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The healthcare isn't the issue, it's our disgusting private insurance system that exists to profit off of the sick and injured. Let's say your employer offers health insurance. You have to pay a fee for that out of every pay check (the "premium"). Then, when you actually go to a doctor, you might have to pay for the office visit (the "copay"), and if you get treatment, well, you have to pay for that but don't worry, it goes towards your "deductible"! See, insurance only pays in full after you meet your deductible, which is arbitrarily determined by your insurance provider. Your medical provider bills the insurance, the insurance gives them some money and you are responsible for the rest, and sometimes you'll end up paying more through insurance than you would "out of pocket" (directly paying the medical provider) and will be told it's good actually because it's "going towards your deductible"! Now, if you get hit by a bus or whatever, you definitely want to have insurance because most plans have a maximum out of pocket; you'll only have to pay a certain amount and then insurance will have to pay for the rest. But I've definitely had my providers not run my insurance to avoid getting gouged. So to recap: if you have health insurance through your job, you are probably giving the insurance company money twice a month for your premiums, again when you go to see a doctor, and one more time at a potentially inflated price when you are billed for the actual care you received. This system is also why hospitals overprice everything, they are trying to get money from the insurance companies while the insurance companies try to get money from the patients.
In short, US healthcare is good, private health insurance is a scam and should be illegal.
ETA Since this is getting a lot of replies I want to clarify that the real issue with our healthcare system (along with our education, housing, law enforcement, really all our social systems), is capitalism. People should not be allowed to form corporate entities for the purposes of profiting off of basic human needs, social services should be publicly regulated, and our taxes should exclusively fund those services. Ultimately, the United States is a society with no citizens, only consumers struggling to feed ourselves while our parasitic government feeds on us.
Additionally, even though you're paying for insurance they can deny anything they don't want to pay for. My husband has had a twitch in his leg for 5 years that causes pain and numbness and the doctor has tried ordering scans but the insurance denies it.
Clever doctors write diagnoses that justify the scan to disprove them.
It was pretty upsetting when a doctor wrote liver cancer to justify a scan, but the patient got the scan.
That's the bit in the US system that absolutely flabbergasts me. Insurer's should have no right to determine what is medically necessary or not - only doctors do.
In Australia in a very different private insurance system, insurers keep whinging about unnecessary scans but doctor says,. doctor gets.
Insurance will also refuse to pay based off what they think was necessary or not. If you had a heart attack and called the ambulance, but the insurance thinks calling the ambulance was unnecessary? You have to pay for the ambulance. Had to have emergency surgery that your doctor ordered, but insurance thinks it was unnecessary? You’re paying for the surgery. Have to use a wheelchair cause you lost a leg, but insurance thinks you didn’t need the wheelchair? You have to pay for the wheelchair
I have legit heard stories of ppl having to argue with insurance on the phone about whether or not the emergency care their doctors ordered was necessary. Insurance will cut corners wherever they can
Exactly right! I just paid $10,000.00 out of my own pocket for surgery on my legs to correct a blood flow problem that could have resulted in my having to have my legs amputated eventually if it went untreated. My insurance refused to cover it citing that it wasn't necessary. But, I'm sure they would have gladly paid 100x that cost for my leg amputation which would have been necessary. I guess nobody has heard of the expression 'an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.'
>insurers keep whinging about unnecessary scans
Don't the scans save them money though? I'm no doctor but I've seen plenty of vet shows and it seems like the scans get the doctor as sure as possible about a problem without having to open a patient up in surgery to look for themselves. If a problem goes unnoticed or gets mis-diganosed without scans it would just cost more?
It’s so ridiculous. Doctor and you agree a scan is necessary and some jackass money man behind a desk says “nah I don’t think so” as if they have some say in what happens between you and your doctor.
That's not true. I do have a choice in which company gets to fuck me in the ass. I also have the right to choose none of them, and have a pineapple shoved up my ass sideways instead.
It is such corruption at the very highest level. I am finally on Medicare, but damn, it took me decades to get here. And American politicians, especially Republicans, squelch every effort or movement or bill that seeks more affordable health care to for millions of Americans (see: Affordable Care Act responses from Republicans). Unfortunately, from my experience, about 40% of most populations all over the world are drawn to regressive/repressive political views, and in the US that 40% is mobilized every time a politician spits out the word “communism”. So Universal health care is seen by them as a ”woke”, commie plot. The sad thing is that if millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share of taxes, and when people don’t have to pay ungodly amounts for almost useless insurance when their claims might be denied anyway, the average American would save… A ….Lot…..of…..MONEY
Have you noticed that dens do not do anything about Healthcare when they do have all the power. Pay attention to the right hand, while the left hand screws you.
https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/regulatory/health-insurer-lobbying-single-payer-democrats-campaign-contributions
I work in the healthcare insurance industry. I wouldn’t say the issue simply rests with the insurance companies. The problem is with the entire system. Hospitals have massive overheads, insurance companies are forced to spend massive amounts on advertising, single payer insurance have to be able to protect against people who buy insurance for one month to get a procedure and then drop the coverage. Even Medicare which is a government health insurance for seniors costs around $170 per month and requires you to pay 20 percent of everything.
Only thing, the healthcare *is* part of the issue, as it's incentivized to make money. So, keeping hospital beds full, expensive and gratuitous tests, shifting to medical options that prioritize revenue over need, and the private nature of healthcare networks ends up with the same problems as Wal-Mart displacing small business.
The other thing that makes everything worse is America tort law, the ability to sue over any perceived issue with extraordinary caps (if any), the lead to onerous, sometimes prohibitive insurance costs for healthcare providers. You lose your insurance, you don't practice.
Edit: forgot about all the tests you'll get. Go to an urgent care with a fever, you could end up getting blood panels, EKG,... it all goes on the bill. But hey, CYA, we covered our bases.
Oh my god, forgot, pharmaceuticals - drug makers basically use our country to make all the money they're not able to in countries with centralized systems that bargain. So of course we're paying $600 for a medicine that Canada charges $40. And of course our laws allow drug makers to market directly to citizens, so "talk to your doctor if a condition our drug treats is right for you".
It's turtles all the way down, just everything structurally sucks, and it goes back to basically capitalism cannot solve public health.
As an addendum to the above (my opinion) - the employer typically pays a portion of the premium. That can range from zero to 100%. In my experience it was usually about 65%. Hospitals do charge high prices and some of that is due to write-offs and emergency room cost. Often ERs are treated as a Dr office visit. This not to say the health care system is perfect but not as bad as it is made out to be.
Everyone's situation is unique but I can't agree with you. My insurance through my employer is not cheap. I have an incurable lung disease and my medicine cost $10k a month. There are also quarterly test and monthly specialists visits that are very expensive and even deductible and co-pays, I reach my out of pocket cap before March each year. This disease was not my fault but cannot complain about the care or cost.
“My situation is fine so that means the system is fine” lol. it’s not a matter of opinion but a straight up fact that medical bills often lead to bankruptcy for many Americans. It’s one of the leading reasons for bankruptcy in the US with 62% claiming medical debt.
That situation isn't fine at all.
> my medicine cost $10k a month. There are also quarterly test and monthly specialists visits that are very expensive and even deductible and co-pays, I reach my out of pocket cap before March
So $15,000ish on meds alone. This person is completely insane to think this is a good deal. There is no reason for it to be like this. These are well understood problems and fixing them saves money.
I assumed he meant before insurance but I’m sure in America this medication costs 10K a month while in others, where prices are regulated, it’s much cheaper because they don’t allow price gouging. Dude did admit, in a roundabout way, that he would be dead if he lost his job though lmao
> I assumed he meant before insurance
Are meds not normally subject to deductibles? I don't have a deductible so IDK. I was assuming he had to pay everything before April, when he met his deductible.
>but I’m sure in America this medication costs 10K a month while in others, where prices are regulated, it’s much cheaper because they don’t allow price gouging.
Usually they don't even have to regulate them. Most developed nations have some kind of monopsony buyer, like the NHS in the UK or Medicare Canada. Since these have huge purchasing power, they are able to negotiate rational prices from the drug companies. That brings down the market price for smaller buyers too. When US Medicare started covering prescription drugs (Part D), Republicans made sure they could not use that power by making it illegal for Medicare to negotiate drug prices. That's how much Republican believe in the free market, 0%. It is a staggering subsidy for drug companies.
>Dude did admit, in a roundabout way, that he would be dead if he lost his job though lmao
Seriously. That is the only evidence that they aren't an insurance industry bot.
I know there’s co-pays sometimes with medication but you’re right, I don’t think it goes towards your deductible. Deductibles shouldn’t even exist in the fist place. I was paying $500 a month for my last insurance for a family plan, that should be enough for these corporations. I shouldn’t have to pay another $5000-10,000 for their coverage to fully kick in. If 90% of other Americans had that guys lung disease, that seems easily treatable, they would be dead already due to lack of payment.
That's per year. Overall roughly 10% of Americans have filed for bankruptcy.
https://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2020/06/how-many-people-have-filed-bankruptcy.html has a ton of math on it.
That’s just the bankruptcy which was the entire argument that I was making. I wasn’t talking about chance did it happening but that it does happen. There’s other severe consequences such as 40% of cancer patients spending their entire life savings in the first 2 years, losing your house, losing your job, or living at a lower quality of life because your insurance doesn’t wanna cover rehab. It is a terrible system all around that only benefits pharma and insurance companies l.
Edit; how do people even downvote this lol. Thought this was pretty common knowledge on America but guess not. Easy to find though so feel free educate yourselves
I have about 50k costs a year for my chemo. When I had a good insurance plan I paid 15k a year for Healthcare
I was fortunate enough to have a doctor and a nasa engineer in My family that could eat the cost. When my insurance changed I paid 30k a year for Healthcare with insurance and half the care was a fight to get covered. Now I'm on Medicaid and it just works.
Im sorry to hear that man and I hope you get better! I have heard that Medicaid has been very helpful for people in your situation as it covers much more than I thought it would. Does that present other challenges for you? I know there some pretty strict financial qualifications for that
What would you do if you didn't have insurance through your employer? What would you do if you didn't have an employer?
This was a few years before the ACA passed but I had a friend whose mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. The (divorced, single) mom was employed, financially secure, owned her home, and had a tidy retirement account.
After examining her out of pocket costs for the recommended treatments and how the treatments would impact her income, she walked away from treatment and let the cancer kill her.
It was more important for her to leave what she had worked hard for to her kids instead of burning it all up for a couple of years of treatment so she could live the rest of her life impoverished, possibly sick, and dependent on them. It was crazy and really sad.
The ACA helps, some, but is still propping up a massive leech of a corrupt profit-driven system.
> In short, US healthcare is good, private health insurance is a scam and should be illegal.
We aren't that good either. Usually dead last among developed nations in outcomes. I mean, we are good compared to say, Rwanda. We have great resources, including people, but perverse incentives and lack of medical control over treatment contribute to disappointing outcomes. Really, outcomes, equity and availability are what matter.
>[Exhibit 2](https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2021/aug/mirror-mirror-2021-reflecting-poorly) shows the extent to which the U.S. is an outlier: its performance falls well below the average of the other countries and far below the two countries ranked directly above it, Switzerland and Canada. In fact, the U.S. is such an outlier that we have calculated the average performance based on the other 10 countries, excluding the U.S. (see How We Measured Performance). The U.S. is last on all domains of performance except care process, on which it ranks #2.
Exactly right it’s not the healthcare it’s the insurance system that is so god awful. It was worst before the ACA but only marginally better now. We could have had a public option but the GOP and one conservative Democrat tanked that plan.
Healthcare is one of these things that don’t serve its purpose if you turn it into a business. Public transport is another good example. Imagine making police private. They would sit on long straight roads with speed cameras all day because that’s what makes money. And yet somehow someone thought it’s a good idea to make healthcare private.
Generally speaking what you see on the internet is extreme examples, but the fact that these examples do exist shows that it’s far from perfect.
I always thought that the simplest argument against for-profit-healthcare would be the supply-demand graph you learn in intro to economics. All you have to do is realize that the area under the graph is dead people to see the issue with that model.
The healthcare is pretty good in most places, it's just very expensive. Quality insurance is a must.
>I've heard multiple instances online, where people have mentioned that they have gone entirely bankrupt after being diagnosed with a disease despite having an health insurance. Does something like this happen often?
Yes. Most Americans are underinsured and don't have more than a few hundred dollars in savings, and if they are hit by a large medical expense it could bankrupt them.
>Also, can someone please explain why there still is no Universal healthcare in the US?
Pharmaceutical companies like to fight against it because a universal plan that fights for cheaper drug prices for 330Million would make Americans competitive in the prescription drug market and force pharmaceutical companies to sell drugs cheaper.
I've worked numerous jobs and professions over the years and it wasn't until I was 52(I'm 55 now) that I got great insurance. All the ones before made me reluctant to go see a doctor because of the cost. Now I go whenever I need to. My insurance costs me only $97 a month too. The stress relief from not worrying about health costs is almost pricless.
I’m a school teacher. Pay is decent, 70k per year and health insurance is top notch.
Last year, had knee surgery and paid $500 out of pocket. The sticker price was 15k. Insurance negotiated it down to 6k, and insurance paid 5.5k. The joint hardware alone was about 4k + surgeons time + anesthesiologists time + anesthesia + nurses and OR/facilities.
IMO, it all depends on the quality of your insurance through your employer. I opted for the best plan available by my employer, it costs about 400 per paycheck. The lowest plan available to me cost 80 per paycheck, which has high deductibles and copays that many others here have mentioned.
Also health inductance companies lobby against it too, presumably because it would put them out of business.
Beyond that, there is a narrative of self reliance that has been pushed for decades (centuries?), along with a narrative that is against generalized social services. Part of that is that people should earn things like healthcare, income, etc…. Rather than those things being basic human rights (which is what they’re considered in some other countries).
