4 ms·
Hospital corporations and insurance corporations are not your friend. You shouldn't have to do this in a first world country, but: * Go to the ER without ID
by Talyen42 8y ago
Hospital corporations and insurance corporations are not your friend.
You shouldn't have to do this in a first world country, but:
* Go to the ER without ID
* (optional) Ask how much it will cost
* (optional) They do not give prices, as a matter of policy
* They must treat you by law
* Afterwards, offer a cash payment you deem reasonable
* They will accept or decline it
Transaction complete.
For non-emergency care and prescriptions, get cash quotes up front, pay in cash, and order discount online prescriptions from canada, a first world country.
For chronic medical conditions, leave the US and immigrate to a first world country.
- saalweachter 8y agoImportant note on ER care. The job of the ER is to prevent you from dying, not fix you. If you are injured in a way that requires an expensive surgery and therapy to fix but won't actually kill you if left untreated, even if it cripples you, they are not obligated to fix you under the law.
- swarnie_ 8y agoHow did your healthcare system get messed up to such a level? This is criminal in western Europe.
- saalweachter 8y agoThe short answer is racism and greed.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoAmerican Exceptionalism combined with FUD.
- lr4444lr 8y agoIt goes back to WWII when we had a strange price controls on labor. Health insurance was a way for employers to provide employ compensation circumventing that. Originally it was quite manageable, but as with any system where neither the consumer nor the producer of the good/service has any incentive to keep down costs, it spiraled out of control. Also, president Richard Nixon effectively linked national health care with socialism as part of Cold War propaganda. (That said, he did offer comprehensive health reform too that in a number of ways was more dramatic than we achieved under president Obama, but the congress killed it.)
- eli 8y agoAnd of course this is bad for everyone involved. We don't pay for someone to get preventative or proactive treatments for a chronic condition, instead choosing to divert very expensive ER resources to treat as a series of emergency interventions. Worse for the patient, worse for the hospital, worse for anyone else paying into the system.
- 21 8y agoDoes this actually work? Won't they detain you and call the police like a shop or restaurant would if you don't pay the bill?
- clarkmoody 8y agoYou forgot the "They must treat you by law" part. You are effectively coercing them into treating you when you walk in the door.
- maxerickson 8y agoTo be fair, it's society coercing them. Using a complicated system of certification and reimbursement rather than guns.
- torpfactory 8y agoJust to be clear what the alternative to coercion (and I agree with that characterization): rejecting ER patients at the door means some of them will literally be dying in the streets.
- briandear 8y agoActually they don’t have to “treat” you per se — only stabilize a life-threatening emergency condition. They don’t have to treat your sore throat.
- 21 8y agoI don't forget. They must treat you doesn't mean that you must not pay. They can just send you the bill home after the police get your details. If you have or not money to pay, that's a secondary issue, just like when you get a loan.
- lr4444lr 8y agoInteresting question. I can't find anything online about a hospital invoking Shopkeeper's Privilege, but chances are they might try to, and even if the police would eventually release you, your identity would surely be discoverable by the hospital. I don't think the OP is giving safe advice.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]