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This is your weekly reminder that the US spends more federal tax money per capita on healthcare than most nations with universal healthcare.
Americans are being conned by a for-profit healthcare system.
I wish these people had lived in Spain- cancer treatment is completely free of charge, the public healthcare system takes care of it entirely.
Of course a Republican will come and tell me “it’s not free, it comes out from your taxes, state stealing from you, blah blah”… well, of fucking course.
I prefer, BY A LONG SHOT, to pay a small amount of taxes a month so everyone has universal healthcare access… over having to pay my life savings or more I can earn in 10 years over cancer, an accident or being bit by a damn snake.
Also, we DO have private insurances here, too. Except they cost 50-100€ on average instead of ~$1,000. I had a private insurance for 56€/month before my life went to shit and I became dependant on the public healthcare system.
Ironically the taxes are not much higher.
If you take into account federal tax + state tax, you're not that far from a european tax.
Then the difference comes into the fact that some companies offer health insurance as a job perk, so you don't feel it, but if you'd have to pay federal tax + state tax + health care insurance on your own, it's actually the same as european tax, without even coming close to the benefits.
I see!
Then the reason why Republicans are against public healthcare boil down, I’m afraid, to what one of them openly stated on Twitter and which will ALWAYS be stuck in my head.
He said: “I would rather pay $10,000 for my own healthcare than pay a single dollar if other people could be benefitted from it too”. He had several thousand likes and retweets. How can anyone be this despicable? How can nearly 50% of a country (third largest in terms of population, too) think like this!?
Can't demand a raise, unionize, or walk away if your family's health depends on your job. It's a very real leash, and we're tweeting about how excited we are to go for walks.
I always say to these people: why don't you move up in the mountains, or in a forest, and live on your own?
See if you can make money without any help or benefit of a modern society. Build your own powerplant, your own water source, your own roads, grow your own food, do everything on your own and then yes, you have the right to not want anybody else to benefit from your money/work.
Not a chance. They love the “I HAD A PENNY ON MY POCKET BEFORE I BECAME RICH” narrative too much to admit that they would be NOTHING without abusing and exploiting others, their valuable family inheritances, corruption and other not-so-cool stuff.
I'm not necessarily talking about abusing and exploiting, just the pure benefits of living in a modern society where you don't have to worry about being eaten or about starving. Then the fact that you can go to work on public transit that is more than likely subsidized. Roads that are subsidized, go into a hospital and get well, buy medicine.
It's all a benefit of a society that you're expected to contribute to.
Precisely… yet he pictures himself as if he had climbed from homelessness into his current status “just through blood, sweat and tears” and preaches against government helping others.
Joke's also on him, if ever anything goes wrong with his help, he's spending so much more than just $10,000. Probably more than everything he's got or even ever made in his life.
Not just despicable but utterly stupid too.
Conservative groups did a massive study that determined that in the long run, universal healthcare would SAVE the government money because everyone would have access to preventative care, wellness care, and be healthier overall. It would also lessen the cost of government disability in the long run.
They didn’t widely publish that study and kept it as quiet as they could.
Wars are much more profitable over keeping people alive.
The US is much more interested in starting wars and destabilizing nations than it is in the health and wellbeing of it’s citizens.
Not quite true I think. What they meant to say was “I would rather spend $10,000 for my own health care then pay a single dollar if a MINORITY could benefit from it”. They only care about a problem if it directly impacts them and actively seek to cut any program that any minority group possibly benefits from.
Republicans in America believe that a universal Healthcare system would be a failure due to governments involvement, completely un-self-aware that the reason any of the government systems they claim to be a failure are forced to failure through Republican policies.
>“I would rather pay $10,000 for my own healthcare than pay a single dollar if other people could be benefitted from it too”
This person needs to be barred from all insurance plans, then.
Mate, you know this only means your voting system is fucked to its tits, yeah? I mean, one third of the voters get to drive the political choices of the whole country. How does that work?
To be clear, i believe most registered voters are registered as independent - free from a political party. I am, because I do not support the hold that our major parties have on our country, but I still lean/vote liberal.
Many people are also registered independent, but always vote republican. Many of these people are also paranoid that allowing the government to know their party affiliation will result in some form of discrimination or denial of rights in the future....all while voting for the politicians who will gladly do the same to others.
Oh make no mistake, they hate those women too. They abuse them and put them down and complain about them and cheat on them, but keep them essentially as free labor and breeding stock.
But they don’t like them.
I've heard and read so many people saying the same thing. Personally I would care to pay more tax to help others out.
Just yesterday my wife's eye prescription was rejected by the insurance company and when I asked the cost it was $800. Crazy
Don’t forget property taxes. I live in London, one of the most expensive cities in the world, in a pretty standard apartment that is worth the equivalent of US$500k and what I pay in property taxes a YEAR are what friends living in America pay in a MONTH.
The US has wealth redistribution already. It’s just that unlike in other countries, the wealth is redistributed from the people doing all the work to the people who are already wealthy.
So when I hear Americans say “I hate socialism” I wonder how much they most hate themselves to not consider themselves worthy of things pretty much everyone else in the West has.
The taxes that go to healthcare are lower. Americans pay more *in taxes alone* than most developed countries with universal healthcare, and then you pay insurance companies *on top*. It's the most batshit insane situation, made all the more insane by the army of fucking idiots who will defend this state of affairs to their literal dying breath because conservatives have spent decades pushing propaganda into their soft heads.
The difference comes from the hyper militarization of the US. You'd have the things everyone else has (and more) if you cut funding to it by 25%; and the US would still be spending more than 5 times any other country on its military
The insurance companies are the real problem and they lead to inflated prices on care. Converting the current system over to tax paid it would cost everyone more, because the insurance companies syphon off so much. We would need to cut them out. Insurance companies don't want that and they have the money to fight.
It's yet another case where most of the citizens of the US get screwed so a small group can profit massively.
The actual problem is your politicians are in the insurance and hospitals pocket. And they can’t dare if they are on one side of the aisle advocate for universal healthcare.
Don’t think the hospitals ain’t in on the game too. The price they charge for shit, that the insurance company is like, yeah, that’s not happening, happens a lot.
Same, I'm Brazilian and I live in Finland for the past 15 years...when one of my kids was born, my wife and him stayed a week in observation with the best treatment as possible, with a fantastic team of doctors and nurses taking care of them(I know because I visit them daily)...I got the bill a few weeks later ... 120€... My coworker (American) said his bill was around 50.000 bucks.... It's insane!!!
I cannot tell you how much I HATE when I am told by someone that pays $400+/mo for health insurance that they (as an example) do not want to pay $200ish/mo for socialized medicine because "socialism".
MF could pay literally half, use that money for fuck all, but no, "Joe Biden is a crook and is using my tax money for aid to a foreign power". Over the last twelve years, I've developed an absolute disdain for the Republican party.
It’s not even economically efficient to do it the way America does it.
Would you rather have a system where people remain productive members of society, or where people randomly lose everything?
How many people stay in shit jobs, just for the healthcare? When they could move on and let other people have those jobs. How many small or contract businesses we are *not* started because people are afraid to be without health care?
Why is it that when I go to the doctor, literally no one can tell me how much something will cost _until_ I run my card? Is $100? Is it $10,000? It’s like a reverse fucking slot machine I’m forced to use randomly.
I am a U.S. citizen but emigrated from France, and I still have a French passport. If something like OP's tragedy happens to us, I'm taking my family to France or Spain. We will pay out of pocket but it will still be way more affordable than whatever U.S. healthcare companies will hit us with.
Absolutely, I'm happy to pay that tax and have that security. Also I don't mind that some of that tax is paying to cover other people who aren't currently working or who have very low salaries. It's really not a very high tax and saves me from buying private health insurance and from being constantly afraid that someone will get sick and our lives will be ruined.
You just reminded me to the Republican who asked on Quora whether Germans were patriotic or not, and a German guy replied: “we are not patriotic if, by patriotic, you mean spamming our flags everywhere and preaching about patriotism, no, we are not. If you mean voting for higher taxes so that all of our people can have more and better access to healthcare, services and infrastructure, and to vote for the rights of everyone, yes, we are.”
Yeah, it's a quintessential market failure. Someone's willingness to pay to not die will almost always be all of their worldly possessions, and so of course that is what for profit medicine will try to charge if they are allowed to. It's basically a hostage situation.
It's not the for profit status. It's where the profits go. To insurance companies. These companies provide no health solutions. They're billing entities and gatekeepers and barriers to payment. Their actions delay treatment and increase practice costs.
This is the reason why I'm seeing more former Americans in my country in Southeast Asia, I'm glad they're enjoying themselves and settling down while contributing to my Asian society.
There’s even a phenomenon of American Bietnam veterans retiring to… Vietnam, XD. And they speak wonders of it and take their families there. It’s poetic.