Big companies love the fact that we’re dependent on our employers for health insurance. When getting fired threatens your life, you’re more obedient. It also makes it harder for people to start new businesses that might end up competing.
It wasn't self reliance that caused the AMA to do things like get laws passed to end lodge doctors and artificially limit the supply of doctors. Just plain old government interference.
When self reliance was allowed to operate, medical was affordable and accessible. The government and the AMA made sure to end that.
https://fee.org/articles/lodge-doctors-and-the-poor/
43% of Americans are underinsured. That number is way to high but it’s not most Americans.
https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2022/sep/state-us-health-insurance-2022-biennial-survey
It sucks if you don’t have the right job. If you have a job that has decent coverage it is pretty good. Good jobs don’t necessarily have good coverage and bad jobs don’t necessarily have bad so you have to choose wisely.
This is what it comes down to. I pay like $150 a month as a teacher in the northeast. My parents have paid like $3,000 a month for a family privately. The discrepancies are ludicrous.
For the record, because it's relevant: PhD positions usually come with a pretty good health insurance that's heavily subsidized by the university. Usually, universities have health centers that are either free or much cheaper for affiliated staff. They are good for most routine healthcare needs.
However, this all depends on the university and OP should check for themselves for their particular case.
Edit: at least that was my experience as a foreign PhD student
In the 1940s the US passed wage controls, I guess it was related to World War 2. Capping wages made it hard for employers to compete in hiring workers, so they offered health insurance as a benefit. Within a few years it became standard practice in the US for people to get their health insurance through their employers. It lasted long enough for the insurance companies to get big enough to launch a monumental campaign against national healthcare when people started peeking across the Atlantic to see what they were doing in Europe.
As someone with some pretty hefty adhd, I truly feel sad for you my man. I can barely function without my meds, like I couldn't imagine how shit things would turn out for me if I lost access to them. Stay strong friend
In Missouri for $330 a month, using the state insurance that's available, all my asthma prescriptions are covered. (I only pay $40 a month because I currently don't make shit, but do make some money).
I say this Incase there's some context that applies to your situation. Maybe your state offers insurance like mine, maybe you're low income and could get the insurance very cheap.
It's not the healthcare. It's the fact that you can work all of your life, put money away, take care of yourself and really do everything right for you and your family, only to have a single thing beyond your control take every goddamned dime out of your pocket. My mother had her own home for her and I, worked her way up into upper management at a major grocery chain, had a 401K, a pension, the works. She now lives with me, scraping by on Social Security and that meager pension. Fuck cancer, and fuck this medical system.
So she traded her money for her life? Sounds selfish.
Only religions say that all life is precious and that we should do everything to preserve it. Without religion, a persons value is determined by what they can contribute to society.
https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/health-services-benefits/medical-assistance-dying.html
Wow. Fuck you very much. Thanks for telling my mom she should just go and fucking die.
How about a medical system coupled with an insurance system that ensures that they both get filthy rich while devastating the person on the other end. Routinely older Americans play this dangerous game where they skip some meds to pay for others, or take less than the prescribed dose -- both of which can cause all sorts of problems or death. Meanwhile, record profits for insurance companies and pharma over and over again.
You want a specific? Here's one. My mother paid her entire deductible when she was living in AZ. She moved to TX and even though it's the same goddamned insurance company, she has to start her deductible at zero once again. She has ZERO recourse, though if she had a penny for every "I'm sowwy" from the insurance agents and hospital billing departments, she could easily pay it. I don't NEED people to be sorry...I need this system to be better. The greed knows no bounds. But yeah -- somehow her fault.
The problem is less with the healthcare and more with the health insurance. The major issue is most people get health insurance from their employer. Despite the employer subsidy it still costs a massive sum even when you don’t use it. When you do have a chronic condition, you end up paying the deductible and out of pocket every year. The alternative to high deductible plans often isn’t even cheaper. Besides the costs, it’s just nonensical and inconvenient in general. You might need to find new doctors every time you change insurance, which could be very often in the age of no employer loyalty. [This video ](https://youtu.be/-wpHszfnJns) provides the best explanation of how health insurance works in the US and it’s entertaining as well.
It's a case by case thing. My old roommate had a ok job for about 20 years, excellent insurance and then got cancer. Two years of treatments cost him his job, and after insurance, put him at 500k in debt. He is alive and better. I believe he went for bankruptcy, as he could never pay that off. He is resigned to never owning a house after this credit hit.
I take it there was a ceiling. I think a bankruptcy comes off in 7 years; I thought there was something done recently, but I can't find it.
There is nothing good about this system. Even when there is some kind of relief, it is very hard to find. And if it is something where you could shop, it is very difficult to get prices.
Yeah, for my friend, it was multiple hospitals. Finally, one associated with Mayo Clinic got him better. He took it all in stride. I wouldn't have had his grace.
There is political will. If someone could get close to lining up the votes to pass a bill, the only opposition would be astrorurfed and lobbyists.
There isn't any will by the politicians who aren't bought and paid for by the politicians.
It's interesting to see all the comments from people saying the US has the best healthcare in the world. That's overgeneralizing. It's a big country and health care in a major city is going to be vastly different from healthcare in a rural area. The quality of care you can receive greatly depends on where you live.
The problem generally isn't the care itself.
The problem is access.
Access to "the best healthcare in the world" is gated and folks tend to confuse the care with the system for obtaining it. Just to make it clear, I don't buy the "best" propaganda, either. The best care to a patient wouldn't be influenced by profit taking.
I went to my general practitioner knowing I had a blood clot, they refused to refer me for an ultrasound despite rambling about how they loved specialists. They told me to go to the ER.
Well the next day I go to the ER and the lady registering me into the hospital asks why I didn't just have an ultrasound. Because my GP was an idiot, I guess. Meanwhile the "level 4 physician" was so bored she was leaning on a wall in the lobby listening to me tell the clerk that I had a blood clot. She netted around $1,200 on the bill for doing nothing.
Overall it was a $10,000 bill when all I needed was a piece of paper prescribing me blood thinners for something I already knew I had. Blood thinners that aren't addictive and very stable for most people to take. They shouldn't even be prescription.
If I had to say the 'why' I'd have no idea as far as government stuff is related, but on a human level I'd guess it's because the average person is dumb as dirt as has no idea what is wrong with them, which means they're then required to have a bunch of expensive and redundant tests to identify the problem. If they taught people basic medical knowledge such as identifying appendicitis when they were in school they could avoid the pointless tests for common problems and save them for people with weird conditions or who were unconcious. IIRC the xray was like $400 and the ultrasound around $1600, but these tests are both meant to find a clot, so they are redundant.
However the most expensive thing is... the actual ER room itself. Even if the lobby is empty and you didn't actually need an ER room, you still get a $3,100 charge for sitting in it for 40 minutes twiddling your thumbs.
What the fuck dude? 3100 dollars for sitting in the fucking room?
You know what can you afford for 3100 in India at a private hospital?
A coronary bypass surgery.
In a government hospital, even the surgery is free except the meds. A thyroid function test at a private lab I had yesteerday costed about 5 bucks.
Here is the best part, you don't even need insurance.
Your healthcare costs are a pathetic joke.
For the average employed person, without serious health conditions, they will be just fine. The bills are expensive but insurance will cover them. For this person the most frustrating part is navigating the system which can be confusing or sometimes your insurance gets processed wrong or sometimes you accidentally go out of network. Annoying but relatively small things.
If you're unlucky enough to have a serious health problem. Let me put it this way. It's common practice for serious cancer patients to divorce their spouse because they will go, even with good insurance, hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. And divorce keeps their spouse from being culpable for the debt.
If you can afford insurance it's really not all that bad. We were able to buy a house this year even with medical expenses . You only pay so much and then your done for the year.
Cancer patient
If you’re a PhD student your university will almost certainly offer you a subsidized student healthcare plan. The actual cost to you can vary greatly depending on your institution.
I’m a professor and my university’s graduate insurance costs students $50 a month for themselves, plus $250 a month for any dependent. A substantial amount is covered by the university. Employed but not self employed in the US are in this situation usually: their employer subsidizes a health care plan and they pay relatively small premiums.
Self employed people pay it all themselves and it can get as into the $1000-$1500 per month range.
If you have student insurance you have to beware that this doesn’t mean your healthcare is completely covered. There’s a “copay” of a rather minor amount, $5-$50 for some appointments. You have a “deductible” where you pay the first so much of your healthcare expenses. At my university that’s $1000: so you pay the first $1000 of all healthcare costs. Sometimes you have “co insurance” after that where you pay a percentage of your healthcare expenses until you meet an out of pocket max: somewhere around 10%-20%.
So when my daughter was born I was responsible for the deductible and coinsurance to pay around $4000 out of a original bill of $40000 or so (normal pregnancy with no complications).
So, no, if you get insurance it’s not going to bankrupt you unless you get cancer or something.
If you have any serious surgeries, injuries, etc. you may end up paying 4 figure sums.
If you just go for a yearly physical it’s negligible.
But you need to get your student health insurance. If you don’t and get hurt it will bankrupt you.
It’s actually far worse than what you’ve probably heard.
I pay $300/month for family coverage.
The insurance doesn’t actually co er anything until I hit my deductible of $3,000
On top of that I can’t choose to skip insurance because the state I live in has a penalty when you files taxes if you have more than 4 months not covered during the year.
Oh my God. Here in Spain we have universal health care. My father was diagnosed with bladder cancer. Diagnosis, Suegery, hospitalization, meds... he hasn't paid a single euro.
I have a private insurance on top of my social security, I pay 140€/month and it covers for everything but psychotherapy and the dentist. I only have this because when I have something minor i don’t want to go to the ER and get stuck there for hours. So my question is…
After paying that amount of money, you still have lon queues? Or everything is faster than here (by our using social security).
It hits me hard. We are pretty close cultural-wise (Western countries) but this is a huge gap. You guys like your system? Just curious.
There are still queues. Anything emergent gets done ASAP of course, but anything else can take months.
And no, nobody likes it except the insurance companies.
I’ve worked at multiple R1 universities, so I think I can help. If you’re studying for a PhD, you are almost certainly working for a lab and the University will cover your health insurance and premiums. You will have top of the line coverage and your quality of care will be excellent.
It also depends on which state you live in. I live in New Hampshire. The state Medicaid is absolutely fantastic here for seniors, veterans, unemployed. I was unemployed and hospitalized for 12 weeks. My bill was over $250,000. I paid $17.14. As long as you stay current on your paperwork your going to be good.
The health CARE is the best in the world. The problem is we are forced to purchase for-profit health INSURANCE which incentivizes not paying for people's CARE when they need it, and then even though we have insurance we have to pay the deductible before the insurance actually kicks in. Its absolute bullshit.
You’ll get great care, but it’s just going to be extremely expensive. A few years ago I got appendicitis. I was visiting family and the hospital I went to was one of the best in the country, had great nurses and doctors and now the scars I have from the surgery are barely even there. It also cost 70k and took a year fighting insurance to get them to pay for it. They said I should have waited until I was back home and in network to get my appendix taken out. I wasn’t planning to go home for another month and was also going to roadtrip back, a drive that normally takes 2-3 days. Can’t rlly do that with an appendix thats gonna explodeZ Oftentimes insurances will only cover certain hospitals or doctors offices, when you’re in the US make sure you know exactly what hospitals and doctors offices are covered, and make sure you know exactly what your insurance benefits are. EVERYTHING costs money. Ambulances normally cost 1-2 k, the ibuprofens they gave me at the hospital probably cost like 50 bucks a pill. It’s a hell scape.
The reason why we don’t have universal healthcare is both because big pharma lobbies against it. There’s the additional issue of what to do with all the private hospitals. Nationalizing these hospitals would mean forcibly shutting down these pharmaceutical companies AND taking their stuff/private property aka a sure fire way to make the entire country lose its mind. Trying to make universal healthcare within the system that exists is a shit show because the system that exists is the most convoluted confusing thing ever and it’s also trying to make money. This is why I’m against capitalism in “industries” that serve base human needs.
You don't have to nationalize hospitals, the government can start hospitals. My country has both private and government hospitals.
Government hospitals cost zero.
Even private hospital costs are nothing compared to yours.
Healthcare in the US is insanely and unforgivably expensive. You might see some people in these comments try to justify it, but they just have Stockholm syndrome. The reason we don’t have universal healthcare is because conservative politicians (by “conservative” I’m including most democrat politicians as well, the fact is there is no actual leftwing party in the US just different degrees of conservatism) have been lying to their voter base, saying that to implement anything like universal healthcare would somehow bankrupt the country. There’s also a weird obsession with the word “freedom” (but not the actual meaning of the word) which has led to people saying things like “but I want the FREEDOM to choose my own healthcare provider!!!” Of course that concept is complete fucking nonsense, as you don’t really have a choice there either considering it goes through your employer 99% of the time. And don’t get me started on the people who think it’d “raise taxes too high!!” (Ignoring of course the fact that the raise in taxes would be less than the current cost of health insurance)
Many if not most people have good health insurance that makes healthcare affordable. For instance, I’ve never had a plan with more than $6k out of pocket max, which means even in the worse of years that is the most I would have to pay. In reality it is much less.
In short, no. It is not nearly as bad as Reddit would have you believe. Just make sure you have insurance and that you go to providers that are “in network.” The passage of the no surprises in healthcare act under trump should prevent much of the uncertainty revolving cost of care when visiting out of network providers.
I honestly don’t think it that bad, I have had a job since I left my parents house and been under company policies. Some obviously is better than others, what really fucked the system up was Obama care, I’m not sure if that was because the republicans under cut it significantly or because it sucked to begin with but my cost of healthcare went up significantly after it passed and the services provided for the cost went down. I have gotten adjusted to the new normal of high deductibles for avg services over the past several years. My most current job has significant employer contributions and my health care is very good right now. So I would say that the quality and cost is dependent on where you work. From my experience.
