6 ms·

Hospitalized in Split – Intoxication

92 points by rahuldottech 7y ago

rahuldottech 7y ago
Relevant discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/c7gfxj/american_guy_is_surprised_when_he_gets_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/c7gfxj/american_guy...
andrei_says_ 7y ago
Applying market forces to medical services is another way to spell extortion. What blows my mind is how easy it seems to condition so many people into believing that extortion is a normal way to approach healthcare. It is not.
- blargmaster33 7y ago
  "Applying market forces to food services is another way to spell extortion. " The communism is strong in this one
- pitaj 7y ago
  Market forces apply to every other necessity of life, why would they not apply to healthcare?
  - solarkraft 7y ago
    Maybe because it doesn't seem to work well?
  - andrei_says_ 7y ago
    This is false. Imagine every street being a toll road, dynamically adjusting price to the maximum people driving to work, or to to their wedding, are willing to pay. Imagine a fire engine arriving only after establishing the market price the owner of a burning house is willing to pay.
- fvdessen 7y ago
  I'm not American but there must be something different about the USA regarding healthcare than market forces as for 1500$/month I can get a private insurance that covers full medical costs in every country on earth ... except the USA, which must be bought separately at double the price. And that private insurance is cheaper than what I pay for healthcare with the state system, so it would seem that private insurances can provide reasonably priced services, just not in the USA.
  - andrei_says_ 7y ago
    The USA has refined the art of extracting money from people who are scared for their well being. Edit: Here are a couple of the many forces contributing to this: * Political corruption is legal, in the form of lobbying. Politicians spend up to 70% of their time negotiating campaign money and large corporate donors can effectively fire (not-re-elect) any politician by not donating their campaign. Donors use this to "independently" lobby for laws that benefit them, effectively writing laws. Large health insurance companies, pharmaceuticals, etc. take full advantage of this. * Large employers are able to negotiate and purchase insurance at lower prices, and then offer better/any health insurance as employment benefits. This allows them to negotiate cheaper labor, on a very large scale -- if you want health insurance for your children and spouse, you are more likely to put up with an employer who pressures you for more work and treats you badly.
burlesona 7y ago
I’m a big free-market person, and generally skeptical of regulation and government programs. That being said, I think there are conditions when a free market can fail, and one of those conditions is when you don’t have supply and demand working rationally for one reason or another. I’ve come to see healthcare as one of those cases. If a doctor says the cost of your life, or your child’s life, is X... who is going to shrug that off and refuse to pay? Thus in an unregulated market, medical practitioners can very nearly charge whatever a patient is capable of paying, and in my experience that’s exactly what they do. Simple reforms that I think could help: 1) Published prices for all medical services offered. You should be able to get an exact price quote and comparison shop. 2) A ban on drug advertisements. Only the US and New Zealand allow this in the first place. 3) A cap on drug prices based on their age and manufacturing cost. I understand that the actual cost of a new drug is much more R&D than manufacturing, but that doesn’t justify pharma company. Given a reasonable and predictable price cap formula, pharma will adapt. There are a lot of other interesting and more radical ideas out there, but these seem to me like relatively straightforward starting points that would help remove some of the worst opacity in the US healthcare system, which should in turn create more accountability.
- Apocryphon 7y ago
  Universal healthcare would be a great boon for employers, as then they would no longer have to worry about providing and paying for it as part of employee compensation.
  - burlesona 7y ago
    I get that now. I didn’t understand it for a long time. While a government-run universal care program doesn’t thrill me, I find the current employer-based system to be borderline immoral. The more I deal with the system the more it strikes me as a corrupt, crony deal to make workers more dependent on their employer, depress wages, and drive up medical industry profits.
    - TomMckenny 7y ago
      It will also benefit lower income employees and consumers who will see good wage/price changes relative to taxes. Another possibility is a cap on drug profits declining with drug age. This will allow enough market to avoid having to guess production costs in advance and set them in stone. The drawback is incentives to efficiency. Perhaps a mixture of price cap and profit cap would hit the sweet spot.
peterburkimsher 7y ago
