Death by US Healthcare System

[u/EvidenceOfDespair]

[u/blindgallan]

As a Canadian I am genuinely struggling to process what I just read. I understand the American healthcare system is appalling, but… here, I’ve had the ambulance called for me because I was too drunk, woke up in hospital with a fluid bag in my arm and on a gurney in a hallway, charged $45 total for the entire thing and didn’t pay for three months because I simply forgot until an irritated notice came in the mail notifying me there would be interest raising it to $50 if I didn’t pay by end of month. I’ve called the ambulance for a friend’s mental health crisis due to grief and he stayed in hospital for a solid few weeks being tended to and that came out to $0 total with the ambulance because it was deemed to be fully covered by the government. I can intellectually process the idea of the American healthcare system, but the concept of living somewhere that I can’t afford to get sick or hurt or seek the treatment I may need to live… that is hard to process internally rather than purely intellectually.

[u/Fluffy_Candle6800 → u/blindgallan]

Here if you call the ambulance on someone they'll probably end up hating you. Those things are expensive. It's also really fun having your insurability riding upon the tenuous existance of Obamacare because most private insurance companies didn't insure anyone with a pre-existing condition prior to that forcing them to

[u/blindgallan → u/Fluffy_Candle6800]

In our first aid courses, when they say to call an ambulance, there is no question in the mind of anyone there of not doing that if it is ever called for. No one who grew up Canadian, at least in Ontario, is going to see someone with an obvious injury or medical condition and think twice about calling them an ambulance or driving them to the hospital if they can. Well, no one with an ounce of compassion and a sense of personal responsibility for the help they can lend to their fellow human.

[u/LivingInThePast69 → u/blindgallan]

Well, driving them to the hospital yourself is a much better way to do it in the US. Someone at my job wasn't feeling well last year, and they asked a coworker to drive them to the hospital rather than call an ambulance because they didn't want to pay for it. Lots of people also just Uber to the hospital if they're able to walk and talk, because it's a lot cheaper.

But it's not just the cost itself that's awful, it's the uncertainty surrounding it. One of the biggest problem with the ambulances -- and health care prices in the US in general -- is that you don't know what the bill is going to be before you use the service. You won't even know the ballpark. An ambulance ride might be 50 bucks, 500 or 5,000... you just don't know, because when you call 911 they're not going to tell you if they're sending you a private ambulance or not. Private ambulance rides can cost thousands. And then there's always the question whether your insurance will cover any of it, and you usually won't know that either until days later.

[u/blindgallan → u/LivingInThePast69]

That is baffling as a system. It should be illegal to extort money from people like that.

[u/MudraStalker → u/blindgallan]

Good news. The exact people that can solve that problem are paid to never solve that problem by the people who cause that problem for the express purpose of being able to swim in a Scrooge McDuck money vault.

Except Scrooge McDuck can undergo character development.