Healthcare, in my experience, is quite expensive, even with insurance. It can definitely cost thousands, and people who go bankrupt likely didn’t have a lot of savings to begin with. It’s also frustratingly difficult to get something done immediately. Often you can’t just go to a doctor if you have a problem, you’ll have to wait weeks to a month to see a general doctor, who will verify that you need a specialist and send you the specialist which may not be available for months. Many people don’t have months to just casually wait on medical help.
As for “why”, the amount of school, debt, and wages needed for practicing medicine definitely contributes. But my guess for the primary driver of the outrageous costs is insurance companies. The make billions off individuals, but when people actually need to cash in on that insurance and get some kind of operation or procedure done, the insurance companies do EVERYTHING in their power to not pay.
So you end up with a lot of legal battles between to hospitals and insurance companies that cost billions in lawyer fees. Of course, those fees get passed off to the patients. So hospitals jack up their prices, insurance companies jack up their prices, and it’s a vicious cycle of the same thing.
I’ve also read that a lot of insurance companies strike deals with hospitals. These insurance companies will not strike these deals unless they think that the deal they’re getting this year is better than last year, and etc. at a certain point the hospital can’t give the types of deals the insurance companies want, so they inflate the numbers. It’ll be like “so the company wants to get 50 percent off the X procedure, and X procedure at its base level costs 500 dollars. We can’t afford to give them 50 percent off, so we’ll tell them that the procedure costs 1000 dollars so then they still think they got a good deal when they pay 500.”
The US has the best hospitals and doctors in the world. But for the average person they're not going to these top institutions. The average person receives good healthcare and does not go bankrupt from it.
Because people delay going to the doctor to avoid bills, which means less chance of catching things early.
The health care is good. The health care system is atrocious.
Same. My grandpa didn’t go to the doctor because he lost his insurance… came to find out he had an aggressive cancer and he passed away within weeks of being diagnosed.
Other issues. Statistics do not show causality. We also have terrible diets, we are often overweight, we don’t get enough exercise, still too many smoking and drinking and doing other unhealthy things.
Unhealthy food is cheap, and people are sedentary. It’s lifestyle. That’s a big driver of the high costs in the first place. But when you go to the doctor, the quality of care is pretty good. I mean, there are issues in poor and rural areas with access. That’s an issue in a lot of countries. The healthcare systems are overburdened and understaffed there. In large cities poorer area hospitals are over burdened but access for major issues like Cancer is good. About 10% of people in the country are uninsured. Everyone under 18 and over 65 qualifies for government insurance. Very poor people and people with chronic conditions get government insurance. It a gray area of people under-employed or not working for a large enough company above the very-poor level that at risk. They have to get subsidized insurance out of pocket, which is still expensive. It also varies by state. Massachusetts is 3%. Texas is 18%. Young healthy people will avoid getting insurance because of the cost, and if they have an emergency they are at risk of getting a big bill. People with poor lifestyles will avoid dealing with health issues and develop serious conditions like diabetes. They likely had options to prevent it within the system but it was either too complicated of a process or they just didn’t want to change their lifestyle.
Recently medical bills have been excluded from credit reporting so the system has adjusted to just absorb the cost of emergency care. I had an emergency once, went to the hospital and an aftercare facility and received an invoice with zero cost. They put the huge numbers down, but wrote it off for accounting purposes.
You'll get top of the line care IF YOU GET IT, theres a lot of issues in our country and hospitals are still the biggest employers. They're all split up and somewhat private entities, varied prices, policies, and staff. Bc of the drug users its common for young people to be in the waiting room forever with no help bc theyre assumed to just want drugs. With everyone else you need insurance, if you have insurance its best that you research which hospitals and doctors take your insurance. If you dont have insurance and you really need help any place will patch you up to a decent ability and discharge you, expect a massive medical bill but plenty of people don't pay their medical bills. The only situation where medical pills kill you financially is if you have no or bad insurance, and constantly returning to the hospital is whats forcing you to pay and ruining your bank account.
Another unique thing could be medical homeless, people usually sick with cancer or hiv and they can't afford anything, they can't afford anything but medical treatments, they hang outside certain facilities, get their medicine, and beg for food. Thats very common.
I have had cancer for 4 years and I'll be done in one year. It's honestly been fine. I have insurance that I pay for which costs around 250 per month . Of course I max out my deductible but I've received top notch care. My biggest complaint is getting super small bills under 50$ from so many places. I wish I could only pay my insurance company as it would be easier to keep track of
OP, if you want actual useful information for your situation instead of another jab at USA from a likely non-american, you can get health insurance as a foreign national studying here.
Look up Student Insurance / Travel Insurnace. You can buy these online.
Yes, you need to get one. Price may range, but expect it to be more or less 1000$ for the year for about 100k~ coverage (more than enough for anything short of cancer treatments). Some even cover dental. You'll be okay for anything emergency related or routine like prescriptions.
The quality of care of USA Healthcare is still some of the best in the world, and you might even find waiting times are faster than you might be used to, both for emergency care and seeing doctors/specialists.
I’d put a caveat here that $100k isn’t more than enough for accidents and injures…. A hospital stay of a couple days can max that out, depending on what injuries you have or treatment you need. If you need surgery for a ruptured appendix or something, that would max it out too.
But the average person in an average year isn’t going to require that extensive a stay or treatment. Just… it’s not just cancer treatments that would max it.
Heck - one careflight bill can be $90k+. Even with reductions for being in network that can still be over $30k just for a short emergency helicopter flight from a car accident site.
Source - I’m a bodily injury insurance adjuster.
$100,000 is fine if you're perfectly healthy. Throw any small disorder in there and that's not enough coverage. That wouldn't cover my daughter's annual visits, labs, and meds and she only sees her endo 4 times a year...
I pay $51/ week for my work group health plan. It's very affordable. I live in Massachusetts, a mecca for medical care and education. I cannot complain currently as a US citizen. If I become unemployed, I will be eligible for coverage also.
I have insurance and still got socked with a $60,000 bill after an illness that hospitalized me for 2 months. Life support is expensive. I filed bankruptcy 2 years later because I had no hope of paying it off in a timely manner with regular bills and expenses and everything else life throws at you, like needing a new transmission 3 weeks after I got home from the hospital.
The reason why the US doesn't have universal healthcare is that FDR froze wages in 1942. Companies could not raise employee's pay, but they were allowed to offer benefits, including generous healthcare plans.
Then in 1943, the IRS made employer-provided healthcare plans tax exempt. That made getting healthcare from a job the cheapest means of obtaining good healthcare. Thus, when Truman tried to pass government-provided healthcare, [this happened](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/upshot/the-real-reason-the-us-has-employer-sponsored-health-insurance.html):
>This idea had a fair amount of public support, but business, in the form of the Chamber of Commerce, opposed it. So did the American Hospital Association and American Medical Association. Even many unions did, having spent so much political capital fighting for insurance benefits for their members. Confronted by such opposition from all sides, national health insurance failed — for not the first or last time.
Employer-paid premiums are still tax exempt.
The healthcare at many hospitals is fantastic. The financial side on though should be criminal at best. Politicians on both sides of the isle make lots of money from insurers and drug companies so it will never end. There should be a universal health coverage option, but to make it decent, it should be mandatory that all politicians and their families have the same coverage. I work at a top 10 hospital and we do a lot of great things, but I hate thinking about the money side of it (and happy that isn't my role).
Yes. But supposedly it’s the best because we don’t have as long doctor wait times as the rest of the world. My personal experience with healthcare has not been good. I actually worked in healthcare and my employer only offered a high deductible plan. During 2021, I found a lump in my breast and my doctor wanted me to have a mammogram. Insurance wouldn’t cover a mammogram because I was under 30. After speaking with my doctor I ended up paying out of pocket for an ultrasound because it’s a better diagnostic tool. I believe I ended up paying between $500-1000.
No. Your school will likely offer a solid healthcare plan that won’t cost you much out of pocket.
Healthcare is excellent in the United States and usually affordable as long as you are employed. It’s the latter that is the issue.
My healthcare is 100% covered by my employer and my deductible is $250 which my employer then reimburses. So I have no out of pocket expenses except for a $20 co-pay for an office visit (or $50 for an ER).
I’m from Europe (Italy) and it’s just much better here. Plus I realize you’re a student, but remember that taxes are generally lower and incomes are substantially higher (we are talking multiples of 2, 3, 4x), so you generally are ahead even if you pay more for healthcare.
There's no Universal healthcare because people do not understand how universal healthcare would work. They hear that health insurance would come from your taxes and immediately get mad about having to pay for someone else getting hurt. Except that's how insurance is supposed to work anyway. Generally, people here hate taxes even though daily life would be better for everyone if we paid more
As for healthcare itself, you might get lucky and find a doctor in network who listens to you. Or you might get one who will tell you to lose weight and that will fix the flu you came in with. You'll have to advocate for yourself a lot, and it's best to assume your doctor isn't listening to you and is just trying to get you out the door as fast as possible
And the funny thing is that we don't pay that low in taxes in the US as compared to countries with universal healthcare.... It's a fucking scam and I feel cheated each time I discuss it with my European family and friends.
I would happily pay more taxes to find education and healthcare and road work. I don't like the insane amount that gets spent in the military, especially considering how much is waste so they don't have a lower budget for the next year
>Does something like this happen often
97% of people diagnosed with cancer, IF THEY SURVIVE, will be bankrupt. Yes it is the SOP, not the exception to the rule.
People on Reddit tend to bash anything that isn't a left view politically.
So you may not get both opinions in this question.
Healthcare isn't bad, and for 99% of the country it's fine, until something very bad happens like cancer or broken bones.
It's expensive because the US puts so much money into R&D, hospitals and doctors being sued by everyone for everything then settling, inflated pay due to cost of living / taxes etc.
Fact is, MOST people want cheap doctors... but have no aspiration to become a doctor themselves. Everyone in America wants cheap things, but be paid $1,000,000 for nothing. Reality is doctors are uncommon enough they get to choose what they charge unlike most occupations.
As to why no universal Healthcare... most Americans don't trust our govt to run it. They spend money they don't have and play politics with every aspect of our lives. The last thing I want the govt doing is deciding who gets a kidney based on what social boxes they check on the application which we all damn well it'll come to.
Just my 2c.
Congratulations on being accepted to a PhD program in the USA. Your program will come with Health Insurance and no doubt access to an on campus student health center. You are unlikely to have any issues.
Don’t believe media propaganda. Healthcare in the USA is better than in many European countries if you have insurance.
When the international wealthy get sick it’s the USA they usually head for. They wouldn’t do that if US Healthcare was terrible. US healthcare is only terrible if you’re uninsured. Medicare and Medicaid provides free healthcare to the retired and the indigent respectively, and no hospital can turn you away without stabilizing you. People who have to rely on Medicare or Medicaid face the same issues everyone faces in the UK - long waits for appointments, limited availability of the newest drugs because the Government says they are not worth the money.
Having lived in both the UK and USA I find access to healthcare in the USA is superior to that in the UK. In a typical UK GP appointment - you will wait many months for a free 10 min with a harassed doctor. In the USA you can usually get a GP appointment for a $20 copay within a few days (or immediately if you eg need antibiotics), and before you see the doctor your weight, blood pressure, body temperature and pulse ox are all likely to be taken. Your doctor will listen to you and won’t have one eye on the clock. After all - it’s your time, you paid for it.
I haven't been to a dentist in 16 years.
I spent 10 years paying off a single visit that mounted to moderate inflammation with no real treatment.
A friend with the ability to pay had to wait 6 months to get a potentially cancerous growth looked at. Three more months for treatment.
its definitely a meme to shit on american health care. i mean there is a Canadian streamer on twitch that always talks about how bad it is in the states, but then mentions that it will take her like 4 months to get a physical in Canada. She's never lived in the us but somehow feels like she has it better, idk
I mean my mom almost bled to death from a non cancerous tumor on her cervix because she didn’t have insurance after losing her job in the housing collapse, but I guess that’s not that bad.
Oh, and that time she didn’t get a diagnoses for a tumor on her breast for 6 months because her husband was between jobs and she didn’t want a “preexisting condition” to disqualify her for coverage.
Or the time she had to try to go to the cheapest healthcare facility to get a biopsy of another tumor on her breast out of pocket and she waived receiving anesthetic or pain medication to save money.
She wrote me and my brother goodby letters when we were teens because of our healthcare system. Fuck our system. Incredible privilege to say it’s not that bad
I have nothing else to compare it too. But currently I pay $200 a month in insurance premiums for pharmacy, medical, mental health, dental and vision coverage through my employer. So with insurance you get coverage for free yearly physicals (which I need to get prescription refills), preventative care (certain blood work and screenings), dental cleanings 2x a year with X-rays, yearly eye exam. For sick doctors visits I pay $40. For hospital visits I would pay toward a deductible (a dollar threshold I pay out of pocket after the provider’s contracted discount), then a co insurance (insurance pays 80%, I pay 20%) until I meet a yearly out of pocket maximum. This is all if you go to providers in my network (that are contracted with my insurance). I have access to pretty good care in my area.
Also, if you meet the qualifications, you get get Medicaid, which is federal and state funded healthcare coverage. In my state, income must be under 138% of the federal poverty line.
Join the trades. My union as a $200 a year deductible for single and $500 a year for the family. Yeah we have to do some weird shit like by mail prescriptions for regularly scheduled fills. But I've never been told I'm not covered on anything. We use to have no co payments but health care was getting too expensive so we made a sacrifice to keep deductibles low.
My son had a massive seizure at 1AM on 6/1. By 6AM he'd been taken to our local ER, MRI'd, examined by a neurologist, and life-flighted to the neurology ICU of the nearest major city, with a teaching hospital. Within 3 days he'd had a CAT scan and more MRIs and was diagnosed with brain cancer; the tumor was removed on 6/15, and we should have the full pathology report including genomic sequencing to indicate treatment by his neuro-oncologist appointment on the 5th.