I needed to have a metal plate taken out of my ankle a year after it was broken. After comparing prices around the world, I realised that the cheapest option would be to fly to Taiwan for ~500 USD and have the surgery done without insurance for ~300 USD. The total is less than what it would cost with insurance in other countries. There's a recurring meme saying "Don't call an ambulance, get an Uber to take me to hospital instead". Tangentially related, there's plenty of discussion here on HN that led me to conclude that it's best to never talk to police, even if something bad happens. I have the greatest respect for firefighters, because they seem to be the only emergency service that aren't yet horrifically corrupt.
- mfinlay 7y ago
  They once were, look into 19th century firefighting gangs.
- pirocks 7y ago
  Did you know that there are parts of the United States where paying for firefighters is optional(not included in taxes), but if you don't pay and you have a fire they will not put it out.
- bjornsteffanson 7y ago
  Also broke my ankle, and also had a plate installed via ORIF surgery. My insurance company was billed nearly $80,000 USD, and I was asked to pay $6k of that. And that was just the single procedure, not any of the follow-up visits or physical therapy. The doctor who performed the initial surgery said that it is not common to remove the plate due to the risk and expense of another surgery procedure, so I still have it. Been nearly 5 years. Would love to get rid of it. If I may ask, what was your consultation conversation like when you discussed having the plate removed with your doctor /surgeon?
  - peterburkimsher 7y ago
    The plate was put in by the same doctor in Taiwan a year earlier, who recommended removing it. I can also recommend taking it out - I feel much better without it. Doctors in Europe/NZ/etc recommended not removing it because of the expense. It was sensitive to temperature changes, so I really wanted it out. When my bone and titanium expanded and contracted at different rates when going from a cold winter outside to a warm house, it was uncomfortable. If you can take a couple of weeks to fly to Asia and sit around waiting for it to heal, that would be best. Once the stitches are out (surgery + 2 weeks) you're able to fly again and walk without crutches. So I guess that's the shortest time you could do it in. I'm staying for 2 months though, because I'm waiting for a visa to move down under.
usaphp 7y ago
He'll also be surprised at a paycheck that Croatian doctors get compared to US
- tomlockwood 7y ago
  I had a zero cost drunken ambulance ride and anti-nausea shot in Australia and the doctors here seem to be paid reasonably enough - although maybe here they get more people going into medicine interested in helping people over profiting from them. And I'm sure the cost of a medical degree in America also has something to do with that :)
netmonk 7y ago
Can you also relate the median wage in Croatia ? And how much taxes are taken by socialistical system on the salary ? I can understand the surprise of this person to discover that 36$ is not much compared to what she could expect in America for similar treatment. Most of american i meet are very surprised by the price of healthcare in France too, but they tend to forget that State is taking aroung 60% of income. As i am my own boss in a IT consultant job, in France, for 4500euros net (4325 euros on my private bank account), i will spend around 9000 euros from my company (4325 transfered on my private bank account, and 4675 on monthly taxes like healthcare, unemployement care, retirement care....). And on those 4325euros monthly, i will be also taxed at end of year depending on my total yearly income and my family situation (married, single, children or not...). So basically i should earn 9000x12= 108000 euros per year , but in reality i get 4325x12= 51900 euros per year (minus private taxes like house taxes, and final income taxes which is around 3000/year). So my real earning is around 48900euros yearly. I also forget that i will have to pay a private supplementary healthcare insurance, cause on those 36$, State will just reimburse me 21$, so private insurance costs more than 100euros/month to sometime get those remaining 15euros back. So 48900 euros/year for a 40yo IT guy, working in devops (married and father of two )...ask yourself why all young talents in France are going to work in Silicon Valley... This is not even the wage of an internship at google or faceboo
- ajna91 7y ago
  What is the connection between taxes and low health care costs? Look at this graph, not all these countries are high-tax. https://www.investopedia.com/thmb/Y4EFa4HoQXxh4Vbal80eq7mAd6w=/1056x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/41_pm-5bfd8ad4c9e77c00267057bf https://www.investopedia.com/thmb/Y4EFa4HoQXxh4Vbal80eq7mAd6...
  - netmonk 7y ago
    I didnt talk about pricing issue..But more than often, low healthcare price is related to high income taxes... You cannot get paid 200k$/year as a basic IT guy and have free healthcare. This is my point. What i wanted to illustrate is the real cost you have to pay to get almost free healthcare. And if you followed news since few months in France, you know we have Yellow Jacket movemement, which were at the begining peoples like me, middle class, owner of company, paying huge taxes for really bad public system (ranked 16 for healthcare system, and ranked 35 in school system). And supported a large class of unemployed people (10millions over 70millions citizens) in age of working.
pacaro 7y ago
