‘Don’t get sick. It’s too expensive’: medical debt is putting more Americans in financial crisis
‘Don’t get sick. It’s too expensive’: medical debt is putting more Americans in financial crisis
I remember when we bought a house 8 years ago (seems like a lifetime now) talking to the mortgage broker and he basically said they straight-up ignore medical debt because everyone has it and nobody would ever get a loan if it was considered. It's utterly insane to me how the wealthiest nation in the world can't keep its citizens healthy and out of debt.
They can, but the current system is far more profitable.
the wealthiest nation in the world can't keep its citizens healthy and out of debt.
But it can. The wealthiest nation in the world per capita is Luxembourg; then Switzerland. I think Norway finishes the top three. Excellent medical systems.
CUBA's consolidated single-payer healthcare system beats the US's #30 rank. And does it far, far cheaper. https://wisevoter.com/country-rankings/best-healthcare-in-the-world/
As Jeff Daniels says in the first act of the first episode of Newsroom, " Yosemite?"
Won't someone PLEASE think of the shareholders?!
yes they do it cheaper because people aren't afraid of going to the doctor and getting a $500 bill because the doctor's assistant that was there for 10 minutes is out of network
That's lucky of you. Many do take it into account.
What's nuts is that the majority of people declaring bankruptcy because of medical debt have insurance.
The credit agencies do this, too. Medical debt is either not counted against your credit score or is weighted so little it won't affect much.
It makes perfect sense, because it's not an accurate depiction of your credit seeking habits. It is debt that you did not choose to take on.
oh this guy is nearly dead lets take him to money-bags medical
The US healthcare system is a for profit death cult ran by racketeers
How dare you be critical of it you commie! /s
All rights are won through violence
"America has Health Control and Guncare"
It always has. IIRC the biggest reason for bankruptcy in the US has been medical bills, for a while. Our greed driven system is garbage.
Michael Moore made a whole damn documentary about it in 2007, 16 fucking years ago.
Nothing has changed.
They eliminated pre-existing conditions and maximum lifetime payments for health insurance, so that's not nothing.
But they failed to pass a public option which means health insurance companies have a captive audience for their rent-seeking.
And the Democrats still just talk about getting people affordable "coverage" and not affordable "care."
And hospitals are still understaffed and mental health care has six month waiting lists.
Michael more was FED UP 16 years ago. It's always been broken
Not just the biggest, the biggest by far. Two thirds of bankruptcies are due to medical debt.
Stop paying medical bills. A debt strike would be easier than a general strike.
Well part of it 8s not going to hurt your credit score anymore:
https://www.cnbc.com/select/medical-debt-credit-report/
Any bills under $500 in collections won't be going against your score. Debts larger than that in collections have to be there for at least a year to be on your credit score and disappear once they are paid.
We could fix all this shit by having the cheaper Medicare for All solution.
Aetna pulled out of my county for five months. I ended up in a ICU for three days, which is about a $50,000 bill.
So now I'm on the hook for an $8,000 out of network deductible.
Fuck U.S. health insurance.
$500 is nothing. My son fell and hit his head and had a small seizure from the fall.. took him to the ER, ct scan, medical exam, anti nausea medication, costed $750 out if pocket AFTER insurance. It was like a $3k medical bill before insurance. For like 2 hours at the ER and a scan... it's ridiculous.
Yet COVID vaccinations are down...
And "essential workers" are right back to being expected to work while sick...
This is fine.
Nothing changed for "essential workers". The only reprieve they received was guaranteed time off if they contracted Covid. We still had sick people working, they were the wrong kind of sick.
Got my free COVID shot and my free flu shot 90metres away at the pharmacy. Strolled in, they pulled up my info on pharmanet, all good, let's do it. Out in 5.
It amazes me how people went to work sick as if it was normal. Of courses some bosses were assholes and "wouldn't let you go home" or "needed you at work". Sure boss let me sneeze in my hand before I shake everybody else's hand.
Now these days woah big scary covid. If you're not feeling good please stay home. We should've been staying home like 30 yrs ago,
Went
They still are.
