20 ms·

Anecdotal: my dad had a heart attack and was in the hospital for 6 months due to complications. After a certain amount of time, the bills started to rack up an

Anecdotal: my dad had a heart attack and was in the hospital for 6 months due to complications. After a certain amount of time, the bills started to rack up and we were being charged for services that we thought would be covered under “health insurance coverage.” Instead of being covered, the health insurance provided coverage for standard hospital care, but we were charged every time a non network doctor stepped into his room. Then, the non-covered machines that were used. Then, stupid things like “staying in an ICU longer than allowed by coverage.” My father passed away before making it home, but when all was said and done, insurance was billed $10 million in total, of which the various doctors and hospitals billed the estate $2 million. My dad didn’t have an estate because he had no assets. But imagine your life + childrens’ lives being ruined for having insurance yet filled with invisible asterisks. At the time, NJ laws were onerous in this regard and favored insurance companies so we had no recourse. The state had a process for dealing with issues like this, but it was more of a cursory “jobs done here boss” type process and didn’t provide consumers with relief. Because of that, I moved my family out of NJ. When all contingency plans are filled with asterisks, do you really have insurance/protection?

ryandrake 5y ago
Sorry for your loss. This is one of the things that tends to get overlooked when discussing how awful the US health care industry is. You always hear: "US health care is terrible unless you have insurance!" But, it's also terrible when you have insurance! There are all kinds of ways doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies conspire to drain your pockets or your loved ones' estate's pockets, and they're all likely documented somewhere in a 100 page policy. The system is irredeemably beyond repair.
- nrmitchi 5y ago
  It more and more feels like the difference between not having insurance, and having insurance when something bad actually happens is "do I get a massive bill that I can't afford now, or do I get a massive bill that I can't afford later?". The only real benefit of having "insurance" in the US is having reasonable access to basic preventative care. Don't get me wrong, it is a massive advantage to have default access to basic preventative care (without it being a cost-benefit tradeoff each time), but that is in no way/shape/form "insurance" in the typical meaning of the term.
  - majormajor 5y ago
    Most of the time the system works for people who have good coverage. The tragedy is that "having good coverage" is a hard-to-control combination of luck in employer and/or wealth. It's terrible that these things happen at all, and we CERTAINLY need to improve the US healthcare system, but exaggerations like "the only benefit of insurance in the US is access to preventative care" doesn't help. If people were regularly getting fucked like that the system wouldn't have the entrenched support it does from the "but I want to keep my insurance" camp, and so speaking in generalities like that just makes you appear uninformed to the millions who regularly see doctors, get treatment, have surgery, etc, without these problems. It also cheapens the inequality problem: the gap isn't just "has access to preventive care" vs "doesn't have that access." The gap is "has hundreds of thousands of dollars, or even millions, of bills turn into nothing" vs "bankrupt if they seek treatment for any serious problem."
    - NationalPark 5y ago
      I've had "good" coverage for my 15 year career and it does not work most of the time, or even half of the time. I've paid bills out of pocket because I didn't have time to untangle payer/insurance situations. I was taken to the ER unconscious once after a freak accident and ended up paying thousands for the ambulance. I've had to do provider paperwork myself and submit it to insurers myself because they refused to help me help them get paid. The system is simply not functional for people who don't have huge amounts of free time, patience, and money.
      - pkaye 5y ago
        That is why I like the Kaiser HMO system. Most of the rates are pre-negotiated since the hospital and insurance are under the same company. Its typically $20/40 copay for a doctor visit. Even for me with my kidney failure and health issues, the OOP is minimal.
    - pavlov 5y ago
