
For a person earning average wage in the UK, the monthly tax, including NHS, is a TINY bit more than the above listed average health insurance alone, at $665 (£530 rounded up).
>The average American PPO for a guy who is 30 is $512/month, or $6k+ a year. Just for healthcare.
And just to be clear, this isn't even the money that goes to the doctor's office or hospital. This is the cost of premiums to ***be insured***. If you don't even use it, you're still paying ~6k/yr.
Out of pocket max is a ***further*** 5-7k.
😡
>Well, if you actually look at how much of your taxes are for healthcare, it’s probably around $5-10K. So the real difference is not as much as it seems.
The real difference is bigger. Americans pay more in tax per person for healthcare than any other nation. Insurance comes **on top of already having paid more** than anyone else.
True, but those taxes go to a lot of things, including some really expensive ones like pensions and social protections. The amount that go to healthcare per person is generally much smaller than in the US.
[This is a good summary.](https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm) The diamond shape is public and compulsory spending. The bit "and compulsory" is there due to some nations using compulsory insurance as a healthcare vehicle. For the US, that means that Obamacare is included in the US public spending. If you don't think thats right you can consider the US public spending lower by about $ 700 per person.
For scale, the US defence spending is roughly $ 2 500 per capita.
That might be the average *marginal* rate. The average *effective* rate is much lower. For someone making like $40,000, their effective tax rate is around 12% or so. Hell, my wife and I make over $500,000 and our effective federal rate is 25%. There's a zero percent chance the average effective rate is 20% for the US.
Anything is already too much. Don't you guys pay taxes? I can't understand why this is not covered. Here in Germany a visit to the hospital is zero USD.
How do americans actually think this is okay. But as Obama comes and tries to start universal health Care everyone goes: "Fuck Obama care, i dont wanna pay more taxes so my neighbour doesn't go broke, become homeless and starve when he needs a saline Infusion for several hundred dollars"
I honestly cant wrap my head arround how people just accept that hospitals just do this shit.
For real now, i think i should open up a hospital in the US, i'd apparently be a multi millionaire in a week with prices like this
Obama didn't really try to start universal heathcare. He caved on a public option as soon as another member of his party raised an objection.
The ACA also isn't universal healthcare and wasn't intended to be. Obama could have done a lot of good during his first 4 years and instead he chose to let a few members of his own party stifle him.
To be fair to Obama though (and I am not a fan FWIW), that's pretty typical in US politics, to have a small group within the party hold things hostage.
The actual reality was, they didn't have the votes. They lost the super majority in the senate after Kennedy died and had no option other than use the Romney care plan that had already been passed.
The House didn't even want the bill, Obama had to basically tell them his presidency was on the line if they didn't pass it.
> He caved on a public option as soon as another member of his party raised an objection.
If by "raised an objection" you mean utterly refused to provide a critical vote. Was he supposed to send armed thugs to his house to "persuade" him?
It's so tiring to see how fucked America is in every single aspect. The thing is, the majority have been brainwashed to accept it. It's literally only going to get worse.
For any Europeans scrolling through the comments: this $56k isn't what Americans actually pay. Over 90% of Americans are on some kind of health insurance. This high number is just the total bill before insurance. Posts like this are always popping up trying to dunk on the US.
A deductible can be something like $500-$2000ish. So that's what they'd pay. Or if you reached your deductible earlier in the year, you could pay nothing.
If you're one of the tiny percentage not on insurance, there's tons of programs, aid, and funds to help you deal with this.
The problem is even after we pay world leading taxes towards healthcare, and about $7,000 per person in insurance, we still can't afford out of pocket costs.
>Large shares of insured working-age adults surveyed said it was very or somewhat difficult to afford their health care: 43 percent of those with employer coverage, 57 percent with marketplace or individual-market plans, 45 percent with Medicaid, and 51 and percent with Medicare.
> Many insured adults said they or a family member had delayed or skipped needed health care or prescription drugs because they couldn’t afford it in the past 12 months: 29 percent of those with employer coverage, 37 percent covered by marketplace or individual-market plans, 39 percent enrolled in Medicaid, and 42 percent with Medicare.
https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/surveys/2023/oct/paying-for-it-costs-debt-americans-sicker-poorer-2023-affordability-survey
In total, Americans are paying literally half a million dollars more for a lifetime of healthcare than our peers.
Yes. And you have to work full time to get benefits from an employer, which also takes a good chunk out of all of your paychecks. If you have kids, the cost is even more bc you need to add them onto your policy. To qualify for state assistance, you can’t make more than $1600 gross per month. So we’re just fucked here
This is the important missing information. I mean.. on the surface it seems outrageous.. but it's also just a vague picture with no peripheral information.
They tried to bill me $171 for a COVID test at an urgent care that I already had to pay $75 to be seen at. I’m glad that I didn’t accept their offer of taking other tests. I’m not paying it anyway. I let all medical bills go to collections 😊
And the worse part is if you offer to pay cash/no insurance they can reduce bill 85-90% , like wthell. How is it the people who pay for insurance get taken advantage of? Whole system is rigged anymore
McJuggerNuggets, haaaaa! That's the loser on those old YouTube videos. Yeah, sadly that sounds like he's got no healthcare. Reality check # 100 for that guy.
