I had shitty insurance when I worked for a major retailer, and I had to go to the ER.
My copay was $300 plus 40% of the bill.
Turned out uninsured people making under $100,000 a year got a 90% discount at that hospital, so it was actually more than 4x the cost because I was insured.
Don’t protect the major retailer. Who screwed you
I’ve shared enough specifics about my various careers on here that saying exactly who I worked for at different periods of my life can really narrow down my identity.
That is beyond fucked
Might be cheaper to buy the equipment at that point.
But seriously: That is not at all what the insurance pays. Prices are ridiculously inflated to give ridiculous discounts to greedy companies. Patients and Doctors get the short end of the stick.
The insurance didn’t pay anything at all.
They negotiated the rate down massively, and then required me to pay 40% of the sticker price, so they get away paying nothing despite getting 500 a month in premiums between me and my employer.
Everything in this fucking country is a giant predatory scheme.
I’m supposed to have a colonoscopy because of my celiac
This is why I don’t
Goddamn… as a fellow celiac sufferer, I’m very sorry to hear that. If the blood tests are pretty conclusive, you can probably assume it’s celiac without the colonoscopy. The downside is that if you start a gluten-free diet now and decide to get a colonoscopy later, it might now show anything since you’re off the gluten. Best of luck!
Oh I’ve had the diagnosis for a few years, and I’ve totally adhered to the dietary restrictions I was given. If I so much as question whether cross contamination may have taken place, I don’t eat the food.
I’m pretty well stable now and no longer shitting myself. But I know I’m at greater risk of things like colon cancer, which is something that my family has a history of.
My insurance would “cover” it in that it would go towards my deductible, but that’s still thousands of dollars, and we had to buy a furnace this year because ours died. I’m thinking about going and having it done in Mexico. I have in-laws there.
My wife has a chronic illness with expensive drugs.
Healthcare is around 35% of our families gross income when you include in the cost my employer pays, what I pay, plus deductable and copays.
I avoid going to the Dr as much as possible because I have a separate deductible. If I went for everything I should it would be closer to 40% of our gross income.
That country is fucked up. You people really have to come together and demand universal healthcare, as impossible as that sounds.
We elected Obama on that promise and our reward was the current system 🫠
Obama improved a lot through Obamacare, but it’s really hard to get a good system in the USA as a lot of people are strongly against free and universal health care, even though it’d likely decrease the amount they have to pay for their own health care too. I really don’t understand it.
Oh, it’s very easy to understand. They’re worried their tax dollars might help someone who “doesn’t deserve it”, so they’d rather not help anyone.
Go, get your healthcare, ignore the bills.
Healthcare can’t be left to the free market. Simply because the demand part of the market isn’t free.
My country screens like 10% of total (mostly) boob-havers per year for free (the number would heve been higher if more ppl decided to get tested). So basically everyone is invited, with mobile test units (just big containers/trucks) roaming around the country for the elderly, or for a bit more remote villages, or just to spread awareness & make someone get screened out of convenience.
I’ve got to be honest, as a fellow American with chronic health problems, that seems dirt cheap for a diagnosis.
As a Canadian it’s horrifying.
Anything above zero for cancer checkups seems way too high for me, from Spain.
But they’re very important, so people are more likely to pay for them. America! Lol
You still are paying for it but its taxes I stead of insurance
The problem is that Americans pay both taxes and these outrageous rates for medical. People throw around the oh it’s just in your taxes as if Americans don’t also pay taxes. Ours just get wasted on useless fucking defense contracts
But not actually defending anyone
That’s why it’s cheaper though, and why you also don’t go broke if you’re poor and have health issues.
Per capita, American spends more on healthcare than any other country in the world, and that’s including all the people that leave things untreated because they can’t afford treatment. It’s not more expensive because the care is necessarily better than other countries; it’s more expensive mostly because of a lot of overheads in the US system. Paying for basic health care as part of taxes usually also means that it’s a single-payer system, meaning the government negotiates pricing for the entire country, rather than having lots of insurance companies that each do that separately (usually including a healthy profit margin for themselves). That’s one reason why medicines are so much cheaper in other countries.
I pay less taxes than the average American, therefore my healthcare is free for me in comparison. I also don’t pay for private insurance either.