I have a 103 fever and here I am. At work.
I'm not sure what places you are working that kept the COVID era scare.
Medicine is so polarized I can't even tell my coworkers I tested positive for COVID. One of them will go on a violent rant for hours. '"Yep, I'm definitely a crisis actor. They don't pay much these days. This is my second job"
You say that like we got anything out of covid. Or anyone learned anything about why sick days are needed
I wonder if it’s a case of empathy being forced on some people, like when a Republican is suddenly LGBT tolerant because one of their own kids came out. But in this case it’s the feeling of worrying about their health or that of a loved one.
Whatever the cause, it’s still a positive change. I’m sure many of us who already saw the sense in staying home will now err on the side of caution a little more often.
can't get sick if you can't afford the diagnosis.
The next obvious evolutionary step.
You Joke, that but that was literally the approach of TFG when it came to covid testing.
I'm American. When I get cancer I plan to have one or two good months and kill myself.
The Repblican health care plan since 2009:
Man, where's Alan Grayson when you need him?
I was at a work training in the US with someone from Japan. She said she had only been to the US one other time but that she had gotten sick and spent 2 weeks in the hospital.
I don’t know what Japan’s healthcare system is like, but I can’t imagine being someone from another country and unfamiliar with our shitty system and getting that huge ass bill.
Most probably it was still covered by here Japanese insurance. A friend of mine broke an arm while in US and some insurance he bought in Poland paid for everything. You don't have to be familiar with American system. It's just like any other insurance.
Traveller insurance can often offset it.
It's NOT like any other insurance.
Case in point: I rolled into the hospital with a sore arm. X-rays and an arm cast. But I left my wallet at home because my ride showed up early. "just phone down with your health number, if you could, so we can update the right file. Thanks!". 0$
Non-US case2: I felt a wave of dizziness on the way to work and almost browned out while driving. Pulled over. It passed and I drove 2 blocks to the hospital. Related my story and spent 8 hours in test after test, room after room. I got the full workup. $0
Non-US case 3: my dear friend collapsed while this wife was out getting Starbucks. Dumbstruck and in pain. He could only speed dial her number: 911 was too complex. She does 911 and races home (xkr-s) as the first ambulance arrives and lets them in. They stabilize while the specialized cardiac bus is arriving. "Follow us in. Look. We're gonna try for surrey but if he crashes we'll divert to rch(trauma center). We're gonna hit the lights, siren and punch it. Don't feel you need to-- [spots jaguar idling] okay. So keep up only if it's safe. We're going." SGH spotted something, not sure. Admitted for obs. Something was something, so it was a hot and loud bus to RCH anyway because it was serious and if he coded in traffic it would kill him. Heat up the trauma center o-r on a Sunday morning to apply 5 stents and prevent death by Widowmaker heart attack. He lives. Goes home in 2 weeks. $0
We're not even paying monthly premiums anymore. But I would. I'm at the top end of the income-based sliding scale and I'll pay it every damned month.
US example: dude rolls into wrong hospital while unconscious after soccer collision. Concussion. Tylenol. "Go home. Don't fall asleep". $80k(trauma center)+$10(Tylenol).
My US example: IT. Great insurance as they like us (Unix dev). Northgate Hospital in WA as I'm an H1b imm'grint takin-yer-jerb. Roll in for a simple procedure to alleviate spinal pressure when a sinus (not that kind) isn't draining by itself. Advise the doc it's a common thing for me, and a local and a horse-needle will get it back in line. Doc lays in with a scalpel and butchers me. Charges $500 for the pleasure but the invoice of arbitrary charges I didn't have to pay was insane. Came home when my first h1 was up. Not looking back.
Americans have normalized low-key medical fear and avoidance that they don't realize; and they are missing chances to catch things before it costs them their house or their life; and defending medical-induced bankruptcy (which can't be discharged through bankruptcy) while completely blind to the fact that no other g8 is this objectively cruel to its own people.
We are so baffled in Europe about how a country that preaches human rights around the world revels in denying its own people one of the most fundamental human rights. Truly mind boggling.
