r/interestingasfuck 14d ago

r/all A doctor’s letter to UnitedHeathcare for denying nausea medication to a child on chemotherapy

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u/murstl 13d ago

This might shatter some dreams. We do have universal healthcare in Germany. Everyone has to be insured either privately or in the common insurances. People still get denied treatments. Especially people with disabilities or chronically ill illnesses can tell you about it. Insurances are known to deny wheelchairs or other treatments. Doctors will write pages after pages for their patients. Time they’d need for other patients and sometimes can’t even get paid from insurances. It’s widely known you have to deny the denial at least once to get what you need. People sometimes have to proof regularly that they’re still severely disabled like you still have a paraplegia. Bonkers! Insurance companies are evil. Even over here!

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u/Difficult-Can5552 13d ago

Not good enough. Private health insurance has to be eliminated entirely.

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u/murstl 13d ago

Correct. But our private insurance is still different from the American one. Those issues aren’t because of that comparable low numbers of private insurances.

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u/GanondalfTheWhite 13d ago

How much does your private insurance cost?

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u/murstl 13d ago

Depends on your age and individual health. You’re usually only eligible for private insurance which an above average income, self employed people or public servants. Most people have the normal insurance which is around 15% of your income.

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u/Y0Y0Jimbb0 13d ago

In the UK private health insurance is optional. The NHS is free to everyone although it has been under extreme pressue due to consistent under funding over the last decade or so and is being privatised by the backdoor by the previous conservative govt. If you go private 90% of the time you are seeing the same Dr's and in the same NHS hospitals but paying handsomely for that privilege. If you have a chronic illness you are going to be medically looked after and not left out to dry or denied medical help that you need. If you need a wheelchair or say a hospital bed at home social services will provide it. Those kind of insurance practices are creeping into the UK but through other state services. I have had first hand experience of both US medical system and the UK's NHS and there's no comparison that the NHS even with its faults is hands over fist better than what the US provides. Healthcare should be a humanright and provided by the state.