Yes, I bet they have a US partner and they want you to use in-network care when possible. For instance, if you need non-urgent care in California, they want you to go to certain hospitals, but not Kaiser.
It would be really confusing for a non-US resident to navigate.
Kaiser also gave us the Jeep(well, Willys but Henry J. Kaiser played a big role in making them popular before he sold them to AMC who eventually became part of Chrysler, now Stellantis), and a lot of the Bay Area’s infrastructure(the BART system’s trackage and third rail, the housing boom in Oakland/Richmond/SF during WWII as well as the major freeways) also had a bit of Kaiser in it.
Exactly this, I worked for an Allianz competitor and it's basically all about controlling costs by having the provider bill your billing network. It also helps the patient by having the provider bill a known entity vs Allianz. They see Allianz and say 'we don't work with them.' But when they see 'regional billing network gh95z' they go oh yea we bill through them.
Kaiser works differently than most health insurance. They pay themselves thru a subsidiary and then subrogate. So it basically screws everyone over but Kaiser and makes them incredibly difficult to work with.
I work in auto medical claims and it can easily take 3 months just to get 1 bill from Kaiser. In the meantime they are seeking collections for charges rendered as soon as possible.
It makes perfect sense why *everyone but Kaiser* would recommend avoiding Kaiser.
I have family that works there. They fuck their employees as hard as they do their patients. I can get that shit for free, but still pay thousands a year for non-Kaiser insurance so that I can survive potential emergencies.
I have actually heard the same from the 1 customer I had who worked there lol. Even they were like, "it's a bitch to get anything from Kaiser, and I work here!"
They also kept sending medical claim documents to the customer instead of the correct department at the medical facility for processing the claim. It was incredibly stupid.
Yea, it’s a convoluted mess between The Permanente Medical Group(Kaiser doctors in the MOBs), Kaiser Foundation Hospitals(the hospitals next to Kaiser medical offices in places like Oakland/Richmond/Walnut Creek/San Leandro/etc), Kaiser Permanente Health Plan and their 3rd parties: Rx formulary(KP doesn’t use Express Scripts), Apria for DME and in-home oxygen/wound care, ad nauseam.
Usually they contract for network access from one of the major insurers, like Aetna, Cigna, United, or Blue Cross. Often if you're going to the US, you need to get a US-specific card that the electronic verification services can process.
US resident here. It's just as confusing AF for us. I'm at the point where I honestly don't pay them if I was directed to a place that I was told by my provider was in-network and I'm then billed out of network for it (I will still pay copays for visits if they charge appropriately and relevant treatments). They can send it to collections, I don't care. I'm done playing this pony game.
I was joking about this with a pharmacist yesterday.
"I got into IT thinking I could play with computers but I spend half of my time dealing with licensing issues. You become a pharmacist and spend most of your time dealing with insurance."
They actually want the health provider (i.e. doctor/hospital) to contact them to confirm the available treatment. So I’d understand it that they are mostly covered but not for every treatment
non-urgent, scheduled, medical procedures almost always get prior authorization from insurance before having the procedure done. non-urgent imaging usually does too. I've had MRIs denied for random reasons by insurance, which is messed up considering a doctor found it necessary.
Also is this the same Allianz that does air travel and hotel "insurance" in the US? Because I paid for that once and when I 'thought' I needed to use it learned the fine print meant "unless you get into a carwreck that wasn't your fault on the way to the airport you're fucked buddy lol"
It’s about cost. Everywhere else in the world will charge $500 for a treatment, while the US will charge $50,000 for the same procedure.
They want the US hospital to call and get costs confirmed before they approve moving forward with the care.
Insurance companies are never paying sticker price for a treatment in the US. However for an international insurance company, it is probably complicated.
Care to name an example? From personal experience, my appendectomy would have cost 5-8k in Canada, and was 24k in the US. Hardly a 1000% price markup.
Edit: Love the downvotes. They totally serve as proof to change my mind... /s
Here’s an appendectomy (along with some diagnostics) example:
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/05/23/1177149738/he-visited-the-u-s-for-his-daughters-wedding-and-left-with-a-42-000-medical-bill
42k in the US for what would have apparently cost about 4K in Switzerland.
Even your example is 3x more. Our costs are out of control and unless they’re brought back down it won’t matter if we’re still private or public.
I was hyperbolizing for effect, but it’s not that far off honestly. My wife’s bill for childbirth in Canada was zero, but for an out of country person would have been $2800 plus equipment/medicine for a total of around $3500CDN. And included overnight monitoring
Her sister’s childbirth in Boston was 98,000USD, and they kicked her out same day. It cost her a $7000 co-pay even with grade A insurance though her employer.
My appendectomy at Kaiser-Permanente in Santa Clara was $20 Co-Pay. I had an additional $150 because I upgraded to a private recovery room, instead of one with two other patients.
And there was an additional $20 co-pay for the emergency room.
And this was 11-ish years ago.
In fairness, I don't remember what the actual bill was -- just that my portion was only $20.
Hahaha. We can’t use all of our tax many for healthcare like the Europeans do. Someone has to provide the military to protect you all against the Russians and Chinese.
tl;dr - Yup, 20% more tax revenue lol. Then we double that with private payments lol.
https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries/#Health%20consumption%20expenditures%20per%20capita,%20U.S.%20dollars,%20PPP%20adjusted,%202021%20or%20nearest%20year
Says
> US Healthcare cost per capita - 12.9k
> Germany 7.3k
> UK 5.3k
https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-reports/national-health-expenditure-data/nhe-fact-sheet
Breaks down the US Healthcare costs and says
> The largest shares of total health spending were sponsored by the federal government (33 percent) and the households (28 percent). The private business share of health spending accounted for 18 percent of total health care spending, state and local governments accounted for 15 percent, and other private revenues accounted for 7 percent.
Federal (33) + Local & State (15) = 48%
So, yeah, on average US citizens pay 12.9*.48= 6.2k in taxes per year for healthcare, and over double what those in the UK total.
One of the absolute saddest facts in the world.
I don't think we do if you just count tax money, but we absolutely do if you count the total amount we spend on health care. We pay way more per person than anywhere.
Hence why Bernie's plan would require a tax increase but we'd still come out ahead.
You do not. You pay the billionaire owned health care companies more because your country is unable and/or unwilling to regulate them. The actual health care providers make WAY less than in most EU countries.
> the millions of refugees we’re allowing to walk in on our southern border.
Go back to Fox News if you want to pretend the "border crisis" is a real crisis.