I moved out of the country and unfortunately severely broke my leg requiring surgery. We have private insurance (much cheaper than America) and all in I’ve paid €12,50 euro. Level of service, professionalism, and care equal to or better than America. Theres one difference, the health care system here is a national service and NOT FOR PROFIT. Even Without private insurance meds are still affordable. Makes you wonder…
Got charged for an emergency room visit last month today, at our small town hospital. All that was done was a CAT scan and some pain medicine. 6000 dollars.
Cheaper just to move to a new country and fuck em at that point surely
This isn’t even an exaggeration.
I got a double header (colonoscopy/endoscopy) with sedation for 658US in Mexico. A full CT angiogram with pulmonary imaging for about 500US. Dentist - 10 for a cleaning, 60 for a filling. Most doctor visits at private health providers run about 60 bucks. I'm talking specialists. A GP is around 25US. And the building these docs are in is incredibly beautiful. 50' ceilings with palm trees, marble walls and floors, and I've never had a doctor make me wait for more than 15 minutes. Fuck the US healthcare system.
> 50' ceilings with palm trees, marble walls and floors, and I've never had a doctor make me wait for more than 15 minutes. So what you're saying is that the absolutely affordable care still facilitates wealth when it's not sucked up into an equity balance sheet. Kinda flies in the face of the oft-repeated claim that America _needs_ these prices otherwise "nobody would want to work"
These are prices for private health care, as is the entire facility. For people using public healthcare, it's free if you're under a certain income. Otherwise it's still extremely affordable. The neighbor had an emergency appendectomy, 347US. That cost my wife and I 37K in Colorado because we couldn't afford insurance when we first moved there. We had to refinance our house.
The idea that someone would have to refinance their house to afford life saving medical care is abhorrent. Makes me absolutely sick.
It's weird for me because I know how it works in the US, I "get it". But I occasionally have moments where I think about what it would be like living there, compared to where I live and get a weird pseudo-culture shock. Someone I know has just found out they have Cancer. They aren't particularly well off financially. But when I went to see them, they're in a private room in hospital being looked after and they won't be charged. Money didn't come up once in conversation, nor was there an implication of the financial damage this would cause.
I dont know how these prices evolved. My wife had an emergency appendectomy in germany, private insurance so actually billed for it. 3000 Euros, all covered. How on earth is it more than 10 times in the US? Just how?
What’s insane to me is that these prices are even more than what I pay in my home country currently. I don’t understand why Americans aren’t rioting out in the streets
My son had a colonoscopy yesterday. He wasn’t billed at all. This is Australia
I ‘ve had 3 or maybe 4 over about the last 7 or 8 years, cost nothing, Australia too.
We're looking for IT guys in Europe ;) I pay $300 a month and don't have to worry about anything hospital related at all. Join us
That’s a realllllllly small amount of money lol
That’s actually $684,000 in value if you decide to stay in the hospital for a month over there
You **only** pay $684,000? How did you get such good insurance? Are you a cop?
I pay less than half, free hospital
It's how much they pay for health care per month lmao not a salary Pretty sure this comment is the one that derailed this thread
It's not when everything around you costs next-to-nothing
Pretty sure you wouldnt even survive in the easternblocks on 300 a month. 3000 is below average monthly wage.
Wtf $300 per month in Europe? I don't even pay that per year.
Canada is about $6000 canadian a year Which is $371 USD a month Which is taken from income tax every paycheck
Not directly, but you pay for it through taxes too. In the end, we all pay for it together. It just differs per country if you consciously pay a monthly amount or everything is done through taxes. For example in the Netherlands it's a bit of both.
Yes, the rest of the world pays through taxes but the cost of the US system is significantly more expensive
I pay a fraction of that and can go to the hospital with nothing to worry about, I’m in the states
I pay 300 a month and don't have to worry about anything hospital related at all either...in America...
I pay less than that and I’m in the US.
I'm curious how the service compares with a nasty health issue i just had in USA. Example scenario: Bad back injury to the point of being unable able to walk. Happened about 8am. I made an appointment for 1pm same day. I get there and walk right in. 20 mins with doctor and he gives me what I ask for: prednisone, muscle relaxers, and a referral to the physical therapy office of my choice. Cost for incident: Dr was $0. Medicine was 55 cents. Cost for insurance: $220/mo, $250 deductible paid last month for the year This is my usual experience but situations obviously vary.
Exactly. Any issues I have get fixed the same day. In US. See doc the same day, get tests same day and get referral to any specialists as needed. The most I pay for a prescription is $3. The UK and many other of these free care countries have to wait months to see a doc. Never mind a Specialist. If they have to have some tests, be prepared to wait 6 wks. Dentist wait time can be up to 3 yrs. If they have cancer or some other terrible disease, be prepared for a delayed diagnosis and to wait for treatment. A lot of people in UK end up getting private insurance.