I just got back from Bali, Indonesia where one of my friends crashed a scooter, the total bill for two ambulance rides, urgent care, hospital, and scooter repair was around Rph 10,000,000 which is $700 in round numbers Some of this can be accounted for by cost of living differences - $3 an hour would be a good income in Bali, you can eat a reasonable meal for $2 even in a touristic area Some can be accounted for by the rather more minimal service that was received compared to an American ER, and certainly my friend will need further treatment in the US, they stabilized a broken arm, but didn't set it
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
franze 7y ago
friend of mine does hospital consulting, basically improving whatever metrics the hospitals have in mind i.e.: fast throughput emergency room, more non critical sendhomes, ... one hospital in denmark purchased an US software solution and everything became much slower, so he was called in. wherby the most EU patient software are focused on checkin, diagnosis and treatment – at the end you compile an invoice – the US was focused around billing. you need to do the billing first, then you can do the next step, then billing, next step, then billing ...
- Narretz 7y ago
  Did he fix without changing the system? The story of how the hospital chose the software would also be interesting. I guess the people who made the decision had close to no input from people that would actually use the system.
- em-bee 7y ago
  interestingly, china is the same. bill for every step. but without the exorbitant prices...
a_imho 7y ago
How is that surprising though? Medical tourism has always been a thing.
noobermin 7y ago
One of the ways America maintains itself is by maintaining distance. Between cars, sprawl, and ultimately, the Atlantic Ocean, its populace is kept in the dark of what it's neighbors deal with and have or don't have. It's very convenient really.
cwp 7y ago
I had something like this happen to me in Ecuador. One morning I was suddenly struck by intense pain in my torso. It just kept getting worse. I called a taxi and told the driver to take me to a doctor, clinic, hospital etc, whatever was closest. He took me to a clinic, where they told me I had a kidney stone. I spent the day in a bed there, on really strong pain killers, with doctors and nurses checking in on me periodically. Total bill, $18. I was astounded.
gingabriska 7y ago
So to summarize 1. He is surprised because he didn't pay the taxes which fund healthcare in Croatia 2. He's not making Croatian wages 3. He's accostomed to taking most of the wages he earns back in America to his private bank account. While I personally feel it's good that people receive the help specially medical help when they need but at the same time I believe it's unfair for the Croat taxpayers to fund treatment of foreigners because it creates a dynamic where people with means (who can fly to and from America) get best of both the world. A low tax environment and a place where government takes away 60% of your earning in return of free healthcare and cheap healthcare cost.
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  1) To scale, this is about quarter of median Croatian wage. Imagine a $400 bill. 2) Croatian would pay 0 kn, because taxes and it is a routine kind of care. Only extended stay (beyond doctor's recommendation) would be extra paid and not too much. Rehab if any might cost something but still not a lot. 3) Trouble begins when surgery or rare medicine is required, either in form of long queues, high cost or plain unavailability.
BrickandPorter 7y ago
This is a quick rant that is going to be obliviated, but is this really worthy of gaining traction on the front page of HN? It’s a quick anecdote from Reddit about how health care is affordable outside the US. This is just comment bait for everyone with a relevant gripe who wants to use this as a soapbox for how they would change the US healthcare system or an echo chamber for validating their troubles. There’s no tech discussed, no news involved, and it’s the same conversations that come up in every healthcare related article’s comment section. I don’t really care what people use this site for. I have no authority as a gatekeeper for your discussions or this community. I just think it’s really lame that a link like this gets traction
- dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago
  On the contrary: stories like these are a constant reminder that certain things need to be changed, in spite of extremely powerful forces that would prefer the status quo.
nippler 7y ago
This makes the burgerclap mad as fuck lmao
baybal2 7y ago
I can add a bit about China — prices here vary by triple digits, and medical profession is largely unregulated in smaller cities besides the most basics (you have to have just any paper of medical qualification, and even that is not always given.) Quite extensive surgeries are priced in few thousand dollars each, but emergency medicine is an outlier: a hospital in a big city can bill you up to $15k for a trivial appendicitis surgery, but you may be lucky in a small town and have it for just $300-$400. Price collusions are also real here when it comes to such things.
taurath 7y ago
There’s always a middleman in America, and they tend to spend unlimited amounts of money to justify their leeching off of everyone. We’ve really gone very far away from what humans actually need or want in some areas.