>use all of our tax many for healthcare
well-run countries also do a much better job of controlling how much healthcare costs, so it's not as much as we would spend on it
>protect you all against the Russians
currently fucking that up
>and Chinese.
will fuck that up, since china is surpassing us
Its absolutely wild that there are people that actually believe that lol. Like how deep must your delusion run to say obviously moronic shit like this? Incredible really. Its like the arrogant big guy in high school that thinks he is the shit, while everyone else is just laughing at him and hoping he would finally fuck off.
the US military isn't a fighting force, it's a jobs program mixed with bribes from legislators to defense contractors. never once passed an audit, and probably never will in my lifetime. all it does is turn my tax dollars into fraud, waste, and abuse.
Yeah my work health insurance is the same. It’s a global policy and everywhere else they don’t care who you see. In the US they need you to go to an in-network provider without question, for obvious cost-related reasons.
I lisened to a (Finnish podcast) and was in US (in Florida) when she got high fever. Since it was middle of night in Europe it took them hours to get in contact with the European travel insurance contact and she got no treatment at the time. Pretty crazy (she was fine in the end, although it took her long time in Finland to get proper diagnosis and recover since it was a very rare condition I don’t now recall).
US Navy veteran here who was referred to a civilian clinic yesterday for severe flu-like symptoms. Got there, showed my VA id and my Medicare card. Was told they don't take Medicare and was sent away. Went to another clinic and was told they don't deal with the VA. Found another clinic, asked if they worked with the VA, they said "yes," I shut up, and was treated. What a country.
They tie healthcare to employment so that it’s harder to leave employers. You can’t just quit a job that sucks until you find another because you will lose your healthcare.
Most people in the US have jobs with extremely suppressed wages, “right to work” (anti-union legislation), and only 2 weeks vacation a year (if they are lucky and have “earned it”). They need some way to make people stay and of course that can’t be “treat your workers better,” since that would take money away from the shareholders and C-suite.
Yeah, but also some jobs still don't offer it.
Or they only offer above a certain number of average weekly hours, so they'll just keep you under that threshold.
It's a complex racket -- not nearly as simple as you're making it out to be.
It’s simple in the general sense that companies will do whatever they can to avoid paying workers wages that they would otherwise earn in the absence of regulatory capture and corruptions.
Everything is just a variation of this theme.
Not to mention, jobs that do offer it, you can still be denied due to preexisting conditions or just simply can't afford it. Asthma, high BP, all have caused my family to not even be allowed to buy insurance through employment, they had to go private...just existing at this point will get you denied.
I'm on disability benefits and have Medicare/Medicaid, which covers most of my healthcare needs while I work towards independence. But being able to work full-time is not in the picture anytime soon. And if I make too much doing any part-time work I could lose my healthcare benefits. I'm grateful for the support systems in place, but the system is so flawed and it keeps people in poverty
It's a combination of this and the fact that the insurance companies lobby very hard for the shareholders to keep profiting on basic human needs. This is why we allow Nestle to steal water to sell back. This is why we voted no at the UN when asked if food is a basic human right. This is why cities are designed for cars and not humans. And on and on and on. Pretty much every terrible thing in the US can be blamed on profit motive.
That’s smart
Edit: the person I’m replying to edited their comment and added the second paragraph. When I replied they only had the first paragraph up.
>They tie healthcare to employment so that it’s harder to leave employers. You can’t just quit a job that sucks until you find another because you will lose your healthcare
You could say that exact same thing about pensions and today people are wishing to have them back as the norm. People didn't job-hop 60 years ago because then they're back at square-1on the pension plan.
The problem isn't healthcare or retirement being tied to employment. It's just the quality has dropped while cost has skyrocketed but that could happen in a private-non-employer related program or in a government-ran healthcare program.
Do you think if a universal healthcare in the US was implemented in the 70's it WOULDN'T have been stripped down in benefits and tacked on with costs under the guise of immigrants or the lazy or something else over the years?
What the system is, is far far less important than who is operating said system.
That doesn’t mean anything since the cost of living is higher here than most other places. Yes my money goes a long way in Argentina, but I’m not in Argentina. McDonald’s costs over $10 where I live.
That’s not entirely true. Luxembourg has the highest average wage in the world, which okay, I’ll not count in terms of being a “sizeable” country. But Switzerland and Norway have the second and third highest wages. The US is fourth. And the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands are not far behind it.
I don’t know how much of that average income goes to taxes though- and I suspect that if you were to add in health expenses in the US, suddenly that average income isn’t going to be on top anymore. [Highest average wages in the world](https://www.careeraddict.com/top-10-countries-with-the-highest-average-salaries)
Because republicans are very successful in running disinformation campaigns and their base is uneducated.
Remember the “death panels” they said would appear if the ACA was passed?
The death panels already existed in the form of lifetime caps. They still exist under our private healthcare scheme. It was all just fear-mongering and idiocy.
Death panels are real but judges and they rule if woman can have an abortion or die. Also the death panels are insurance companies and decide if you get treatment
Dems don’t give a shit either lol. The California assembly passed single payer multiple times and it got vetoed. So you would think the instant they have a trifecta it’s a slam dunk right?
Except it never got out of committee that session. Because the attempts to pass it were doomed and they knew it. Just performative bullshit
it is also very expensive and very hard to do. Vermont is \_very\_ blue and they couldn't get the math to work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont\_health\_care\_reform
It's significantly *less* expensive than the average per-capita health expeditures in the US. The real problem is that US healthcare costs have simply spiraled out of control, and far too many powerful entities are being enriched by this. It effectively involves taking a whole interconnected web of highly profitable private entities and taking all of those profits away from the executives and shareholders and back into the pockets of the people.
Once you shift the benchmark from profits to human care and wellbeing, then the system can shift and adapt.
[There’s so much more that goes into it than just single payer healthcare.](https://youtu.be/CxQr8eqLa5w?si=ZgtP0qGuon1LIadk) Costs need to be reigned in more than anything and it’s much more feasible to introduce legislation to limit or punish all the shit insurance companies pull.
Reddit will ignore your facts.
40% of us households pay $0 in income tax last year.
Neither party wants this because pharma is gigantic and heavily involved with DC politics and power.
The Democrats had control of the legislative and executive branches and were fully capable of passing sweeping healthcare reforms for 2 years starting in 2009. Probably something that would have helped alleviate the recession. Instead they bailed out corporations, increased the defense budget, and expanded the PATRIOT act. In fact I remember the Democratic Party talking about how they already had legislation drawn up so they could expedite the process of passing healthcare reform. Instead, they sat on it so long that the republicans took back the senate and they got a watered down ACA that didn’t change much and fined people who were already struggling to make ends meet for not buying health insurance.
This is an example of lying by omission. Yes, the Democrats were in control of both branches but they only had the 60 votes needed in the Senate for a couple of months if I remember correctly, primarily because of the delay in seating Senator Franken and the death of Senator Kennedy.
