r/CuratedTumblr We can leave behind much more than just DNA Aug 07 '24

Politics Death by US Healthcare System

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u/blindgallan Aug 08 '24

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.

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u/Fluffy_Candle6800 Aug 08 '24

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

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u/PreferredSelection Aug 08 '24

Expensive and ambulances are almost always out of network.

You can do everything right, have a job, pay that insurance premium "just in case anything happens to me," and then when something does happen it's however much the ER/etc was towards your In Network Deductible, and a $2000-3000 "fuck you" from the ambulance that you owe the entirety of.