92 points by rahuldottech 7y ago

Relevant discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/c7gfxj/american_guy_is_surprised_when_he_gets_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/c7gfxj/american_guy...

andrei_says_ 7y ago

Applying market forces to medical services is another way to spell extortion. What blows my mind is how easy it seems to condition so many people into believing that extortion is a normal way to approach healthcare. It is not.

blargmaster33 7y ago
"Applying market forces to food services is another way to spell extortion. " The communism is strong in this one
pitaj 7y ago
Market forces apply to every other necessity of life, why would they not apply to healthcare?
- solarkraft 7y ago
  Maybe because it doesn't seem to work well?
- andrei_says_ 7y ago
  This is false. Imagine every street being a toll road, dynamically adjusting price to the maximum people driving to work, or to to their wedding, are willing to pay. Imagine a fire engine arriving only after establishing the market price the owner of a burning house is willing to pay.
fvdessen 7y ago
I'm not American but there must be something different about the USA regarding healthcare than market forces as for 1500$/month I can get a private insurance that covers full medical costs in every country on earth ... except the USA, which must be bought separately at double the price. And that private insurance is cheaper than what I pay for healthcare with the state system, so it would seem that private insurances can provide reasonably priced services, just not in the USA.
- andrei_says_ 7y ago
  The USA has refined the art of extracting money from people who are scared for their well being. Edit: Here are a couple of the many forces contributing to this: * Political corruption is legal, in the form of lobbying. Politicians spend up to 70% of their time negotiating campaign money and large corporate donors can effectively fire (not-re-elect) any politician by not donating their campaign. Donors use this to "independently" lobby for laws that benefit them, effectively writing laws. Large health insurance companies, pharmaceuticals, etc. take full advantage of this. * Large employers are able to negotiate and purchase insurance at lower prices, and then offer better/any health insurance as employment benefits. This allows them to negotiate cheaper labor, on a very large scale -- if you want health insurance for your children and spouse, you are more likely to put up with an employer who pressures you for more work and treats you badly.

burlesona 7y ago

I’m a big free-market person, and generally skeptical of regulation and government programs. That being said, I think there are conditions when a free market can fail, and one of those conditions is when you don’t have supply and demand working rationally for one reason or another. I’ve come to see healthcare as one of those cases. If a doctor says the cost of your life, or your child’s life, is X... who is going to shrug that off and refuse to pay? Thus in an unregulated market, medical practitioners can very nearly charge whatever a patient is capable of paying, and in my experience that’s exactly what they do. Simple reforms that I think could help: 1) Published prices for all medical services offered. You should be able to get an exact price quote and comparison shop. 2) A ban on drug advertisements. Only the US and New Zealand allow this in the first place. 3) A cap on drug prices based on their age and manufacturing cost. I understand that the actual cost of a new drug is much more R&D than manufacturing, but that doesn’t justify pharma company. Given a reasonable and predictable price cap formula, pharma will adapt. There are a lot of other interesting and more radical ideas out there, but these seem to me like relatively straightforward starting points that would help remove some of the worst opacity in the US healthcare system, which should in turn create more accountability.

Apocryphon 7y ago
Universal healthcare would be a great boon for employers, as then they would no longer have to worry about providing and paying for it as part of employee compensation.
- burlesona 7y ago
  I get that now. I didn’t understand it for a long time. While a government-run universal care program doesn’t thrill me, I find the current employer-based system to be borderline immoral. The more I deal with the system the more it strikes me as a corrupt, crony deal to make workers more dependent on their employer, depress wages, and drive up medical industry profits.
  - TomMckenny 7y ago
    It will also benefit lower income employees and consumers who will see good wage/price changes relative to taxes. Another possibility is a cap on drug profits declining with drug age. This will allow enough market to avoid having to guess production costs in advance and set them in stone. The drawback is incentives to efficiency. Perhaps a mixture of price cap and profit cap would hit the sweet spot.

peterburkimsher 7y ago

I needed to have a metal plate taken out of my ankle a year after it was broken. After comparing prices around the world, I realised that the cheapest option would be to fly to Taiwan for ~500 USD and have the surgery done without insurance for ~300 USD. The total is less than what it would cost with insurance in other countries. There's a recurring meme saying "Don't call an ambulance, get an Uber to take me to hospital instead". Tangentially related, there's plenty of discussion here on HN that led me to conclude that it's best to never talk to police, even if something bad happens. I have the greatest respect for firefighters, because they seem to be the only emergency service that aren't yet horrifically corrupt.