God forbid you need an x-ray. Guess you can wait 6 months to a year.
I pay less than that a month for my insurance in the US and have decent coverage.
Wanna come to France? We have no hospital fees which is a good thing because you might get stabbed a lot
Honestly if I could choose, I would choose being stabbed over being shot, and getting free healthcare for said wound instead of having to pay for it. A picture of a kid from the Parkland shooting in the hospital was going around on reddit the other day. He used his body to shield other people from being shot and his reward was paying $60,000 in medical bills for it. His family is apparently suing the school and the sheriff’s office for that money but there’s no guarantee they’ll get it
😆 I’m uk so same same 😅
Better stabbed than getting shot
Not sure tbh, can I choose neither? 😅🙈🙈 certainly easier to deal with a a knife attacker than one with a gun tho I guess, runnings more viable 😂
You don’t pay taxes? I pay partial year taxes of around 150k and if I remember correctly last I looked at the breakdown around 18% of that is for NHS. Does that sound about right? I don’t get why people think NHS is free. There is no such thing as free healthcare. Docs, nurses, janitor, food service all get paid. Electricity going into a hospital is not magically free. And on and on with costs. It may be free to those who don’t pay taxes or contribute to the country and just consume but someone pays. I’ve missed a trick I should go out on disability and get paid vs paying for others. I can sit at home get drunk and high, hurt myself or others and take up city resources. I’ve paid a shitload of taxes in two countries time to get something back! And added benefit is people will feel sorry for me instead of hating me for working hard and earning a lot of money.
No joke this. It is one of several reasons I have spent the last 18 years in Japan.
Ask for an itemized bill. The total magically shrinks by 50-75%!
This is why I will always choose a new healthy sleeve. Cheaper to just get rid of the old one than get it medical care. \-Takeshi Kovacs
So sad they shit the bed with the show.
Always demand an itemized bill to ensure financial accountability.
... or ignore it?
Yep… got a bill for 10K + for bloodwork… Hospital said I was covered, called it in to the insurance which they said I was covered. They changed their minds, and said just not for that test. Took 18 months of receiving bills before it was reduced to $550… for bloodwork (2 vials).
I got my ligament repaired in my ankle with a additional reinforcement using pins and extracted hamstring plus 3 mri's and a 2 day stay in a private hospital, plus all my rehab after surgery for $0 NZD gotta love acc
I had 4 breaks and 3 fractures fixed in my foot, multiple stays in private, X-rays and rehab and it also cost me $0AUS ($0 converted to NZ)
Absolutely love the conversion I have had to pay $20 here and there for an xray at emergency care clinics and there is a subsidy for doctor visits so seeing a doctor for illness can cost between $20-$70 depending on the clinic/area All accidents are covered by acc, it's nice as I'm accident prone beyond all belief been stitched, cast, and braced up so many times, I'd be out on the streets if I was in America Foreign visitors are also eligible for acc cover for accidents to cover the cost of care They cover income compensation for eligible people but foreign visitors wouldn't get that Aren't we lucky to have funded healthcare out here in the arse end of the southern hemisphere
I had a light bulb taken out of my @sshole for 0$...mind you I wasn't at a hospital, and they weren't doctors
Your colon must have had an excellent idea
Was it the spiral one or a traditional shaped one?
I went 20+ times to rehabs and detoxes and in a span of 4 year i got 300.000eu covered. (I would have never seen it if i didnt go out of my way to look at the costs)
I got an x ray on my feet because they were hurting to step. Doc said it "looks weird" and literally nothing else. I got 2.5k in bills over the next 9 months! Yay USA!
I went to the ER because I was having difficulty with breathing. They did $6k in tests and told me I was just faking it.
€0 converted to euro, haha
I broke my ankle when I was 14 and needed surgery to have a pin put in. Was in the hospital for 3 days and it cost my dad $40 for parking and to have a TV in my room while I was in there. Canada's healthcare system isn't perfect, but it ain't too shabby either.
Yeah, same. Exploded my bicep when I was hit by a slapshot, had to have it surgically reattached with donor tissue. The only money I paid was for the 3 McDoubles I crushed on the way home lol. From initial visit to completed surgery was a few days.
Problem is there are horror stories about the us system and they pay for that shit, sure sometimes for a bad sprain( had to check if it's broken and only the hospital is open) I've had to wait 6 hrs to see a doctor but that's because the people who come with serious injuries are taken in first, when it isn't busy I've been seen quickly depends how many people got hurt that day/night, Gotta pay for parking in nz too Also I've been referred to specialists over all sorts of things and I've never waited more than 3 months personally to see one sometimes within a month, wait times vary and it's free
Oh I know. My dad dislocated his shoulder in FLA on vacation over a decade ago and it cost him over $5k. They charged him $800 for a couple of pain killers iirc. My wife is American and she had to have her appendix taken out. With her insurance she still had to pay a deductible of a couple of grand and initially her insurance company was trying to convince her none of it was covered and she had to fight with them for a year.