      > “If people were regularly getting fucked like that the system wouldn't have the entrenched support it does from the "but I want to keep my insurance" camp” I don’t see how that follows. The “I’ve got mine” camp doesn’t care that it happens to those other people, and also doesn’t understand that it could happen to them in their old age (or simply after bad luck) because they’ve only made short visits into the system.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  >There are all kinds of ways doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies conspire to drain your pockets People also want cutting edge care from some of the smartest and most highly educated people in the world (which is in short supply) for cheap.
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    When I lived in Manhattan and worked with some really wealthy clients, they'd fly to France, Israel and elsewhere for care when they could have easily gotten the best care the US has to offer right down the street.
  - Arrath 5y ago
    There is a pretty large continuum of potential value between the 'cheap' care that people want, and the ruinous bills that get charged.
    - Goronmon 5y ago
      There is a pretty large continuum of potential value between the 'cheap' care that people want, and the ruinous bills that get charged. That can't be true, everyone knows that people are only greedy and stupid, and it's really the citizens' fault for the prices of the current healthcare setup. The industry itself is all made up of kind-hearted super heroes who would never think of manipulating prices to syphon more money from patients.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      Ruinous bills are frequently used to cover the costs of routine procedures. It’s another situation where 10% of the healthcare consumes 90% of the resources. It’s the person who needs 6 months in the hospital, the 2 month premature baby in NICU, the hemophiliac that needs $1M medication that balloon all the costs. And no one can really afford that, but instead of spreading the costs around to all taxpayers, we were spreading it around by inflating everything else. ACA helps with this, but today’s announcement about out of network care will help more too.
  - Goronmon 5y ago
- dave_aiello 5y ago
  My wife is a primary care doctor in the United States. Saying that disqualifies me in some people's minds from having an opinion about the quality and cost of health care in this country. But I am willing to give an opinion regardless. There are plenty of medical practices and institutions that function well and deliver good value to the patient. But there are many that do not. As someone who doesn't have friends inside the health care industry, it can be extremely difficult to figure out what to do in an emergency. Quite often your options are limited especially if you are caring for a loved one rather than yourself. The best advice I can give is to find good doctors before you need them, and when conversations come up about someone else's medical care, be willing to ask, who is your doctor and how good are they? Or, which hospital did you go to, and do you feel you had a good experience? Often there is little out-of-pocket difference between the cost of excellent medical care and lower quality care, if you have good insurance. If you don't have good insurance and you are looking at a potentially significant medical procedure, ask to speak to someone about financial assistance. Good practices and good hospital systems are not looking to bankrupt their patients.
  - lmeyerov 5y ago
    am hàppy to see HHS moving forward, long overdue! most US doctors are part of a bigger group in order to provide more comprehensive coverage (and due to systematic buyouts), which in turn have preferred insurance providers and additional out-of-network providers, and emergency services are generally for wherever an ambulance takes you. your physician may be great, but they are just a tiny cog in a broken machine one of the only outs, afaict, is something like working & living near a big & strong HMO like kaiser. but that comes at the cost of pretty firm boundaries on what services they allow: capped care (my SO is also a physician at one of the nation's best hospitals, and despite that, patients struggle w the broader system outside of her practical daily control)
plank_time 5y ago
Do the children have to pay off the bills of the parent? That doesn’t seem reasonable to me. It sounds like the best thing to do before getting too old is to transfer all your assets out so that if you die you won’t have it robbed by hospitals, etc.
- knz_ 5y ago
  No, but they can legally take everything the estate has and leave the children with no inheritance.