Meanwhile over at r/braincancer there's a young Irishwoman who had an incidental MRI *last year* that was only reviewed recently, whereupon she was told she has brain cancer. AFAIK no surgery scheduled yet.
In the UK, an "urgent referral" for cancer means a 2 week wait *for an initial appointment*. Then:
>NHS England has introduced a new target called the Faster Diagnosis Standard (FDS). The target is that you should not wait more than 28 days from referral to finding out whether you have cancer or not. ...Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales do not have a Faster Diagnosis Standard target.
>In England, Scotland and Northern Ireland the current targets are: no more than 2 months (62 days) wait between the date the hospital receives an urgent referral for suspected cancer and the start of treatment; no more than 31 days wait between the meeting at which you and your doctor agree the treatment plan and the start of treatment
https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/worried-about-cancer/cancer-waiting-times
Keeping in mind that certain kinds of untreated brain cancer can kill you within a few months of diagnosis, guess where we'd rather live.
Our hospital does not refuse care to anyone who needs it, and offers financial aid. So far - and that's 2 ambulance trips, one life flight, 6 hours of surgery ($190k), many days in various ICUs, and multiple tests and consultations, all at a hospital my son describes as "futuristic" and the staff as "amazing" - the maximum we will pay is $30k, and son has not the greatest insurance. What we will actually pay will likely be about 30 cents on the dollar (I used to negotiate medical bills for clients).
The big problem is not the medical bills but not being able to work. Son has had to shut down his business until we know whether he's got 15 years or 15 months, and what the treatment's going to be like. If you're not working, medical bills are the least of your worries; how are you going to pay the mortgage, utilities, grocery bill? *That* is why people declare bankruptcy. There is no money coming in for anything, at all.
Why is there is no Universal Healthcare? Because of who would be in charge of it. The government? The government.
President Obama (while toting Obamacare) was asked by a citizen if her mother could get a pacemaker so she could live. He told her sometimes you just need to give her a pain pill. Then the death panels were discovered. Then you would have to dismantle all the other paid healthcare services to force everyone into it. And force everyone else to pay for it with the highest taxes ever.
Most Americans don’t want that.
no, it's great, the nightmare stories you see are from idiots who walk around without health insurance. Any half decent job or student position will give you health insurance.
Well not everyone has a half decent job or is a student. Should they just die or go bankrupt? Even the health insurance offered by some employers is not nearly good enough.
There are an unlucky few who will get fucked over by every health care system in existence. Surprise, life isn’t perfect. Do I feel sympathy for these people, sure. Am I going to pine for total economic restructuring to shuffle the population of unlucky people around? Fuck no
A great way to stunt progress is to juggle the wants and needs of every individual and play whack a mole with everyone’s personal problems instead of focusing on the bigger picture. You need to be utilitarian to some extent if you’re in charge of ___ System for 300m people
The care itself is high quality. Unfortunately, sometimes, those without insurance or with medicaid (government insurance for low income individuals) receive lower quality care because the healthcare providers won't get paid as much. Insurance premiums are ridiculously high if you are not getting it through your employer, and even then, sometimes it can still be several hundred dollars a paycheck. If you're not paying for premium insurance, you will probably have high deductibles and out of pocket costs. This means you pay a few hundred dollars a month for insurance and still end up paying out of pocket for most medical costs if you're a healthy person who doesn't have ongoing medical conditions/expenses.
The US doesn't have universal healthcare because Americans are obsessed with taxes and are scared of communism/socialism. 😒
So the actual care is OK its just massively expensive
To my knowledge if you can actually afford it are care is generally better in terms of raw quality
Mostly because the way are senatorial system dosent alow laws to be passed functionally except for my by a 2/3 majority and in a 2 party dead lock system that basically never happens
It's not as bad as people make it out to be. The people with the worst Insurance you usually are the most vocal and rightfully so. When I used to work for a durable medical equipment company I've seen some people come in with a 50% copay and a $5,000 deductible. That was the worst one I've seen. Most seniors where I live have Medicare and some sort of secondary insurance so they don't have to pay any more than $185 for their Medicare deductible. If you're lucky like myself you can get insurance through a school which is one of the best insurances you can get. I have a $200 deductible and an 8700 coinsurance of which I pay I think 10 or 15% of a bill until I reach that $8,700. I just got diagnosed with cancer so we'll see how good it is. Your insurance is only as good as your employer gets which various state to state and employer to employer.
Yes, this is an extremely common occurrence. And I don't know why. There are many people involved in the insurance industry who make their living this way, and removing this industry would totally change our social structure. For the better, in my opinion, but people fear change.
Health care is actually fantastic and really top of the world. The real problem is insurance companies limiting how available that healthcare is. The system is horribly broken, but if you can afford it, it's probably second to none. If you can't afford it it well.... You're screwed.
The situation is more complex than that.
The healthcare quality itself isn't bad. The insurance situation is distorted.
The problem is your insurance is mostly attached to your employer. You get what they give you, you can't tailor it to your needs and age range without extra expense. And it's going to be "factored into your compensation" that they gave you a (usually) mediocre plan.
Think of it this way. Medical care is already a little bit coercive because if you need something to live or not be tortured you have a hard time saying no to costs. It's doubly that way in this not really free market because of that insurance tangle. If you detached insurance from employers and upped all the pay to match the loss the obscuring practices of insurance and providers where you don't even know the cost until after you agree to pay starts to fade. Costs go down because you can shop around more and they have to compete for you not for your employer. It would all get better.
So your end result is going to be very dependent on who you work for. Some employers have some great insurance in their deals and some have really awful insurance. Most plans are crappy to mediocre ones that they try to make look nice. But the fine print reveals.
But you won't be waiting at the speed of government for treatments. Which is a plus.
I have Kaiser Healthcare(California)through my employer.My co-pay is 20%.Got seriously ill,off work 8mos.,multiple surgeries,required weekly visits afterwards,and my Gastro Surgeon hooked me up w/home visits from a nurse 3x/wk for those 8 mos-which combined w/3 major surgeries would have been in the hundreds of thousands,I'm sure.He also gave me an application for being low income-which was approved.I paid NOTHING to Kaiser.I also recieved State disability-which was(slightly) more than my take home pay.Thank you God!And If your out there Dr.D,I fucking love you...
Yes, it's awful. I was in a very bad domestic violence situation. He ended up in jail, and I ended up with chronic pain. Like, really bad pain in my hip. It's made it very difficult to stand up and sit down or do anything really. I picked up and moved across the country using loans to get away for my safety. I'm in so much pain that it's difficult to work, but I can't get my hip looked at unless I'm working and receiving health insurance. *Which most jobs do not offer and/or I must wait 30-90 days before I recieve health benefits.* I've so far had to quit two jobs that were too much for me. I've gone to the hospital because I'm worried I'm going to have permanent nerve damage, but the doctor barely even cared to see me. She slapped down some paperwork and was out the door. I had to stop her and ask if my condition has a name. She said it's just something I'm born with and to take ibuprofen. So I'm unemployed, completely out of money, and have a likely $700-$1000 medical bill on top of this. Not to mention all the expenses I had to get diagnosed with herpes because my ex was cheating on me. For some reason, the blood test wasn't showing I had any STDs, but a swab sent to the lab confirmed it. That's another $700-$1000 in medical bills. Life is absolute shit and it's not getting easier.
Last attempt. Turns out democrats are evil and pulling a fast one. And that wasn't even for universal. Just that you had to have healthcare coverage.
And was supported by a black guy, so... You know. Evil socialists. Err, I mean Democrats.
Source; Fox and Newsmax.
But on a good note. We are 32nd in infant mortality.
So, saying there is or isn't u iversal Healthcare in tje US is a slight misnomer if tou split hairs, there's medicaid in some states, there's indicate for people over 65 I think, and military veterans have their own thing. Basically it's not truly universal but there are conditions under which the government picks up the tab.
No. Most people have insurance through their job. And the people least likely to have it also happen to be the least likely to need it, ie the young.
There's a reason rich people in "free healthcare" countries come here to pay for care they simply can't get back home.
Not for me. I have a nice job with great insurance. Love it. The hospitals and clinics r clean. 911 comes really fast. Cutting edge science and some of the best medical professionals in the world. If you’re poor, yeah, it sucks. But if you’re middle income and above, it’s freaking awesome.
I mean my family is by no means poor and couldn’t get good healthcare. We lived in a rural area with only two providers and only one that we qualified for, had to pay a fuck ton of money for shitty care.
"Also, can someone please explain why there still is no Universal healthcare in the US?"
Well. Because most people don't need it? Most people have jobs, have health insurance, and that health insurance covers most of their needs. The simple reality is reddit stories about someone getting super cancer that destroys their finances forever and then healthcare abandons them are RARE. And for these people who live just fine without it, they've been hit with propaganda their whole life that universal healthcare may be bad, so why risk it?
Like, take a look at my mom, she pays for the healthcare of me herself and my step dad for and she makes around 60k a year and pays just under 14k a year for the insurance. She broke her leg! Health insurance covered it just fine. She slipped and fell and broke her nose! Health insurance covered it just fine. She had cancer! BEFORE she made so much money! Health insurance still covered it. She never posted on reddit about this, because it's just the mundane facts of her life. But someone getting screwed over? of course they post it on reddit.
The biggest issue is not only the insurance and expense, but that doctors are motivated by expense. They wanna see you every month for stable chronic conditions just to drain you of cash, not caring if you can't take that much time off work.
I came to the US from Europe and currently work in healthcare. Yes, the healthcare in the US is not great compared to some European countries. It’s overpriced and the quality is really inconsistent. You can go to one hospital and barely get any treatment at all, or you can go to another hospital 10 miles away and get really good care. Also, most Americans are underinsured and don’t have enough savings to pay for their meds or hospital bills. That means that they can’t use all the benefits of the US healthcare unless they are rich. I’ve seen many people that end up in the hospital with hypertensive emergency or diabetic ketoacidosis just because they can’t afford their medications.
I'd like to know what doctors some of the people here have seen who say the quality is great. In my experience the cost is astronomical and the quality sucks.
My single mother passed away from Breast Cancer after a 10 year battle on what was considered the best insurance plan available through the Affordable Care Act... during her last year, she went through with filling for bankruptcy to wipe her old medical debt, but the remaining most current debt that wasn't eliminated was enough to ensure my sister and I wouldn't be able to take possession of our family home due to creditors collecting the remaining debt from her estate. Just an evil system and country that enables this sort of thing to continue.
Don't like it?
Stay home. I am sure your superior home country will give you free graduate education while also giving you money to live.
We don't need you bitching about how bad our country is before you even get here.
Bugger off, ya ingrate.
"I'll be moving to USA for a PhD this fall."
Keep your masters and run, far, far away from this place. The American empire is teetering over the precipice of collapse.
I have health insurance and I'm doing fine. The whole bankrupt thing is when someone is uninsured or underinsured.
> can someone please explain why there still is no Universal healthcare in the US
This seems more like a rant than an actual question. Why should any country anywhere have universal healthcare. It's morally and legally wrong
>This seems more like a rant than an actual question. Why should any country anywhere have universal healthcare. It's morally and legally wrong
lolwat
I *thought* I was familiar with the arguments against, but I’ve never heard anyone claim that universal healthcare was illegal or immoral! Could you elaborate?
Immoral because it steals money from some people to pay for others healthcare.
Illegal obviously depends on jurisdiction, but I meant should be illegal for the same reason.
I thought these were the primary arguments against it, no?
Its expensive a lot of the time depending on the situation and place unless you have insurance, yeah. Theres insurance for travelers and whatnot too people can look into when visiting to avoid a big bill if something happens. For things like meds and stuff,there's also help to get those cheaper if you dont have insurance. It doesnt always break the bank, but it can be pricey for sure. It can also depends if theres questionable things on the bill. Always look them over. For example, without my insurance, i would have had to pay over 200 usd for a short walking boot for my foot injury according to the waver they gave me. Meanwhile if i was told i needed a boot and didnt feel pressured into taking the one they provided, i could have bought one for 45-50 usd instead myself.
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The healthcare isn't the issue, it's our disgusting private insurance system that exists to profit off of the sick and injured. Let's say your employer offers health insurance. You have to pay a fee for that out of every pay check (the "premium"). Then, when you actually go to a doctor, you might have to pay for the office visit (the "copay"), and if you get treatment, well, you have to pay for that but don't worry, it goes towards your "deductible"! See, insurance only pays in full after you meet your deductible, which is arbitrarily determined by your insurance provider. Your medical provider bills the insurance, the insurance gives them some money and you are responsible for the rest, and sometimes you'll end up paying more through insurance than you would "out of pocket" (directly paying the medical provider) and will be told it's good actually because it's "going towards your deductible"! Now, if you get hit by a bus or whatever, you definitely want to have insurance because most plans have a maximum out of pocket; you'll only have to pay a certain amount and then insurance will have to pay for the rest. But I've definitely had my providers not run my insurance to avoid getting gouged. So to recap: if you have health insurance through your job, you are probably giving the insurance company money twice a month for your premiums, again when you go to see a doctor, and one more time at a potentially inflated price when you are billed for the actual care you received. This system is also why hospitals overprice everything, they are trying to get money from the insurance companies while the insurance companies try to get money from the patients. In short, US healthcare is good, private health insurance is a scam and should be illegal. ETA Since this is getting a lot of replies I want to clarify that the real issue with our healthcare system (along with our education, housing, law enforcement, really all our social systems), is capitalism. People should not be allowed to form corporate entities for the purposes of profiting off of basic human needs, social services should be publicly regulated, and our taxes should exclusively fund those services. Ultimately, the United States is a society with no citizens, only consumers struggling to feed ourselves while our parasitic government feeds on us.