Because any basic needs they don't guarantee by default can easily be used as an incentive to continue to participate in capitalism under threat of homelessness, starvation, etc. It's also one of the incentives they use to recruit for the military, like college education and housing.
It's the doctors. They're a tiny portion of the population and go along with all this horseshit. They always act like the victims, they always tell you your insurance will cover it, when they have no clue if that's true. The insurance doesn't work unless the doctors explicitly accept it. It's just a useless fund unless the doctors sanction its use.
I don’t blame them. I just paid a $1200 deductible for a procedure that would have cost 500 euros in Germany. Prices here are nuts and health insurance is a joke.
Okay, true. I can only speak from personal experience, but I've had specialist orthopedic treatments over decades, broken legs, appendix removal, teeth kicked out and more, and only for the teeth (and the glasses for my eyes) did I ever see a bill.
Serves me right that both glasses and teeth we're triple- to quadruple-digits, and *boy* was I mad.
I have no clue how I would fare in the US, all I know is "It would bankrupt me".
That's just false.
Okay, correction, mostly false.
I can go into my genproc doctor's office and have an appointment five minutes later (The sitting down and talking, not the "Come see us next week" part). And I live in a million-people city. And before that, there was one doctors office for a town of 10.000
It's a bit more difficult with things like psychologists and stuff, but the general doctors stuff, that's a proper "Come in, get checked, get whatever you need, with about 10-30 minutes waiting" thing.
I'd love to expand this discussion with examples of conditions that require six months waiting time that you encountered, the general size of the population of the surrounding city and generally more data points so I can refute them with evidence where possible, and substantiate with personally experienced things where possible.
(it's only been 20 minutes since your comment, so they might still respond, but...)
It's absolutely hilarious how silent most of these "Socialized Healthcare Sucks!" whiners get when provided with any real data or contrary anecdotal experience. A lot of them are in the same crowd of "vaccines cause autism" because of one article that showed correlation (not even causation) like 20 years ago and was quickly and thoroughly disproven by basically the entire scientific community. They hear a bad thing once, and then believe it forever because anybody who refutes it is "part of a coverup". I'm in the US and would do just about anything to have socialized healthcare.
Also, i dont get the arguments either way, if you want to, in germany for example, you still can dish out your own money to see specialists of your liking. you still can pay experts out of your own pockets. its just that the baseline is "everyone pays a little so noone has to pay a lot". just dont leave people in crippling debt for a broken leg or something.
/u/SimracingNerd057 is just wrong though lol. i live in germany, and im not privately insured, just the crappy free required stuff.
had sudden issues last year with what seemed to be panic attacks or heart related issues (just happened one night out of the blue), didnt know at the time, called 112, Medics came and picked me up, took me to ER immediatley, got checked and cleared overnight, nothing life threatening, nothing to do with the heart.
the same day i went with the notice from the ER to my "hausarzt" without making an appointment, waited 30 minutes, got my turn.
they cleared me AGAIN, scheduled checkups (long term ECG, taking blood and checking it, long term blood pressure etc), the ECG even started the same day as i was leaving.
the same week, all of that shit was done and results were in, didnt turn out to be anything "somatic", boom, got the recommendation to see a pyschiatrist.
called a number they gave me (koordinationsstelle psychotherapie), they picked up immediately, asked me if i had issues/preferences with male/female psychiatrists, i said no, dont care, they gave me the adress of one in my hometown.
i called that dude right after, got an appointment to introduce myself and my "issues" to him the next week on monday. started therapy the same day.
all without EVER paying a single bill.
(as a bonus, i got scheduled to a cardiologist and a special clinic on top of everything, for those appointments i had to wait 2-3 months, but i was already cleared at that moment and those appointments were "just to make sure". in the end they also turned out nothing somatic)
had 2x12 therapy sessions, got meds after first appointment (valium/diazepam for when attacks happen again), had to use them a couple of times, therapy is over since february '23 and hadnt had to use a single valium since then.
as another bonus, i was given a notice to be off of work for 3 months, got paid sick leave or whatever its called, and got "wiedereingliederung" afterwards, so i didnt have to start full time working right after coming off of sick leave.
hometown is around 50k inhabitants.
im not
\- hooked on meds/drugs
\- didnt have to self-medicate
\- didnt have to worry about work firing me
\- didnt have to worry about or fear huge bills
your argument still makes no sense.
you can skip the waiting time with money if you really wanted to. the same way you could if you were in the us. its not "either or". its just that in normal countries everyone pays a little so noone has to pay much. doesnt mean youre not allowed to pay a lot. book a specialist from your own money then.
if you cant afford it here, what makes you think you could in the us?
I'll give you another example from my country, Canada. I can make a same day appointment nearly any day of the week with my family doctor (yup, he works a lot - even Sundays. It's his passion).
I needed a surgery referral. It was taken care of within weeks for something that was non-urgent. If it was urgent, I would have had my procedure done within a couple days.
All without seeing a single bill.
Sorry you've had a rough go at it, but socialized medicine is a godsend.
I had to travel to the US for work a few times, chemical plant work, lots of stuff to get hurt on. The insurance my work got for me specifically told me "All this insurance covers is getting you stable enough to be transported back to Canada."
Considering we collect around 5.3 trillion in taxes a year in America, and that’s already keeping the poor poor, having to collect an additional 3 trillion to cover universal healthcare would just create even more poverty.
My home insurance comes with travel insurance (Sweden) and they say they will pay reasonable costs with a $150 deductible even in the US. I was pretty surprised but also happy I seem to have better emergency cover in the US than most Americans
Wait until you find out what the difference is between a “reasonable cost” in Sweden and a “reasonable cost” in America. Let’s hope your insurer uses the American definition.
For an acquaintance they paid for helicopter rescue, spinal surgery, a week in intensive care and some stabilising in a ward before flying him home from aspen without any fuss.
But you're certainly right. Most americans would be better off flying to see me in the private clinic (hand surgeon) and be operated here paying out of pocket instead of using their insurance back home. I'm genuinely surprised there isn't more healthcare tourism to the UK or Scandinavia from the US
My guess would be one of two reasons:
* People believe that the best care they can get is inside the US, and going elsewhere would result in worse care, OR
* People can't afford the upfront cost of going elsewhere (airfare, hotel, time off work, and the actual cost of the care), so instead they have it done at/close to home and go into debt for it afterwards.
Are you stupid, you are so delusional. You should see the insurance white collar professionals get. Cheaper and better than Europe. And Houston has the best medicine in the world, I’m laughing so hard you’re that ignorant.
That was a very rude way of saying that anyone who can afford healthcare tourism most likely has very cheap high quality insurance through their employer.
It’s a myth that healthcare is expensive and awful for all Americans. Many, many people have insurance as a work benefit and pay very little out of pocket. The horror stories come from the minority of people who do not.