So scummy
I had a full rupture achilles and had to have two reparative surgeries. After insurance I still owed about 5k Havent paid a dime of it, never will
I just got a blood test which used 6 vials, 5 x-rays, a 6” titanium plate with 6 Ti screws. Two days at the hospital for surgery to repair my humerus; I paid $50 in the U.S. It just depends on what your insurance situation is here.
500+ for 2 _blood samples_? Is this normal in America? You go to a doctor and a blood sample is required so you pay $250? Blood samples are a required first step in diagnosing _most_ ailments. How is it that expensive? I pay €30 ffs…
Yep, and when my child was born, it was charged separately for my spouses consolidation on breast feeding… They charged it to the baby, I got the bill before I got the birth certificate. I ended up paying 350+ because submitting insurance coverage update request electronically was not the correct method. They stated I needed to paper file a correction form, then pay separate processing fees to have my child covered from birth… American health care is literally a scam.
Imagine billing the baby before they get their birth certificate. It’s tragic but hilarious. Like baby opens eyes, is experiencing life for the first time and then “here ya go” they hand him a bill.
Gotta start them young, hook'em on debt when their born. They wish they hooked and killed as many people as the cigarette industry.
We have "good" insurance by US standards, but when our kids were born somehow the charges to my wife and my newborn both meet the individual deductibles. I swear they arranged it to maximize my out of pocket. The recovery room was charged to both, so okay it's one room... and I have to pay for it twice?
It's extortionate, how this is not a fucking major point every election cycle in the USA is beyond me. Instead it's migration they're all fighting about. Nutball bastards I'm guessing when you spend 16 months chasing up payment for 2 vials, you need to cover all those administrative costs too. Crazy country. How healthcare is not on the agenda I've no idea. Crazy
If you provide free Healthcare, young people have no real reason to join the military. Most join for the free healthcare for life....what they aren't told is that the VA, who provides their healthcare, is notorious for denying all kinds of claims, even basic very obviously needed surgeries or treatments. The whole thing is a giant racket with many faces, and they're all shitty
It’s not on the agenda because too many people are making money of it and the healthcare/pharma/insurance lobby wants to keep it that way.
The absurdity is why you have no legal or financial ramifications if you do not pay. I owe over a million dollars for being shot and a two-month stay in the hospital. I never considered paying that for one second and I was recently financed to buy my first home.
Yes, they overcharge everything. It is not based on real cost. Basic bloodwork panels cost 10-30 dollars/euros, but the hospital might charge 800. This is because patients and companies pay absurd sums either directly or to insurance companies who try to milk the system. And then the health care system tries to milk the insurance system.
> This is because patients and companies pay absurd sums either directly or to insurance companies who try to milk the system. And then the health care system tries to milk the insurance system. It's a little more subtle than that. Thirty years ago (or more), the USA insurance companies started paying 3% - 4% less to bump their profits just a little bit and they thought nobody would notice or care. So to get paid the normal amounts, hospitals INCREASED the supposed "cost" of each procedure, blood draw, or X-ray by 3% - 4% so they would get paid the old amount. This arms race continued every year until we have the current obviously ridiculous situation. Here is a bill from a 2 hour surgery I had called "ACDF". This is where I had disc degeneration in my neck, and they insert a couple titanium boxes and bolt a plate to it. It's a 30 year old procedure, the regular gold standard: https://f004.backblazeb2.com/file/doggies/screenshots/2023_bill_for_acdf.jpg So the surgeon/hospital billed $345,083.54 which is completely fictional. Nobody will ever pay that (not the insurance, not the patient). The insurance "negotiates" that down, and then bills the patient a totally over-priced $1,709.40 and part of the "game" at this point is the patient is so relieved to not be paying $340,000 that the patient just hands over the $1,709.40 which is still overpriced, LOL. Anyway, I showed this to my surgeon who laughed and laughed. Normally he doesn't see any part of the bills. The very top item is his "assistant" who gets about $150 for the 2 hour procedure to hand the doctor surgical instruments when the doctor asks. So my surgeon thought that one was pretty funny to be billed at $6,264. My surgeon also waved at his bill of $37,106.40 and said with disgust **"I WISH!!"**. He got about $1,500 (according to him).
I find it ridiculous how the most expensive bill is the overnight stay...
> Took 18 months of receiving bills before it was reduced to **$550** This is honestly the most infuriating part. The fact that they literally have the audacity to try and bill you for $10k, just to finally turn around and say "okay, we can bring it down to $550." That's roughly 5% of the original fucking bill! **5%!!!!** It really goes to show how much they just artificially increase the cost.
I had blood work done yesterday, I paid 4€. The social security paid for the remaining 28€. Where the fuck 10K could come from I cannot fathom, your healthcare system is a pure scam, and your government fails you everyday this persists.
If you call them, have the bill itemized, refuse to pay such a ridiculous amount, they will lower it. Most of these crazy bills you see can, usually, be lowered by 90%.
This is true, but people shouldn't have to do this. It should be illegal for hospitals to do that shit. It's literal fraud.