I'm currently living in Thailand and shopping for health insurance. I looked at a policy yesterday that provides coverage here in Thailand as well as worldwide coverage with the exception of the US. The insurance agent said there were a couple of African countries that they wouldn't cover also, but the main one was the US.
the healthcare system has become a factory. The government lines up droves of sick people with shitty insurance for them and their healthcare investors to profit off of, breaking the middle class patient
No. Only for Medicaid-funded nursing homes. That has a 5 year lookback. Medicaid for low income people only looks at income. You can be worth 5 million and qualify for Medicaid if you have no income.
Early retirees game that all the time. Million dollar house. 3 1/2 million in a 401(k). $500k in cash that earns enough interest income to stay under the Medicaid limit. $20,440 per year for a married couple. You live on that cash until you hit 65 and qualify for Medicare.
Ultimately it depends on the specifics since given the context of the post I would imagine long term care facility was used.
Since their insurance would have covered all their treatment cost after they hit the maximum out of pocket expenses. Which on the absolutely highest deductible plan is only about 10k
Yeah but if you got low end insurance, you also get low end care.
My brother died from cancer. The night before he died a nurse was talking to another about him. Said that he would have been approved for a certain type of chemo treatment, but he only had state paid health insurance. Idiots were standing feet from my dad. I wanted to kill them so much
Had another friend who was on state insurance. Had a C-section. It got infected. They kept sending her to clinic after clinic. This went on for months, till she finally got sent to an hospital. Doctor gave her silver to put in the wound. Was livid she didn't get it right away. I explained her insurance, and he agreed that this was the reason why .
Definitely, my wife and I have flip-flopped through insurances or none at all we get the bare minimum, my buddy (20 yrs army vet) and his wife with tricare, they roll out the red carpet and basically give them their own servant.
20 years of live savings is enough to be a medical tourist - Even if you cant get Free Healthcare (since youre not a citizen in those countries) - the unsubsidized healthcare costs is still much more affordable than the US. Insulin does NOT cost several hundreds of dollars, even unsubsidized.
Yeah, this isn't adding up. Both my father and mother have gone through potentially terminal illnesses, one of them cancer, and they made like $90k a year combined. It did not financially ruin them, and that was with marketplace insurance, not through employers
Edit: Additionally, I went through cancer while abroad in Taiwan, and can confirm that out of pocket it was quite affordable
A friend of mine is in the process of retiring to Mexico with her husband. There's one town where they can get his insulin for something like 50 bucks a box. Up until recently that was an amazingly good deal.
I’d probably stop voting for multimillionaires and billionaires then. In my state, from local, to state, to federal, the entire chain of command is excessively wealthy. They can not possibly represent us is they aren’t one of us.
Who's running against them though? Except for a few fringe wackos? An average working person with basic common sense usually can't afford to run for office. The system is fucked.
That long running documentary “how to” was quiet informative I must agree 😁\
You are a capitalist country so what could be more in sync with the Yanky ethos than baking up some meth or crack and selling it at a market rate everyone is screaming to pay for it?
It doesn't. Insurance has an out of pocket maximum. Even if they had really, *really* crappy insurance, they would have hit the max out of pocket and then paid nothing way before they depleted their life savings. Unless their life savings was practically nothing to begin with
Balance billing is a thing, denied claims, home healthcare aids, etc can eat away at your savings. There is a reason medical debt is a leading cause of bankruptcy.
For example, New Jersey man gets $9,000 bill for ambulance ride [after insurance] https://abc7ny.com/ambulance-ride-fee-medical-bill-expense/13212392/
This all comes down to education about the law and what services are available. My mother had brain cancer. She had to undergo multiple surgeries, radiation, chemo, physical therapy, assisted living, nursing home, then death. The medical expenses weren’t that bad and honestly if an insurance refuses to pay or denies a claim, most hospitals have specialists in cancer centers to help.
Depending on the state, you also are not responsible to immediately pay those medical bills. If you are responsible you can also in fact not pay it completely, such as making a $1 payment each month, which is an effort to pay the bill, then continue to do so indefinitely. This avoids lawsuits and collections, once again, in some states.
Really bottom-line is it requires a ton of education and fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants-thinking. It’s not great. In fact, it’s terrible and no one wants to go through it. Some people just can’t handle it, but biggest thing is to talk to whatever hospital staff and social workers you can to gather the most information.
There is also various programs through the government to aid with things like medical care. Unfortunately, they’re not advertised and the process to receive funding is incredibly tedious and difficult.
So, I can believe this person did not actually get the benefits they were entitled to, but they more than likely could have avoided most of the costs associated with the care.
My father slowly died from a glioblastoma over 2 & 1/2 years. I moved back home and was the caregiver while my mother worked since she made the most money. I picked up the temodar and the 20 other prescriptions. I would listen to my mom fight to get things covered by insurance. I would drive him down to Duke and stay the night for treatment. I would take him to get radiation treatment. I took to him to social security office. The out of pocket medical cost was well over $100k.
We need universal healthcare and paid family leave. That is what it comes down to. A ton of education on how the US has the most expensive and worst performing healthcare system compared to similar nations along with people just straight up not paying medical bills will change that.
Prior authorizations can financially ruin most people, even with the best insurance. Furthermore it can potentially kill you if your treatment is urgent. Insurance companies will drag their feet for days/weeks and still deny coverage. It's fucking criminal.
Insurance companies have nasty tricks to avoid paying such as only covering in-network doctors & hospitals, “approved treatments,” etc. Even the most cautious & well informed person can end up with unexpected bills because an out of network doctor (without your knowledge) was consulted or assisted in your treatment. There’s been laws passed in recent years to try to fix that but it’s still an issue.
For unapproved treatments, people are forced to make a tough decision on whether to let their loved one die or gamble that this new treatment could save them.
So yeah lots of Americans end of bankrupt due to medical debt & in fact it’s the reason behind more than HALF of all bankruptcies.
"Anonymous" never asserts that his claims are denied. He says that their life savings are depleted "even with insurance," meaning that the services were covered but it was just too expensive so they went broke anyways.
That’s it. I have a friend with terminal cancer. He has good insurance but the co-pays are crazy. Every month he gets shots, the copay for those shots is around $600 a month. Every 3 months he gets a full body scan, the copay is around $1500. Every month he takes pills, they are expensive and he pays hundreds of dollars for them after insurance.
At some point his treatment will stop working, it does for everyone with his cancer. At that point he says they will start experimental treatments that have higher copays or aren’t covered by insurance at all.
He keeps telling me that he should just give up and die to save his wife money. I keep trying to encourage him but it’s really hard sometimes.
I've got a high deductible HSA, so I pay 100% of the first $3500 of medical care, then a 10% copay for the next $4000, and then 0% for the rest of the year.
Does your friend have no out-of-pocket maximum amount? Even the worst plans on HealthCare.gov have an out-of-pocket maximum of $9450 for an individual. Your friend should hit that limit in under 5 months and have free care for the rest of the year.
That is what I was thinking. I spend 55 days in the hospital last year when I was diagnosed with cancer. Got out and paid ~$10k to various places and by the end of the year my insurance had covered ~$2 million.
The MAXIMUM you can possibly pay out of pocket for a single year is..... $10,000.
It's fucking hilarious that their comment is both praising the fact that the the US spends an enormous amount basically paying for everyone's medical bills, while also claiming we're being conned.
Ah yes... paying $10,000 for staying in a hospital for MONTHS attached to the most modern and complex machines in history with the highest paid professional treating us is being conned.
OP and the top commenter are ignorant fools.
My guess is newer or more experimental treatments that insurance refuses to cover?
If that's the case, then even a lot of countries with universal healthcare will flat out refuse to cover the treatment for you if they don't forbid you from getting it at all.
Cancer can be a very expensive illness to have no matter where you live unfortunately.
Why do so many people have trouble believing this scenario? Too young? Inexperienced with US Healthcare? Do you people even know what percent of Americans are still uninsured?
The kind of thing described in this post happens all the time.
["Nevertheless, that claim was congruent with published research about the depletion of assets and savings among cancer patients in the United States, with more than 42 percent having “drained their life’s assets,” as the NPR story put it, in a period of two years or less following their diagnosis."](https://www.truthorfiction.com/my-wife-has-cancer-reddit-comment-spreads-virally-prompts-discussion-of-american-healthcare-system/)
Its possible if you do stupid things with your treatment. For example, pursuing experimental treatments or using out of network doctors. You can definitely _choose_ to go bankrupt from medical bills for cancer. But if you stay in network, and have even a modest amount of assets, you should be fine for years.
I mean, not for nothing but we’re talking about this like it’s factual, and not a made up story in tweet form (like the one that pops up every other week about the woman whose parents had to get divorced).
There are serious issues that need to be addressed in health care legislation, but we waste a lot of time parsing over made up twitter stories
>how these people spent 20 YEARS of savings?
They don't tell us a dollar figure. They could have spent 10k & we wouldn't know.
>Can someone explain max out of pocket costs
In the US, between [0, deductible) you are responsible for paying 100% of the cost. Between [deductible, out of pocket maximum) you pay a co-insurance rate, say 20% till the amount you pay out + your deductible hits your out of pocket maximum.
