Commissar SFLUFAN Posted June 16, 2022 Share Posted June 16, 2022 Fantastic society we've got here. Absolutely fantastic. Sick and struggling to pay, 100 million people in the U.S. live with medical debt WWW.NPR.ORG The U.S. health system now produces debt on a mass scale, a new investigation shows. Patients face gut-wrenching sacrifices. Quote Elizabeth Woodruff drained her retirement account and took on three jobs after she and her husband were sued for nearly $10,000 by the New York hospital where his infected leg was amputated. Ariane Buck, a young father in Arizona who sells health insurance, couldn't make an appointment with his doctor for a dangerous intestinal infection because the office said he had outstanding bills. Allyson Ward and her husband loaded up credit cards, borrowed from relatives, and delayed repaying student loans after the premature birth of their twins left them with $80,000 in debt. Ward, a nurse practitioner, took on extra nursing shifts, working days and nights. "I wanted to be a mom," she said. "But we had to have the money." The three are among more than 100 million people in America ― including 41% of adults ― beset by a health care system that is systematically pushing patients into debt on a mass scale, an investigation by KHN and NPR shows. The investigation reveals a problem that, despite new attention from the White House and Congress, is far more pervasive than previously reported. That is because much of the debt that patients accrue is hidden as credit card balances, loans from family, or payment plans to hospitals and other medical providers. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Firewithin Posted June 16, 2022 Share Posted June 16, 2022 at what point can we use the onion shooting article title for healthcare as well? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brucoe Posted June 16, 2022 Share Posted June 16, 2022 There are so many problems built into the system. An example: I just went through a medical procedure. The clinic I go to every other day just sent me a bill. Nowhere on the bill does it indicate they first went through my insurance company. Calling them, they gave me a somewhat cryptic response on whether or not they have tried to charge my insurance company, but tell me I should probably just pay the bill and then sort it out later (yeah, we all know how that will work out, right?). It reminds me of the one time the IRS wrote me and indicated that owed them $48.23, which was just low enough to cause me to not investigate further but also high enough that I might have thought about it if there was even an option to do so. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uaarkson Posted June 16, 2022 Share Posted June 16, 2022 Shithole country Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted June 16, 2022 Share Posted June 16, 2022 Texas keep voting Republicans so you can die holding your guns since you can’t afford healthcare. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
osxmatt Posted June 16, 2022 Share Posted June 16, 2022 Why does it look so much worse in southern states run by Republican governors? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyser_Soze Posted June 16, 2022 Share Posted June 16, 2022 In before nasty Canadians brag. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brucoe Posted June 16, 2022 Share Posted June 16, 2022 4 minutes ago, osxmatt said: Why does it look so much worse in southern states run by Republican governors? Because most of those states don't take advantage of any of the benefits that the federal government tries to make available. Instead, they make it much harder to get welfare, medicaid, medicare, or whatever national program (that's tied to a required equal program from the state). I know Texas makes it so difficult for people to get financial assistance from the government for health care, yet walks around like they're actually doing great work on that front because it looks good to their base. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
osxmatt Posted June 16, 2022 Share Posted June 16, 2022 3 minutes ago, brucoe said: Because most of those states don't take advantage of any of the benefits that the federal government tries to make available. Instead, they make it much harder to get welfare, medicaid, medicare, or whatever national program (that's tied to a required equal program from the state). I know Texas makes it so difficult for people to get financial assistance from the government for health care, yet walks around like they're actually doing great work on that front because it looks good to their base. I appreciate the well thought out response. I should have been more clear my reply was sarcasm, because Republicans often frame crime (and other societal issues) as worse in "Democrat run cities/states," even though the highest violent crime rates are actually in Republican states. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CitizenVectron Posted June 16, 2022 Share Posted June 16, 2022 42 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said: In before nasty Canadians brag. 6 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkStar189 Posted June 16, 2022 Share Posted June 16, 2022 Just a simple trip to the emergency room is a guaranteed $1,500 bill for me and I have decent insurance. A year or two ago I had this random stabbing chest pain pop up around 9pm. It hurt like hell but something told me it probably wasn’t my heart. Every breath was stabbing. Got no sleep, went to dr in the morning but since they couldn’t rule out a blood clot, off to the ER I had to go. I was there less than an hour. Blood pressure fine, ekg fine, blood test for blood clot came back fine. They did nothing else. $1,620 bill a month later. Oh and the stabbing pain was gone a day later. Health care is fucking bullshit here. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anathema- Posted June 16, 2022 Share Posted June 16, 2022 $250 to get my daughter diagnosed on the weekend by utter morons who couldn't take her pulse without making her scream her head off, prescribed her the same shit I diagnosed her online with, and charged like five times retail price for the medication too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b_m_b_m_b_m Posted June 17, 2022 Share Posted June 17, 2022 The only people I’ve ever met who didn’t fucking hate our medical system were those who either have phenomenal insurance or those who died Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Signifyin(g)Monkey Posted June 17, 2022 Share Posted June 17, 2022 27 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said: The only people I’ve ever met who didn’t fucking hate our medical system were those who either have phenomenal insurance or those who died It doesn’t even make sense from a (classical) conservative perspective of ‘market efficiency’. It’s literally constructed to satisfy no one, save for a small, parasitic class of insurance bazillionaires. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thewhyteboar Posted June 17, 2022 Share Posted June 17, 2022 A real remark from a student of mine preparing to go to an American university: “Why is healthcare like a business? It’s people’s lives.” My response was, “Yes.” Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commissar SFLUFAN Posted June 17, 2022 Author Share Posted June 17, 2022 Healthcare should be completely and totally nationalized. And by that I mean, there will be no such thing as a "private" doctor's office, medical center, hospital, etc. - all health care workers will be state employees. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brucoe Posted June 17, 2022 Share Posted June 17, 2022 1 minute ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said: Healthcare should be completely and totally nationalized. And by that I mean, there will be no such thing as a "private" doctor's office, medical center, hospital, etc. - all health care workers will be state employees. Good luck selling that to both of our political parties. Not that I don't agree with you, but the people playing the system are the ones that need to change the system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commissar SFLUFAN Posted June 17, 2022 Author Share Posted June 17, 2022 1 hour ago, brucoe said: Good luck selling that to both of our political parties. Not that I don't disagree with you, but the people playing the system are the ones that need to change the system. I wouldn't even bother trying to sell it to them simply because if I did have the degree of power necessary to implement or even merely suggest that system, neither of them would actually exist. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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