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With universal healthcare come other issues like waiting months for a bed. The real solution (and it's maybe 100 years away) is automating hospitals to a point

With universal healthcare come other issues like waiting months for a bed. The real solution (and it's maybe 100 years away) is automating hospitals to a point where humans no longer play a role in healthcare management and it's 100% funded by the state/country. Maybe we won't even have hospitals and instead a portable home healthcare unit. One can dream ;-)

ashildr 8y ago
We have universal healthcare in Germany. The longest time I had to wait was 17 days for a stationary colonoscopy because I wanted that exact hospital. And a MRI of the knee would have been 12 days of waiting until I called different radiologists in my area and got one the nextday. * Yes, our healthcare can be improved and politics is constantly trying to make it worse. But I doubt that the average person waiting for a bed in Germany can even afford a bed in the US. * ah, no co-pay by the way, I have no idea how expensive those things are.
- mnm1 8y ago
  Co-pay / co-insurance can run into the thousands literally up to your out of pocket maximum. For me as an individual, I think that's about $4-5k and for a family about $8-10k but this is with the second best insurance available. That's every year, an amount that you might have to pay if you are sick. With a chronic condition or a major trip to the hospital one is very likely to hit those limits. Not to mention the months to years of dealing with bills afterwards, when one is trying to recover, and companies wrongly billing, billing for too much, not billing insurance, double billing. No drawbacks to universal healthcare even come close to this absolute fucking hell. It's hell for the patients' family, so one can only imagine how it is for the patient. And then, of course, there are the times when care is simply refused outright and your father dies the day after he leaves the hospital ... but hey, insurance companies gotta make money off of some people dying. They don't care it's someone's father or mother or children.
- semerda 8y ago
  co-pay example: a friend broke his collar bone few months back in Tahoe and had surgery to fix it. Full cost ~$60K. Out of pocket: ~$7K on Gold (80/20) insurance. You can read about the metal categories (ie. Gold) and other things I wrote about the US healthcare here: https://medium.com/the-road-to-silicon-valley/us-healthcare-for-aliens-startups-demystified-858fbf2cf0a6 https://medium.com/the-road-to-silicon-valley/us-healthcare-...

ashildr 8y ago

We have universal healthcare in Germany. The longest time I had to wait was 17 days for a stationary colonoscopy because I wanted that exact hospital. And a MRI of the knee would have been 12 days of waiting until I called different radiologists in my area and got one the nextday. * Yes, our healthcare can be improved and politics is constantly trying to make it worse. But I doubt that the average person waiting for a bed in Germany can even afford a bed in the US. * ah, no co-pay by the way, I have no idea how expensive those things are.

mnm1 8y ago
Co-pay / co-insurance can run into the thousands literally up to your out of pocket maximum. For me as an individual, I think that's about $4-5k and for a family about $8-10k but this is with the second best insurance available. That's every year, an amount that you might have to pay if you are sick. With a chronic condition or a major trip to the hospital one is very likely to hit those limits. Not to mention the months to years of dealing with bills afterwards, when one is trying to recover, and companies wrongly billing, billing for too much, not billing insurance, double billing. No drawbacks to universal healthcare even come close to this absolute fucking hell. It's hell for the patients' family, so one can only imagine how it is for the patient. And then, of course, there are the times when care is simply refused outright and your father dies the day after he leaves the hospital ... but hey, insurance companies gotta make money off of some people dying. They don't care it's someone's father or mother or children.
semerda 8y ago
co-pay example: a friend broke his collar bone few months back in Tahoe and had surgery to fix it. Full cost ~$60K. Out of pocket: ~$7K on Gold (80/20) insurance. You can read about the metal categories (ie. Gold) and other things I wrote about the US healthcare here: https://medium.com/the-road-to-silicon-valley/us-healthcare-for-aliens-startups-demystified-858fbf2cf0a6 https://medium.com/the-road-to-silicon-valley/us-healthcare-...