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  No, children aren't responsible for bills. It can only come from your estate. Transferring assets isn't crazy but you do need to be careful if you want to do it in a non-taxable manner (you can't just give your kid $500k cash without them counting it as income).
  - drewg123 5y ago
    I could be wrong, but I thought that the $500K would not count as income for them, but would deduct from your lifetime estate tax exclusion. See https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/taxes/gift-tax-rate https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/taxes/gift-tax-rate
  - memling 5y ago
    > No, children aren't responsible for bills. It can only come from your estate. I think it's worth noting that while this may be true if you're dead, it's not the case when you're still alive.[1] Filial responsibility laws mean that adult children can be legally required to pay their impoverished parents' medical bills. The above cites a case where a man was required by the courts to pay $93,000 for his mother's rehabilitation.[2] From what I've read, Pennsylvania may be particularly onerous compared to other states, but it's not a slam dunk kids won't be on the hook. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filial_responsibility_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filial_responsibility_laws [2]: https://abcnews.go.com/Business/pennsylvania-son-stuck-moms-93000-nursing-home-bill/story?id=16405807 https://abcnews.go.com/Business/pennsylvania-son-stuck-moms-...
heavyset_go 5y ago
Where did you move to that has better protections for patients regarding health coverage?
antattack 5y ago
We (society) cannot afford to pay for everyone's 10 million dollar hospital bills so how do we decide who gets their bills paid? EDIT: Some argue here that it'll average out, however at what cost to others? [1]Here's article about African Americans getting limbs amputated as their treatment for diabetes. [1]https://features.propublica.org/diabetes-amputations/black-american-amputation-epidemic/ https://features.propublica.org/diabetes-amputations/black-a...
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  Rather, were services purchased really worth 10 million dollars? How much of that are salaries for underperforming, bloated structures in charge of "management" and billing?
  - antattack 5y ago
    Canadians spend 220k (in 2013) per person per lifetime. It's very unlikely you can shrink 10 million dollar bill to anywhere close to that. [1]https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/health/canadians-use-average-of-220000-in-public-health-care-over-lifetime/article11913571/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/heal...
    - yladiz 5y ago
      What makes Americans that much more expensive than Canadians?
      - slownews45 5y ago
        It's mostly end of life care (relative to other countries). So during your life - broken bones etc - roughly equal. But if you are stuck in ICU for a year when 75+ - that's uniquely American and incredibly expensive. "Numerous articles on EOL costs show that a large proportion of Medicare expenditures occur during the last 6 months of life.1-9 This phenomenon has continued for many years as the number of Medicare decedents has increased with the aging American population. Medicare expenditures for EOL have increased dramatically from 1983 to 2016, primarily because of the increase in the number of decedents. Other articles compare EOL expenditures in the United States to other countries10,11 or focus on Medicare expenditures for specific diseases.12-14 A recent development in the literature challenges the idea that EOL costs are responsible for a high percentage of health-care costs.15 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6610551/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6610551/
ohazi 5y ago
> having insurance yet filled with invisible asterisks. "Invisible asterisks" captures the reality perfectly. The asterisks are invisible and infinite. I think even Kafka would be horrified. We've turned medical billing into an impenetrable Byzantine hellscape, and I fear that the only way to fix it would be to nuke it from orbit and start over.
- cwkoss 5y ago
  Medicare For All is the single most important policy in American politics right now, IMO, for this exact reason. People complain that all the people in private insurance will be put out of their jobs - I view that as a feature, not a bug.
  - ixacto 5y ago
    This needs to happen. The medical billing industry is literal cancer. They sent me a bill for $350 then I called up to complain and suddenly the bill goes away because it’s billed to my other insurance that I didn’t even think I had anymore. If I sent a client a random bill for $$$ things would not go nearly as nicely, but they have so captured the regulators and politicians that this is the world we live in now. I want nothing to do with many of the policies of the left, but this would make things so much easier for small businesses and people Changing jobs in the labor market.
