4 ms·

Miami man who flew to China worried he might have COVID-19. He may owe thousands

13 points by smacktoward 7y ago

DyslexicAtheist 7y ago
~44 million people have no health insurance in the US, and another 38 million have inadequate health insurance. In China about 95% of the population has at least basic health insurance coverage. Zero doubt that the US will be hit the hardest from all the developed countries. No amount of testing and prevention mechanism the CDC can come up with, effective mitigation will depend on people seeking treatment and be willing to go to a doctor even without symptoms. I'm convinced that the only reason the US hasn't been hit as hard yet is that they aren't testing on the same scale. In other news on twitter people from Vietnam, Thailand are currently boasting that the number of /their/ infected is tiny compared to South Korea - SK just tests on a massive scale. Not testing and educating people keeps your numbers low but you'll lose in the long run. edit: I didn't include sources, my numbers are from the top google search results, wikipedia etc.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
jiveturkey 7y ago
> “How can they expect normal citizens to contribute to eliminating the potential risk of person-to-person spread if hospitals are waiting to charge us $3.,270 for a simple blood test and a nasal swab?” he said. Hospitals are expensive to run. You shouldn't go to the hospital for a simple blood test and a nasal swab (even if you have platinum insurance). In this particular case, the patient already knew he couldn't afford it, and he should have gone to urgent care instead.
- xenospn 7y ago
  How is that any better? They can charge you thousands as well. Totally random.
  - jiveturkey 7y ago
    it's not random at all. urgent care will charge for the swab and send you to the lab for the blood work. it would be a few hundred dollars. going to the hospital in this case is like taking your prius to the ferrari service center for an oil change. you should expect to pay multiple times the reasonable cost for such a routine service. i can totally understand if he thought he might need all the extra services of a hospital, and wouldn't really know until he got there. but in this specific case, he already knew in advance he can't afford it and should have started simpler. if he had gotten the CT scan, found it was negative, then was unable to pay, that's a different story. there's plenty to criticize in this chain of events (eg that the hospital went nuclear as their first option -- regardless of ability to pay) but that hospitals are more expensive than urgent care isn't one of them.
- krsdcbl 7y ago
  As a EU resident, this is still mind boggling to me how in a developed, democratic country in 2020 you'd be personally charged at all for tests like these with a possible pandemic on the doorstep, let alone hundreds or thousands ...
  - foxyv 7y ago
    Heaven forbid such a pandemic hit the United States, but it may be the thing that kicks us in the ass to get started on fixing our health care system.

13 points by smacktoward 7y ago

~44 million people have no health insurance in the US, and another 38 million have inadequate health insurance. In China about 95% of the population has at least basic health insurance coverage. Zero doubt that the US will be hit the hardest from all the developed countries. No amount of testing and prevention mechanism the CDC can come up with, effective mitigation will depend on people seeking treatment and be willing to go to a doctor even without symptoms. I'm convinced that the only reason the US hasn't been hit as hard yet is that they aren't testing on the same scale. In other news on twitter people from Vietnam, Thailand are currently boasting that the number of /their/ infected is tiny compared to South Korea - SK just tests on a massive scale. Not testing and educating people keeps your numbers low but you'll lose in the long run. edit: I didn't include sources, my numbers are from the top google search results, wikipedia etc.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

jiveturkey 7y ago

> “How can they expect normal citizens to contribute to eliminating the potential risk of person-to-person spread if hospitals are waiting to charge us $3.,270 for a simple blood test and a nasal swab?” he said. Hospitals are expensive to run. You shouldn't go to the hospital for a simple blood test and a nasal swab (even if you have platinum insurance). In this particular case, the patient already knew he couldn't afford it, and he should have gone to urgent care instead.

xenospn 7y ago
How is that any better? They can charge you thousands as well. Totally random.
- jiveturkey 7y ago
  it's not random at all. urgent care will charge for the swab and send you to the lab for the blood work. it would be a few hundred dollars. going to the hospital in this case is like taking your prius to the ferrari service center for an oil change. you should expect to pay multiple times the reasonable cost for such a routine service. i can totally understand if he thought he might need all the extra services of a hospital, and wouldn't really know until he got there. but in this specific case, he already knew in advance he can't afford it and should have started simpler. if he had gotten the CT scan, found it was negative, then was unable to pay, that's a different story. there's plenty to criticize in this chain of events (eg that the hospital went nuclear as their first option -- regardless of ability to pay) but that hospitals are more expensive than urgent care isn't one of them.
krsdcbl 7y ago
As a EU resident, this is still mind boggling to me how in a developed, democratic country in 2020 you'd be personally charged at all for tests like these with a possible pandemic on the doorstep, let alone hundreds or thousands ...
- foxyv 7y ago
  Heaven forbid such a pandemic hit the United States, but it may be the thing that kicks us in the ass to get started on fixing our health care system.