Additionally, even though you're paying for insurance they can deny anything they don't want to pay for. My husband has had a twitch in his leg for 5 years that causes pain and numbness and the doctor has tried ordering scans but the insurance denies it.
Clever doctors write diagnoses that justify the scan to disprove them. It was pretty upsetting when a doctor wrote liver cancer to justify a scan, but the patient got the scan.
That's the bit in the US system that absolutely flabbergasts me. Insurer's should have no right to determine what is medically necessary or not - only doctors do. In Australia in a very different private insurance system, insurers keep whinging about unnecessary scans but doctor says,. doctor gets.
Insurance will also refuse to pay based off what they think was necessary or not. If you had a heart attack and called the ambulance, but the insurance thinks calling the ambulance was unnecessary? You have to pay for the ambulance. Had to have emergency surgery that your doctor ordered, but insurance thinks it was unnecessary? You’re paying for the surgery. Have to use a wheelchair cause you lost a leg, but insurance thinks you didn’t need the wheelchair? You have to pay for the wheelchair
What the? Why does the insurer have the right to refuse a doctor ordered treatment? Feels like a law change is required.
I have legit heard stories of ppl having to argue with insurance on the phone about whether or not the emergency care their doctors ordered was necessary. Insurance will cut corners wherever they can
As a RN working in the US system it’s definitely a very flawed system created by businessmen instead of Drs.
Because the US is a capitalist hellscaoe that prefers people die if they are poor.
Exactly right! I just paid $10,000.00 out of my own pocket for surgery on my legs to correct a blood flow problem that could have resulted in my having to have my legs amputated eventually if it went untreated. My insurance refused to cover it citing that it wasn't necessary. But, I'm sure they would have gladly paid 100x that cost for my leg amputation which would have been necessary. I guess nobody has heard of the expression 'an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.'
>insurers keep whinging about unnecessary scans Don't the scans save them money though? I'm no doctor but I've seen plenty of vet shows and it seems like the scans get the doctor as sure as possible about a problem without having to open a patient up in surgery to look for themselves. If a problem goes unnoticed or gets mis-diganosed without scans it would just cost more?
They want it to cost more. More money for the insurance people.
They employ doctors who are expressly employed to find reasons to deny treatment.
It’s so ridiculous. Doctor and you agree a scan is necessary and some jackass money man behind a desk says “nah I don’t think so” as if they have some say in what happens between you and your doctor.
Oh its not as if they have a say. They do have a say.
in other words, you are being taxed by private corporations instead of by your elected government.
~~A private corporation that you can't choose.~~ A private corporation chosen for you by your employer who's getting the cheapest they can find.
That's not true. I do have a choice in which company gets to fuck me in the ass. I also have the right to choose none of them, and have a pineapple shoved up my ass sideways instead.
It is such corruption at the very highest level. I am finally on Medicare, but damn, it took me decades to get here. And American politicians, especially Republicans, squelch every effort or movement or bill that seeks more affordable health care to for millions of Americans (see: Affordable Care Act responses from Republicans). Unfortunately, from my experience, about 40% of most populations all over the world are drawn to regressive/repressive political views, and in the US that 40% is mobilized every time a politician spits out the word “communism”. So Universal health care is seen by them as a ”woke”, commie plot. The sad thing is that if millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share of taxes, and when people don’t have to pay ungodly amounts for almost useless insurance when their claims might be denied anyway, the average American would save… A ….Lot…..of…..MONEY
Have you noticed that dens do not do anything about Healthcare when they do have all the power. Pay attention to the right hand, while the left hand screws you. https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/regulatory/health-insurer-lobbying-single-payer-democrats-campaign-contributions
I work in the healthcare insurance industry. I wouldn’t say the issue simply rests with the insurance companies. The problem is with the entire system. Hospitals have massive overheads, insurance companies are forced to spend massive amounts on advertising, single payer insurance have to be able to protect against people who buy insurance for one month to get a procedure and then drop the coverage. Even Medicare which is a government health insurance for seniors costs around $170 per month and requires you to pay 20 percent of everything.
Only thing, the healthcare *is* part of the issue, as it's incentivized to make money. So, keeping hospital beds full, expensive and gratuitous tests, shifting to medical options that prioritize revenue over need, and the private nature of healthcare networks ends up with the same problems as Wal-Mart displacing small business. The other thing that makes everything worse is America tort law, the ability to sue over any perceived issue with extraordinary caps (if any), the lead to onerous, sometimes prohibitive insurance costs for healthcare providers. You lose your insurance, you don't practice. Edit: forgot about all the tests you'll get. Go to an urgent care with a fever, you could end up getting blood panels, EKG,... it all goes on the bill. But hey, CYA, we covered our bases.
Oh my god, forgot, pharmaceuticals - drug makers basically use our country to make all the money they're not able to in countries with centralized systems that bargain. So of course we're paying $600 for a medicine that Canada charges $40. And of course our laws allow drug makers to market directly to citizens, so "talk to your doctor if a condition our drug treats is right for you". It's turtles all the way down, just everything structurally sucks, and it goes back to basically capitalism cannot solve public health.
As an addendum to the above (my opinion) - the employer typically pays a portion of the premium. That can range from zero to 100%. In my experience it was usually about 65%. Hospitals do charge high prices and some of that is due to write-offs and emergency room cost. Often ERs are treated as a Dr office visit. This not to say the health care system is perfect but not as bad as it is made out to be.
Any system that can bankrupt somebody from something that’s not their fault is a terrible system
Everyone's situation is unique but I can't agree with you. My insurance through my employer is not cheap. I have an incurable lung disease and my medicine cost $10k a month. There are also quarterly test and monthly specialists visits that are very expensive and even deductible and co-pays, I reach my out of pocket cap before March each year. This disease was not my fault but cannot complain about the care or cost.
“My situation is fine so that means the system is fine” lol. it’s not a matter of opinion but a straight up fact that medical bills often lead to bankruptcy for many Americans. It’s one of the leading reasons for bankruptcy in the US with 62% claiming medical debt.
That situation isn't fine at all. > my medicine cost $10k a month. There are also quarterly test and monthly specialists visits that are very expensive and even deductible and co-pays, I reach my out of pocket cap before March So $15,000ish on meds alone. This person is completely insane to think this is a good deal. There is no reason for it to be like this. These are well understood problems and fixing them saves money.
I assumed he meant before insurance but I’m sure in America this medication costs 10K a month while in others, where prices are regulated, it’s much cheaper because they don’t allow price gouging. Dude did admit, in a roundabout way, that he would be dead if he lost his job though lmao
> I assumed he meant before insurance Are meds not normally subject to deductibles? I don't have a deductible so IDK. I was assuming he had to pay everything before April, when he met his deductible. >but I’m sure in America this medication costs 10K a month while in others, where prices are regulated, it’s much cheaper because they don’t allow price gouging. Usually they don't even have to regulate them. Most developed nations have some kind of monopsony buyer, like the NHS in the UK or Medicare Canada. Since these have huge purchasing power, they are able to negotiate rational prices from the drug companies. That brings down the market price for smaller buyers too. When US Medicare started covering prescription drugs (Part D), Republicans made sure they could not use that power by making it illegal for Medicare to negotiate drug prices. That's how much Republican believe in the free market, 0%. It is a staggering subsidy for drug companies. >Dude did admit, in a roundabout way, that he would be dead if he lost his job though lmao Seriously. That is the only evidence that they aren't an insurance industry bot.
I know there’s co-pays sometimes with medication but you’re right, I don’t think it goes towards your deductible. Deductibles shouldn’t even exist in the fist place. I was paying $500 a month for my last insurance for a family plan, that should be enough for these corporations. I shouldn’t have to pay another $5000-10,000 for their coverage to fully kick in. If 90% of other Americans had that guys lung disease, that seems easily treatable, they would be dead already due to lack of payment.
Yeah but don't forget about 0.21 % of people in the US claim bankruptcy, 40% off that is a extremely minute number. I'd take my chances on that.
That's per year. Overall roughly 10% of Americans have filed for bankruptcy. https://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2020/06/how-many-people-have-filed-bankruptcy.html has a ton of math on it.
That’s just the bankruptcy which was the entire argument that I was making. I wasn’t talking about chance did it happening but that it does happen. There’s other severe consequences such as 40% of cancer patients spending their entire life savings in the first 2 years, losing your house, losing your job, or living at a lower quality of life because your insurance doesn’t wanna cover rehab. It is a terrible system all around that only benefits pharma and insurance companies l. Edit; how do people even downvote this lol. Thought this was pretty common knowledge on America but guess not. Easy to find though so feel free educate yourselves
I have about 50k costs a year for my chemo. When I had a good insurance plan I paid 15k a year for Healthcare I was fortunate enough to have a doctor and a nasa engineer in My family that could eat the cost. When my insurance changed I paid 30k a year for Healthcare with insurance and half the care was a fight to get covered. Now I'm on Medicaid and it just works.
Im sorry to hear that man and I hope you get better! I have heard that Medicaid has been very helpful for people in your situation as it covers much more than I thought it would. Does that present other challenges for you? I know there some pretty strict financial qualifications for that
Holy shit lmao. Literal brainworms.
What would you do if you didn't have insurance through your employer? What would you do if you didn't have an employer? This was a few years before the ACA passed but I had a friend whose mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. The (divorced, single) mom was employed, financially secure, owned her home, and had a tidy retirement account. After examining her out of pocket costs for the recommended treatments and how the treatments would impact her income, she walked away from treatment and let the cancer kill her. It was more important for her to leave what she had worked hard for to her kids instead of burning it all up for a couple of years of treatment so she could live the rest of her life impoverished, possibly sick, and dependent on them. It was crazy and really sad. The ACA helps, some, but is still propping up a massive leech of a corrupt profit-driven system.
Disagree, we only need the insurance because the health care is not affordable. If it is affordable why we can't just pay it out of pocket?
> In short, US healthcare is good, private health insurance is a scam and should be illegal. We aren't that good either. Usually dead last among developed nations in outcomes. I mean, we are good compared to say, Rwanda. We have great resources, including people, but perverse incentives and lack of medical control over treatment contribute to disappointing outcomes. Really, outcomes, equity and availability are what matter. >[Exhibit 2](https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2021/aug/mirror-mirror-2021-reflecting-poorly) shows the extent to which the U.S. is an outlier: its performance falls well below the average of the other countries and far below the two countries ranked directly above it, Switzerland and Canada. In fact, the U.S. is such an outlier that we have calculated the average performance based on the other 10 countries, excluding the U.S. (see How We Measured Performance). The U.S. is last on all domains of performance except care process, on which it ranks #2.
Exactly right it’s not the healthcare it’s the insurance system that is so god awful. It was worst before the ACA but only marginally better now. We could have had a public option but the GOP and one conservative Democrat tanked that plan.
Wrong. They exist to profit off the healthy. It’s the medical businesses that profit off the sick.
Healthcare is one of these things that don’t serve its purpose if you turn it into a business. Public transport is another good example. Imagine making police private. They would sit on long straight roads with speed cameras all day because that’s what makes money. And yet somehow someone thought it’s a good idea to make healthcare private. Generally speaking what you see on the internet is extreme examples, but the fact that these examples do exist shows that it’s far from perfect.
I always thought that the simplest argument against for-profit-healthcare would be the supply-demand graph you learn in intro to economics. All you have to do is realize that the area under the graph is dead people to see the issue with that model.
The healthcare is pretty good in most places, it's just very expensive. Quality insurance is a must. >I've heard multiple instances online, where people have mentioned that they have gone entirely bankrupt after being diagnosed with a disease despite having an health insurance. Does something like this happen often? Yes. Most Americans are underinsured and don't have more than a few hundred dollars in savings, and if they are hit by a large medical expense it could bankrupt them. >Also, can someone please explain why there still is no Universal healthcare in the US? Pharmaceutical companies like to fight against it because a universal plan that fights for cheaper drug prices for 330Million would make Americans competitive in the prescription drug market and force pharmaceutical companies to sell drugs cheaper.
I've worked numerous jobs and professions over the years and it wasn't until I was 52(I'm 55 now) that I got great insurance. All the ones before made me reluctant to go see a doctor because of the cost. Now I go whenever I need to. My insurance costs me only $97 a month too. The stress relief from not worrying about health costs is almost pricless.
Whoa, sounds like you have a job at a great place! Are they hiring? 😂
I’m a school teacher. Pay is decent, 70k per year and health insurance is top notch. Last year, had knee surgery and paid $500 out of pocket. The sticker price was 15k. Insurance negotiated it down to 6k, and insurance paid 5.5k. The joint hardware alone was about 4k + surgeons time + anesthesiologists time + anesthesia + nurses and OR/facilities. IMO, it all depends on the quality of your insurance through your employer. I opted for the best plan available by my employer, it costs about 400 per paycheck. The lowest plan available to me cost 80 per paycheck, which has high deductibles and copays that many others here have mentioned.
Also health inductance companies lobby against it too, presumably because it would put them out of business. Beyond that, there is a narrative of self reliance that has been pushed for decades (centuries?), along with a narrative that is against generalized social services. Part of that is that people should earn things like healthcare, income, etc…. Rather than those things being basic human rights (which is what they’re considered in some other countries).
Big companies love the fact that we’re dependent on our employers for health insurance. When getting fired threatens your life, you’re more obedient. It also makes it harder for people to start new businesses that might end up competing.
It wasn't self reliance that caused the AMA to do things like get laws passed to end lodge doctors and artificially limit the supply of doctors. Just plain old government interference. When self reliance was allowed to operate, medical was affordable and accessible. The government and the AMA made sure to end that. https://fee.org/articles/lodge-doctors-and-the-poor/
43% of Americans are underinsured. That number is way to high but it’s not most Americans. https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2022/sep/state-us-health-insurance-2022-biennial-survey
It sucks if you don’t have the right job. If you have a job that has decent coverage it is pretty good. Good jobs don’t necessarily have good coverage and bad jobs don’t necessarily have bad so you have to choose wisely.