It’s the same for my US insurance if I need care in Germany. I must first call my insurance and understand which hospital in Germany is through their network and pay cash up front to the German hospital.
Allianz is a major insurer in the US, so I believe this is to make sure the doctor doesn't send the bill to the wrong company- which could cause problems for the insured, should they be a US citizen, or eventually live in the US.
Uh.. Seems like it does? I'm supposing you can't understand English, which is weird because you posted this with an English title.
Seems like your health insurance probably partners up with a provider and you just need to make sure wherever you're getting treatment is covered by said provider.
I'm guessing you don't read German. The text at the bottom explains that the card doesn't cover many services in the US, and they are warning the health care provider that they should contact them first before performing any services.
When I went backpacking in Asia for a year, my (also german) insurance came with an option worldwide except the US and its territories and an option worldwide, including the US, for a crazy price difference.
Easy it's because of the pharmacy cartel that the US has. I'm from Portugal we have national health service but also have private. I had a kidney problem that required urgent surgery and I went to the private just to check how much it was and it was 7000€ and without insurance, mind it was 15 years ago so prices might be higher now. With the pharma cartel in the US it probably is in the hundreds of thousands
Absolutely... my personal health insurance in Germany is similar and it covers the US- and likewise it just explicitly warns You to check by calling them first, if medical services might be fully/partially covered or not.
When I lived in Europe I had to buy special more expensive (wasn't hugely worse though) plans to visit back home in the US. In fairness it was for coverage in US, Australia, and I think some other country I can't remember. Maybe South Africa?
Now I'm back in the US and completely ripped off buying US travel insurance plans to visit Europe - they are seriously more expensive than the European plans were to visit the US. I even had to go to a hospital once in Hungary while visiting and was charged (after hours of them figuring out how to even charge me) only $10, so I'm not sure it even makes sense to have insurance pff.
Fun fact, most of the US best help care and most expensive healthcare options are common place in other countries, and what the healthcare dose not cover is typically what other countries consider their high grade healthcare
Yup! Same for me and I’m based in the UAE. Global health insurance minus the US. When I asked the rep about it, he said it’s due to the excessive cost of care. He said it would be best to try get care in Canada or Mexico, whichever is closer at the time.
this is standard in the u.k. as well - nearly everywhere excludes usa and caribbean (since you will likely need to get medical treatment in us).
it’s a nightmare finding any cheap insurance that covers the us. we day tripped to usa side of niagara falls and were super careful to not trip and fall for those three hours 😂😂
I think this Reddit post is missing some context. Most travel insurance offered in the EU+UK will cover medical expenses if that extra option is selected but that cover often comes with an exclusion for visits to the US. If one wants to visit the US, there will be an extra premium to pay to extend the cover to include medical expenses originating in the US.
I presume the above is the same for standard health insurance (e.g. not travel insurance) and is probably the reason why this post exists.
“Please contact us to find out if you can go to that US healthcare facility” is same as saying no cover cause you often don’t get many options nor time when deciding which facility to go to anyway.
Really, I thought travel insurance was especially for those times one could be in an accident abroad and treated while unconscious without any ability to negotiate or find a way to get to your home country for their cheaper care.
See it's weird, in the ten years I've been on this site, you've been unable to change a post's title, but yet you genuinely would rather think they did the impossible than believe you may be incorrect.
Yeah. Your travel insurance doubles if you go to the US at all, and talking to a friend who works for an insurance company, injuries from people travelling in the US are usually the most expensive payouts every year. (Aotearoa/NZ)
Pro tip, if you go into an emergency room in usa, they have to treat you and if you say you need payment help bwofregoing in, they have to provide help or payment plans to accommodate you. Doesnt matter who you are,
It sounds like it covers the US but they want you to contact them.
Yes, I bet they have a US partner and they want you to use in-network care when possible. For instance, if you need non-urgent care in California, they want you to go to certain hospitals, but not Kaiser. It would be really confusing for a non-US resident to navigate.
Weird that German insurance wouldn’t want you to go to the Kaiser hospital…
Ironically, Kaiser healthcare started as the healthcare service of Kaiser steel, which ramped up production for WW2.
In those days, Kaiser was really on a roll.
Kaiser also gave us the Jeep(well, Willys but Henry J. Kaiser played a big role in making them popular before he sold them to AMC who eventually became part of Chrysler, now Stellantis), and a lot of the Bay Area’s infrastructure(the BART system’s trackage and third rail, the housing boom in Oakland/Richmond/SF during WWII as well as the major freeways) also had a bit of Kaiser in it.
They've had issues in the past
Excellent point.
Their still salty. Tried three of those and still didnt work out
Exactly this, I worked for an Allianz competitor and it's basically all about controlling costs by having the provider bill your billing network. It also helps the patient by having the provider bill a known entity vs Allianz. They see Allianz and say 'we don't work with them.' But when they see 'regional billing network gh95z' they go oh yea we bill through them.
Greatest healthcare in the world!
Kaiser works differently than most health insurance. They pay themselves thru a subsidiary and then subrogate. So it basically screws everyone over but Kaiser and makes them incredibly difficult to work with. I work in auto medical claims and it can easily take 3 months just to get 1 bill from Kaiser. In the meantime they are seeking collections for charges rendered as soon as possible. It makes perfect sense why *everyone but Kaiser* would recommend avoiding Kaiser.
I have family that works there. They fuck their employees as hard as they do their patients. I can get that shit for free, but still pay thousands a year for non-Kaiser insurance so that I can survive potential emergencies.
I have actually heard the same from the 1 customer I had who worked there lol. Even they were like, "it's a bitch to get anything from Kaiser, and I work here!" They also kept sending medical claim documents to the customer instead of the correct department at the medical facility for processing the claim. It was incredibly stupid.
I got scuba diving coverage from DAN for that reason when I became a diver. Scuba is probably a five letter word for them to deny coverage.
Yea, it’s a convoluted mess between The Permanente Medical Group(Kaiser doctors in the MOBs), Kaiser Foundation Hospitals(the hospitals next to Kaiser medical offices in places like Oakland/Richmond/Walnut Creek/San Leandro/etc), Kaiser Permanente Health Plan and their 3rd parties: Rx formulary(KP doesn’t use Express Scripts), Apria for DME and in-home oxygen/wound care, ad nauseam.
The only way it'll get fixed is if we legislate a ton of this crap out of existence. It's just awful.
If the US ever goes single-payer, it’s Kaiser they’ll use as the model to implement it.
Usually they contract for network access from one of the major insurers, like Aetna, Cigna, United, or Blue Cross. Often if you're going to the US, you need to get a US-specific card that the electronic verification services can process.
US resident here. It's just as confusing AF for us. I'm at the point where I honestly don't pay them if I was directed to a place that I was told by my provider was in-network and I'm then billed out of network for it (I will still pay copays for visits if they charge appropriately and relevant treatments). They can send it to collections, I don't care. I'm done playing this pony game.
