This joke is so American
Man do I feel bad for you Americans when I see this shit.
So many Americans justify it as well… I can mention it on reddit and I’ll get viciously attacked defending that shit healthcare system.
It’s hands down, the worst in western civilization.
I sometimes refer the US in discussions as “worlds richest 3rd world country”
I’m thinking of calling it the post-developed country where all the goodwill of the generations past rotted into a nasty, greedy mess
I remember seeing Gene Simmons getting interviewed on TV here (UK) and he started talking about how great private healthcare is. If I remember right it was a weird tangent from the question he was asked. It felt like he had Stockholm syndrome.
Gene Simmons is an ultracapitalist bastard who only went into rock music for the money. Fuck Kiss. I don’t listen to that shit.
Had a relative in a car accident. They climbed out the vehicle, walked to the ambulance, and took their suggestion to get looked over at the ED.
Nothing needed but an X-ray then a CT to make sure the spine was fine. Doc saw them for all of 10min. Most of the time was spent doing nothing, alone, waiting for a ride in a mostly empty rural ED.
Bill comes. $15k.
I did charges in the 2000s as part of my ED tech duties. Back then the stroke/heart attack go to ICU or get prepped for life flight charge, the most acute of 5 tiers of service was ~$2.5k. The lowest, say getting a ring cut off, was less than $200.
I know costs have risen in the last 20 yrs but how the fuck do you go from what is at a very generous at most a tier 3 for ~$1k to $15k. AND that CT scan, 90% of what happened there, was billed separate.
AFTER Medicare, the ED bill is $1.8k. Imaging is $800, and the ambulance ride, that didn’t even put in an IV, is $1.9k.
So an elderly person on a fixed social security income is getting billed almost $5k for a ride, a glorified wait for my ride room, and a CT.
One non displaced broken rib btw, that’s it.
$15k. Is ring removal in ED now $15k a pop? I just don’t know. Or is a remote, empty ED soaking anyone who goes because they don’t have lines out the door and around the block like city EDs do?
Either way, that’s several months of social security to pay for it while not buying groceries or driving.
AND many hospitals have lobbied local governments to make it illegal for Uber to take you to the hospital, ensuring their sweet, sweet ambulance profits.
It’s ridiculous of course, but you could just pick a building right next to it
I have cancer and diabetes, and aside from the premiums insurance costs me a minimum of $4,250 every fucking year, plus stuff they refuse to cover.
And I found out the hard way that you’re better off dead than getting air medivacced, a delightful experience I’ve had twice.
The first time I told the ER head to just let me die. The cost of a hundred mile flight was over $80,000.
The second time, this February was over $143,000, but by then I had gotten air transport insurance. Which of course initially denied the claim.
In the U.S. you are just meat that is harvested for money.
by then I had gotten air transport insurance. Which of course initially denied the claim.
Leave it to the ridiculous American insurance system to invent an insurance package for something so obscure and specialized that almost nobody would ever need it, collect your premiums, and have them still refuse to pay out a claim when someone does try to actually use it.
“Well, he probably didn’t need to be airlifted because of… what was it again?”
“His car was hit by a car and went down the side of a mountain into an area that they couldn’t get to by road.”
“Right, he probably didn’t need to be airlifted because of that. He just chose to get airlifted.”
— air transport insurance, probably
For that kind of money I would start a new life in a normal country and have decent healthcare.
Back when I was on reddit I had seen few people who had left america for other countries mainly in the Europe region because america is a shithole