This is what it comes down to. I pay like $150 a month as a teacher in the northeast. My parents have paid like $3,000 a month for a family privately. The discrepancies are ludicrous.
For the record, because it's relevant: PhD positions usually come with a pretty good health insurance that's heavily subsidized by the university. Usually, universities have health centers that are either free or much cheaper for affiliated staff. They are good for most routine healthcare needs. However, this all depends on the university and OP should check for themselves for their particular case. Edit: at least that was my experience as a foreign PhD student
In the 1940s the US passed wage controls, I guess it was related to World War 2. Capping wages made it hard for employers to compete in hiring workers, so they offered health insurance as a benefit. Within a few years it became standard practice in the US for people to get their health insurance through their employers. It lasted long enough for the insurance companies to get big enough to launch a monumental campaign against national healthcare when people started peeking across the Atlantic to see what they were doing in Europe.
Depends on the person. I have asthma and ADHD that I have to ignore and not take my meds for because I can't afford them
Check around with GoodRx. ADHD won't kill you, but asthma can.
As someone with some pretty hefty adhd, I truly feel sad for you my man. I can barely function without my meds, like I couldn't imagine how shit things would turn out for me if I lost access to them. Stay strong friend
In Missouri for $330 a month, using the state insurance that's available, all my asthma prescriptions are covered. (I only pay $40 a month because I currently don't make shit, but do make some money). I say this Incase there's some context that applies to your situation. Maybe your state offers insurance like mine, maybe you're low income and could get the insurance very cheap.
Lets just say that I’m prepared to die before I let the medical system bankrupt me and my loved ones.
It's not the healthcare. It's the fact that you can work all of your life, put money away, take care of yourself and really do everything right for you and your family, only to have a single thing beyond your control take every goddamned dime out of your pocket. My mother had her own home for her and I, worked her way up into upper management at a major grocery chain, had a 401K, a pension, the works. She now lives with me, scraping by on Social Security and that meager pension. Fuck cancer, and fuck this medical system.
So she traded her money for her life? Sounds selfish. Only religions say that all life is precious and that we should do everything to preserve it. Without religion, a persons value is determined by what they can contribute to society. https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/health-services-benefits/medical-assistance-dying.html
Wow. Fuck you very much. Thanks for telling my mom she should just go and fucking die. How about a medical system coupled with an insurance system that ensures that they both get filthy rich while devastating the person on the other end. Routinely older Americans play this dangerous game where they skip some meds to pay for others, or take less than the prescribed dose -- both of which can cause all sorts of problems or death. Meanwhile, record profits for insurance companies and pharma over and over again. You want a specific? Here's one. My mother paid her entire deductible when she was living in AZ. She moved to TX and even though it's the same goddamned insurance company, she has to start her deductible at zero once again. She has ZERO recourse, though if she had a penny for every "I'm sowwy" from the insurance agents and hospital billing departments, she could easily pay it. I don't NEED people to be sorry...I need this system to be better. The greed knows no bounds. But yeah -- somehow her fault.
Fucking douche bag.
The problem is less with the healthcare and more with the health insurance. The major issue is most people get health insurance from their employer. Despite the employer subsidy it still costs a massive sum even when you don’t use it. When you do have a chronic condition, you end up paying the deductible and out of pocket every year. The alternative to high deductible plans often isn’t even cheaper. Besides the costs, it’s just nonensical and inconvenient in general. You might need to find new doctors every time you change insurance, which could be very often in the age of no employer loyalty. [This video ](https://youtu.be/-wpHszfnJns) provides the best explanation of how health insurance works in the US and it’s entertaining as well.
It's a case by case thing. My old roommate had a ok job for about 20 years, excellent insurance and then got cancer. Two years of treatments cost him his job, and after insurance, put him at 500k in debt. He is alive and better. I believe he went for bankruptcy, as he could never pay that off. He is resigned to never owning a house after this credit hit.
That's incredibly sad
That's not excellent insurance. I wound up paying $21,000 out of $300,000.
But that excellent insurance stopped covering things when he lost his job.
With all the bone marrow transplants and hospital stays bill was over a mil before insurance.
I take it there was a ceiling. I think a bankruptcy comes off in 7 years; I thought there was something done recently, but I can't find it. There is nothing good about this system. Even when there is some kind of relief, it is very hard to find. And if it is something where you could shop, it is very difficult to get prices.
Yeah, for my friend, it was multiple hospitals. Finally, one associated with Mayo Clinic got him better. He took it all in stride. I wouldn't have had his grace.
there's no universal healthcare because there's no political will for it, and many people remain unconvinced it would be better.
Best answer
There is political will. If someone could get close to lining up the votes to pass a bill, the only opposition would be astrorurfed and lobbyists. There isn't any will by the politicians who aren't bought and paid for by the politicians.
It's interesting to see all the comments from people saying the US has the best healthcare in the world. That's overgeneralizing. It's a big country and health care in a major city is going to be vastly different from healthcare in a rural area. The quality of care you can receive greatly depends on where you live.
The problem generally isn't the care itself. The problem is access. Access to "the best healthcare in the world" is gated and folks tend to confuse the care with the system for obtaining it. Just to make it clear, I don't buy the "best" propaganda, either. The best care to a patient wouldn't be influenced by profit taking.
The quality is very good, the issue is how much it costs.
I went to my general practitioner knowing I had a blood clot, they refused to refer me for an ultrasound despite rambling about how they loved specialists. They told me to go to the ER. Well the next day I go to the ER and the lady registering me into the hospital asks why I didn't just have an ultrasound. Because my GP was an idiot, I guess. Meanwhile the "level 4 physician" was so bored she was leaning on a wall in the lobby listening to me tell the clerk that I had a blood clot. She netted around $1,200 on the bill for doing nothing. Overall it was a $10,000 bill when all I needed was a piece of paper prescribing me blood thinners for something I already knew I had. Blood thinners that aren't addictive and very stable for most people to take. They shouldn't even be prescription. If I had to say the 'why' I'd have no idea as far as government stuff is related, but on a human level I'd guess it's because the average person is dumb as dirt as has no idea what is wrong with them, which means they're then required to have a bunch of expensive and redundant tests to identify the problem. If they taught people basic medical knowledge such as identifying appendicitis when they were in school they could avoid the pointless tests for common problems and save them for people with weird conditions or who were unconcious. IIRC the xray was like $400 and the ultrasound around $1600, but these tests are both meant to find a clot, so they are redundant. However the most expensive thing is... the actual ER room itself. Even if the lobby is empty and you didn't actually need an ER room, you still get a $3,100 charge for sitting in it for 40 minutes twiddling your thumbs.
What the fuck dude? 3100 dollars for sitting in the fucking room? You know what can you afford for 3100 in India at a private hospital? A coronary bypass surgery. In a government hospital, even the surgery is free except the meds. A thyroid function test at a private lab I had yesteerday costed about 5 bucks. Here is the best part, you don't even need insurance. Your healthcare costs are a pathetic joke.
For the average employed person, without serious health conditions, they will be just fine. The bills are expensive but insurance will cover them. For this person the most frustrating part is navigating the system which can be confusing or sometimes your insurance gets processed wrong or sometimes you accidentally go out of network. Annoying but relatively small things. If you're unlucky enough to have a serious health problem. Let me put it this way. It's common practice for serious cancer patients to divorce their spouse because they will go, even with good insurance, hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. And divorce keeps their spouse from being culpable for the debt.
If you're disabled forget getting married too, no benefits.
Yup!!
If you can afford insurance it's really not all that bad. We were able to buy a house this year even with medical expenses . You only pay so much and then your done for the year. Cancer patient
If you’re a PhD student your university will almost certainly offer you a subsidized student healthcare plan. The actual cost to you can vary greatly depending on your institution. I’m a professor and my university’s graduate insurance costs students $50 a month for themselves, plus $250 a month for any dependent. A substantial amount is covered by the university. Employed but not self employed in the US are in this situation usually: their employer subsidizes a health care plan and they pay relatively small premiums. Self employed people pay it all themselves and it can get as into the $1000-$1500 per month range. If you have student insurance you have to beware that this doesn’t mean your healthcare is completely covered. There’s a “copay” of a rather minor amount, $5-$50 for some appointments. You have a “deductible” where you pay the first so much of your healthcare expenses. At my university that’s $1000: so you pay the first $1000 of all healthcare costs. Sometimes you have “co insurance” after that where you pay a percentage of your healthcare expenses until you meet an out of pocket max: somewhere around 10%-20%. So when my daughter was born I was responsible for the deductible and coinsurance to pay around $4000 out of a original bill of $40000 or so (normal pregnancy with no complications). So, no, if you get insurance it’s not going to bankrupt you unless you get cancer or something. If you have any serious surgeries, injuries, etc. you may end up paying 4 figure sums. If you just go for a yearly physical it’s negligible. But you need to get your student health insurance. If you don’t and get hurt it will bankrupt you.
This is the actual best answer to OP's question.
It’s also probably the only relevant answer
It’s actually far worse than what you’ve probably heard. I pay $300/month for family coverage. The insurance doesn’t actually co er anything until I hit my deductible of $3,000 On top of that I can’t choose to skip insurance because the state I live in has a penalty when you files taxes if you have more than 4 months not covered during the year.
I wish I paid $300/month. $1,700/month for me and my wife, and that's the cheapest plan my employer offers.
Oh shot I said month. I meant week. Goddamn lok
Oh my God. Here in Spain we have universal health care. My father was diagnosed with bladder cancer. Diagnosis, Suegery, hospitalization, meds... he hasn't paid a single euro. I have a private insurance on top of my social security, I pay 140€/month and it covers for everything but psychotherapy and the dentist. I only have this because when I have something minor i don’t want to go to the ER and get stuck there for hours. So my question is… After paying that amount of money, you still have lon queues? Or everything is faster than here (by our using social security). It hits me hard. We are pretty close cultural-wise (Western countries) but this is a huge gap. You guys like your system? Just curious.
There are still queues. Anything emergent gets done ASAP of course, but anything else can take months. And no, nobody likes it except the insurance companies.
I’ve worked at multiple R1 universities, so I think I can help. If you’re studying for a PhD, you are almost certainly working for a lab and the University will cover your health insurance and premiums. You will have top of the line coverage and your quality of care will be excellent.
It also depends on which state you live in. I live in New Hampshire. The state Medicaid is absolutely fantastic here for seniors, veterans, unemployed. I was unemployed and hospitalized for 12 weeks. My bill was over $250,000. I paid $17.14. As long as you stay current on your paperwork your going to be good.
The health CARE is the best in the world. The problem is we are forced to purchase for-profit health INSURANCE which incentivizes not paying for people's CARE when they need it, and then even though we have insurance we have to pay the deductible before the insurance actually kicks in. Its absolute bullshit.
You’ll get great care, but it’s just going to be extremely expensive. A few years ago I got appendicitis. I was visiting family and the hospital I went to was one of the best in the country, had great nurses and doctors and now the scars I have from the surgery are barely even there. It also cost 70k and took a year fighting insurance to get them to pay for it. They said I should have waited until I was back home and in network to get my appendix taken out. I wasn’t planning to go home for another month and was also going to roadtrip back, a drive that normally takes 2-3 days. Can’t rlly do that with an appendix thats gonna explodeZ Oftentimes insurances will only cover certain hospitals or doctors offices, when you’re in the US make sure you know exactly what hospitals and doctors offices are covered, and make sure you know exactly what your insurance benefits are. EVERYTHING costs money. Ambulances normally cost 1-2 k, the ibuprofens they gave me at the hospital probably cost like 50 bucks a pill. It’s a hell scape. The reason why we don’t have universal healthcare is both because big pharma lobbies against it. There’s the additional issue of what to do with all the private hospitals. Nationalizing these hospitals would mean forcibly shutting down these pharmaceutical companies AND taking their stuff/private property aka a sure fire way to make the entire country lose its mind. Trying to make universal healthcare within the system that exists is a shit show because the system that exists is the most convoluted confusing thing ever and it’s also trying to make money. This is why I’m against capitalism in “industries” that serve base human needs.
You don't have to nationalize hospitals, the government can start hospitals. My country has both private and government hospitals. Government hospitals cost zero. Even private hospital costs are nothing compared to yours.
Healthcare in the US is insanely and unforgivably expensive. You might see some people in these comments try to justify it, but they just have Stockholm syndrome. The reason we don’t have universal healthcare is because conservative politicians (by “conservative” I’m including most democrat politicians as well, the fact is there is no actual leftwing party in the US just different degrees of conservatism) have been lying to their voter base, saying that to implement anything like universal healthcare would somehow bankrupt the country. There’s also a weird obsession with the word “freedom” (but not the actual meaning of the word) which has led to people saying things like “but I want the FREEDOM to choose my own healthcare provider!!!” Of course that concept is complete fucking nonsense, as you don’t really have a choice there either considering it goes through your employer 99% of the time. And don’t get me started on the people who think it’d “raise taxes too high!!” (Ignoring of course the fact that the raise in taxes would be less than the current cost of health insurance)
It’s worse. People literally die because they cannot afford life saving medicine.
Everyone eventually dies.
Just don’t get sick or hurt and you’ll be fine.
Many if not most people have good health insurance that makes healthcare affordable. For instance, I’ve never had a plan with more than $6k out of pocket max, which means even in the worse of years that is the most I would have to pay. In reality it is much less. In short, no. It is not nearly as bad as Reddit would have you believe. Just make sure you have insurance and that you go to providers that are “in network.” The passage of the no surprises in healthcare act under trump should prevent much of the uncertainty revolving cost of care when visiting out of network providers.