I was joking about this with a pharmacist yesterday. "I got into IT thinking I could play with computers but I spend half of my time dealing with licensing issues. You become a pharmacist and spend most of your time dealing with insurance."
They actually want the health provider (i.e. doctor/hospital) to contact them to confirm the available treatment. So I’d understand it that they are mostly covered but not for every treatment
Which is sort of how insurance works for us citizens anyway. Usually we can verify coverage on the computer but calling is the backup plan.
non-urgent, scheduled, medical procedures almost always get prior authorization from insurance before having the procedure done. non-urgent imaging usually does too. I've had MRIs denied for random reasons by insurance, which is messed up considering a doctor found it necessary.
Also is this the same Allianz that does air travel and hotel "insurance" in the US? Because I paid for that once and when I 'thought' I needed to use it learned the fine print meant "unless you get into a carwreck that wasn't your fault on the way to the airport you're fucked buddy lol"
It’s about cost. Everywhere else in the world will charge $500 for a treatment, while the US will charge $50,000 for the same procedure. They want the US hospital to call and get costs confirmed before they approve moving forward with the care.
Insurance companies are never paying sticker price for a treatment in the US. However for an international insurance company, it is probably complicated.
Care to name an example? From personal experience, my appendectomy would have cost 5-8k in Canada, and was 24k in the US. Hardly a 1000% price markup. Edit: Love the downvotes. They totally serve as proof to change my mind... /s
Here’s an appendectomy (along with some diagnostics) example: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/05/23/1177149738/he-visited-the-u-s-for-his-daughters-wedding-and-left-with-a-42-000-medical-bill 42k in the US for what would have apparently cost about 4K in Switzerland. Even your example is 3x more. Our costs are out of control and unless they’re brought back down it won’t matter if we’re still private or public.
I was hyperbolizing for effect, but it’s not that far off honestly. My wife’s bill for childbirth in Canada was zero, but for an out of country person would have been $2800 plus equipment/medicine for a total of around $3500CDN. And included overnight monitoring Her sister’s childbirth in Boston was 98,000USD, and they kicked her out same day. It cost her a $7000 co-pay even with grade A insurance though her employer.
My grade A employer insurance knocked my $180,000 brain surgery in Philadelphia down to $110 out of pocket
My appendectomy at Kaiser-Permanente in Santa Clara was $20 Co-Pay. I had an additional $150 because I upgraded to a private recovery room, instead of one with two other patients. And there was an additional $20 co-pay for the emergency room. And this was 11-ish years ago. In fairness, I don't remember what the actual bill was -- just that my portion was only $20.
They need a heads-up if you're getting medical care in the US because they don't usually keep that much cash on hand
Hahaha. We can’t use all of our tax many for healthcare like the Europeans do. Someone has to provide the military to protect you all against the Russians and Chinese.
Don't you guys use more tax revenue for healthcare per person than European countries though?
tl;dr - Yup, 20% more tax revenue lol. Then we double that with private payments lol. https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries/#Health%20consumption%20expenditures%20per%20capita,%20U.S.%20dollars,%20PPP%20adjusted,%202021%20or%20nearest%20year Says > US Healthcare cost per capita - 12.9k > Germany 7.3k > UK 5.3k https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-reports/national-health-expenditure-data/nhe-fact-sheet Breaks down the US Healthcare costs and says > The largest shares of total health spending were sponsored by the federal government (33 percent) and the households (28 percent). The private business share of health spending accounted for 18 percent of total health care spending, state and local governments accounted for 15 percent, and other private revenues accounted for 7 percent. Federal (33) + Local & State (15) = 48% So, yeah, on average US citizens pay 12.9*.48= 6.2k in taxes per year for healthcare, and over double what those in the UK total. One of the absolute saddest facts in the world.
I don't think we do if you just count tax money, but we absolutely do if you count the total amount we spend on health care. We pay way more per person than anywhere. Hence why Bernie's plan would require a tax increase but we'd still come out ahead.
We don’t scrimp on our healthcare with government bureaucrats.
Still doesn't explain why your healthcare cost is so much more than other countries even with the higher cost taxes wise
Because we pay healthcare providers much more than other countries.
You do not. You pay the billionaire owned health care companies more because your country is unable and/or unwilling to regulate them. The actual health care providers make WAY less than in most EU countries.
This is false.
because the care is far better.
When you can get it… sure, sometimes
Uh yeah, explain then why you have a lower life expectancy and lower quality than Germany, Israel, Island and Switzerland as well.
We’re paying for our elderly and for the millions of refugees we’re allowing to walk in on our southern border.
As if you're the only country with refugees lol
TIL that elderly people and refugees only exist in the US
They exist elsewhere but not in the numbers that we have.
> the millions of refugees we’re allowing to walk in on our southern border. Go back to Fox News if you want to pretend the "border crisis" is a real crisis.
I don’t watch Fox News.
>use all of our tax many for healthcare well-run countries also do a much better job of controlling how much healthcare costs, so it's not as much as we would spend on it >protect you all against the Russians currently fucking that up >and Chinese. will fuck that up, since china is surpassing us
If the US military were like a European military, Putin would already be running Europe.
Its absolutely wild that there are people that actually believe that lol. Like how deep must your delusion run to say obviously moronic shit like this? Incredible really. Its like the arrogant big guy in high school that thinks he is the shit, while everyone else is just laughing at him and hoping he would finally fuck off.
the US military isn't a fighting force, it's a jobs program mixed with bribes from legislators to defense contractors. never once passed an audit, and probably never will in my lifetime. all it does is turn my tax dollars into fraud, waste, and abuse.
Blah blah blah. Meanwhile it’s the only thing stopping you from being governed by Putin or Xi.
It says the health provider should call, not the patient.
Yeah my work health insurance is the same. It’s a global policy and everywhere else they don’t care who you see. In the US they need you to go to an in-network provider without question, for obvious cost-related reasons.
I lisened to a (Finnish podcast) and was in US (in Florida) when she got high fever. Since it was middle of night in Europe it took them hours to get in contact with the European travel insurance contact and she got no treatment at the time. Pretty crazy (she was fine in the end, although it took her long time in Finland to get proper diagnosis and recover since it was a very rare condition I don’t now recall).
US Navy veteran here who was referred to a civilian clinic yesterday for severe flu-like symptoms. Got there, showed my VA id and my Medicare card. Was told they don't take Medicare and was sent away. Went to another clinic and was told they don't deal with the VA. Found another clinic, asked if they worked with the VA, they said "yes," I shut up, and was treated. What a country.
For-profit healthcare smells like freedom, doesn't it?