JMTQp8lwXL 5y ago
It's important to know some assets avoid probate and go directly to the beneficiary. These include things like a life insurance policy, or a 401(k) with a beneficiary information you can input, and possibly even update online (low friction). The health bill can go to the estate, but the estate also isn't comprised of the retirement account.
- slumdev 5y ago
  This should be common knowledge (but, unfortunately, isn't.) A primary breadwinner should carry at least 10x his family's annual living expenses in term life insurance coverage. Once the size of his retirement accounts exceeds this, he can start thinking about reducing the insurance. Both will pay directly to beneficiaries in the event of his death.
- mindslight 5y ago
  You can setup a simple trust with the right form/software, and a visit to your bank for notarization. I don't know if a revocable living trust would protect your heirs against healthcare shakedowns, and it would likely depend on the state. But if the current corrupt system continues much longer, I can see irrevocable trusts becoming popular to protect yourself even while alive.
irrational 5y ago
> imagine your life + childrens’ lives being ruined A parent’s debts cannot be put on to their children. Once your father died, anything not covered by his estate had to be written off by everyone.
- RobRivera 5y ago
  true but what of inheritance? I suppose thats what life insurance policies are for.
  - irrational 5y ago
    OP said the father had no assets, so there was no inheritance forthcoming.
    - dharmab 5y ago
      If that had happened to my parents, my sibling who lives with them would have lost their home and had to move in with me. Just because OP's situation was different doesn't make that good.
- DoktorDelta 5y ago
  I'm not sure how many people know that though, and the moment you make a payment towards that bill it's legally your debt.
- simtel20 5y ago
  You are correct about the debt and the parent post clearly knows that, having lived through it'l. However the further point being that any assets that had accumulated with the intention of leaving them to the family, and which they relied on, would have been in jeapordy if they hit probate. If he owned a businessnor a house I'm not sure of the rules, but definitely savings, other assets etc. would be up for grabs.
  - dharmab 5y ago
    The rules vary by state and can change depending on if a written will exists. Parents, talk to an attorney while you're healthy. Some of the states have rules that will surprise you.
gnopgnip 5y ago
Was this before 2010?
seandoe 5y ago
Without knowing anything, 10 million seems excessive, but 6 months in a hospital will no doubt be expensive. I don't want to stir up bad feelings, I'm just curious, was there a good chance that your dad was going to make it out of the hospital? What was EOL talks like with the doctors? This story brings back the article here not too long ago, regarding the average hospital stay of a doctor at EOL vs the general public. I'm not sure of all the influencing factors regarding EOL procedure, but it does seem like a huge amount of resources are used for the very short end of a large amount of people's lives. Once again, no offense intended, it just got me thinking.
- t3rabytes 5y ago
  Anecdata: I spent 5 days in ICU in 2018 and had a $350k bill from a California hospital, which my insurance company paid $200k for after adjustments and discounts. I wouldn’t say $10m for 6 months is far off.
  - seandoe 5y ago
    Yea that sentence came off wrong. I don't doubt the OP's claim at all. I was trying to acknowledge that billing that amount to anyone isn't right and looking to make the point that healthcare is expensive and how "we" choose to allocate resources is an important discussion.
- treyfitty 5y ago
  No offense taken. In hindsight, it should have been clear that every day spent in the ICU past 3 months was not a good sign of my dad ever making it out of there. However, we 100% believed he was going to get better all throughout the process. Idk what this assessment was based on, but reflecting back for the first time in a long time, I now realize just how much emotions cloud sensible outlook & probability assessment.
ezoe 5y ago
10 million USD in 6 months? 10M? So I immediately imagine an absurd nonsense like "liquid gold transfusion", then I realized it's 800g gold per day in the current gold price. My pathetic mind can't even imagine the how absurd that is.