Americans pay more in taxes towards healthcare than any other country, and then pay for private healthcare on top of that.
First of all, I am glad you do not have breast cancer.
In the Netherlands…Every year or two a buss comes to our village where one can get tested for breast cancer.for free.
Please tell me, it’s the Brabant Breast Bus. If not, your country has failed.
Close.
It is the Borstenbus, which translates to Breast Bus.
But it is all over the Netherlands, not only in Brabant. So it couldn’t be called that.
Shame. Three legged alliterations are objectively superior.
On the bright side, I now know that the Dutch use the same word for breasts we Germans use for bristles.
Since September my wife has had about ten CTs, three MRIs, two major surgeries (the last one 7 hours long), one emergency surgery, weeks of chemotherapy and radiation treatments and about 8 weeks hospitalised including some time in the ICU.
Total cost: $0
Unless you count the cost of parking when I visit her in hospital, in which case I’ve spent about $170 USD
This is in New Zealand with a publicly funded health system.
In Canada and something similar. My aunt got breast cancer and my mum has since been diagnosed with leukemia. Of all the stresses they have dealt with, money has never been one of the things.
It’s absolutely cruel that we would do that to a human being in such a tough time. Why any nation would prioritize profit over someone’s well being is beyond me.
That said, Canada isn’t perfect either my son is diabetic and we still have a lot of profit inducing flaws. It’s just when you compare them with “the greatest country in the world”… Well nothing really compares.
Edit - changed pancreatic cancer to leukemia. No idea why my brain wasn’t working this morning. Point being fuck the BRCA2 mutation.
My wife’s experience and costs were about the same for similar breast cancer treatment in Canada.
Our parking fees are a bit more expensive…
Man what the hell is your wife going through…
A cancer diagnosis and complications from chemotherapy. It’s been rough on her but she’s an absolute trooper.
Honestly do not mean this as a troll, but each and every one of us should call our house representative and let them know that we would appreciate more assistance from them when it comes to how much we have to pay for our out of cost expenses.
https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative
Just stating our displeasure with the current costs here on Lemmy doesn’t help resolve anything.
Sadly, this is my representative.
The good news is he isn’t seeking re-election.
FYI, that double link as one link isn’t working right for me.
It throws up a harsh pop up with a close button that doesn’t actually work when you try to close it, and the formatting was all off.
I had to strip off the http one, and keep just the https one.
And how much are you paying for your health insurance?
About $300 per month. That doesn’t include vision and dental.
Damn. So if this is the only thing you did related to healthcare in the past year it really cost $1850.
Did they charge you $64.77 for the cup some water came in, and $78.12 for the water itself?
Shameless plug for NZ: https://www.timetoscreen.nz/breast-screening/sign-up/
But then of course you’d have to live somewhere that isn’t the greatest country in the world.
🤬
America is well overdue for a revolution.
the idea of a revolution is dead. there’s no way people are going to keep their digital limb aside for a moment to think that they are getting scammed by corporations everyday.
we’re frogs in the boiling waterThe “frogs in water slowly brought to a boil” meme is totally false. The frogs jump out when the water gets too hot for them, which is long before it’s boiling. Just saying ;)
thank you for the heads up, dark grey colour(or is f4 some musical note?).
All I can say is that there was once some site where I had great difficulty finding a valid username that wasn’t already taken, and this name worked.
I’m having a tooth extraction at an oral surgeon later this month and I just found out I’m paying $450 for it. If there’s a complication it’ll be $1100. I also have insurance.
For those unaware how Health Insurance works in the states.
You can have health insurance all you want. Especially if this bill is recent, they will cover a large part of the cost, but most people are still on the hook for Usually between $1000-1500 of all healthcare before insurance REALLY kicks in. This is called the Deductible (and Out of Pocket) expense. You also pay a ‘Premium’, essentially a subscription cost that normally comes directly out of your paycheck.
For single coverage, just yourself, it’s about $1200. For family coverage, where your insurance covers everyone in your house, It’s usually double that. So ~$2,500-3,000.
So this person probably hasn’t had any bills yet this year. Once they pay about $1500 in costs, everything after that becomes (mostly) free. Depending on what you have, insurance will pay anywhere from only 80% - 100% of the cost from whatever the procedures and meds are.