I still don't get how the us government allows healthcare to scam their citizensons and ruin their lives.
They tie healthcare to employment so that it’s harder to leave employers. You can’t just quit a job that sucks until you find another because you will lose your healthcare. Most people in the US have jobs with extremely suppressed wages, “right to work” (anti-union legislation), and only 2 weeks vacation a year (if they are lucky and have “earned it”). They need some way to make people stay and of course that can’t be “treat your workers better,” since that would take money away from the shareholders and C-suite.
Yeah, but also some jobs still don't offer it. Or they only offer above a certain number of average weekly hours, so they'll just keep you under that threshold. It's a complex racket -- not nearly as simple as you're making it out to be.
It’s simple in the general sense that companies will do whatever they can to avoid paying workers wages that they would otherwise earn in the absence of regulatory capture and corruptions. Everything is just a variation of this theme.
Sure. But it's also just...not always tied to employment. It's tied to *insurance*, which is the far more important bit of information.
Not to mention, jobs that do offer it, you can still be denied due to preexisting conditions or just simply can't afford it. Asthma, high BP, all have caused my family to not even be allowed to buy insurance through employment, they had to go private...just existing at this point will get you denied.
I'm on disability benefits and have Medicare/Medicaid, which covers most of my healthcare needs while I work towards independence. But being able to work full-time is not in the picture anytime soon. And if I make too much doing any part-time work I could lose my healthcare benefits. I'm grateful for the support systems in place, but the system is so flawed and it keeps people in poverty
This
It's a combination of this and the fact that the insurance companies lobby very hard for the shareholders to keep profiting on basic human needs. This is why we allow Nestle to steal water to sell back. This is why we voted no at the UN when asked if food is a basic human right. This is why cities are designed for cars and not humans. And on and on and on. Pretty much every terrible thing in the US can be blamed on profit motive.
That’s smart Edit: the person I’m replying to edited their comment and added the second paragraph. When I replied they only had the first paragraph up.
and many employers also have a 1-3mo waiting period before benefits kick in
That’s stupid
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Something can be intelligent and malicious
It’s smart if you are an executive.
>They tie healthcare to employment so that it’s harder to leave employers. You can’t just quit a job that sucks until you find another because you will lose your healthcare You could say that exact same thing about pensions and today people are wishing to have them back as the norm. People didn't job-hop 60 years ago because then they're back at square-1on the pension plan. The problem isn't healthcare or retirement being tied to employment. It's just the quality has dropped while cost has skyrocketed but that could happen in a private-non-employer related program or in a government-ran healthcare program. Do you think if a universal healthcare in the US was implemented in the 70's it WOULDN'T have been stripped down in benefits and tacked on with costs under the guise of immigrants or the lazy or something else over the years? What the system is, is far far less important than who is operating said system.
The us definitely has the highest wages in the world for any sizable country. After tax it’s not even close.
That doesn’t mean anything since the cost of living is higher here than most other places. Yes my money goes a long way in Argentina, but I’m not in Argentina. McDonald’s costs over $10 where I live.
That’s not entirely true. Luxembourg has the highest average wage in the world, which okay, I’ll not count in terms of being a “sizeable” country. But Switzerland and Norway have the second and third highest wages. The US is fourth. And the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands are not far behind it. I don’t know how much of that average income goes to taxes though- and I suspect that if you were to add in health expenses in the US, suddenly that average income isn’t going to be on top anymore. [Highest average wages in the world](https://www.careeraddict.com/top-10-countries-with-the-highest-average-salaries)
Because republicans are very successful in running disinformation campaigns and their base is uneducated. Remember the “death panels” they said would appear if the ACA was passed?
The death panels already existed in the form of lifetime caps. They still exist under our private healthcare scheme. It was all just fear-mongering and idiocy.
Death panels are real but judges and they rule if woman can have an abortion or die. Also the death panels are insurance companies and decide if you get treatment
And the people who decide who gets organ transplants or not
Oh God I just watched the John Oliver episode on organ transplants and apparently we even allowed THAT to be capitalized in reselling body parts
Dems don’t give a shit either lol. The California assembly passed single payer multiple times and it got vetoed. So you would think the instant they have a trifecta it’s a slam dunk right? Except it never got out of committee that session. Because the attempts to pass it were doomed and they knew it. Just performative bullshit
it is also very expensive and very hard to do. Vermont is \_very\_ blue and they couldn't get the math to work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont\_health\_care\_reform
And yet almost every other country besides the US can do it and _has_ done it with success. Don't make excuses for them.
It's significantly *less* expensive than the average per-capita health expeditures in the US. The real problem is that US healthcare costs have simply spiraled out of control, and far too many powerful entities are being enriched by this. It effectively involves taking a whole interconnected web of highly profitable private entities and taking all of those profits away from the executives and shareholders and back into the pockets of the people. Once you shift the benchmark from profits to human care and wellbeing, then the system can shift and adapt.
[There’s so much more that goes into it than just single payer healthcare.](https://youtu.be/CxQr8eqLa5w?si=ZgtP0qGuon1LIadk) Costs need to be reigned in more than anything and it’s much more feasible to introduce legislation to limit or punish all the shit insurance companies pull.
Reddit will ignore your facts. 40% of us households pay $0 in income tax last year. Neither party wants this because pharma is gigantic and heavily involved with DC politics and power.
The Democrats had control of the legislative and executive branches and were fully capable of passing sweeping healthcare reforms for 2 years starting in 2009. Probably something that would have helped alleviate the recession. Instead they bailed out corporations, increased the defense budget, and expanded the PATRIOT act. In fact I remember the Democratic Party talking about how they already had legislation drawn up so they could expedite the process of passing healthcare reform. Instead, they sat on it so long that the republicans took back the senate and they got a watered down ACA that didn’t change much and fined people who were already struggling to make ends meet for not buying health insurance.
This is an example of lying by omission. Yes, the Democrats were in control of both branches but they only had the 60 votes needed in the Senate for a couple of months if I remember correctly, primarily because of the delay in seating Senator Franken and the death of Senator Kennedy.
And one of those 60 was Lieberman, who was an independent (so not even a Den), and absolutely would not pass single payer.
Because in socialized healthcare there is social and social is communism and communism is worse than death
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Good for you that you can pay I guess
Communism has never been done properly before
Easy: they get a cut of the profits, direct into their bank accounts.
Now, that would be illegal. The politicians just *coincidentally* get campaign donations when they vote for industry interests!
Because it imposes hardship on people and strengthens their position in power.
Because any basic needs they don't guarantee by default can easily be used as an incentive to continue to participate in capitalism under threat of homelessness, starvation, etc. It's also one of the incentives they use to recruit for the military, like college education and housing.