ryandrake 5y ago

Sorry for your loss. This is one of the things that tends to get overlooked when discussing how awful the US health care industry is. You always hear: "US health care is terrible unless you have insurance!" But, it's also terrible when you have insurance! There are all kinds of ways doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies conspire to drain your pockets or your loved ones' estate's pockets, and they're all likely documented somewhere in a 100 page policy. The system is irredeemably beyond repair.

nrmitchi 5y ago
It more and more feels like the difference between not having insurance, and having insurance when something bad actually happens is "do I get a massive bill that I can't afford now, or do I get a massive bill that I can't afford later?". The only real benefit of having "insurance" in the US is having reasonable access to basic preventative care. Don't get me wrong, it is a massive advantage to have default access to basic preventative care (without it being a cost-benefit tradeoff each time), but that is in no way/shape/form "insurance" in the typical meaning of the term.
- majormajor 5y ago
  Most of the time the system works for people who have good coverage. The tragedy is that "having good coverage" is a hard-to-control combination of luck in employer and/or wealth. It's terrible that these things happen at all, and we CERTAINLY need to improve the US healthcare system, but exaggerations like "the only benefit of insurance in the US is access to preventative care" doesn't help. If people were regularly getting fucked like that the system wouldn't have the entrenched support it does from the "but I want to keep my insurance" camp, and so speaking in generalities like that just makes you appear uninformed to the millions who regularly see doctors, get treatment, have surgery, etc, without these problems. It also cheapens the inequality problem: the gap isn't just "has access to preventive care" vs "doesn't have that access." The gap is "has hundreds of thousands of dollars, or even millions, of bills turn into nothing" vs "bankrupt if they seek treatment for any serious problem."
  - NationalPark 5y ago
    I've had "good" coverage for my 15 year career and it does not work most of the time, or even half of the time. I've paid bills out of pocket because I didn't have time to untangle payer/insurance situations. I was taken to the ER unconscious once after a freak accident and ended up paying thousands for the ambulance. I've had to do provider paperwork myself and submit it to insurers myself because they refused to help me help them get paid. The system is simply not functional for people who don't have huge amounts of free time, patience, and money.
    - pkaye 5y ago
      That is why I like the Kaiser HMO system. Most of the rates are pre-negotiated since the hospital and insurance are under the same company. Its typically $20/40 copay for a doctor visit. Even for me with my kidney failure and health issues, the OOP is minimal.
  - pavlov 5y ago
    > “If people were regularly getting fucked like that the system wouldn't have the entrenched support it does from the "but I want to keep my insurance" camp” I don’t see how that follows. The “I’ve got mine” camp doesn’t care that it happens to those other people, and also doesn’t understand that it could happen to them in their old age (or simply after bad luck) because they’ve only made short visits into the system.
lotsofpulp 5y ago
>There are all kinds of ways doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies conspire to drain your pockets People also want cutting edge care from some of the smartest and most highly educated people in the world (which is in short supply) for cheap.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  When I lived in Manhattan and worked with some really wealthy clients, they'd fly to France, Israel and elsewhere for care when they could have easily gotten the best care the US has to offer right down the street.
- Arrath 5y ago
  There is a pretty large continuum of potential value between the 'cheap' care that people want, and the ruinous bills that get charged.
  - Goronmon 5y ago
    There is a pretty large continuum of potential value between the 'cheap' care that people want, and the ruinous bills that get charged. That can't be true, everyone knows that people are only greedy and stupid, and it's really the citizens' fault for the prices of the current healthcare setup. The industry itself is all made up of kind-hearted super heroes who would never think of manipulating prices to syphon more money from patients.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Ruinous bills are frequently used to cover the costs of routine procedures. It’s another situation where 10% of the healthcare consumes 90% of the resources. It’s the person who needs 6 months in the hospital, the 2 month premature baby in NICU, the hemophiliac that needs $1M medication that balloon all the costs. And no one can really afford that, but instead of spreading the costs around to all taxpayers, we were spreading it around by inflating everything else. ACA helps with this, but today’s announcement about out of network care will help more too.
- Goronmon 5y ago
dave_aiello 5y ago
My wife is a primary care doctor in the United States. Saying that disqualifies me in some people's minds from having an opinion about the quality and cost of health care in this country. But I am willing to give an opinion regardless. There are plenty of medical practices and institutions that function well and deliver good value to the patient. But there are many that do not. As someone who doesn't have friends inside the health care industry, it can be extremely difficult to figure out what to do in an emergency. Quite often your options are limited especially if you are caring for a loved one rather than yourself. The best advice I can give is to find good doctors before you need them, and when conversations come up about someone else's medical care, be willing to ask, who is your doctor and how good are they? Or, which hospital did you go to, and do you feel you had a good experience? Often there is little out-of-pocket difference between the cost of excellent medical care and lower quality care, if you have good insurance. If you don't have good insurance and you are looking at a potentially significant medical procedure, ask to speak to someone about financial assistance. Good practices and good hospital systems are not looking to bankrupt their patients.
- lmeyerov 5y ago
  am hàppy to see HHS moving forward, long overdue! most US doctors are part of a bigger group in order to provide more comprehensive coverage (and due to systematic buyouts), which in turn have preferred insurance providers and additional out-of-network providers, and emergency services are generally for wherever an ambulance takes you. your physician may be great, but they are just a tiny cog in a broken machine one of the only outs, afaict, is something like working & living near a big & strong HMO like kaiser. but that comes at the cost of pretty firm boundaries on what services they allow: capped care (my SO is also a physician at one of the nation's best hospitals, and despite that, patients struggle w the broader system outside of her practical daily control)

plank_time 5y ago

Do the children have to pay off the bills of the parent? That doesn’t seem reasonable to me. It sounds like the best thing to do before getting too old is to transfer all your assets out so that if you die you won’t have it robbed by hospitals, etc.