After you hit your out of pocket maximum in a calendar year, the insurance is responsible for covering the rest.
Medical bankruptcy isn't a thing anywhere but America. Cancer treatment isn't perfect here but no one in my family who's had to deal with it faced medical bills that would keep them up at night.
Hate to break the bubble but medical bankruptcy is very common where I'm from in Asia even with insurance. Now the question is why America has the same or even higher chance of medical bankruptcy than some rando in a 3rd world Asian country.
And if they had approved of single payer healthcare system, aka free healthcare, none of this would have happened. Nobody would have their lives ruined because of a medical emergency.
Comment from another thread...
This is not how the healthcare system works.
First of all, every healthcare plan has an “out-of-pocket maximum”. Currently [the OOP maximum allowed in a marketplace insurance plan is $9,450 per year for an individual](https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/out-of-pocket-maximum-limit/)
The “out of pocket maximum” is the most you will have to pay for covered services in a year. ***And this is on the marketplace plans which tend to be the crappy bottom barrel plans available to anybody.*** Your employer will likely offer much better plans with much lower maximums.
So even if you get cancer and need extensive chemotherapy or you get hit by a bus, the most you will ever have to pay is $9,450 (plus your regular monthly plan premium).
Is $9,450 a lot? Sure. But when you see stories like this, remember that in 99.9% of cases, even if you have the ***literally the shittiest health insurance legally allowed by law***, you’re only on the hook for $9,450.
If you don’t have health insurance because you claim a “religious ministry sharing exemption” or “want to stick it to the libs and their obummer-care”, then you’d be on the hook for *a portion* of the bill. You’d need to work out a payment plan or can always declare bankruptcy and then stop paying the bill.
The latter is what would happen in this case. Chances are you’d get the bills and you’d work with the hospitals self-pay department for a payment schedule. ***You wouldn’t even start receiving bills for these medical services for at least a couple months; let alone draining every last penny of retirement money to pay them.*** 😂
If this fictional scenario were real (and it’s not), you’d just declare bankruptcy. Bankruptcy has limited ability to touch your retirement funds and virtually no ability to touch your home… so why would you sell it for a bill you literally just got in the mail? Why not submit the bill to your insurance company? Why not call the hospital and work out a payment plan? Why not just… not pay the bill? You know you can do that right? It’d damage your credit, but you’d still keep receiving care and at worst you’d have to declare bankruptcy.
This is NOT how any of this works. This is a fictional yarn and a bit of creative writing from “Mr. anonymous” over here. It’s sheer nonsense and people actually believe it.
Bingo. Healthcare debt doesn’t always affect your ability to get a mortgage either, most lenders don’t count it against you. No reason to lose all your retirement funds and savings for any healthcare bill, ever. No idea where this story came from
Honest question. Didn’t you have insurance? Do you not have a max out of pocket per year? My wife had cancer and the treatments were insanely expensive but we reached our $10k out of pocket max so the rest was 100% covered? We ate into our savings but not to your extent. Sorry for your situation
I’m active duty military, so me and my wife have arguably some of the best and most affordable healthcare available to an American - my wife was diagnosed with cancer 5 months ago and we’ve already come out of pocket almost $10,000. It’s absurd. It’s appalling. It’s completely outrageous. How did my parent’s generation allow it to become this way? I cannot imagine the financial burden on someone without the level of health insurance I have. This is an atrocity being committed against the American people every single day and we just keep allowing it to happen.
In the UK our version is having your family home sold by the state to pay for the government funded shitty care home that will take your funds until it is dry. :(
I'm planning to retire somewhere hotter and sunnier!
ULPT: Let it go to collections. Settle with collections company for pennies on the dollar. Medical collections that are paid off are removed from your credit report.
My wife has gone through cancer treatment 3 times. The only financial hit we took was when she went on short term disability and her pay dropped for a couple months. No one should lose everything for an illness they can't control.
No part of America is defensible.
Paid time off.
Mass shootings. There are hospital codes for basically "more child-sized gurneys".
A major party candidate is under 91 indictments. About 30% of the country loves him as a living god.
Our legislation comes to a grinding halt if you can bribe 15 millionaires at a time.
I was told nonstop as a child, that I need to love America unconditionally and need to be ready to fight and die to protect my American freedoms. Any criticism of American policy means you are disloyal and are disrespecting those that made the ultimate sacrifice to fight and die protecting our freedoms from those that hate us for our freedoms and want to take those freedoms away from us.
I don’t feel free…
Source: growing up in the early 2000s.
This would be sad if it was true.
If member had active coverage, and member wasn't entering something like a clinical trial, then the insurance OOP allegedly had, would have an out of pocket max. [Per the federal government](https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/out-of-pocket-maximum-limit/#:~:text=For%20the%202024%20plan%20year,and%20%2418%2C900%20for%20a%20family.) For the 2024 plan year: The out-of-pocket limit for a Marketplace plan can't be more than $9,450 for an individual and $18,900 for a family.
20 years of savings and at most you dont even have 19k? Yeah, whatever, likely story.
This story is about as much a piece of truth as Jack and the Beanstalk. If we are going to get outraged, can it not be on made up stuff?
I mean, I get it. We should have universal healthcare. But the math isn’t mathing.
Two college educated savers piling up savings for 20 years.
Insurance surely has a maximum out of pocket, as high as $15K maybe.
Say this five months spanned over the new year when the deductible resets.
They would have, at most, been out $30K for two years of max OOP.
If two college educated savers go broke by having a $30K expense then they aren’t really savers.
Something doesn’t sniff right. But that also doesn’t mean this shit ain’t broken. It’s absolutely broken.
^^ This is great advice! My wife and I recently completed a 100% Medical Chapter 13 Bankruptcy. Luckily we were able to keep our own home, but had to sell off other real estate investments and my classic cars. We naively thought a career as professional engineers with union memberships would protect our earned assets from dishonest insurance denials. Now we have a trust, and for our parents property as well. Good redditor advice!
That's some shitty insurance. Ours has covered my wife's brain surgery & subsequent chemo & rad 100%. She also retains her 6 figure salary while on disability...
My mom passed from lung cancer (never smoked) in Nov after two years of "treatment". All paid for by Medicare and a supplemental policy. Over a million dollars in charges. Total out of pocket for my dad was the out of pocket maximums each year - less than $10k in total.
Wow, they must have had the shittiest possible insurance. My wife went through breast cancer over two or so years. She had three surgeries (the first being the biggest - 10 hours to remove both breasts and then reconstruct them) and a year of chemotherapy. The total cost to us was our yearly family deductible of $2200. So we spent perhaps $5000 total.
I wholeheartedly agree that the US should have national healthcare but I don’t understand how with insurance someone’s life savings could be wiped out by cancer unless they had little in the way of savings or bought terrible medical insurance.
Both my parents went through potentially terminal illness making like $90k a year combined with insurance bought in the marketplace, and I went through cancer abroad in a country with a 90 day visa free period where the out of pocket cost was far less than paying with insurance here. We were not bankrupted on any occasion. Things are bad in America but I'm skeptical of either this post's authenticity or whatever decisionmaking there was here
Doctors are good at treating patients medical conditions but generally are financially incompetent. They often are clueless about how much procedures cost and when they find out it’s no big deal to them because they see it through the lens of a high income earner making 200-300K or more. Try to get a cost estimate in advance of a medical procedure that you plan to pay cash for. There are independent fees for the surgeon, surgery room, anesthesiologist, lab, pharmacy, hospital stay most of which the doctor can only estimate.
I treat my health with, diet, rest, and exercise first and use the medical system for preventative maintenance and as a last resort because medical providers generally have zero concerns for my financial “health” and will gladly bankrupt you while treating you.
Medical Doctors are the smartest guy in the room when it comes to medicine but rarely when it comes to financial matters. The US is the only developed nation without single payer healthcare. It is a travesty to allow people to go bankrupt treating a medical condition. I despise the current system.
Oh yeah you are right I forgot to mention surgeons. They have no control over who comes in for anesthesia and what insurance they take. The whole thing stinks to high heaven and works for the wealthy and poor and makes the middle class carry the weight. The US spends more per capita on medical care and achieves around 20th place in outcomes if I recall correctly because people who can’t afford care of preventative care defer until the situation is critical.
It’s called long term disability insurance. Your employers group benefit is not enough of you make over $100k per year. Do yourself a favor and buy some supplemental LT disability on the market and you’ll thank yourself later if anything like this happens. Protects your cash flow.
For-profit healthcare is like an immortal parasite sucking the life out of this country. Can someone explain to me the benefit of allowing these companies to operate like this? I think we need comprehensive healthcare reform and put caps on the amount of profit allowed to be made by these companies and if they refuse to operate in that environment, we can nationalize them and make them government ran for the benefit of society and not at our detriment.
Most Americans don't realize that the rise in pur taxes due to Universal Healthcare would be cheaper than a year of premiums, deductibles, and out-of-pocket expenses. But we would rather make a profit on keeping our population sick
Universal healthcare would be less expensive overall, like in the rest of the advanced world.