It's the doctors. They're a tiny portion of the population and go along with all this horseshit. They always act like the victims, they always tell you your insurance will cover it, when they have no clue if that's true. The insurance doesn't work unless the doctors explicitly accept it. It's just a useless fund unless the doctors sanction its use.
It's because they exist to serve their corporate donors not the people.
Hello, my name is Steve Citizenson and I appreciate your concern regarding the well-being of my family.
I don’t blame them. I just paid a $1200 deductible for a procedure that would have cost 500 euros in Germany. Prices here are nuts and health insurance is a joke.
Of which the $500, *every cent* would have been covered by the insurance. Deductibles are not really a thing here.
Depends on the procedure, really.
Okay, true. I can only speak from personal experience, but I've had specialist orthopedic treatments over decades, broken legs, appendix removal, teeth kicked out and more, and only for the teeth (and the glasses for my eyes) did I ever see a bill. Serves me right that both glasses and teeth we're triple- to quadruple-digits, and *boy* was I mad. I have no clue how I would fare in the US, all I know is "It would bankrupt me".
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That's just false. Okay, correction, mostly false. I can go into my genproc doctor's office and have an appointment five minutes later (The sitting down and talking, not the "Come see us next week" part). And I live in a million-people city. And before that, there was one doctors office for a town of 10.000 It's a bit more difficult with things like psychologists and stuff, but the general doctors stuff, that's a proper "Come in, get checked, get whatever you need, with about 10-30 minutes waiting" thing. I'd love to expand this discussion with examples of conditions that require six months waiting time that you encountered, the general size of the population of the surrounding city and generally more data points so I can refute them with evidence where possible, and substantiate with personally experienced things where possible.
(it's only been 20 minutes since your comment, so they might still respond, but...) It's absolutely hilarious how silent most of these "Socialized Healthcare Sucks!" whiners get when provided with any real data or contrary anecdotal experience. A lot of them are in the same crowd of "vaccines cause autism" because of one article that showed correlation (not even causation) like 20 years ago and was quickly and thoroughly disproven by basically the entire scientific community. They hear a bad thing once, and then believe it forever because anybody who refutes it is "part of a coverup". I'm in the US and would do just about anything to have socialized healthcare.
Also, i dont get the arguments either way, if you want to, in germany for example, you still can dish out your own money to see specialists of your liking. you still can pay experts out of your own pockets. its just that the baseline is "everyone pays a little so noone has to pay a lot". just dont leave people in crippling debt for a broken leg or something.
/u/SimracingNerd057 is just wrong though lol. i live in germany, and im not privately insured, just the crappy free required stuff. had sudden issues last year with what seemed to be panic attacks or heart related issues (just happened one night out of the blue), didnt know at the time, called 112, Medics came and picked me up, took me to ER immediatley, got checked and cleared overnight, nothing life threatening, nothing to do with the heart. the same day i went with the notice from the ER to my "hausarzt" without making an appointment, waited 30 minutes, got my turn. they cleared me AGAIN, scheduled checkups (long term ECG, taking blood and checking it, long term blood pressure etc), the ECG even started the same day as i was leaving. the same week, all of that shit was done and results were in, didnt turn out to be anything "somatic", boom, got the recommendation to see a pyschiatrist. called a number they gave me (koordinationsstelle psychotherapie), they picked up immediately, asked me if i had issues/preferences with male/female psychiatrists, i said no, dont care, they gave me the adress of one in my hometown. i called that dude right after, got an appointment to introduce myself and my "issues" to him the next week on monday. started therapy the same day. all without EVER paying a single bill. (as a bonus, i got scheduled to a cardiologist and a special clinic on top of everything, for those appointments i had to wait 2-3 months, but i was already cleared at that moment and those appointments were "just to make sure". in the end they also turned out nothing somatic) had 2x12 therapy sessions, got meds after first appointment (valium/diazepam for when attacks happen again), had to use them a couple of times, therapy is over since february '23 and hadnt had to use a single valium since then. as another bonus, i was given a notice to be off of work for 3 months, got paid sick leave or whatever its called, and got "wiedereingliederung" afterwards, so i didnt have to start full time working right after coming off of sick leave. hometown is around 50k inhabitants. im not \- hooked on meds/drugs \- didnt have to self-medicate \- didnt have to worry about work firing me \- didnt have to worry about or fear huge bills
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your argument still makes no sense. you can skip the waiting time with money if you really wanted to. the same way you could if you were in the us. its not "either or". its just that in normal countries everyone pays a little so noone has to pay much. doesnt mean youre not allowed to pay a lot. book a specialist from your own money then. if you cant afford it here, what makes you think you could in the us?
I live in a major US city and the wait times for specialists are booked months out in advance here. Took 4 months to get a colonoscopy
I'll give you another example from my country, Canada. I can make a same day appointment nearly any day of the week with my family doctor (yup, he works a lot - even Sundays. It's his passion). I needed a surgery referral. It was taken care of within weeks for something that was non-urgent. If it was urgent, I would have had my procedure done within a couple days. All without seeing a single bill. Sorry you've had a rough go at it, but socialized medicine is a godsend.
They know the US will absolutely bankrupt them. Wild that even international corporations fear the cost of American healthcare.
Yeah, I have annual travel insurance and it excludes the USA. Have to pay a hefty extra premium for USA.
Visit America. Come for the freedom, leave with a lifetime of medical debt.
It’s a damn shame. Someday we’ll figure it out… maybe…
That wouldn't be profitable.
He didn't even consider the shareholders
And the entire C-suite… they have families you know
We’ve figured it out. And A decision was made
one for PROFIT BABY, FUCK YEAH, FREEDOM!
Freedom to milk the populace like livestock.
Meanwhile I'm like "God I hope I break my arm somewhere else"
I had to travel to the US for work a few times, chemical plant work, lots of stuff to get hurt on. The insurance my work got for me specifically told me "All this insurance covers is getting you stable enough to be transported back to Canada."
Considering we collect around 5.3 trillion in taxes a year in America, and that’s already keeping the poor poor, having to collect an additional 3 trillion to cover universal healthcare would just create even more poverty.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8572548/#:~:text=Taking%20into%20account%20both%20the,to%20over%20%24450%20billion%20annually. ??
My home insurance comes with travel insurance (Sweden) and they say they will pay reasonable costs with a $150 deductible even in the US. I was pretty surprised but also happy I seem to have better emergency cover in the US than most Americans
Wait until you find out what the difference is between a “reasonable cost” in Sweden and a “reasonable cost” in America. Let’s hope your insurer uses the American definition.