knz_ 5y ago
No, but they can legally take everything the estate has and leave the children with no inheritance.
bpodgursky 5y ago
No, children aren't responsible for bills. It can only come from your estate. Transferring assets isn't crazy but you do need to be careful if you want to do it in a non-taxable manner (you can't just give your kid $500k cash without them counting it as income).
- drewg123 5y ago
  I could be wrong, but I thought that the $500K would not count as income for them, but would deduct from your lifetime estate tax exclusion. See https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/taxes/gift-tax-rate https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/taxes/gift-tax-rate
- memling 5y ago
  > No, children aren't responsible for bills. It can only come from your estate. I think it's worth noting that while this may be true if you're dead, it's not the case when you're still alive.[1] Filial responsibility laws mean that adult children can be legally required to pay their impoverished parents' medical bills. The above cites a case where a man was required by the courts to pay $93,000 for his mother's rehabilitation.[2] From what I've read, Pennsylvania may be particularly onerous compared to other states, but it's not a slam dunk kids won't be on the hook. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filial_responsibility_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filial_responsibility_laws [2]: https://abcnews.go.com/Business/pennsylvania-son-stuck-moms-93000-nursing-home-bill/story?id=16405807 https://abcnews.go.com/Business/pennsylvania-son-stuck-moms-...

heavyset_go 5y ago

Where did you move to that has better protections for patients regarding health coverage?

antattack 5y ago

We (society) cannot afford to pay for everyone's 10 million dollar hospital bills so how do we decide who gets their bills paid? EDIT: Some argue here that it'll average out, however at what cost to others? [1]Here's article about African Americans getting limbs amputated as their treatment for diabetes. [1]https://features.propublica.org/diabetes-amputations/black-american-amputation-epidemic/ https://features.propublica.org/diabetes-amputations/black-a...

908B64B197 5y ago
Rather, were services purchased really worth 10 million dollars? How much of that are salaries for underperforming, bloated structures in charge of "management" and billing?
- antattack 5y ago
  Canadians spend 220k (in 2013) per person per lifetime. It's very unlikely you can shrink 10 million dollar bill to anywhere close to that. [1]https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/health/canadians-use-average-of-220000-in-public-health-care-over-lifetime/article11913571/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/heal...
  - yladiz 5y ago
    What makes Americans that much more expensive than Canadians?
    - slownews45 5y ago
      It's mostly end of life care (relative to other countries). So during your life - broken bones etc - roughly equal. But if you are stuck in ICU for a year when 75+ - that's uniquely American and incredibly expensive. "Numerous articles on EOL costs show that a large proportion of Medicare expenditures occur during the last 6 months of life.1-9 This phenomenon has continued for many years as the number of Medicare decedents has increased with the aging American population. Medicare expenditures for EOL have increased dramatically from 1983 to 2016, primarily because of the increase in the number of decedents. Other articles compare EOL expenditures in the United States to other countries10,11 or focus on Medicare expenditures for specific diseases.12-14 A recent development in the literature challenges the idea that EOL costs are responsible for a high percentage of health-care costs.15 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6610551/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6610551/

ohazi 5y ago

> having insurance yet filled with invisible asterisks. "Invisible asterisks" captures the reality perfectly. The asterisks are invisible and infinite. I think even Kafka would be horrified. We've turned medical billing into an impenetrable Byzantine hellscape, and I fear that the only way to fix it would be to nuke it from orbit and start over.

cwkoss 5y ago
Medicare For All is the single most important policy in American politics right now, IMO, for this exact reason. People complain that all the people in private insurance will be put out of their jobs - I view that as a feature, not a bug.
- ixacto 5y ago
  This needs to happen. The medical billing industry is literal cancer. They sent me a bill for $350 then I called up to complain and suddenly the bill goes away because it’s billed to my other insurance that I didn’t even think I had anymore. If I sent a client a random bill for $$$ things would not go nearly as nicely, but they have so captured the regulators and politicians that this is the world we live in now. I want nothing to do with many of the policies of the left, but this would make things so much easier for small businesses and people Changing jobs in the labor market.