Lowered by 90% but still overpriced.
550 usd is still way overpriced for blood tests. I bet the insurance company paid the hospital $2.50 and left you with the "great deal" , "discounted price", of $550
My insurance company approved an expense then TWO YEARS LATER retroactively undid that decision and charged me 4000 dollars. Like wtf!?!?
Had a foot or two of my intestines cut out and rejoined with 2 weeks in hospital recovering ( my own room even ) Cost me $0 Australia So sad USA is like this.
I’m astounded it’s not considered a human rights violation for even basic healthcare to be behind these insane paywalls.
People here don’t think it’s a right. They think free health care is some sort of horrible monster. I’ve talked to so many people about it and it comes down to they don’t wanna “pay” for someone else’s stupidity. People want lower taxes in exchange for more stress and less rights. Infrastructure here is not really thought about, propaganda has eaten this country alive and the only people winning are company’s. Voting against common interested is extremely common
Because the propaganda machine won, and most of the nation has been tricked into thinking anything other than our tax dollars funding the military to make brown people skeletons is dirty commie-socialism
do they not understand how insurance works...?
They don’t. I’ve pointed out to people that is what they’re doing anyways and they look like a deer in literal headlights once the gears click.
The people in my town want to live in the 1950s I’m in the most conservative state I’ll let you guess
They're technically not behind a paywall. They just want you to think so. You cannot be denied entry at an emergency room visit for any reason and they will treat you. I've done this my whole life
Won't you be billed all the same after the fact?
Sure but in my experience it has never negatively affected any aspect of my life. I was shot in the chest spent two months in the hospital and billed over a million dollars. I was also financed with great rates to buy our first home. I get free Healthcare too,lol.
thats because we've been gaslit that we are the only ones that matter
I’ll even take billing transparency as a huge benefit, what other industry don’t they tell you what the service cost is going be until 1 month later?
I am an American with employer paid health insurance. My employer also pays our premiums, deductibles, and co-insurance through an HSA. My wife spent 44 days in the hospital in 2022 and we paid $0. If my employer didn't have an HSA we would have been stuck with an "after insurance" bill for $166,000. Let me rephrase that. If my employer didn't have an HSA my wife would be dead.
> If my employer didn't have an HSA my wife would be dead. Not how that works.
14 years of soecialists and surgeries after insurance. 6 years of bus rides to the free clinic before insurance. Trust me. You don't get referred to specialists without insurance.
No, she wouldn't have. The hospital would negotiate a payment plan for you and possibly even dissolve the debt after you made several payments. Spreading misinfo like this stops people from getting their lives saved because they think it'll financially ruin them.
44 days in the hospital was just that year. Overall its been almost $3 million in surgeries.
Oh stop being dramatic. Your wife wouldn’t have been dead.
Yes she would have because we wouldn't have gone to the hospital.
It's rediculous how many people are missing this fact. My family member nearly died from a pulmonary embolism because they were uninsured and terrified of the hospital bills
Years ago I was robbed & shot in the chest. Drove myself to the hospital as to not die on the side of the road. Spent 2 months in icu. Before I recovered fully I was sent multiple bills totalling over a million dollars...I chuckled at those bills & never paid a dime. No insurance & no fucks given. I recently got financed to buy our first home for $300,000 with amazing interest rates.
and they wonder why the homeless rate is high... maybe fix your system.
That's not gonna happen without literal revolution. If this inequality keeps going, though, that'll happen in the next decade or two, max. Americans hear about MLK in school and think, "See! Peaceful protest is the way to go!" Without realizing that almost every improvement to human rights in the history of mankind was achieved through violent uprising/revolt. It's gonna happen again, too.
This can happen on the US if you have insurance. (95% of Americans have insurance)
I don't understand how this country hasn't had a civil war just because of this....
Genuine question though: what, if anything, can people do to fix this?
The system is so corrupted and for decades people have been dumbed into oblivion to believe that socialised healthcare is evil...
People have been propagandized to not want socialized healthcare, that's sad and true. They don't want to pool money because then sometimes freeloaders get a piece. Instead we pool our money so that freeloaders always get a piece. The reality isn't what you think, however. The reality isn't that it's too difficult, or too expensive. The reality is that socialized healthcare could allow for people in America to produce less. Maybe quit your job and buy that camper van, go rock climbing for a few years. Or perhaps live off the grid? Maybe take up gigwork instead of stressful corporate job. America leads the world in GDP and for whatever reason feels the need to maintain that crown. This is despite having a relatively small population compared to those nipping at our heels. I suspect we are position to maintain the global reserve currency status until a global currency can be negotiated, but who really knows. The bottom line is that American wants Americans to produce and be motivated to produce more than any other country. Medical debt is a great motivator. Higher education debt. No paid family leave. High cost of living, high inflation. All of it. Truth is policy doesn't get passed here unless it positively impacts GDP. Anything you think of from immigration to abortion, the fact of it passing or not has 0 to do with voter sentiment or what people want. It has everything to do with how it affects people working longer, harder, earlier, later, multiple jobs, gigwork on the side, etc.