mfinlay 7y ago
They once were, look into 19th century firefighting gangs.
pirocks 7y ago
Did you know that there are parts of the United States where paying for firefighters is optional(not included in taxes), but if you don't pay and you have a fire they will not put it out.
bjornsteffanson 7y ago
Also broke my ankle, and also had a plate installed via ORIF surgery. My insurance company was billed nearly $80,000 USD, and I was asked to pay $6k of that. And that was just the single procedure, not any of the follow-up visits or physical therapy. The doctor who performed the initial surgery said that it is not common to remove the plate due to the risk and expense of another surgery procedure, so I still have it. Been nearly 5 years. Would love to get rid of it. If I may ask, what was your consultation conversation like when you discussed having the plate removed with your doctor /surgeon?
- peterburkimsher 7y ago
  The plate was put in by the same doctor in Taiwan a year earlier, who recommended removing it. I can also recommend taking it out - I feel much better without it. Doctors in Europe/NZ/etc recommended not removing it because of the expense. It was sensitive to temperature changes, so I really wanted it out. When my bone and titanium expanded and contracted at different rates when going from a cold winter outside to a warm house, it was uncomfortable. If you can take a couple of weeks to fly to Asia and sit around waiting for it to heal, that would be best. Once the stitches are out (surgery + 2 weeks) you're able to fly again and walk without crutches. So I guess that's the shortest time you could do it in. I'm staying for 2 months though, because I'm waiting for a visa to move down under.

usaphp 7y ago

He'll also be surprised at a paycheck that Croatian doctors get compared to US

tomlockwood 7y ago
I had a zero cost drunken ambulance ride and anti-nausea shot in Australia and the doctors here seem to be paid reasonably enough - although maybe here they get more people going into medicine interested in helping people over profiting from them. And I'm sure the cost of a medical degree in America also has something to do with that :)

netmonk 7y ago

Can you also relate the median wage in Croatia ? And how much taxes are taken by socialistical system on the salary ? I can understand the surprise of this person to discover that 36$ is not much compared to what she could expect in America for similar treatment. Most of american i meet are very surprised by the price of healthcare in France too, but they tend to forget that State is taking aroung 60% of income. As i am my own boss in a IT consultant job, in France, for 4500euros net (4325 euros on my private bank account), i will spend around 9000 euros from my company (4325 transfered on my private bank account, and 4675 on monthly taxes like healthcare, unemployement care, retirement care....). And on those 4325euros monthly, i will be also taxed at end of year depending on my total yearly income and my family situation (married, single, children or not...). So basically i should earn 9000x12= 108000 euros per year , but in reality i get 4325x12= 51900 euros per year (minus private taxes like house taxes, and final income taxes which is around 3000/year). So my real earning is around 48900euros yearly. I also forget that i will have to pay a private supplementary healthcare insurance, cause on those 36$, State will just reimburse me 21$, so private insurance costs more than 100euros/month to sometime get those remaining 15euros back. So 48900 euros/year for a 40yo IT guy, working in devops (married and father of two )...ask yourself why all young talents in France are going to work in Silicon Valley... This is not even the wage of an internship at google or faceboo

ajna91 7y ago
What is the connection between taxes and low health care costs? Look at this graph, not all these countries are high-tax. https://www.investopedia.com/thmb/Y4EFa4HoQXxh4Vbal80eq7mAd6w=/1056x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/41_pm-5bfd8ad4c9e77c00267057bf https://www.investopedia.com/thmb/Y4EFa4HoQXxh4Vbal80eq7mAd6...
- netmonk 7y ago
  I didnt talk about pricing issue..But more than often, low healthcare price is related to high income taxes... You cannot get paid 200k$/year as a basic IT guy and have free healthcare. This is my point. What i wanted to illustrate is the real cost you have to pay to get almost free healthcare. And if you followed news since few months in France, you know we have Yellow Jacket movemement, which were at the begining peoples like me, middle class, owner of company, paying huge taxes for really bad public system (ranked 16 for healthcare system, and ranked 35 in school system). And supported a large class of unemployed people (10millions over 70millions citizens) in age of working.