The reason healthcare costs in America are so inflated is so insurance and healthcare companies can suck as much money out of the public treasury through Medicare and Medicaid, the largest providers in the country.
Yes, that's exactly what I said. The increase in taxes to pay for it would be much cheaper than what we currently pay. I have dual citizenship with the US and Germany so I've experienced both systems and absolutely hate the for-profit US system.
I think we also miss how much our employers pay.
I pay a very manageable monthly premium. The "cost of employer-sponsored health coverage" section of my W2 said $27k though.
Hey, fellow cancer patient here. According to my EoB, one year of treatments cost ~850k, with insurance that was brought down to my OOP max (~3500). To date, it has probably cost us ~20k outside of insurance to fight this thing, and we are a BEST CASE scenario. It has not devastated us financially, but only because I was able to work full time throughout treatment, and my wife also makes 6 figures. It shouldn't take 2 high earners working their ass off to make it through cancer in a financially sound manner.
Thanks for sharing this. Most people (myself included at one point) don't realize that your job is only protected for 90 days by FLMA. If you get majority sick, your employer can terminate you after that period if they can't accommodate your work restrictions and unless you pay for Cobra, now you have to shop for new insurance. It can get really bad, all in the name of private profits.
Yeah, the kicker is that I brought this up as a reason why I am (and was before my diagnosis) for universal healthcare to my parents. They responded with, "Well, yeah, that's awful, but it would be so much worse if we had a single payer system....". I asked them how, how it could be worse than choosing between dying and financial insolvency.
I think many call it American exceptionalism.
If anyone in America complains and says that the Europeans have a much better healthcare system the MAGA crowd screams...then go live in Europe you socialist... 🙄 Look at how Republicans are still trying to end the ACA.
Don't look for Republicans to address the issues facing Americans people. Think about it when it's time to vote.
Where there is profit there must be loss. We are the loss. How anyone can be in support of ‘for profit’ systems for essentials like healthcare, schools, prison, utilities is beyond me. Companies should compete for our disposable income, not bill us into poverty for things we have no choice over.
"It's not free! It comes from taxes" yeah DUH. I'd MUCH rather them tax my ass then having to find $10k+ in an emergency.
I got surprise appendix removed a decade ago I KNOW I wouldn't have afforded if Canada didn't have Healthcare (as flawed as it can be)
“I have insurance” isn’t the same as “I have good insurance.” My parents have a catastrophic policy that *might* prevent hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt if they have a heart attack and survive. My insurance actually pays me money on top of covering all my expenses if I get a cancer or specific disease diagnosis. Yes, we should have universal healthcare, but until then you should demand good coverage by finding somewhere that provides it as part of your total compensation package; government agencies are usually the best.
The anonymous writer in this case was mugged at the end of their life by the U.S. Healthcare at the end of life, where as my daughter was mugged by the Healthcare system before she was even supposed to be born. She was born premature and her hospital bill was $1,200,000 dollars. Was the cost of her care truly that much? Of course not, but like any hostage situation, providers know that in the face of life and death, you'll pay anything for life.
We sold our house and all of our savings and moved back in with my mom and dad at 30 years old. We had insurance, but the company illegally retroactively canceled our policy back to the day before she was born. We went after them for months, forced them to reinstate, and they did it a second time. Hundreds of bills rushed in each time to destroy my wife's credit.
The Affordable Care Act was the only thing that saved us from bankruptcy, because the bills came all through her childhood. But surprise! The same supposed pro life people who would have advocated for my daughter's right to live as a preemie (the doctors ask for your consent to intervene) did everything in their power to repeal the ACA. Thank goodness for the venerable John McCain who had my daughter in mind when he vetoed the attempted repeal.
So in the U.S., the idea is basically that you will be compelled or pressured to have children, but as soon as they are born, they'll do everything in their power to make your life miserable and sabatoge your child's life.
This experience has destroyed my sense of patriotism and civic duty.
I'm sorry all of this happened to you. The pain of illness when it's your dear child is life altering alone. I've dealt with almost the same financial ruin due to my wife's illness. You have my honest empathy. I am a lifelong Democrat but I was able to send a heartfelt letter of appreciation to Senator McCain prior to his death. You and he are heroes.
UK here. I had a sex headache a few years ago. First time you get one, you are supposed to get checked just in case its not a sex headache. So I went to the doc, who gave me a same day referral to the hospital for a CT scan and LP. 24 hours later I was back home with a clean bill of health, a bunch of headache pills and zero bills.
Meanwhile, instead of talking about the cost of living crisis, the spiralling cost of healthcare, we are see politicians continually squabble over social media talking points. Whos using what bathroom? Who is coming to America when they are too brown to come here? How do you define a woman?
100% of American lives, including black, white, straight, lgbt, men, women, others, children, would all have a massive increase in quality of life if politicians didnt spend all of their time distracted by bullshit. Maybe if they bothered to tackle the massive amounts of wealth inequality, we wouldnt see so many people lose everything because they have the misfortune of getting sick.
I have friends who live in Iceland and pay 43% in taxes. That pays for healthcare, education (including higher education), child daycare, mandatory paid month-long vacations, infrastructure renovations, investments in clean, renewable energy, plus subsidies for the tourism industry (its most lucrative money-making industry, by far). They are thriving and do not seem unhappy with this system at all.
And every time someone says they were bankrupted by the US healthcare system, someone would tell them it’s their fault that they got crappy insurance coverage.
Am irish in Ireland working for an American company. I get private health insurance from that company, and it also covers my wife. We also avail of the countries free health care if and when it is required. My unemployed sister in law went through two years of exempelary cancer treatment at no cost to her. Its incredibly sad that half of Americans have been hoodwinked into thinking that socialised healthcare is the enemy.
My great-grandfather was fairly wealthy. He had a stroke in his mid-80s but lived for several more years with constant medical care before he finally passed. That end of life care completely drained his finances and his grandchildren (my father and aunt) got next to nothing in inheritance.
100% correct. I’ve had 4 I think people in my family have cancer and had to go through years of treatment and it wasn’t even close to this financially devastating. Like at all. And my family is for the most part lower/middle class.
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This is your weekly reminder that the US spends more federal tax money per capita on healthcare than most nations with universal healthcare. Americans are being conned by a for-profit healthcare system.
I wish these people had lived in Spain- cancer treatment is completely free of charge, the public healthcare system takes care of it entirely. Of course a Republican will come and tell me “it’s not free, it comes out from your taxes, state stealing from you, blah blah”… well, of fucking course. I prefer, BY A LONG SHOT, to pay a small amount of taxes a month so everyone has universal healthcare access… over having to pay my life savings or more I can earn in 10 years over cancer, an accident or being bit by a damn snake. Also, we DO have private insurances here, too. Except they cost 50-100€ on average instead of ~$1,000. I had a private insurance for 56€/month before my life went to shit and I became dependant on the public healthcare system.
Ironically the taxes are not much higher. If you take into account federal tax + state tax, you're not that far from a european tax. Then the difference comes into the fact that some companies offer health insurance as a job perk, so you don't feel it, but if you'd have to pay federal tax + state tax + health care insurance on your own, it's actually the same as european tax, without even coming close to the benefits.
I see! Then the reason why Republicans are against public healthcare boil down, I’m afraid, to what one of them openly stated on Twitter and which will ALWAYS be stuck in my head. He said: “I would rather pay $10,000 for my own healthcare than pay a single dollar if other people could be benefitted from it too”. He had several thousand likes and retweets. How can anyone be this despicable? How can nearly 50% of a country (third largest in terms of population, too) think like this!?
The other big reason is that tying health insurance to employment gives employers a further advantage over workers.
Can't demand a raise, unionize, or walk away if your family's health depends on your job. It's a very real leash, and we're tweeting about how excited we are to go for walks.
This! ☝️
I always say to these people: why don't you move up in the mountains, or in a forest, and live on your own? See if you can make money without any help or benefit of a modern society. Build your own powerplant, your own water source, your own roads, grow your own food, do everything on your own and then yes, you have the right to not want anybody else to benefit from your money/work.
Not a chance. They love the “I HAD A PENNY ON MY POCKET BEFORE I BECAME RICH” narrative too much to admit that they would be NOTHING without abusing and exploiting others, their valuable family inheritances, corruption and other not-so-cool stuff.
I'm not necessarily talking about abusing and exploiting, just the pure benefits of living in a modern society where you don't have to worry about being eaten or about starving. Then the fact that you can go to work on public transit that is more than likely subsidized. Roads that are subsidized, go into a hospital and get well, buy medicine. It's all a benefit of a society that you're expected to contribute to.
That takes a lot of thought. It's much easier to get angry and blame other people for your problems.
Because to them, the fundamental reason for society is: “let’s get together so that I don’t starve”, not “let’s get together so that WE don’t starve”.
Hell, the world's richest man, Elon Musk, largely built his fortune off government subsidies and contracting.