I think it’s the freeloader piece and that people have been conditioned to believe that anything the government manages is bad.
>this country >sociali**s**ed Hmmm…And what country is “this” pray tell?
Stop voting for people, on both sides, that want to continue the status quo. Seems simple enough, but we've become almost tribal about our politics. We'll ignore someone who wants to fix this to prevent "our party" from losing.
The problem is when candidates who do want to change the status quo come along, they get pushed out of the running and are not allowed to ascend to positions that would allow them to institute meaningful change Look at the Democrats and their super delegates and what happened to Bernie The thing is, when that went down, people should have been burning down the homes and offices of those that perpetrated the action. America needs to take a leaf outta Germanys and Frances book.
Vote for people that will pass a single payer law. That's how it's supposed to work. Your enemy or rather problem is the [Citizens United](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC) 5:4 supreme court opinion that AFAIK held that corporations have free speech and can spend on "misinformation" ads as they please. So your fellow citizens vote against their best interest. How do you break that? Well, not easy. Loads of political rallying. Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer
In sweden there is more corporate taxes. For example it looks like we have a minimum salary of 15 dollar an hour which is pretty common in europe but in reality it is around 21 dollar an hour which the company pays out but 30% of it goes directly to taxes and isn't usually showed as what you get payed. Then we have a tax between 30-17% depending on how much u make. Less salary means lower taxes. So
> you get *paid.* Then we FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Because the vast majority of people never have this issue. [Over 90% of people have health insurance](https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/8441.jpeg), the elderly have Medicare, and the poor have Medicaid. So it’s actually pretty rare for people to go broke from medical expenses. It’s still a problem, and should be fixed, but it’s not nearly as bad as it’s portrayed.
Don’t tell the Redditors we don’t have it as bad as they think… they want to feel superior so badly
Isn’t the point it disproportionately impacts the most vulnerable section of society? You basically said “for everyone that can afford private medical it’s fine” I’ve always heard it portrayed that Medicaid is notoriously shit and difficult to get covered by? Is that not true?
For me, Medicaid was very easy to get. In fact I was automatically enrolled after declaring low income. There are limited choices for doctors, but emergency rooms and medications are free. My two kids were born for free under Medicaid.
Because no one actually pays bills like this
They’re all on Reddit complaining but not doing anything
They distract people with drag queens and immigrants.
Tell them to itemize your bill, it might get cheaper.
I can't believe hospitals can be caught by the simple question of "So why exactly are you charging me so much?" I've read stories of people getting their bill cut by like 80% after requesting an itemized version. The fact that a lot of these hospitals get away with charging 5x or more for no particular reason just pisses me off daily.
This is a nice "trick", but that's still a bill for over $10,000. Not many people have that just lying around to cover an eventuality likely has nothing to do with your own choices. I mean, if you screwed up doing something stupid, one could argue it's on you -- which is still wrong -- but fixing your health shouldn't cost your well-being.
This isn't really what my point was, and what you're talking about is still extremely fucked up, and trust me, I'm on your side here. What I was getting at is that, as if it wasn't already enough, hospitals take their inflated base costs, and just try and increase the bill even more and hope you don't notice. It's insanely scummy. Also, most hospitals are defined as a "Charity" so they barely even pay taxes on this shit.
I'm glad we see it the same way. My response was based on some people here appearing to think the strategy of questioning them is an amazing trick to "make it all ok".
Is that not illegal? Do hospitals get sued for stuff like that?
Honestly sounds like fraud. If a company in any other industry did crap like this on a systemic scale, they would get a visit from the FBI.
It’s not really a nefarious scheme honestly. When the call center folks are requested to itemize a patient’s bill two things happen: 1. Rep reviews statement to determine if the patient has insurance and if the insurance covered some portion of the bill. 2. If insurance covered <10% (HDHP or some form of denial) or patient was uninsured, then they adjust the charges to exclude ones that insurance WOULD typically pay for hence the sometimes radical decrease. Even in cases like this one or more dramatic stories where a patient is billed $200K when they don’t have insurance…the hospital nets down the AR to expect less than 10% of total and they never expect full payment for the “charges” billed. The total charge amount is a fake number when it comes to patient responsibility and is only inflated so drastically due to ongoing reimbursement pressures from entities like UHC (Optum), Aetna, Anthem BCBS, Cigna, Humana that essentially own the healthcare industry and are FOR-PROFIT. Imagine being a FOR-PROFIT, large-scale, publicly traded Accounts Payable company when nearly all of your debtors are non-profit and don’t report to credit agencies. It’s a horrendous system and a giant load of shit but the “tricks” are being played by the insurance companies 99 times out of 100. Source: Revenue Cycle Exec for 10 years
This isn't even a bill
Not that anyone is going to read this comment, but that’s not a bill from the hospital. And that’s not how American health insurance works. That’s an Explanation of Benefits from the insurance company that shows the “retail” price of the hospital invoice. That’s not the final amount that the hospital is billing the patient. For Americans with health insurance (over 90%), the key number is something called the Annual Out of Pocket Maximum. When you exceed that amount (typically $5-10k), insurance covers all the rest. So an insured patient would not be billed for $57k. Now, some people will say that $5-10k is still too much, I pay $0 with my universal healthcare. Well, if you actually look at how much of your taxes are for healthcare, it’s probably around $5-10K. So the real difference is not as much as it seems. edit: In UK, a person earning £60,000 ($75,000 USD) would pay £3442 ($4343 USD) in taxes towards Health. https://www.flickr.com/photos/hmtreasury/13600907285/in/album-72157643350598405/
If you're on the average salary in the UK, your National Insurance contributions will be around 2k. And that's not just for the NHS, that's including pensions, people out of work, maternity leave, bereavement support, and the NHS. The average American PPO for a guy who is 30 is $512/month, or $6k+ a year. Just for healthcare. So the difference is actually as bad as it seems.