pacaro 7y ago

I just got back from Bali, Indonesia where one of my friends crashed a scooter, the total bill for two ambulance rides, urgent care, hospital, and scooter repair was around Rph 10,000,000 which is $700 in round numbers Some of this can be accounted for by cost of living differences - $3 an hour would be a good income in Bali, you can eat a reasonable meal for $2 even in a touristic area Some can be accounted for by the rather more minimal service that was received compared to an American ER, and certainly my friend will need further treatment in the US, they stabilized a broken arm, but didn't set it

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

franze 7y ago

friend of mine does hospital consulting, basically improving whatever metrics the hospitals have in mind i.e.: fast throughput emergency room, more non critical sendhomes, ... one hospital in denmark purchased an US software solution and everything became much slower, so he was called in. wherby the most EU patient software are focused on checkin, diagnosis and treatment – at the end you compile an invoice – the US was focused around billing. you need to do the billing first, then you can do the next step, then billing, next step, then billing ...

Narretz 7y ago
Did he fix without changing the system? The story of how the hospital chose the software would also be interesting. I guess the people who made the decision had close to no input from people that would actually use the system.
em-bee 7y ago
interestingly, china is the same. bill for every step. but without the exorbitant prices...

a_imho 7y ago

How is that surprising though? Medical tourism has always been a thing.

noobermin 7y ago

One of the ways America maintains itself is by maintaining distance. Between cars, sprawl, and ultimately, the Atlantic Ocean, its populace is kept in the dark of what it's neighbors deal with and have or don't have. It's very convenient really.

cwp 7y ago

I had something like this happen to me in Ecuador. One morning I was suddenly struck by intense pain in my torso. It just kept getting worse. I called a taxi and told the driver to take me to a doctor, clinic, hospital etc, whatever was closest. He took me to a clinic, where they told me I had a kidney stone. I spent the day in a bed there, on really strong pain killers, with doctors and nurses checking in on me periodically. Total bill, $18. I was astounded.

gingabriska 7y ago

So to summarize 1. He is surprised because he didn't pay the taxes which fund healthcare in Croatia 2. He's not making Croatian wages 3. He's accostomed to taking most of the wages he earns back in America to his private bank account. While I personally feel it's good that people receive the help specially medical help when they need but at the same time I believe it's unfair for the Croat taxpayers to fund treatment of foreigners because it creates a dynamic where people with means (who can fly to and from America) get best of both the world. A low tax environment and a place where government takes away 60% of your earning in return of free healthcare and cheap healthcare cost.

AstralStorm 7y ago
1) To scale, this is about quarter of median Croatian wage. Imagine a $400 bill. 2) Croatian would pay 0 kn, because taxes and it is a routine kind of care. Only extended stay (beyond doctor's recommendation) would be extra paid and not too much. Rehab if any might cost something but still not a lot. 3) Trouble begins when surgery or rare medicine is required, either in form of long queues, high cost or plain unavailability.

BrickandPorter 7y ago

This is a quick rant that is going to be obliviated, but is this really worthy of gaining traction on the front page of HN? It’s a quick anecdote from Reddit about how health care is affordable outside the US. This is just comment bait for everyone with a relevant gripe who wants to use this as a soapbox for how they would change the US healthcare system or an echo chamber for validating their troubles. There’s no tech discussed, no news involved, and it’s the same conversations that come up in every healthcare related article’s comment section. I don’t really care what people use this site for. I have no authority as a gatekeeper for your discussions or this community. I just think it’s really lame that a link like this gets traction

dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago
On the contrary: stories like these are a constant reminder that certain things need to be changed, in spite of extremely powerful forces that would prefer the status quo.

nippler 7y ago

This makes the burgerclap mad as fuck lmao

baybal2 7y ago

I can add a bit about China — prices here vary by triple digits, and medical profession is largely unregulated in smaller cities besides the most basics (you have to have just any paper of medical qualification, and even that is not always given.) Quite extensive surgeries are priced in few thousand dollars each, but emergency medicine is an outlier: a hospital in a big city can bill you up to $15k for a trivial appendicitis surgery, but you may be lucky in a small town and have it for just $300-$400. Price collusions are also real here when it comes to such things.

taurath 7y ago

There’s always a middleman in America, and they tend to spend unlimited amounts of money to justify their leeching off of everyone. We’ve really gone very far away from what humans actually need or want in some areas.