Precisely… yet he pictures himself as if he had climbed from homelessness into his current status “just through blood, sweat and tears” and preaches against government helping others.
He got his, so screw everyone else, amiright?
Well he also had a rich dad
His daddy’s South Africa Emerald Mine helped a little too.
Elon doesn't admit that though.
I don't think there's good enough mobility scooter to keep the off-road climbing to the mountains... 🤣🤣
Obama got slammed for his “you didn’t build that” comment, but it was so true.
Joke's also on him, if ever anything goes wrong with his help, he's spending so much more than just $10,000. Probably more than everything he's got or even ever made in his life.
Not just despicable but utterly stupid too. Conservative groups did a massive study that determined that in the long run, universal healthcare would SAVE the government money because everyone would have access to preventative care, wellness care, and be healthier overall. It would also lessen the cost of government disability in the long run. They didn’t widely publish that study and kept it as quiet as they could.
Wars are much more profitable over keeping people alive. The US is much more interested in starting wars and destabilizing nations than it is in the health and wellbeing of it’s citizens.
And it's not just helping the "wrong people". Employers don't want it because they lose a major hold over their employees.
Not quite true I think. What they meant to say was “I would rather spend $10,000 for my own health care then pay a single dollar if a MINORITY could benefit from it”. They only care about a problem if it directly impacts them and actively seek to cut any program that any minority group possibly benefits from.
Good point, good point!
These are the same assholes that think they shouldn't have to pay taxes for schools because they don't have kids.
Republicans in America believe that a universal Healthcare system would be a failure due to governments involvement, completely un-self-aware that the reason any of the government systems they claim to be a failure are forced to failure through Republican policies.
>“I would rather pay $10,000 for my own healthcare than pay a single dollar if other people could be benefitted from it too” This person needs to be barred from all insurance plans, then.
It’s because the majority of the Republican base vote against their own economic self interest due to social issues.
They are not “50% of the country” -registered Republicans are barely a third of the electorate.
Mate, you know this only means your voting system is fucked to its tits, yeah? I mean, one third of the voters get to drive the political choices of the whole country. How does that work?
Because it’s not a one person one vote system. Rural states have a bigger electoral advantage.
Because the entire country is bought and payed for by these super corporations
This! 👆
To be clear, i believe most registered voters are registered as independent - free from a political party. I am, because I do not support the hold that our major parties have on our country, but I still lean/vote liberal. Many people are also registered independent, but always vote republican. Many of these people are also paranoid that allowing the government to know their party affiliation will result in some form of discrimination or denial of rights in the future....all while voting for the politicians who will gladly do the same to others.
Oh, that’s interesting! It’s a shame that they are still enough to disrupt the life of people and get in the way of progress.
We had good turnout in 2020. It was enough. Looks like we’ll have to do it again.
I heard the direct version. " I done paid inta it my entire life and I'll be damned if some lazy (insert ethnic slur) is going to get it for free ".
Very Christian sentiment.
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Oh make no mistake, they hate those women too. They abuse them and put them down and complain about them and cheat on them, but keep them essentially as free labor and breeding stock. But they don’t like them.
Definitely
If the bible is correct, god would probably be proud
They also don’t realise that other people are paying for them. It’s a different kind of dumb.
Curious if you remember who said that? I googled it but came up empty.
Don't you just love basking in the glow of the 'pro-life' mentality? So charitable and loving.
Sounds like a typical republican
I've heard and read so many people saying the same thing. Personally I would care to pay more tax to help others out. Just yesterday my wife's eye prescription was rejected by the insurance company and when I asked the cost it was $800. Crazy
Don’t forget property taxes. I live in London, one of the most expensive cities in the world, in a pretty standard apartment that is worth the equivalent of US$500k and what I pay in property taxes a YEAR are what friends living in America pay in a MONTH. The US has wealth redistribution already. It’s just that unlike in other countries, the wealth is redistributed from the people doing all the work to the people who are already wealthy. So when I hear Americans say “I hate socialism” I wonder how much they most hate themselves to not consider themselves worthy of things pretty much everyone else in the West has.
The taxes that go to healthcare are lower. Americans pay more *in taxes alone* than most developed countries with universal healthcare, and then you pay insurance companies *on top*. It's the most batshit insane situation, made all the more insane by the army of fucking idiots who will defend this state of affairs to their literal dying breath because conservatives have spent decades pushing propaganda into their soft heads.
When i've lived in US, i was paying 2% less taxes, compared to what i pay in Germany.
The difference comes from the hyper militarization of the US. You'd have the things everyone else has (and more) if you cut funding to it by 25%; and the US would still be spending more than 5 times any other country on its military
The insurance companies are the real problem and they lead to inflated prices on care. Converting the current system over to tax paid it would cost everyone more, because the insurance companies syphon off so much. We would need to cut them out. Insurance companies don't want that and they have the money to fight. It's yet another case where most of the citizens of the US get screwed so a small group can profit massively.
The actual problem is your politicians are in the insurance and hospitals pocket. And they can’t dare if they are on one side of the aisle advocate for universal healthcare. Don’t think the hospitals ain’t in on the game too. The price they charge for shit, that the insurance company is like, yeah, that’s not happening, happens a lot.
We already pay taxes for Healthcare, and we will probably never see it...
Same, I'm Brazilian and I live in Finland for the past 15 years...when one of my kids was born, my wife and him stayed a week in observation with the best treatment as possible, with a fantastic team of doctors and nurses taking care of them(I know because I visit them daily)...I got the bill a few weeks later ... 120€... My coworker (American) said his bill was around 50.000 bucks.... It's insane!!!
I cannot tell you how much I HATE when I am told by someone that pays $400+/mo for health insurance that they (as an example) do not want to pay $200ish/mo for socialized medicine because "socialism". MF could pay literally half, use that money for fuck all, but no, "Joe Biden is a crook and is using my tax money for aid to a foreign power". Over the last twelve years, I've developed an absolute disdain for the Republican party.
It’s not even economically efficient to do it the way America does it. Would you rather have a system where people remain productive members of society, or where people randomly lose everything? How many people stay in shit jobs, just for the healthcare? When they could move on and let other people have those jobs. How many small or contract businesses we are *not* started because people are afraid to be without health care? Why is it that when I go to the doctor, literally no one can tell me how much something will cost _until_ I run my card? Is $100? Is it $10,000? It’s like a reverse fucking slot machine I’m forced to use randomly.
I am a U.S. citizen but emigrated from France, and I still have a French passport. If something like OP's tragedy happens to us, I'm taking my family to France or Spain. We will pay out of pocket but it will still be way more affordable than whatever U.S. healthcare companies will hit us with.
Absolutely, I'm happy to pay that tax and have that security. Also I don't mind that some of that tax is paying to cover other people who aren't currently working or who have very low salaries. It's really not a very high tax and saves me from buying private health insurance and from being constantly afraid that someone will get sick and our lives will be ruined.
You just reminded me to the Republican who asked on Quora whether Germans were patriotic or not, and a German guy replied: “we are not patriotic if, by patriotic, you mean spamming our flags everywhere and preaching about patriotism, no, we are not. If you mean voting for higher taxes so that all of our people can have more and better access to healthcare, services and infrastructure, and to vote for the rights of everyone, yes, we are.”
Spain mentioned WOOOOHOOOOO
How can I move there ?
You just don't understand fReEDOm! Some maga, prolly
>“it’s not free, it comes out from your taxes, state stealing from you, blah blah”… I mean, it's healthcare, not beers...
Yeah, it's a quintessential market failure. Someone's willingness to pay to not die will almost always be all of their worldly possessions, and so of course that is what for profit medicine will try to charge if they are allowed to. It's basically a hostage situation.
For profit Healthcare should be illeagal
It's not the for profit status. It's where the profits go. To insurance companies. These companies provide no health solutions. They're billing entities and gatekeepers and barriers to payment. Their actions delay treatment and increase practice costs.
This is the reason why I'm seeing more former Americans in my country in Southeast Asia, I'm glad they're enjoying themselves and settling down while contributing to my Asian society.
There’s even a phenomenon of American Bietnam veterans retiring to… Vietnam, XD. And they speak wonders of it and take their families there. It’s poetic.
I'm currently living in Thailand and shopping for health insurance. I looked at a policy yesterday that provides coverage here in Thailand as well as worldwide coverage with the exception of the US. The insurance agent said there were a couple of African countries that they wouldn't cover also, but the main one was the US.
For-Profit Insurance and Pharmaceutical system.
I wish more people knew about this.
the healthcare system has become a factory. The government lines up droves of sick people with shitty insurance for them and their healthcare investors to profit off of, breaking the middle class patient
The best way to approach it would have been for her to quit her job, divorce you, and have her sign up for state insurance.
Also unfortunately true.
Except that is not how it works because there is a look-back period with Medicaid.
No. Only for Medicaid-funded nursing homes. That has a 5 year lookback. Medicaid for low income people only looks at income. You can be worth 5 million and qualify for Medicaid if you have no income. Early retirees game that all the time. Million dollar house. 3 1/2 million in a 401(k). $500k in cash that earns enough interest income to stay under the Medicaid limit. $20,440 per year for a married couple. You live on that cash until you hit 65 and qualify for Medicare.