JMTQp8lwXL 5y ago

It's important to know some assets avoid probate and go directly to the beneficiary. These include things like a life insurance policy, or a 401(k) with a beneficiary information you can input, and possibly even update online (low friction). The health bill can go to the estate, but the estate also isn't comprised of the retirement account.

slumdev 5y ago
This should be common knowledge (but, unfortunately, isn't.) A primary breadwinner should carry at least 10x his family's annual living expenses in term life insurance coverage. Once the size of his retirement accounts exceeds this, he can start thinking about reducing the insurance. Both will pay directly to beneficiaries in the event of his death.
mindslight 5y ago
You can setup a simple trust with the right form/software, and a visit to your bank for notarization. I don't know if a revocable living trust would protect your heirs against healthcare shakedowns, and it would likely depend on the state. But if the current corrupt system continues much longer, I can see irrevocable trusts becoming popular to protect yourself even while alive.

irrational 5y ago

> imagine your life + childrens’ lives being ruined A parent’s debts cannot be put on to their children. Once your father died, anything not covered by his estate had to be written off by everyone.

RobRivera 5y ago
true but what of inheritance? I suppose thats what life insurance policies are for.
- irrational 5y ago
  OP said the father had no assets, so there was no inheritance forthcoming.
  - dharmab 5y ago
    If that had happened to my parents, my sibling who lives with them would have lost their home and had to move in with me. Just because OP's situation was different doesn't make that good.
DoktorDelta 5y ago
I'm not sure how many people know that though, and the moment you make a payment towards that bill it's legally your debt.
simtel20 5y ago
You are correct about the debt and the parent post clearly knows that, having lived through it'l. However the further point being that any assets that had accumulated with the intention of leaving them to the family, and which they relied on, would have been in jeapordy if they hit probate. If he owned a businessnor a house I'm not sure of the rules, but definitely savings, other assets etc. would be up for grabs.
- dharmab 5y ago
  The rules vary by state and can change depending on if a written will exists. Parents, talk to an attorney while you're healthy. Some of the states have rules that will surprise you.

gnopgnip 5y ago

Was this before 2010?

seandoe 5y ago

Without knowing anything, 10 million seems excessive, but 6 months in a hospital will no doubt be expensive. I don't want to stir up bad feelings, I'm just curious, was there a good chance that your dad was going to make it out of the hospital? What was EOL talks like with the doctors? This story brings back the article here not too long ago, regarding the average hospital stay of a doctor at EOL vs the general public. I'm not sure of all the influencing factors regarding EOL procedure, but it does seem like a huge amount of resources are used for the very short end of a large amount of people's lives. Once again, no offense intended, it just got me thinking.

t3rabytes 5y ago
Anecdata: I spent 5 days in ICU in 2018 and had a $350k bill from a California hospital, which my insurance company paid $200k for after adjustments and discounts. I wouldn’t say $10m for 6 months is far off.
- seandoe 5y ago
  Yea that sentence came off wrong. I don't doubt the OP's claim at all. I was trying to acknowledge that billing that amount to anyone isn't right and looking to make the point that healthcare is expensive and how "we" choose to allocate resources is an important discussion.
treyfitty 5y ago
No offense taken. In hindsight, it should have been clear that every day spent in the ICU past 3 months was not a good sign of my dad ever making it out of there. However, we 100% believed he was going to get better all throughout the process. Idk what this assessment was based on, but reflecting back for the first time in a long time, I now realize just how much emotions cloud sensible outlook & probability assessment.

ezoe 5y ago

10 million USD in 6 months? 10M? So I immediately imagine an absurd nonsense like "liquid gold transfusion", then I realized it's 800g gold per day in the current gold price. My pathetic mind can't even imagine the how absurd that is.