Then funny part is that some places in America the cost is so high, this might be a situation where their insurance DID kick in already and their insurance is still making them pay that much. Or it’s a case where you get a bill for that much but your insurance hasn’t paid it yet… so it looks like you’re supposed to… so you do… then two months later you get a check for that amount.
It’s so. Damn. Silly. And I resent Republicans every day for it. That’s not even the Fascist MAGA Theocracy republicans. Just your stock standard ones lmfao.
I really don’t understand why there is anyone against universal health insurance in the states.
Pretty much everyone is guaranteed to get major hospital bills at some point in their life. They are paying massive fees to insurance companies to line their pockets instead of hospitals to provide better service.
Sure, taxes will go up a bit to cover it, but what you’ll pay in taxes over your lifetime is going to be no where near what you pay in insurance and healthcare procedures.
I pay $0 annually for insurance, and I can walk in to see my doctor at any moment to consult on something for $0, and if something needs to happen I can get blood work and X-rays for $0, then go to the hospital for surgery for $0 (maybe a $5 parking pass).
$1000-$1500…?
Most people are on high deductible plans, so it’s more like $3000-$5000
Most
That could be true, but do you have a source for that? A significant portion of people are on Medicare/Medicaid, which usually doesn’t have deductibles that high.
i can’t give you a source for “most people,” but personally my out-of-pocket is $6k for myself, $12k for my family. about the only thing covered before that number is met is yearly physicals. i pay about $500 a month for this (after my employer’s contribution). dental separate, no vision.
You should also hate Joe Lieberman. He scuttled a public option for the ACA, which likely would have prevented a lot of the shenanigans insurance companies pull, as they would be competed right the fuck out of business with a robust public option. Japan has private and public insurance and costs are generally low for health care. Most kids get it completely free
IDK about how Japanese insurance works, but of course they will want kids’ healthcare free. If not then their already dropping population would drop even faster.
Those amounts you mention. The 1200-3000 dollar ones. Call me silly, but I have no clue if that’s monthly or annually. The whole situation there seems so alien. Healthcare, but also salaries and cost of living. (E.g., $45k/year is a pretty good salary here, while I think it is a junior-ish salary in the states, right? >$100k/year is rare as rocking horse shit here at least.)
So if I had insurance like that and I actually had cancer I’d pay the first $2,000 and then literally all treatment after that would be free regardless of cost and then I just pay like the standard insurance price?
Presumably your insurance would then go up after that or does it only go up for other cancer related stuff?
well it depends.
for major surgeries, no. after you satisfy your deductible, you’re likely to pay a co-insurance on your procedure.
co-insurance is the percentage you’re personally responsible.
so lets say your procedure is billed by hospital for 50,000. and your co-insurance is 20%.
you would be paying 20% of the 48000, so 9600.
up to your “out of pocket maximum”, which can be like 15000 to 30000 or whatever.
if you’ve already paid like 10k already this year then you would just be paying up to 5k for ur cancer treatment.
confusing? yes. fuck health insurance so much.
It’s pretty confusing, but basically your insurance won’t cover much until you meet your deductible for the year. After that, your coverage depends on the policies of your insurance company. Some stuff may be totally covered, some partially, some not at all. And there’s really no way to know what costs what until you get it done.
This is the part that drives me bats. For any other service in any other industry you can get a quote first, but for some fucked up reason healthcare in America doesn’t work that way. The hospitals and insurance companies just do whatever the fuck they want, and you get to find out afterwards if you could have afforded it, i.e. after it’s too late. It’s such bullshit.
Indeed, I hate it when people are like “you shouldn’t pay that much, you need to shop around”. Assuming you even have multiple hospitals to choose from, tell me you don’t get “I don’t know” 9/10 times when you ask about the cost of a procedure.
you can absolutely ask the hospital for a good faith estimation.
No the treatment would not be free, most plans will also only cover a certain percentage of the overall procedure so on top of your annual deductible which mine for example is 7,500, there’s also certain procedures that are not covered at all and the rest of the procedures are at a 70-85% coverage, which is still better than them not covering anything I guess but still pretty dog shit for an insurance that you’re paying over $100 a month that’s tied to your employer