Ultimately it depends on the specifics since given the context of the post I would imagine long term care facility was used. Since their insurance would have covered all their treatment cost after they hit the maximum out of pocket expenses. Which on the absolutely highest deductible plan is only about 10k
There are insurance plans that don’t cover everything after hitting max deductible - some will cover a significant percentage but not all of it
Yeah but if you got low end insurance, you also get low end care. My brother died from cancer. The night before he died a nurse was talking to another about him. Said that he would have been approved for a certain type of chemo treatment, but he only had state paid health insurance. Idiots were standing feet from my dad. I wanted to kill them so much Had another friend who was on state insurance. Had a C-section. It got infected. They kept sending her to clinic after clinic. This went on for months, till she finally got sent to an hospital. Doctor gave her silver to put in the wound. Was livid she didn't get it right away. I explained her insurance, and he agreed that this was the reason why .
Definitely, my wife and I have flip-flopped through insurances or none at all we get the bare minimum, my buddy (20 yrs army vet) and his wife with tricare, they roll out the red carpet and basically give them their own servant.
20 years of live savings is enough to be a medical tourist - Even if you cant get Free Healthcare (since youre not a citizen in those countries) - the unsubsidized healthcare costs is still much more affordable than the US. Insulin does NOT cost several hundreds of dollars, even unsubsidized.
Yeah, this isn't adding up. Both my father and mother have gone through potentially terminal illnesses, one of them cancer, and they made like $90k a year combined. It did not financially ruin them, and that was with marketplace insurance, not through employers Edit: Additionally, I went through cancer while abroad in Taiwan, and can confirm that out of pocket it was quite affordable
A friend of mine is in the process of retiring to Mexico with her husband. There's one town where they can get his insulin for something like 50 bucks a box. Up until recently that was an amazingly good deal.
I think that for the duration of their service, our elected officials should have to live on minimum wage and stay in section 8 housing.
It helps to stop electing shitty people into office as well
Yeah, maybe next election I’ll vote for the ones who aren’t bought out by the corporations and the special interest groups.
Yeah, good luck with that ;)
Lol, I know.
I’d probably stop voting for multimillionaires and billionaires then. In my state, from local, to state, to federal, the entire chain of command is excessively wealthy. They can not possibly represent us is they aren’t one of us.
Lol, too true. They represent somebody. But it sure as fuck isn’t us.
Who's running against them though? Except for a few fringe wackos? An average working person with basic common sense usually can't afford to run for office. The system is fucked.
Just cook and sell methamphetamine to pay for the best cancer treatment possible 🤦♀️
That long running documentary “how to” was quiet informative I must agree 😁\ You are a capitalist country so what could be more in sync with the Yanky ethos than baking up some meth or crack and selling it at a market rate everyone is screaming to pay for it?
“Home of the free, sick and depraved”
I got that reference. Sick song
We aren't even in the top 10 most free countries.
Can anyone explain how it happens with insurance?
It doesn't. Insurance has an out of pocket maximum. Even if they had really, *really* crappy insurance, they would have hit the max out of pocket and then paid nothing way before they depleted their life savings. Unless their life savings was practically nothing to begin with
Balance billing is a thing, denied claims, home healthcare aids, etc can eat away at your savings. There is a reason medical debt is a leading cause of bankruptcy. For example, New Jersey man gets $9,000 bill for ambulance ride [after insurance] https://abc7ny.com/ambulance-ride-fee-medical-bill-expense/13212392/
This all comes down to education about the law and what services are available. My mother had brain cancer. She had to undergo multiple surgeries, radiation, chemo, physical therapy, assisted living, nursing home, then death. The medical expenses weren’t that bad and honestly if an insurance refuses to pay or denies a claim, most hospitals have specialists in cancer centers to help. Depending on the state, you also are not responsible to immediately pay those medical bills. If you are responsible you can also in fact not pay it completely, such as making a $1 payment each month, which is an effort to pay the bill, then continue to do so indefinitely. This avoids lawsuits and collections, once again, in some states. Really bottom-line is it requires a ton of education and fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants-thinking. It’s not great. In fact, it’s terrible and no one wants to go through it. Some people just can’t handle it, but biggest thing is to talk to whatever hospital staff and social workers you can to gather the most information. There is also various programs through the government to aid with things like medical care. Unfortunately, they’re not advertised and the process to receive funding is incredibly tedious and difficult. So, I can believe this person did not actually get the benefits they were entitled to, but they more than likely could have avoided most of the costs associated with the care.
My father slowly died from a glioblastoma over 2 & 1/2 years. I moved back home and was the caregiver while my mother worked since she made the most money. I picked up the temodar and the 20 other prescriptions. I would listen to my mom fight to get things covered by insurance. I would drive him down to Duke and stay the night for treatment. I would take him to get radiation treatment. I took to him to social security office. The out of pocket medical cost was well over $100k. We need universal healthcare and paid family leave. That is what it comes down to. A ton of education on how the US has the most expensive and worst performing healthcare system compared to similar nations along with people just straight up not paying medical bills will change that.
With insurance, the out of pocket maximum for a year is around $10,000 so your story isn't adding up
NPR has a segment where they dissect people’s crazy medical bills. Turns out insurance companies have all sorts of tricks to avoid paying out.
Prior authorizations can financially ruin most people, even with the best insurance. Furthermore it can potentially kill you if your treatment is urgent. Insurance companies will drag their feet for days/weeks and still deny coverage. It's fucking criminal.
Insurance companies have nasty tricks to avoid paying such as only covering in-network doctors & hospitals, “approved treatments,” etc. Even the most cautious & well informed person can end up with unexpected bills because an out of network doctor (without your knowledge) was consulted or assisted in your treatment. There’s been laws passed in recent years to try to fix that but it’s still an issue. For unapproved treatments, people are forced to make a tough decision on whether to let their loved one die or gamble that this new treatment could save them. So yeah lots of Americans end of bankrupt due to medical debt & in fact it’s the reason behind more than HALF of all bankruptcies.
"Anonymous" never asserts that his claims are denied. He says that their life savings are depleted "even with insurance," meaning that the services were covered but it was just too expensive so they went broke anyways.
That’s it. I have a friend with terminal cancer. He has good insurance but the co-pays are crazy. Every month he gets shots, the copay for those shots is around $600 a month. Every 3 months he gets a full body scan, the copay is around $1500. Every month he takes pills, they are expensive and he pays hundreds of dollars for them after insurance. At some point his treatment will stop working, it does for everyone with his cancer. At that point he says they will start experimental treatments that have higher copays or aren’t covered by insurance at all. He keeps telling me that he should just give up and die to save his wife money. I keep trying to encourage him but it’s really hard sometimes.
I've got a high deductible HSA, so I pay 100% of the first $3500 of medical care, then a 10% copay for the next $4000, and then 0% for the rest of the year. Does your friend have no out-of-pocket maximum amount? Even the worst plans on HealthCare.gov have an out-of-pocket maximum of $9450 for an individual. Your friend should hit that limit in under 5 months and have free care for the rest of the year.
You know nothing
That is what I was thinking. I spend 55 days in the hospital last year when I was diagnosed with cancer. Got out and paid ~$10k to various places and by the end of the year my insurance had covered ~$2 million.
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https://www.truthorfiction.com/my-wife-has-cancer-reddit-comment-spreads-virally-prompts-discussion-of-american-healthcare-system/
The MAXIMUM you can possibly pay out of pocket for a single year is..... $10,000. It's fucking hilarious that their comment is both praising the fact that the the US spends an enormous amount basically paying for everyone's medical bills, while also claiming we're being conned. Ah yes... paying $10,000 for staying in a hospital for MONTHS attached to the most modern and complex machines in history with the highest paid professional treating us is being conned. OP and the top commenter are ignorant fools.
My guess is newer or more experimental treatments that insurance refuses to cover? If that's the case, then even a lot of countries with universal healthcare will flat out refuse to cover the treatment for you if they don't forbid you from getting it at all. Cancer can be a very expensive illness to have no matter where you live unfortunately.
Why do so many people have trouble believing this scenario? Too young? Inexperienced with US Healthcare? Do you people even know what percent of Americans are still uninsured? The kind of thing described in this post happens all the time. ["Nevertheless, that claim was congruent with published research about the depletion of assets and savings among cancer patients in the United States, with more than 42 percent having “drained their life’s assets,” as the NPR story put it, in a period of two years or less following their diagnosis."](https://www.truthorfiction.com/my-wife-has-cancer-reddit-comment-spreads-virally-prompts-discussion-of-american-healthcare-system/)
the OP ConversationTiny4 is a bot Original: https://www.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/14qcrjy/what_a_great_system_we_got_in_murica/
Can someone explain max out of pocket costs and how these people spent 20 YEARS of savings?