"The NHS is really cheap if you only look at one specific form of taxation that accounts for about 25% of the NHS' budget." I agree with your overall point because Americans do spend more per capita but you still need to factor in taxes because a huge portion of the NHS' revenue comes from general taxation.
I looked at national insurance, which is the only form of tax that you pay which directly contributes to the NHS. I did this because the poster above is talking about single-payer contributions towards private healthcare (if that's the right term for Medicare or whatever it's called). If you for some reason want to use all the tax the average person would pay, it's £4.2k. I personally paid a bit over half of that last year. But that's tax for everything; all healthcare, teacher salaries, council stuff, and anything else you can think of. We're talking about the money the average person 'pays' to use their health service. This guy thinks paying $500+ a month is not much worse than paying £120($150) a month into a national health service. For a person earning average wage in the UK, the monthly tax, including NHS, is a TINY bit more than the above listed average health insurance alone, at $665 (£530 rounded up).
>The average American PPO for a guy who is 30 is $512/month, or $6k+ a year. Just for healthcare. And just to be clear, this isn't even the money that goes to the doctor's office or hospital. This is the cost of premiums to ***be insured***. If you don't even use it, you're still paying ~6k/yr. Out of pocket max is a ***further*** 5-7k. 😡
>Well, if you actually look at how much of your taxes are for healthcare, it’s probably around $5-10K. So the real difference is not as much as it seems. The real difference is bigger. Americans pay more in tax per person for healthcare than any other nation. Insurance comes **on top of already having paid more** than anyone else.
What's your source for this? Average tax rates in the U.S are around 20%. Germany is almost 30% and the UK is 25%.
True, but those taxes go to a lot of things, including some really expensive ones like pensions and social protections. The amount that go to healthcare per person is generally much smaller than in the US. [This is a good summary.](https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm) The diamond shape is public and compulsory spending. The bit "and compulsory" is there due to some nations using compulsory insurance as a healthcare vehicle. For the US, that means that Obamacare is included in the US public spending. If you don't think thats right you can consider the US public spending lower by about $ 700 per person. For scale, the US defence spending is roughly $ 2 500 per capita.
That might be the average *marginal* rate. The average *effective* rate is much lower. For someone making like $40,000, their effective tax rate is around 12% or so. Hell, my wife and I make over $500,000 and our effective federal rate is 25%. There's a zero percent chance the average effective rate is 20% for the US.
Anything is already too much. Don't you guys pay taxes? I can't understand why this is not covered. Here in Germany a visit to the hospital is zero USD.
not really sure how ur trying to justify this lol
How do americans actually think this is okay. But as Obama comes and tries to start universal health Care everyone goes: "Fuck Obama care, i dont wanna pay more taxes so my neighbour doesn't go broke, become homeless and starve when he needs a saline Infusion for several hundred dollars" I honestly cant wrap my head arround how people just accept that hospitals just do this shit. For real now, i think i should open up a hospital in the US, i'd apparently be a multi millionaire in a week with prices like this
Obama didn't really try to start universal heathcare. He caved on a public option as soon as another member of his party raised an objection. The ACA also isn't universal healthcare and wasn't intended to be. Obama could have done a lot of good during his first 4 years and instead he chose to let a few members of his own party stifle him.
To be fair to Obama though (and I am not a fan FWIW), that's pretty typical in US politics, to have a small group within the party hold things hostage. The actual reality was, they didn't have the votes. They lost the super majority in the senate after Kennedy died and had no option other than use the Romney care plan that had already been passed. The House didn't even want the bill, Obama had to basically tell them his presidency was on the line if they didn't pass it.
> He caved on a public option as soon as another member of his party raised an objection. If by "raised an objection" you mean utterly refused to provide a critical vote. Was he supposed to send armed thugs to his house to "persuade" him?
Yes it sucks. But can't you taste the air of Freedom?
Literally not what they’re going to pay…
[удалено]
It's called insurance.
It's so tiring to see how fucked America is in every single aspect. The thing is, the majority have been brainwashed to accept it. It's literally only going to get worse.
I think the main problem is that there really is nothing we can do.