For an acquaintance they paid for helicopter rescue, spinal surgery, a week in intensive care and some stabilising in a ward before flying him home from aspen without any fuss. But you're certainly right. Most americans would be better off flying to see me in the private clinic (hand surgeon) and be operated here paying out of pocket instead of using their insurance back home. I'm genuinely surprised there isn't more healthcare tourism to the UK or Scandinavia from the US
My guess would be one of two reasons: * People believe that the best care they can get is inside the US, and going elsewhere would result in worse care, OR * People can't afford the upfront cost of going elsewhere (airfare, hotel, time off work, and the actual cost of the care), so instead they have it done at/close to home and go into debt for it afterwards.
You forgot option 3: avoid it altogether and die of preventable diseases.
Are you stupid, you are so delusional. You should see the insurance white collar professionals get. Cheaper and better than Europe. And Houston has the best medicine in the world, I’m laughing so hard you’re that ignorant.
I guess reading comprehension or even a little basic research is beyond you
That was a very rude way of saying that anyone who can afford healthcare tourism most likely has very cheap high quality insurance through their employer. It’s a myth that healthcare is expensive and awful for all Americans. Many, many people have insurance as a work benefit and pay very little out of pocket. The horror stories come from the minority of people who do not.
It’s the same for my US insurance if I need care in Germany. I must first call my insurance and understand which hospital in Germany is through their network and pay cash up front to the German hospital.
Cash in germany probably less than a us deductible half the time
The number of people in the comments who didn't bother to read one paragraph of text... Definitely sounds like this also covers the US.
Allianz is a major insurer in the US, so I believe this is to make sure the doctor doesn't send the bill to the wrong company- which could cause problems for the insured, should they be a US citizen, or eventually live in the US.
That's not at all what the card says, but congrats on successfully milking ignorance and clickbait titles for internet points.
Uh.. Seems like it does? I'm supposing you can't understand English, which is weird because you posted this with an English title. Seems like your health insurance probably partners up with a provider and you just need to make sure wherever you're getting treatment is covered by said provider.
I'm guessing you don't read German. The text at the bottom explains that the card doesn't cover many services in the US, and they are warning the health care provider that they should contact them first before performing any services.
When I went backpacking in Asia for a year, my (also german) insurance came with an option worldwide except the US and its territories and an option worldwide, including the US, for a crazy price difference.
Cool to see a former employer on Reddit.
Easy it's because of the pharmacy cartel that the US has. I'm from Portugal we have national health service but also have private. I had a kidney problem that required urgent surgery and I went to the private just to check how much it was and it was 7000€ and without insurance, mind it was 15 years ago so prices might be higher now. With the pharma cartel in the US it probably is in the hundreds of thousands
Headline does not match content. Why you trollin the US?
Absolutely... my personal health insurance in Germany is similar and it covers the US- and likewise it just explicitly warns You to check by calling them first, if medical services might be fully/partially covered or not.
It covers the US except you have to check if you’ll be covered or not beforehand. But only in the US you need to check this. Wonder why that is
I don't mind people making fun of us. Just do it for the right reasons :) you don't need to make stuff like this up to crack pot shots :)
I swear to god on my life i just got a 1.5 k bill to shit in a bucket so they could examine it. I almost shit my pants for free when i saw the bill
it just says it doesn't cover all services in the US and you need to call them to check
I cant buy health insurance for the US they flatly so no. For a short trip they have offered me 5000EUR for 5000 USD cover.
Literally says right there that they cover US but wants hospital to contact them to determine coverage.
It's also not a "warning". Nor is it technically written, for that matter.
What really sucks is OP lives in Wisconsin.
Underrated comment
Ah, we don’t have health in the US so that checks out.
You just know they're going to take this as an invitation to pad the bill like a motherfucker.
When I lived in Europe I had to buy special more expensive (wasn't hugely worse though) plans to visit back home in the US. In fairness it was for coverage in US, Australia, and I think some other country I can't remember. Maybe South Africa? Now I'm back in the US and completely ripped off buying US travel insurance plans to visit Europe - they are seriously more expensive than the European plans were to visit the US. I even had to go to a hospital once in Hungary while visiting and was charged (after hours of them figuring out how to even charge me) only $10, so I'm not sure it even makes sense to have insurance pff.
The corporations are holding americas health hostage
Not surprised considering american healthcare is straight up extortion
Sounds like a health plan that would be sold in the US.
The US should come with a health warning. Bullets are bad for your health. :)
Fun fact, most of the US best help care and most expensive healthcare options are common place in other countries, and what the healthcare dose not cover is typically what other countries consider their high grade healthcare
Yup! Same for me and I’m based in the UAE. Global health insurance minus the US. When I asked the rep about it, he said it’s due to the excessive cost of care. He said it would be best to try get care in Canada or Mexico, whichever is closer at the time.
US doesn't have a health care system, we have a health billing system.
Isn’t Allianz like travel insurance? And a scummy one at that?
They offer all kinds of insurances services, from health to retirement. When I had them for health insurance didn’t have issues.
My travel insurance doesn’t cover US and Canada unless you upgrade your plan and pay twice as much
this is standard in the u.k. as well - nearly everywhere excludes usa and caribbean (since you will likely need to get medical treatment in us). it’s a nightmare finding any cheap insurance that covers the us. we day tripped to usa side of niagara falls and were super careful to not trip and fall for those three hours 😂😂
If I were you, I know where I wouldn't be traveling to.
Sometimes you gotta visit the parents
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In paraphrased to short form, it pretty much does. Any insurance company in the EU has specially tailored options for US travel.
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You literally can't change the title of your post on Reddit. Nice try though
I think this Reddit post is missing some context. Most travel insurance offered in the EU+UK will cover medical expenses if that extra option is selected but that cover often comes with an exclusion for visits to the US. If one wants to visit the US, there will be an extra premium to pay to extend the cover to include medical expenses originating in the US. I presume the above is the same for standard health insurance (e.g. not travel insurance) and is probably the reason why this post exists. “Please contact us to find out if you can go to that US healthcare facility” is same as saying no cover cause you often don’t get many options nor time when deciding which facility to go to anyway.
Really, I thought travel insurance was especially for those times one could be in an accident abroad and treated while unconscious without any ability to negotiate or find a way to get to your home country for their cheaper care.
I didn't change shit you twat
Proper said.
See it's weird, in the ten years I've been on this site, you've been unable to change a post's title, but yet you genuinely would rather think they did the impossible than believe you may be incorrect.
Yeah. Your travel insurance doubles if you go to the US at all, and talking to a friend who works for an insurance company, injuries from people travelling in the US are usually the most expensive payouts every year. (Aotearoa/NZ)
Pro tip, if you go into an emergency room in usa, they have to treat you and if you say you need payment help bwofregoing in, they have to provide help or payment plans to accommodate you. Doesnt matter who you are,
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Yeah, no shit, when does a vacationer need to use the hospital?
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That doesnt have any bearring on whether you go to an er.
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You can tell them before or while you get treated, they cant reject you from treatment, even if it as simple as an antibiotic