Yeah but have you ever tried to live with only 3 homes instead of 4 or 5? It’s a lot to ask of our dear job creators!
/s
$
Hypocrisy is a defining feature of the ideology that half of our politicians subscribe to.
I view medicine in the US similar to video piracy. If you are going to make access expensive and difficult to obtain, then I have no issue with stealing it. Medical debt is handled differently than other types of debt. IANAL, but I have no qualms with running up a 700k medical debt for life saving treatment then bouncing on the bill.
That's actually what a lot of people do.
Plenty of medical bills simply go unpaid.
Just go to the hospitals office and tell em to give you the real bill first
Hey I just a had a thought. We should have a vote on student loan debt. If you vote against a blanket clearing of the debt you automatically go on a list of people who can't declare bankruptcy due to medical debt.
Sorry, but taxpayers shouldn't be bailing out your poor financial decisions. You took out the loans, you can pay them back.
Taxpayers bail out poor financial decisions all the time, I see no reason to stop right before one that would actually help people.
why is this advice only heeded when people are asked to bail out non-billionaires? Feels like we stopped doing that shit over 80 years ago. This cosplay free market shit is so delusional.
We're constantly bailing out and subsidizing megacorps, but when asked to invest even the tiniest fraction of that spending into education people all pretend that's not how our economy works. Poor economic decisions that lose trillions of dollars are made all the time but people act like college students are the only ones that should pay for them.
When some idiot buys a government subsidized 80k SUV and cries about gas prices being too high we bail out that dumbass constantly, even buy him a stupid road to drive it on. But college students, well we cant subsidize their luxurious bullshit because jeff bezos' profit margin won't go up right away.
What about us who worked hard AF to pay off their off student loans early?
This was 5 years ago, not 15 or 20. I'm not being petulant or a child
"I had it terrible, so everyone should have it terrible!"
What about those of us that had to starve? You should starve, too!
Well, what about ya? How about you look at the whole system and learn how unsustainable it is? How about you understand that those just finishing the process are in a much worse position than most of those that just finished paying their loans were when they first graduated (and it wasn't great when you first graduated either).
Well, what about you?
Note: I just finished paying off my student debt in Oct.
"Wah, I didn't get the thing so that means nobody can get the thing!"
You sound like a petulant child. Be happy that millions of young people would have been lifted out of debt.
Ehrlichman: “Edgar Kaiser is running his Permanente deal for profit. And the reason that he can … the reason he can do it … I had Edgar Kaiser come in … talk to me about this and I went into it in some depth. All the incentives are toward less medical care, because …”
President Nixon: [Unclear.]
Ehrlichman: “… the less care they give them, the more money they make.”
President Nixon: “Fine.” [Unclear.]
"getting sick" and "getting hospitalized" are two wildly different things. I got sick last week and it cost me nothing (well, a few $$$ for some ice cream).
You don't need to be hospitalised for Multiple Sclerosis, but you're still sick, and it's still costing you between $60k and $90k/yr depending on insurance(https://www.verywellhealth.com/ms-treatment-cost-what-to-expect-5409576).
My ex lives in a country with socialised health care, though, and pays nothing for her treatments. You can be cavalier about it when the same is true in the US.
But the strong economy...
Clearly these people have not seen The Statistics™
Easy solution don't pay
I eat literal fish antibiotics from the internet when I need antibiotics. American healthcare is too expensive.
I mean aren't most animal antibiotics if not all simply the same stuff we used adjusted by weight of the animal?
Yeah it should be the same chemical, but there's zero regulatory oversight (FDA in this case) to ensure you know exactly what you're putting in your body, what the actual dose is, etc.
This is nothing new: Been doing it my whole fucking life :(
Were you able to get out of it? That's an obscene charge.
At times I wonder if medically assisted suicides are frowned upon due to not being able to further drain the money out of patients and their extended credit lines.
They're also frowned upon because it's pretty cruel to tell someone "well, you could just die" because they can't afford medical treatments or a place to live.
Nobody needs to tell us that. We already know.
I'd rather rhave the option than not even ha e autonomy over my own life.