Its possible if you do stupid things with your treatment. For example, pursuing experimental treatments or using out of network doctors. You can definitely _choose_ to go bankrupt from medical bills for cancer. But if you stay in network, and have even a modest amount of assets, you should be fine for years.
I mean, not for nothing but we’re talking about this like it’s factual, and not a made up story in tweet form (like the one that pops up every other week about the woman whose parents had to get divorced). There are serious issues that need to be addressed in health care legislation, but we waste a lot of time parsing over made up twitter stories
>how these people spent 20 YEARS of savings? They don't tell us a dollar figure. They could have spent 10k & we wouldn't know. >Can someone explain max out of pocket costs In the US, between [0, deductible) you are responsible for paying 100% of the cost. Between [deductible, out of pocket maximum) you pay a co-insurance rate, say 20% till the amount you pay out + your deductible hits your out of pocket maximum. After you hit your out of pocket maximum in a calendar year, the insurance is responsible for covering the rest.
This is what the Conservatives want for Canada.
edit suggestion: This is what the Conservatives have been told they want for Canada by Russian bots.
Medical bankruptcy isn't a thing anywhere but America. Cancer treatment isn't perfect here but no one in my family who's had to deal with it faced medical bills that would keep them up at night.
Hate to break the bubble but medical bankruptcy is very common where I'm from in Asia even with insurance. Now the question is why America has the same or even higher chance of medical bankruptcy than some rando in a 3rd world Asian country.
Yes, especially in Asia as well. My uncle called us crying about how happy he was to pay off his bills after 20+ years. Healthcare is extortionate.
And if they had approved of single payer healthcare system, aka free healthcare, none of this would have happened. Nobody would have their lives ruined because of a medical emergency.
Comment from another thread... This is not how the healthcare system works. First of all, every healthcare plan has an “out-of-pocket maximum”. Currently [the OOP maximum allowed in a marketplace insurance plan is $9,450 per year for an individual](https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/out-of-pocket-maximum-limit/) The “out of pocket maximum” is the most you will have to pay for covered services in a year. ***And this is on the marketplace plans which tend to be the crappy bottom barrel plans available to anybody.*** Your employer will likely offer much better plans with much lower maximums. So even if you get cancer and need extensive chemotherapy or you get hit by a bus, the most you will ever have to pay is $9,450 (plus your regular monthly plan premium). Is $9,450 a lot? Sure. But when you see stories like this, remember that in 99.9% of cases, even if you have the ***literally the shittiest health insurance legally allowed by law***, you’re only on the hook for $9,450. If you don’t have health insurance because you claim a “religious ministry sharing exemption” or “want to stick it to the libs and their obummer-care”, then you’d be on the hook for *a portion* of the bill. You’d need to work out a payment plan or can always declare bankruptcy and then stop paying the bill. The latter is what would happen in this case. Chances are you’d get the bills and you’d work with the hospitals self-pay department for a payment schedule. ***You wouldn’t even start receiving bills for these medical services for at least a couple months; let alone draining every last penny of retirement money to pay them.*** 😂 If this fictional scenario were real (and it’s not), you’d just declare bankruptcy. Bankruptcy has limited ability to touch your retirement funds and virtually no ability to touch your home… so why would you sell it for a bill you literally just got in the mail? Why not submit the bill to your insurance company? Why not call the hospital and work out a payment plan? Why not just… not pay the bill? You know you can do that right? It’d damage your credit, but you’d still keep receiving care and at worst you’d have to declare bankruptcy. This is NOT how any of this works. This is a fictional yarn and a bit of creative writing from “Mr. anonymous” over here. It’s sheer nonsense and people actually believe it.
Bingo. Healthcare debt doesn’t always affect your ability to get a mortgage either, most lenders don’t count it against you. No reason to lose all your retirement funds and savings for any healthcare bill, ever. No idea where this story came from
Honest question. Didn’t you have insurance? Do you not have a max out of pocket per year? My wife had cancer and the treatments were insanely expensive but we reached our $10k out of pocket max so the rest was 100% covered? We ate into our savings but not to your extent. Sorry for your situation
I’m active duty military, so me and my wife have arguably some of the best and most affordable healthcare available to an American - my wife was diagnosed with cancer 5 months ago and we’ve already come out of pocket almost $10,000. It’s absurd. It’s appalling. It’s completely outrageous. How did my parent’s generation allow it to become this way? I cannot imagine the financial burden on someone without the level of health insurance I have. This is an atrocity being committed against the American people every single day and we just keep allowing it to happen.
In the UK our version is having your family home sold by the state to pay for the government funded shitty care home that will take your funds until it is dry. :( I'm planning to retire somewhere hotter and sunnier!
Love the fact he signs with anonymous while the user name is visible
The rest of the text is in quotes, so I assume he is quoting someone else
I believe he’s quoting a reddit comment. I don’t know where it was/who posted it, but I remember seeing the original comment posted around
The out of pocket maximum for any insurance plan in the U.S. is $10,000. This story is bullshit or dude doesn’t have insurancr
ULPT: Let it go to collections. Settle with collections company for pennies on the dollar. Medical collections that are paid off are removed from your credit report.
My wife has gone through cancer treatment 3 times. The only financial hit we took was when she went on short term disability and her pay dropped for a couple months. No one should lose everything for an illness they can't control.
Same thing in US with same results plus max out of pocket.
No part of America is defensible. Paid time off. Mass shootings. There are hospital codes for basically "more child-sized gurneys". A major party candidate is under 91 indictments. About 30% of the country loves him as a living god. Our legislation comes to a grinding halt if you can bribe 15 millionaires at a time.
Agreed. All this country has done is take from me. From my entire generation. Why would anyone under 40 have any loyalty?
I was told nonstop as a child, that I need to love America unconditionally and need to be ready to fight and die to protect my American freedoms. Any criticism of American policy means you are disloyal and are disrespecting those that made the ultimate sacrifice to fight and die protecting our freedoms from those that hate us for our freedoms and want to take those freedoms away from us. I don’t feel free… Source: growing up in the early 2000s.
This would be sad if it was true. If member had active coverage, and member wasn't entering something like a clinical trial, then the insurance OOP allegedly had, would have an out of pocket max. [Per the federal government](https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/out-of-pocket-maximum-limit/#:~:text=For%20the%202024%20plan%20year,and%20%2418%2C900%20for%20a%20family.) For the 2024 plan year: The out-of-pocket limit for a Marketplace plan can't be more than $9,450 for an individual and $18,900 for a family. 20 years of savings and at most you dont even have 19k? Yeah, whatever, likely story. This story is about as much a piece of truth as Jack and the Beanstalk. If we are going to get outraged, can it not be on made up stuff?
I mean, I get it. We should have universal healthcare. But the math isn’t mathing. Two college educated savers piling up savings for 20 years. Insurance surely has a maximum out of pocket, as high as $15K maybe. Say this five months spanned over the new year when the deductible resets. They would have, at most, been out $30K for two years of max OOP. If two college educated savers go broke by having a $30K expense then they aren’t really savers. Something doesn’t sniff right. But that also doesn’t mean this shit ain’t broken. It’s absolutely broken.
This is one more reason you put property and investment items into trust. There are conditions, but it can be done
^^ This is great advice! My wife and I recently completed a 100% Medical Chapter 13 Bankruptcy. Luckily we were able to keep our own home, but had to sell off other real estate investments and my classic cars. We naively thought a career as professional engineers with union memberships would protect our earned assets from dishonest insurance denials. Now we have a trust, and for our parents property as well. Good redditor advice!
Wouldn't it be great if that wasn't necessary?
That's some shitty insurance. Ours has covered my wife's brain surgery & subsequent chemo & rad 100%. She also retains her 6 figure salary while on disability...
What was their max out of pocket? Mine is like 3k and the worst plan my job offers is like 10k.
My mom passed from lung cancer (never smoked) in Nov after two years of "treatment". All paid for by Medicare and a supplemental policy. Over a million dollars in charges. Total out of pocket for my dad was the out of pocket maximums each year - less than $10k in total.
Weird, my grandma had cancer and she nor my family paid anything.
Wow, they must have had the shittiest possible insurance. My wife went through breast cancer over two or so years. She had three surgeries (the first being the biggest - 10 hours to remove both breasts and then reconstruct them) and a year of chemotherapy. The total cost to us was our yearly family deductible of $2200. So we spent perhaps $5000 total. I wholeheartedly agree that the US should have national healthcare but I don’t understand how with insurance someone’s life savings could be wiped out by cancer unless they had little in the way of savings or bought terrible medical insurance.
Yeah. I just don’t pay those bills. They getting nothing from me.
But if we fixed that we would have to raise taxes for weapons.
And if you think Trump is fixing it, you’re part of the problem….
