I’d like to know other non-US citizen’s opinions on your health care system are when you read a story like this. I know there are worse places in the world to receive health care, and better. What runs through your heads when you have a medical emergency?
A little background on my question:
My son was having trouble breathing after having a cold for a couple of days and we needed to stop and take the time to see if our insurance would be accepted at the closest emergency room so we didn’t end up with a huge bill (like 2000$-5000$). This was a pretty involved ~10 minute process of logging into our insurance carrier, and unsuccessfully finding the answer there. Then calling the hospital and having them tell us to look it up by scrolling through some links using the local search tool on their website. This gave me some serious pause, what if it was a real emergency, like the kind where you have no time to call and see if the closest hospital takes your insurance.
We moved from America to see Asia years ago. We were just talking last week about how racist we still catch ourselves being. We have a sick relative at home who we talked about moving here. They’d be close to us so we could help. And healthcare here is cheap/free often and pretty good.
But there’s part of me that just thinks American = superior. No matter how long I live here I’m not sure it will ever go away. It’s been psychopathically programmed into me. “Yeah it’s expensive, but at least you’re getting a good doctor”. (I’ve had awful and great doctors in both countries) It’s infuriating to realize.
I’m from the US, and I moved to Canada for 4 years for work. As a young adults, my partner and I had revolving medical debt. Not a ton, but enough to make it annoying. A couple thousand here and there. It felt like I was always had a hospital bill that we were trying to pay off. When we moved to Canada it was weird for us because, just as another person in here stated, you just didn’t have to think about going to the doctor. I had major stomach surgery, we had a kid, we got monetary support for our other kid who’s on the spectrum to take them to therapy… We got gtube supplies, meds for infections… Anything we needed was covered. Not once did I think oh man, this is going to wreck us. Well, that’s not true, I thought that the first time I took my oldest to the doctor to get an xray because we thought they might have broken a bone, but that was just a thought and it didn’t actually cost us a penny.
Every time we went to our PCP, a specialist, or emergency, the only thing we had to pay for was parking and maybe a few bucks for pain meds. But each time we had to get pills it was less than $5 to fill the prescription. One of the kids fell and hit their head? Straight to the doctor. A cold that’s been taking too long to go away on its own? To the doctor!
Now we are back in the US, and I just paid off another medical bill because my insurance only covered a small amount of an ECG, because they wanted to check make sure my kids heart was strong enough to put her on medication, and that the meds wouldn’t kill her.
We should move to a single payer medical system.
Some experience of the UK system, I’ve called for an ambulance twice in the UK recently for what I consider (and any reasonable person would) to be an emergency. Both times I was told it would be about 4 hours wait and could I get someone to drive me to the hospital. My partner has been phoning her GP to try and get an appointment for over two weeks and keeps getting told to phone back ‘in a few days’ because they have nothing available for over a month, including phone consultation. I’ve experienced dangerous ineptitude from multiple NHS doctors. I’ve also seen corruption in that if you know someone who works in the right department you can jump queues. So I’ve learned from experience to go private if I actually need medical aid.
Man, I live in shit country where opposition is killed every february and ruling party of oligarchs have been destroying my country’s healthcare system for last 20 years, but I’m glad commies built it tough.
I’ve heard you even pay for ambulance.
You pay taxes but get no benefit of them . They are used for subdivise automaker ,wallmart ,meat and dairy lobby and killing ciilvilan in other countries . I don’t understand why american are OK with that .
Guns are a right, but you can be jailed for getting an abortion. The US is turning into a third world country.
That system is shit and a danger to the people and to the unity a nation needs.
In Germany we don’t even think about this system when we are ill - we simply go to the doctor whatever it is, and we call an ambulance if it’s necessary. Not a single thought.
Unless you’re a woman though :)
Because?
Maybe Miaou meant the gender gap in medicine. The big difference in studies looking at the medical details (for example of drugs) in female bodies vs in male bodies
Also general conservatism. Is there any western European country where abortions are still illegal besides Germany?
Edit: just checked, Italy and Portugal are not doing well either. But those countries don’t pretend to be progressive so no surprise
The only western European country where abortion is illegal is Malta.
Only 2 countries legalised it in the last 34 years (Ireland and Northern Ireland)
Everyone else has had abortion legalised before 1990
I’m sure they laugh at us, then feel a bit of pity, because most of us aren’t terrible people, but most of us can’t afford good healthcare because we vote for corrupt politicians in 2-party system of basically the same options, except one loves Russia and uses abortions to seduce the religious
Nobody with a little bit of compassion laughs at stories like this. People read this with a bit of incredulity and a lot of compassion. We might make fun of Americans at times, but there’s no humour here.
I’d argue most people on earth don’t have much compassion outside of their own circle.
I sincerely hope and believe you’re wrong. Sure, there grades, but I don’t think there absence of compassion outside our circles.
Hope is not a strategy. Belief is not a plan.
I don’t need either. We have a working health care system. My comment was about people having compassion outside their “circle”.
We don’t have a working healthcare system. It’s barely functional.
I don’t know who “we” are in your context, but strongly suspect my “we” is not the same.
I was offered by my employer to move to the USA with the husband and children to set up a local team for a few years and then return to Europe. Didn’t have questions about the pay, housing, nope. I had questions about healthcare. I usually end up once a year in the ER for myself, last stint was a miscarriage over Christmas with 6 ER meetings but I have a shit ankle and break various bones on the yearly because I don’t pay attention to where I walk. Add children: usual sickness plus all the stupid shit they do and end up in the ER for. Asked is the insurance had a zero deductible or something similar to what we have. Long story short, I didn’t want to leave our healthcare system and we stayed in Europe as all they offered wasn’t up to par with what we got.