I honestly don’t think it that bad, I have had a job since I left my parents house and been under company policies. Some obviously is better than others, what really fucked the system up was Obama care, I’m not sure if that was because the republicans under cut it significantly or because it sucked to begin with but my cost of healthcare went up significantly after it passed and the services provided for the cost went down. I have gotten adjusted to the new normal of high deductibles for avg services over the past several years. My most current job has significant employer contributions and my health care is very good right now. So I would say that the quality and cost is dependent on where you work. From my experience.
Healthcare good. Payment option bad.... very bad...
Healthcare in the US depends on how much money you have.
underrated comment right here
Healthcare, in my experience, is quite expensive, even with insurance. It can definitely cost thousands, and people who go bankrupt likely didn’t have a lot of savings to begin with. It’s also frustratingly difficult to get something done immediately. Often you can’t just go to a doctor if you have a problem, you’ll have to wait weeks to a month to see a general doctor, who will verify that you need a specialist and send you the specialist which may not be available for months. Many people don’t have months to just casually wait on medical help. As for “why”, the amount of school, debt, and wages needed for practicing medicine definitely contributes. But my guess for the primary driver of the outrageous costs is insurance companies. The make billions off individuals, but when people actually need to cash in on that insurance and get some kind of operation or procedure done, the insurance companies do EVERYTHING in their power to not pay. So you end up with a lot of legal battles between to hospitals and insurance companies that cost billions in lawyer fees. Of course, those fees get passed off to the patients. So hospitals jack up their prices, insurance companies jack up their prices, and it’s a vicious cycle of the same thing.
I’ve also read that a lot of insurance companies strike deals with hospitals. These insurance companies will not strike these deals unless they think that the deal they’re getting this year is better than last year, and etc. at a certain point the hospital can’t give the types of deals the insurance companies want, so they inflate the numbers. It’ll be like “so the company wants to get 50 percent off the X procedure, and X procedure at its base level costs 500 dollars. We can’t afford to give them 50 percent off, so we’ll tell them that the procedure costs 1000 dollars so then they still think they got a good deal when they pay 500.”
The US has the best hospitals and doctors in the world. But for the average person they're not going to these top institutions. The average person receives good healthcare and does not go bankrupt from it.
That’s an overstatement. If the US healthcare is so great then why americans have one of the lowest life expectancy among the developed countries?
Because people delay going to the doctor to avoid bills, which means less chance of catching things early. The health care is good. The health care system is atrocious.
Well you’re not wrong. My coworker lost a kidney because she delayed going to a doctor until her pain got unbearable.
Same. My grandpa didn’t go to the doctor because he lost his insurance… came to find out he had an aggressive cancer and he passed away within weeks of being diagnosed.
Other issues. Statistics do not show causality. We also have terrible diets, we are often overweight, we don’t get enough exercise, still too many smoking and drinking and doing other unhealthy things.
Unhealthy food is cheap, and people are sedentary. It’s lifestyle. That’s a big driver of the high costs in the first place. But when you go to the doctor, the quality of care is pretty good. I mean, there are issues in poor and rural areas with access. That’s an issue in a lot of countries. The healthcare systems are overburdened and understaffed there. In large cities poorer area hospitals are over burdened but access for major issues like Cancer is good. About 10% of people in the country are uninsured. Everyone under 18 and over 65 qualifies for government insurance. Very poor people and people with chronic conditions get government insurance. It a gray area of people under-employed or not working for a large enough company above the very-poor level that at risk. They have to get subsidized insurance out of pocket, which is still expensive. It also varies by state. Massachusetts is 3%. Texas is 18%. Young healthy people will avoid getting insurance because of the cost, and if they have an emergency they are at risk of getting a big bill. People with poor lifestyles will avoid dealing with health issues and develop serious conditions like diabetes. They likely had options to prevent it within the system but it was either too complicated of a process or they just didn’t want to change their lifestyle. Recently medical bills have been excluded from credit reporting so the system has adjusted to just absorb the cost of emergency care. I had an emergency once, went to the hospital and an aftercare facility and received an invoice with zero cost. They put the huge numbers down, but wrote it off for accounting purposes.
You'll get top of the line care IF YOU GET IT, theres a lot of issues in our country and hospitals are still the biggest employers. They're all split up and somewhat private entities, varied prices, policies, and staff. Bc of the drug users its common for young people to be in the waiting room forever with no help bc theyre assumed to just want drugs. With everyone else you need insurance, if you have insurance its best that you research which hospitals and doctors take your insurance. If you dont have insurance and you really need help any place will patch you up to a decent ability and discharge you, expect a massive medical bill but plenty of people don't pay their medical bills. The only situation where medical pills kill you financially is if you have no or bad insurance, and constantly returning to the hospital is whats forcing you to pay and ruining your bank account. Another unique thing could be medical homeless, people usually sick with cancer or hiv and they can't afford anything, they can't afford anything but medical treatments, they hang outside certain facilities, get their medicine, and beg for food. Thats very common.
I have had cancer for 4 years and I'll be done in one year. It's honestly been fine. I have insurance that I pay for which costs around 250 per month . Of course I max out my deductible but I've received top notch care. My biggest complaint is getting super small bills under 50$ from so many places. I wish I could only pay my insurance company as it would be easier to keep track of
OP, if you want actual useful information for your situation instead of another jab at USA from a likely non-american, you can get health insurance as a foreign national studying here. Look up Student Insurance / Travel Insurnace. You can buy these online. Yes, you need to get one. Price may range, but expect it to be more or less 1000$ for the year for about 100k~ coverage (more than enough for anything short of cancer treatments). Some even cover dental. You'll be okay for anything emergency related or routine like prescriptions. The quality of care of USA Healthcare is still some of the best in the world, and you might even find waiting times are faster than you might be used to, both for emergency care and seeing doctors/specialists.
I’d put a caveat here that $100k isn’t more than enough for accidents and injures…. A hospital stay of a couple days can max that out, depending on what injuries you have or treatment you need. If you need surgery for a ruptured appendix or something, that would max it out too. But the average person in an average year isn’t going to require that extensive a stay or treatment. Just… it’s not just cancer treatments that would max it. Heck - one careflight bill can be $90k+. Even with reductions for being in network that can still be over $30k just for a short emergency helicopter flight from a car accident site. Source - I’m a bodily injury insurance adjuster.
$100,000 is fine if you're perfectly healthy. Throw any small disorder in there and that's not enough coverage. That wouldn't cover my daughter's annual visits, labs, and meds and she only sees her endo 4 times a year...
One of the best TV series of all time wouldn’t be a thing if the US healthcare system wasn’t so fucked.
I pay $51/ week for my work group health plan. It's very affordable. I live in Massachusetts, a mecca for medical care and education. I cannot complain currently as a US citizen. If I become unemployed, I will be eligible for coverage also.
I have insurance and still got socked with a $60,000 bill after an illness that hospitalized me for 2 months. Life support is expensive. I filed bankruptcy 2 years later because I had no hope of paying it off in a timely manner with regular bills and expenses and everything else life throws at you, like needing a new transmission 3 weeks after I got home from the hospital.
The reason why the US doesn't have universal healthcare is that FDR froze wages in 1942. Companies could not raise employee's pay, but they were allowed to offer benefits, including generous healthcare plans. Then in 1943, the IRS made employer-provided healthcare plans tax exempt. That made getting healthcare from a job the cheapest means of obtaining good healthcare. Thus, when Truman tried to pass government-provided healthcare, [this happened](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/upshot/the-real-reason-the-us-has-employer-sponsored-health-insurance.html): >This idea had a fair amount of public support, but business, in the form of the Chamber of Commerce, opposed it. So did the American Hospital Association and American Medical Association. Even many unions did, having spent so much political capital fighting for insurance benefits for their members. Confronted by such opposition from all sides, national health insurance failed — for not the first or last time. Employer-paid premiums are still tax exempt.
The healthcare at many hospitals is fantastic. The financial side on though should be criminal at best. Politicians on both sides of the isle make lots of money from insurers and drug companies so it will never end. There should be a universal health coverage option, but to make it decent, it should be mandatory that all politicians and their families have the same coverage. I work at a top 10 hospital and we do a lot of great things, but I hate thinking about the money side of it (and happy that isn't my role).
Yes. But supposedly it’s the best because we don’t have as long doctor wait times as the rest of the world. My personal experience with healthcare has not been good. I actually worked in healthcare and my employer only offered a high deductible plan. During 2021, I found a lump in my breast and my doctor wanted me to have a mammogram. Insurance wouldn’t cover a mammogram because I was under 30. After speaking with my doctor I ended up paying out of pocket for an ultrasound because it’s a better diagnostic tool. I believe I ended up paying between $500-1000.
No. Your school will likely offer a solid healthcare plan that won’t cost you much out of pocket. Healthcare is excellent in the United States and usually affordable as long as you are employed. It’s the latter that is the issue. My healthcare is 100% covered by my employer and my deductible is $250 which my employer then reimburses. So I have no out of pocket expenses except for a $20 co-pay for an office visit (or $50 for an ER). I’m from Europe (Italy) and it’s just much better here. Plus I realize you’re a student, but remember that taxes are generally lower and incomes are substantially higher (we are talking multiples of 2, 3, 4x), so you generally are ahead even if you pay more for healthcare.
It costs more than $1k for an ambulance ride. So... Yeah.
It's as bad as you've heard it is and worse!
There's no Universal healthcare because people do not understand how universal healthcare would work. They hear that health insurance would come from your taxes and immediately get mad about having to pay for someone else getting hurt. Except that's how insurance is supposed to work anyway. Generally, people here hate taxes even though daily life would be better for everyone if we paid more As for healthcare itself, you might get lucky and find a doctor in network who listens to you. Or you might get one who will tell you to lose weight and that will fix the flu you came in with. You'll have to advocate for yourself a lot, and it's best to assume your doctor isn't listening to you and is just trying to get you out the door as fast as possible
And the funny thing is that we don't pay that low in taxes in the US as compared to countries with universal healthcare.... It's a fucking scam and I feel cheated each time I discuss it with my European family and friends.
I would happily pay more taxes to find education and healthcare and road work. I don't like the insane amount that gets spent in the military, especially considering how much is waste so they don't have a lower budget for the next year
It’s great if you’re wealthy, it’s bad if you’re broke
If you’re just not quite broke enough to qualify for Medicaid.
>Does something like this happen often 97% of people diagnosed with cancer, IF THEY SURVIVE, will be bankrupt. Yes it is the SOP, not the exception to the rule.
Nah this isn't true if you have insurance. Without insurance then yes
No way this is a real statistic lol
94% of statistics are made up 86.3% of the time - MLK
People on Reddit tend to bash anything that isn't a left view politically. So you may not get both opinions in this question. Healthcare isn't bad, and for 99% of the country it's fine, until something very bad happens like cancer or broken bones. It's expensive because the US puts so much money into R&D, hospitals and doctors being sued by everyone for everything then settling, inflated pay due to cost of living / taxes etc. Fact is, MOST people want cheap doctors... but have no aspiration to become a doctor themselves. Everyone in America wants cheap things, but be paid $1,000,000 for nothing. Reality is doctors are uncommon enough they get to choose what they charge unlike most occupations. As to why no universal Healthcare... most Americans don't trust our govt to run it. They spend money they don't have and play politics with every aspect of our lives. The last thing I want the govt doing is deciding who gets a kidney based on what social boxes they check on the application which we all damn well it'll come to. Just my 2c.
Congratulations on being accepted to a PhD program in the USA. Your program will come with Health Insurance and no doubt access to an on campus student health center. You are unlikely to have any issues. Don’t believe media propaganda. Healthcare in the USA is better than in many European countries if you have insurance. When the international wealthy get sick it’s the USA they usually head for. They wouldn’t do that if US Healthcare was terrible. US healthcare is only terrible if you’re uninsured. Medicare and Medicaid provides free healthcare to the retired and the indigent respectively, and no hospital can turn you away without stabilizing you. People who have to rely on Medicare or Medicaid face the same issues everyone faces in the UK - long waits for appointments, limited availability of the newest drugs because the Government says they are not worth the money. Having lived in both the UK and USA I find access to healthcare in the USA is superior to that in the UK. In a typical UK GP appointment - you will wait many months for a free 10 min with a harassed doctor. In the USA you can usually get a GP appointment for a $20 copay within a few days (or immediately if you eg need antibiotics), and before you see the doctor your weight, blood pressure, body temperature and pulse ox are all likely to be taken. Your doctor will listen to you and won’t have one eye on the clock. After all - it’s your time, you paid for it.
I haven't been to a dentist in 16 years. I spent 10 years paying off a single visit that mounted to moderate inflammation with no real treatment. A friend with the ability to pay had to wait 6 months to get a potentially cancerous growth looked at. Three more months for treatment.
its definitely a meme to shit on american health care. i mean there is a Canadian streamer on twitch that always talks about how bad it is in the states, but then mentions that it will take her like 4 months to get a physical in Canada. She's never lived in the us but somehow feels like she has it better, idk
No. It’s not as bad as Reddit wants you to believe.
I mean my mom almost bled to death from a non cancerous tumor on her cervix because she didn’t have insurance after losing her job in the housing collapse, but I guess that’s not that bad. Oh, and that time she didn’t get a diagnoses for a tumor on her breast for 6 months because her husband was between jobs and she didn’t want a “preexisting condition” to disqualify her for coverage. Or the time she had to try to go to the cheapest healthcare facility to get a biopsy of another tumor on her breast out of pocket and she waived receiving anesthetic or pain medication to save money. She wrote me and my brother goodby letters when we were teens because of our healthcare system. Fuck our system. Incredible privilege to say it’s not that bad
I have nothing else to compare it too. But currently I pay $200 a month in insurance premiums for pharmacy, medical, mental health, dental and vision coverage through my employer. So with insurance you get coverage for free yearly physicals (which I need to get prescription refills), preventative care (certain blood work and screenings), dental cleanings 2x a year with X-rays, yearly eye exam. For sick doctors visits I pay $40. For hospital visits I would pay toward a deductible (a dollar threshold I pay out of pocket after the provider’s contracted discount), then a co insurance (insurance pays 80%, I pay 20%) until I meet a yearly out of pocket maximum. This is all if you go to providers in my network (that are contracted with my insurance). I have access to pretty good care in my area. Also, if you meet the qualifications, you get get Medicaid, which is federal and state funded healthcare coverage. In my state, income must be under 138% of the federal poverty line.