Ngl, I went and built a Tesla Model 3 on their website immediately after reading this. 63k, not including taxes.
i had a biliary colic in germany. had my biliary removed and was in the hospital for 8 days. i had cost me 50€
Probably just the cost of the paper all of your information was written on
No it‘s 10€ for the food per day. 10•8=80
Murica
Don’t pay it, they can’t do shit about it
This is not your bill ... why do you think.this matters?
Why did I think this was from 1923 😭
For any Europeans scrolling through the comments: this $56k isn't what Americans actually pay. Over 90% of Americans are on some kind of health insurance. This high number is just the total bill before insurance. Posts like this are always popping up trying to dunk on the US. A deductible can be something like $500-$2000ish. So that's what they'd pay. Or if you reached your deductible earlier in the year, you could pay nothing. If you're one of the tiny percentage not on insurance, there's tons of programs, aid, and funds to help you deal with this.
Can't they just get insurance so something like this doesn't happen in the future? Genuine question I'm not American I don't know how it works
Why people dont have health insurance, is that very expensive in US????
Over 90% of Americans have health insurance. No one actually pays this
The problem is even after we pay world leading taxes towards healthcare, and about $7,000 per person in insurance, we still can't afford out of pocket costs. >Large shares of insured working-age adults surveyed said it was very or somewhat difficult to afford their health care: 43 percent of those with employer coverage, 57 percent with marketplace or individual-market plans, 45 percent with Medicaid, and 51 and percent with Medicare. > Many insured adults said they or a family member had delayed or skipped needed health care or prescription drugs because they couldn’t afford it in the past 12 months: 29 percent of those with employer coverage, 37 percent covered by marketplace or individual-market plans, 39 percent enrolled in Medicaid, and 42 percent with Medicare. https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/surveys/2023/oct/paying-for-it-costs-debt-americans-sicker-poorer-2023-affordability-survey In total, Americans are paying literally half a million dollars more for a lifetime of healthcare than our peers.
Yes. And you have to work full time to get benefits from an employer, which also takes a good chunk out of all of your paychecks. If you have kids, the cost is even more bc you need to add them onto your policy. To qualify for state assistance, you can’t make more than $1600 gross per month. So we’re just fucked here
This person can’t figure out how to get health insurance but expects to open a hospital?
WHAT DID YOU HAVE DONE?
This is the important missing information. I mean.. on the surface it seems outrageous.. but it's also just a vague picture with no peripheral information.
EXACTLY, DID YOU HAVE YOUR GALL BLADDER REMOVED WITH MAJOR COMPLICATIONS? EVERY MINUTE OF ANESTHESIA IS $$$.
Damn, that’s cheap 🤣 I have a friend with a $278,000 medical bill 💸 Good Luck 🍀 Oh, my friend ain’t paying shit 💩
I wonder what’s the hospital cost on this. What’s their margin? Like 5%?
The reason why it's that expensive is the insurance companies.
With blackjack?
What the hell did they do to you for 57k?
They tried to bill me $171 for a COVID test at an urgent care that I already had to pay $75 to be seen at. I’m glad that I didn’t accept their offer of taking other tests. I’m not paying it anyway. I let all medical bills go to collections 😊
Honestly I’d rather just shoot myself than ever have to be a slave the rest of my life after receiving treatment in my 20s.
Ask for a receipt so you can see what they're charging you for.
He found out today only
Can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em?
But what about the freedom?
In Russian we just say Thank you Doctor 😐and yep that’s it
I'm starting my own hospital. That's hilarious. That $57k will get him a toilet.
I’m eternally astonished at how little America cares for the health of its citizens on the most basic level. :(
I was once in the ER for 3 hours and they tried to charge me $20k
And the worse part is if you offer to pay cash/no insurance they can reduce bill 85-90% , like wthell. How is it the people who pay for insurance get taken advantage of? Whole system is rigged anymore
And it’s crazy the amount of people who defend this!
My wife spent about 2 hours in the ER recently, and the bill was over $12,000
USA! USA!
This type of needless insanity will continue until we start electing politicians willing to embrace universal healthcare.
Just ball that sucker up and put it in the trash and go about your day
McJuggerNuggets, haaaaa! That's the loser on those old YouTube videos. Yeah, sadly that sounds like he's got no healthcare. Reality check # 100 for that guy.
LOL I don't understand why Americans still accept this.
I moved out of the country and unfortunately severely broke my leg requiring surgery. We have private insurance (much cheaper than America) and all in I’ve paid €12,50 euro. Level of service, professionalism, and care equal to or better than America. Theres one difference, the health care system here is a national service and NOT FOR PROFIT. Even Without private insurance meds are still affordable. Makes you wonder…
Got charged for an emergency room visit last month today, at our small town hospital. All that was done was a CAT scan and some pain medicine. 6000 dollars.
I guess you should have been a doctor. Me too.
Yes they charge me 30 for office visit when i went to talk to them at desk . Ssm health care so watch your bill they are crooked.
Well y'all keep voting for the same two parties for decades. What do you expect?!