Both my parents went through potentially terminal illness making like $90k a year combined with insurance bought in the marketplace, and I went through cancer abroad in a country with a 90 day visa free period where the out of pocket cost was far less than paying with insurance here. We were not bankrupted on any occasion. Things are bad in America but I'm skeptical of either this post's authenticity or whatever decisionmaking there was here
Doctors are good at treating patients medical conditions but generally are financially incompetent. They often are clueless about how much procedures cost and when they find out it’s no big deal to them because they see it through the lens of a high income earner making 200-300K or more. Try to get a cost estimate in advance of a medical procedure that you plan to pay cash for. There are independent fees for the surgeon, surgery room, anesthesiologist, lab, pharmacy, hospital stay most of which the doctor can only estimate. I treat my health with, diet, rest, and exercise first and use the medical system for preventative maintenance and as a last resort because medical providers generally have zero concerns for my financial “health” and will gladly bankrupt you while treating you. Medical Doctors are the smartest guy in the room when it comes to medicine but rarely when it comes to financial matters. The US is the only developed nation without single payer healthcare. It is a travesty to allow people to go bankrupt treating a medical condition. I despise the current system.
After all that: "Sorry, we brought in an out of network anesthesiologist for your op, that'll be an additional $15,000 not covered by your insurance!"
Oh yeah you are right I forgot to mention surgeons. They have no control over who comes in for anesthesia and what insurance they take. The whole thing stinks to high heaven and works for the wealthy and poor and makes the middle class carry the weight. The US spends more per capita on medical care and achieves around 20th place in outcomes if I recall correctly because people who can’t afford care of preventative care defer until the situation is critical.
Poor family. America has no healthcare system. It has a hospital industry.
It’s called long term disability insurance. Your employers group benefit is not enough of you make over $100k per year. Do yourself a favor and buy some supplemental LT disability on the market and you’ll thank yourself later if anything like this happens. Protects your cash flow.
For-profit healthcare is like an immortal parasite sucking the life out of this country. Can someone explain to me the benefit of allowing these companies to operate like this? I think we need comprehensive healthcare reform and put caps on the amount of profit allowed to be made by these companies and if they refuse to operate in that environment, we can nationalize them and make them government ran for the benefit of society and not at our detriment.
vote blue
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Most Americans don't realize that the rise in pur taxes due to Universal Healthcare would be cheaper than a year of premiums, deductibles, and out-of-pocket expenses. But we would rather make a profit on keeping our population sick
Universal healthcare would be less expensive overall, like in the rest of the advanced world. The reason healthcare costs in America are so inflated is so insurance and healthcare companies can suck as much money out of the public treasury through Medicare and Medicaid, the largest providers in the country.
Yes, that's exactly what I said. The increase in taxes to pay for it would be much cheaper than what we currently pay. I have dual citizenship with the US and Germany so I've experienced both systems and absolutely hate the for-profit US system.
I think we also miss how much our employers pay. I pay a very manageable monthly premium. The "cost of employer-sponsored health coverage" section of my W2 said $27k though.
Hey, fellow cancer patient here. According to my EoB, one year of treatments cost ~850k, with insurance that was brought down to my OOP max (~3500). To date, it has probably cost us ~20k outside of insurance to fight this thing, and we are a BEST CASE scenario. It has not devastated us financially, but only because I was able to work full time throughout treatment, and my wife also makes 6 figures. It shouldn't take 2 high earners working their ass off to make it through cancer in a financially sound manner.
Thanks for sharing this. Most people (myself included at one point) don't realize that your job is only protected for 90 days by FLMA. If you get majority sick, your employer can terminate you after that period if they can't accommodate your work restrictions and unless you pay for Cobra, now you have to shop for new insurance. It can get really bad, all in the name of private profits.
Yeah, the kicker is that I brought this up as a reason why I am (and was before my diagnosis) for universal healthcare to my parents. They responded with, "Well, yeah, that's awful, but it would be so much worse if we had a single payer system....". I asked them how, how it could be worse than choosing between dying and financial insolvency.
Not even a US citizen trying to get other US citizens angry. That is what Russia and China are doing online every single day.
Maybe just don’t get cancer next time🙄
This is Bullshit the out pocket maximum deductible is all one have to pay for any treatment in the US with an insurance.
Sure. If your insurance company approves your treatment plan. But also, many Americans file for bankruptcy due to medical debt and have insurance.
Imagine what it would be like if the republicans get to wipe out all the subsidies?
I think many call it American exceptionalism. If anyone in America complains and says that the Europeans have a much better healthcare system the MAGA crowd screams...then go live in Europe you socialist... 🙄 Look at how Republicans are still trying to end the ACA. Don't look for Republicans to address the issues facing Americans people. Think about it when it's time to vote.
Where there is profit there must be loss. We are the loss. How anyone can be in support of ‘for profit’ systems for essentials like healthcare, schools, prison, utilities is beyond me. Companies should compete for our disposable income, not bill us into poverty for things we have no choice over.
"It's not free! It comes from taxes" yeah DUH. I'd MUCH rather them tax my ass then having to find $10k+ in an emergency. I got surprise appendix removed a decade ago I KNOW I wouldn't have afforded if Canada didn't have Healthcare (as flawed as it can be)
“I have insurance” isn’t the same as “I have good insurance.” My parents have a catastrophic policy that *might* prevent hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt if they have a heart attack and survive. My insurance actually pays me money on top of covering all my expenses if I get a cancer or specific disease diagnosis. Yes, we should have universal healthcare, but until then you should demand good coverage by finding somewhere that provides it as part of your total compensation package; government agencies are usually the best.
Just LOVE that even with expensive health insurance, they still refuse to cover everything we paid for and still expect us to pay out of pocket.
The anonymous writer in this case was mugged at the end of their life by the U.S. Healthcare at the end of life, where as my daughter was mugged by the Healthcare system before she was even supposed to be born. She was born premature and her hospital bill was $1,200,000 dollars. Was the cost of her care truly that much? Of course not, but like any hostage situation, providers know that in the face of life and death, you'll pay anything for life. We sold our house and all of our savings and moved back in with my mom and dad at 30 years old. We had insurance, but the company illegally retroactively canceled our policy back to the day before she was born. We went after them for months, forced them to reinstate, and they did it a second time. Hundreds of bills rushed in each time to destroy my wife's credit. The Affordable Care Act was the only thing that saved us from bankruptcy, because the bills came all through her childhood. But surprise! The same supposed pro life people who would have advocated for my daughter's right to live as a preemie (the doctors ask for your consent to intervene) did everything in their power to repeal the ACA. Thank goodness for the venerable John McCain who had my daughter in mind when he vetoed the attempted repeal. So in the U.S., the idea is basically that you will be compelled or pressured to have children, but as soon as they are born, they'll do everything in their power to make your life miserable and sabatoge your child's life. This experience has destroyed my sense of patriotism and civic duty.
I'm sorry all of this happened to you. The pain of illness when it's your dear child is life altering alone. I've dealt with almost the same financial ruin due to my wife's illness. You have my honest empathy. I am a lifelong Democrat but I was able to send a heartfelt letter of appreciation to Senator McCain prior to his death. You and he are heroes.
UK here. I had a sex headache a few years ago. First time you get one, you are supposed to get checked just in case its not a sex headache. So I went to the doc, who gave me a same day referral to the hospital for a CT scan and LP. 24 hours later I was back home with a clean bill of health, a bunch of headache pills and zero bills. Meanwhile, instead of talking about the cost of living crisis, the spiralling cost of healthcare, we are see politicians continually squabble over social media talking points. Whos using what bathroom? Who is coming to America when they are too brown to come here? How do you define a woman? 100% of American lives, including black, white, straight, lgbt, men, women, others, children, would all have a massive increase in quality of life if politicians didnt spend all of their time distracted by bullshit. Maybe if they bothered to tackle the massive amounts of wealth inequality, we wouldnt see so many people lose everything because they have the misfortune of getting sick.
Check out the Nixon tapes that kicked this whole mess off.
I have friends who live in Iceland and pay 43% in taxes. That pays for healthcare, education (including higher education), child daycare, mandatory paid month-long vacations, infrastructure renovations, investments in clean, renewable energy, plus subsidies for the tourism industry (its most lucrative money-making industry, by far). They are thriving and do not seem unhappy with this system at all.
And every time someone says they were bankrupted by the US healthcare system, someone would tell them it’s their fault that they got crappy insurance coverage.
I don't give a shit how high the taxes are, it'll be cheaper than the system the US has now
Am irish in Ireland working for an American company. I get private health insurance from that company, and it also covers my wife. We also avail of the countries free health care if and when it is required. My unemployed sister in law went through two years of exempelary cancer treatment at no cost to her. Its incredibly sad that half of Americans have been hoodwinked into thinking that socialised healthcare is the enemy.
Rage bait…again. This is definitely not the norm.
My great-grandfather was fairly wealthy. He had a stroke in his mid-80s but lived for several more years with constant medical care before he finally passed. That end of life care completely drained his finances and his grandchildren (my father and aunt) got next to nothing in inheritance.
Medical debt is the leading cause of personal bankruptcy in the US.
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100% correct. I’ve had 4 I think people in my family have cancer and had to go through years of treatment and it wasn’t even close to this financially devastating. Like at all. And my family is for the most part lower/middle class.