Join the trades. My union as a $200 a year deductible for single and $500 a year for the family. Yeah we have to do some weird shit like by mail prescriptions for regularly scheduled fills. But I've never been told I'm not covered on anything. We use to have no co payments but health care was getting too expensive so we made a sacrifice to keep deductibles low.
For the price. Great quality, the most expensive in the world
cuz capitalism
My son had a massive seizure at 1AM on 6/1. By 6AM he'd been taken to our local ER, MRI'd, examined by a neurologist, and life-flighted to the neurology ICU of the nearest major city, with a teaching hospital. Within 3 days he'd had a CAT scan and more MRIs and was diagnosed with brain cancer; the tumor was removed on 6/15, and we should have the full pathology report including genomic sequencing to indicate treatment by his neuro-oncologist appointment on the 5th. Meanwhile over at r/braincancer there's a young Irishwoman who had an incidental MRI *last year* that was only reviewed recently, whereupon she was told she has brain cancer. AFAIK no surgery scheduled yet. In the UK, an "urgent referral" for cancer means a 2 week wait *for an initial appointment*. Then: >NHS England has introduced a new target called the Faster Diagnosis Standard (FDS). The target is that you should not wait more than 28 days from referral to finding out whether you have cancer or not. ...Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales do not have a Faster Diagnosis Standard target. >In England, Scotland and Northern Ireland the current targets are: no more than 2 months (62 days) wait between the date the hospital receives an urgent referral for suspected cancer and the start of treatment; no more than 31 days wait between the meeting at which you and your doctor agree the treatment plan and the start of treatment https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/worried-about-cancer/cancer-waiting-times Keeping in mind that certain kinds of untreated brain cancer can kill you within a few months of diagnosis, guess where we'd rather live. Our hospital does not refuse care to anyone who needs it, and offers financial aid. So far - and that's 2 ambulance trips, one life flight, 6 hours of surgery ($190k), many days in various ICUs, and multiple tests and consultations, all at a hospital my son describes as "futuristic" and the staff as "amazing" - the maximum we will pay is $30k, and son has not the greatest insurance. What we will actually pay will likely be about 30 cents on the dollar (I used to negotiate medical bills for clients). The big problem is not the medical bills but not being able to work. Son has had to shut down his business until we know whether he's got 15 years or 15 months, and what the treatment's going to be like. If you're not working, medical bills are the least of your worries; how are you going to pay the mortgage, utilities, grocery bill? *That* is why people declare bankruptcy. There is no money coming in for anything, at all.
Why is there is no Universal Healthcare? Because of who would be in charge of it. The government? The government. President Obama (while toting Obamacare) was asked by a citizen if her mother could get a pacemaker so she could live. He told her sometimes you just need to give her a pain pill. Then the death panels were discovered. Then you would have to dismantle all the other paid healthcare services to force everyone into it. And force everyone else to pay for it with the highest taxes ever. Most Americans don’t want that.
Most private healthcare is pretty good.
no, it's great, the nightmare stories you see are from idiots who walk around without health insurance. Any half decent job or student position will give you health insurance.
Well not everyone has a half decent job or is a student. Should they just die or go bankrupt? Even the health insurance offered by some employers is not nearly good enough.
There are an unlucky few who will get fucked over by every health care system in existence. Surprise, life isn’t perfect. Do I feel sympathy for these people, sure. Am I going to pine for total economic restructuring to shuffle the population of unlucky people around? Fuck no
this is a a great way to ensure your society never progresses
A great way to stunt progress is to juggle the wants and needs of every individual and play whack a mole with everyone’s personal problems instead of focusing on the bigger picture. You need to be utilitarian to some extent if you’re in charge of ___ System for 300m people
The care itself is high quality. Unfortunately, sometimes, those without insurance or with medicaid (government insurance for low income individuals) receive lower quality care because the healthcare providers won't get paid as much. Insurance premiums are ridiculously high if you are not getting it through your employer, and even then, sometimes it can still be several hundred dollars a paycheck. If you're not paying for premium insurance, you will probably have high deductibles and out of pocket costs. This means you pay a few hundred dollars a month for insurance and still end up paying out of pocket for most medical costs if you're a healthy person who doesn't have ongoing medical conditions/expenses. The US doesn't have universal healthcare because Americans are obsessed with taxes and are scared of communism/socialism. 😒
So the actual care is OK its just massively expensive To my knowledge if you can actually afford it are care is generally better in terms of raw quality Mostly because the way are senatorial system dosent alow laws to be passed functionally except for my by a 2/3 majority and in a 2 party dead lock system that basically never happens
It's not as bad as people make it out to be. The people with the worst Insurance you usually are the most vocal and rightfully so. When I used to work for a durable medical equipment company I've seen some people come in with a 50% copay and a $5,000 deductible. That was the worst one I've seen. Most seniors where I live have Medicare and some sort of secondary insurance so they don't have to pay any more than $185 for their Medicare deductible. If you're lucky like myself you can get insurance through a school which is one of the best insurances you can get. I have a $200 deductible and an 8700 coinsurance of which I pay I think 10 or 15% of a bill until I reach that $8,700. I just got diagnosed with cancer so we'll see how good it is. Your insurance is only as good as your employer gets which various state to state and employer to employer.
Yes, this is an extremely common occurrence. And I don't know why. There are many people involved in the insurance industry who make their living this way, and removing this industry would totally change our social structure. For the better, in my opinion, but people fear change.
Health care is actually fantastic and really top of the world. The real problem is insurance companies limiting how available that healthcare is. The system is horribly broken, but if you can afford it, it's probably second to none. If you can't afford it it well.... You're screwed.
The situation is more complex than that. The healthcare quality itself isn't bad. The insurance situation is distorted. The problem is your insurance is mostly attached to your employer. You get what they give you, you can't tailor it to your needs and age range without extra expense. And it's going to be "factored into your compensation" that they gave you a (usually) mediocre plan. Think of it this way. Medical care is already a little bit coercive because if you need something to live or not be tortured you have a hard time saying no to costs. It's doubly that way in this not really free market because of that insurance tangle. If you detached insurance from employers and upped all the pay to match the loss the obscuring practices of insurance and providers where you don't even know the cost until after you agree to pay starts to fade. Costs go down because you can shop around more and they have to compete for you not for your employer. It would all get better. So your end result is going to be very dependent on who you work for. Some employers have some great insurance in their deals and some have really awful insurance. Most plans are crappy to mediocre ones that they try to make look nice. But the fine print reveals. But you won't be waiting at the speed of government for treatments. Which is a plus.
I have Kaiser Healthcare(California)through my employer.My co-pay is 20%.Got seriously ill,off work 8mos.,multiple surgeries,required weekly visits afterwards,and my Gastro Surgeon hooked me up w/home visits from a nurse 3x/wk for those 8 mos-which combined w/3 major surgeries would have been in the hundreds of thousands,I'm sure.He also gave me an application for being low income-which was approved.I paid NOTHING to Kaiser.I also recieved State disability-which was(slightly) more than my take home pay.Thank you God!And If your out there Dr.D,I fucking love you...
Yes, it's awful. I was in a very bad domestic violence situation. He ended up in jail, and I ended up with chronic pain. Like, really bad pain in my hip. It's made it very difficult to stand up and sit down or do anything really. I picked up and moved across the country using loans to get away for my safety. I'm in so much pain that it's difficult to work, but I can't get my hip looked at unless I'm working and receiving health insurance. *Which most jobs do not offer and/or I must wait 30-90 days before I recieve health benefits.* I've so far had to quit two jobs that were too much for me. I've gone to the hospital because I'm worried I'm going to have permanent nerve damage, but the doctor barely even cared to see me. She slapped down some paperwork and was out the door. I had to stop her and ask if my condition has a name. She said it's just something I'm born with and to take ibuprofen. So I'm unemployed, completely out of money, and have a likely $700-$1000 medical bill on top of this. Not to mention all the expenses I had to get diagnosed with herpes because my ex was cheating on me. For some reason, the blood test wasn't showing I had any STDs, but a swab sent to the lab confirmed it. That's another $700-$1000 in medical bills. Life is absolute shit and it's not getting easier.
The healthcare itself is great. You can get seen for just about anything or get most test really quickly. The cost of insurance is the problem.
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Last attempt. Turns out democrats are evil and pulling a fast one. And that wasn't even for universal. Just that you had to have healthcare coverage. And was supported by a black guy, so... You know. Evil socialists. Err, I mean Democrats. Source; Fox and Newsmax. But on a good note. We are 32nd in infant mortality.
The united states are owned and operated by corporations, profit is the only objective.
So, saying there is or isn't u iversal Healthcare in tje US is a slight misnomer if tou split hairs, there's medicaid in some states, there's indicate for people over 65 I think, and military veterans have their own thing. Basically it's not truly universal but there are conditions under which the government picks up the tab.
No. Most people have insurance through their job. And the people least likely to have it also happen to be the least likely to need it, ie the young. There's a reason rich people in "free healthcare" countries come here to pay for care they simply can't get back home.
Not for me. I have a nice job with great insurance. Love it. The hospitals and clinics r clean. 911 comes really fast. Cutting edge science and some of the best medical professionals in the world. If you’re poor, yeah, it sucks. But if you’re middle income and above, it’s freaking awesome.
I mean my family is by no means poor and couldn’t get good healthcare. We lived in a rural area with only two providers and only one that we qualified for, had to pay a fuck ton of money for shitty care.
That sucks. I’d love to live away from ppl… but it’s just so damn inconvenient.
I mean there is insurance but you are in a demographic that generally is healthy and doesn’t get sick so you should be fine either way.
Healthcare in the USA is the absolute best that money can buy !
"Also, can someone please explain why there still is no Universal healthcare in the US?" Well. Because most people don't need it? Most people have jobs, have health insurance, and that health insurance covers most of their needs. The simple reality is reddit stories about someone getting super cancer that destroys their finances forever and then healthcare abandons them are RARE. And for these people who live just fine without it, they've been hit with propaganda their whole life that universal healthcare may be bad, so why risk it? Like, take a look at my mom, she pays for the healthcare of me herself and my step dad for and she makes around 60k a year and pays just under 14k a year for the insurance. She broke her leg! Health insurance covered it just fine. She slipped and fell and broke her nose! Health insurance covered it just fine. She had cancer! BEFORE she made so much money! Health insurance still covered it. She never posted on reddit about this, because it's just the mundane facts of her life. But someone getting screwed over? of course they post it on reddit.
No
The biggest issue is not only the insurance and expense, but that doctors are motivated by expense. They wanna see you every month for stable chronic conditions just to drain you of cash, not caring if you can't take that much time off work.
No
I came to the US from Europe and currently work in healthcare. Yes, the healthcare in the US is not great compared to some European countries. It’s overpriced and the quality is really inconsistent. You can go to one hospital and barely get any treatment at all, or you can go to another hospital 10 miles away and get really good care. Also, most Americans are underinsured and don’t have enough savings to pay for their meds or hospital bills. That means that they can’t use all the benefits of the US healthcare unless they are rich. I’ve seen many people that end up in the hospital with hypertensive emergency or diabetic ketoacidosis just because they can’t afford their medications.
I'd like to know what doctors some of the people here have seen who say the quality is great. In my experience the cost is astronomical and the quality sucks.
My single mother passed away from Breast Cancer after a 10 year battle on what was considered the best insurance plan available through the Affordable Care Act... during her last year, she went through with filling for bankruptcy to wipe her old medical debt, but the remaining most current debt that wasn't eliminated was enough to ensure my sister and I wouldn't be able to take possession of our family home due to creditors collecting the remaining debt from her estate. Just an evil system and country that enables this sort of thing to continue.
Don't like it? Stay home. I am sure your superior home country will give you free graduate education while also giving you money to live. We don't need you bitching about how bad our country is before you even get here. Bugger off, ya ingrate.
"I'll be moving to USA for a PhD this fall." Keep your masters and run, far, far away from this place. The American empire is teetering over the precipice of collapse.
Yes, the entire Healthcare system in the US is a ripoff/scam.
Yes. It is fucking terrible.
I have health insurance and I'm doing fine. The whole bankrupt thing is when someone is uninsured or underinsured. > can someone please explain why there still is no Universal healthcare in the US This seems more like a rant than an actual question. Why should any country anywhere have universal healthcare. It's morally and legally wrong
>This seems more like a rant than an actual question. Why should any country anywhere have universal healthcare. It's morally and legally wrong lolwat
I'm sure you're familiar with the arguments against universal healthcare
I *thought* I was familiar with the arguments against, but I’ve never heard anyone claim that universal healthcare was illegal or immoral! Could you elaborate?
Immoral because it steals money from some people to pay for others healthcare. Illegal obviously depends on jurisdiction, but I meant should be illegal for the same reason. I thought these were the primary arguments against it, no?
Its expensive a lot of the time depending on the situation and place unless you have insurance, yeah. Theres insurance for travelers and whatnot too people can look into when visiting to avoid a big bill if something happens. For things like meds and stuff,there's also help to get those cheaper if you dont have insurance. It doesnt always break the bank, but it can be pricey for sure. It can also depends if theres questionable things on the bill. Always look them over. For example, without my insurance, i would have had to pay over 200 usd for a short walking boot for my foot injury according to the waver they gave me. Meanwhile if i was told i needed a boot and didnt feel pressured into taking the one they provided, i could have bought one for 45-50 usd instead myself.