Usually the jobs in the US pay better. I know people who moved from Europe to expensive areas in the US. They take their kids to the doctors all the time. It’s worth it.
Also, you can just go to urgent care instead of the hospital. If you are going there a lot, you just learn which ones take your insurance.
Just curious- if I get hit by a car and it shatters my femur and I don’t have insurance, which urgent care facility is going to allow me to do the necessary months of physical therapy I can’t afford?
I think third world country.
I think that’s unfair on third world countries
I’m Australian, I hate the way our government treats our healthcare system and continues to make decisions in favour of companies and to the detriment of the Australian people, but holy hell is our system better than in the US.
Each time I read an article like this I’m glad to live here. This is never a decision we would need to make, we wouldn’t even question going to the ER in a case like this.
Removed by mod
Ironic coming from a propaganda warrior like you.
Removed by mod
The US healthcare system has provided me with lots of entertainment value via John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight. I like it for that
For real though, despite being a software engineer who could find a very lucrative job in the US in a heartbeat, there’s no way in hell I’ll ever even remotely consider it, and the healthcare system is one of the reasons.
As a software engineer, you’d likely get a well paying job that included better health insurance than most people get. Also you’d be more likely to be able to afford the gaps that would still exist. You would not be affected by half these horror stories
Not OP, but living in the system is supporting the system so I prefer to just live somewhere else. Going to the States for vacation is plenty to experience the cool things
If this person doesn’t have white skin, isn’t christian or gender conforming there’s a whole host of other horror stories that apply tho.
I’m a union autoworker, my health insurance is premium-free and covers pretty much whatever in exchange for a 25 dollar copay. We need stronger unions in this country. If you have a job, unionize it. The government has proven to be wholly ineffective at providing for the common good. They will never help you. Help yourself by unionizing your workplace.
No, we just need universal healthcare.
Not being bankrupted by an accident or emergency isnt a privilege that should only belong to the rich or well employed.
The one thing even Americans who have health insurance don’t realize about single payer healthcare systems, is that we don’t worry about it.
We don’t consider it when switching jobs, we don’t think about it when we’re sick, we don’t worry about medical bills… we just go to the doctor/hospital, and worry about getting better or dealing with the work implications of taking time off.
The weight for that piece simply doesn’t rest on our shoulders or minds at all.
You’ve been tricked and brainwashed you into thinking what you have is normal, and it’s disturbing how many of you think it’s a reasonable way to continue.
I’m American and trust me, in no way does it feel normal even after living with it my whole life. Simply hearing what you describe - not thinking about it - feels so deeply right and reasonable that it reminds me just how much weight of “this is not normal” we carry around.
I have a diabetic colleague in America who laughed when they heard how much tax I pay (which includes nationalised healthcare).
We decided to calculate the equivalent tax they were paying when factoring in health insurance (including the ridiculous deductible), dental, the fact the diabetes pump cost absurd amounts (doesn’t where I live).
Federal and state taxes may look lower on paper compared to European countries but once you run the numbers, Americans pay absurdly more across the board for things we take for granted.
One colleague was paying a $10K deductible and around €2K a month on a specific drug. Over here, repeat prescriptions of that drug are around $10.
$10,000 vs $120 a year (and that’s just the drug, not even the cost of the insurance plan).
It’s heartbreaking when you start realising how trivial medical problems cripple so many Americans financially which people in other countries take for granted it’s free/covered by their national/federal taxes (which are naturally means tested).
America would be a far happier country with a national health service.
That’s so fucking crazy sounding. It also sounds wonderful. My parents almost lost our house due to medical expenses, and yes they had insurance (here’s the best part - my dad was a disabled veteran). So support the troops, yay!
Because of that experience, I’ve developed a lifelong almost PTSD about insurance and medical bills - afraid that it will happen again to me now that I’m an adult. I obsess over it. It’s terrible.
I’m so jealous of those who never have to give it a second thought.
That’s so fucking crazy sounding
And there’s the problem
It’s so fucking normal sounding. Your system is the crazy, horrifying human rights abuse 😅
1 in 4 bankruptcies are military due to medical cost. We only support troops with thoughts and prayers
The only way I’d live in the States is if I was making so much money that a 20k medical bill meant nothing to me.
$480.000 cancer treatment enters the chat.
what. Is this real?
Yes. The average cost of cancer treatment is around $150,000 USD here and expensive cases can be much more.
Back in my first year of uni there, my classmate broke her femur. Got a nice 145k bill. Thank fuck she had insurance that paid most of it, because the two can negotiate any price they can come up with
You can buy a (rather small) Apartment for that over here. And still have money left for renovation.
I’m not willing to believe that the ACTUAL costs are in any reasonable correlation to the invoice.
Costs for services are basically made up. It’s incredibly complicated but I’ll give an example.
My last doctor appointment was billed at $220. I am in-network (which means my insurer has negotiated specific rates) so the insurance company says “you can only charge our insureds $105 for that service. We’ll pay $80. The patient is responsible for the rest.”
If I didn’t have insurance, I’d be on hook for the full $220. If the doctor was out-of-network, my insurance company would pay what they thought was reasonable and I’d be on the hook for the rest.
The $220 is just whatever the doctor feels like billing. It’s not based on anything other than “I feel like $220 is what my time is worth.”
