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YouTuber builds his own x-ray machine after $69k hospital bill (2021)
- marcodiego 5y agoYour own x-ray machine... This is on my list of "do not try this at home".
- mcntsh 5y agoFor anyone layman who wants to mess around with radioactive technology, I recommend reading about the "Goiânia accident"[1] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoComparing screwing around with dental xray equipment (or any x-ray equipment really) to distributing the radioactive bits of chemotherapy equipment across a neighborhood is like saying "be careful, you wouldn't want to accidentally blow up a government office building" every time someone starts talking about plant fertilizer or lecturing someone who's installing 12v car audio about transformer substation safety practices. The magnitude difference between the subjects is so big it constitutes a qualitative difference even if there is a common element. Not every discussion about something in the physical world needs to start with a low effort comment about how you can die by cranking it to 11 and then abusing it.
- ultimape 5y agoIn the context of buying used hospital equipment and the concerns of a layman making a mistake due to the very confusion you highlight... Seems at least relevant.
- WinterMount223 5y agoAn x ray lamp is not radioactive unless you are eating bananas.
- jjoonathan 5y agoAnyone who thinks these are comparable should withhold judgement until they learn more about how different kinds of "radiation" work. It's an overloaded term. X-rays generated by slamming accelerated electrons into a metal plate turn off immediately once power is removed. There is no residual radioactive decay, because there were no unstable or decaying isotopes at any point in the process. It's not a nuclear process. It does not involve the nucleus. In contrast, the Goiânia accident was the result of beta radiation from a pile of decaying Cesium 137 that could only be contained, not turned off.
- kumarvvr 5y agoX-Rays are not "radioactive technology", they are application of high energy particle physics. Please don't spread around misinformation. Once the power is off, there is no more radiation from the internals of an X-Ray Machine. Heck, we have portable X-Ray dental cameras now. They are still dangerous, but orders of magnitude lesser than true radioactive elements.
- Spivak 5y agoI pay cash for a lot of my medical care thanks to my HSA and this is exorbitant but but not insane assuming it’s about 2x thanks to the insurance premium which you would never pay yourself. The subject is sweeping under the rug the two nights in the hospital which is for sure the bulk of the cost — two days in the hospital is expensive as hell. Lots of hospitals bill by the half hour and an 8 hour overnight is about $10k when paying cash.
- msandford 5y agoI can't figure out in what way $1000/hr is tethered to any kind of reality. The bed and room don't cost that much. Nursing doesn't come close. The doctors tend to bill you separately for their services. I get that isn't the game here. But most games are based on some kind of reality. This one seems completely disconnected.
- nisegami 5y agoYouTuber = William Osman It always bothers me when blogs don't include the person name's in the title and just refer to them as "YouTuber". It's less egregious when it's social media like Reddit, but it's different when it's the way they earn a living.
- dewey 5y ago> After receiving a medical treatment that included a round of antibiotics and an X-ray scan, Californian Will Osman thought he got stuck with a $69,000 hospital bill. Luckily, Osman's insurance covered most of the bill, but that still left him on the hook for $2,500. That's the first sentence of the article. Doesn't that cover that pretty well?
- xeromal 5y agoI think they mean his name should be in the title of the article.
- dewey 5y agoDoesn't really make sense to me. If it would say "Will Osman Builds His Own X-Ray Machine" it doesn't really convey the same message as "YouTuber" which is kinda equivalent to "a regular person" and not a professional x-ray engineer.
- hef19898 5y agoI highly doubt a professional would do it, or at the very least not post it oblibe if they did.
- scrumbledober 5y agoI'm sure there's room for "Youtuber William Osman Builds His Own X-Ray Machine"
- geoffeg 5y agoThey have to get you to click the link to find the name so they can get the ad impressions. However, you saved me a click!
- xwdv 5y agoSo much hospital bill stuff is just rampant clickbait. A man got a $120k hospital bill after an allergy attack, a baby costs $36k to be born, etc. No one actually pays these amounts without insurance and if you have no insurance you probably don’t pay at all and just default on the debt. No one is paying this. No one. You never hear stories of people being utterly bankrupted by a huge hospital bill.
- rdedev 5y agohttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/14/health-insurance-medical-bankruptcy-debt https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/14/health-insur... An article about insured people going medically bankrupt. When things go according to plan and insurance covers everything it all good but when it doesn't it next to impossible for people to afford it. And it's not like bankrupois without consequences
- xwdv 5y agoThe medical bill isn’t why they go bankrupt. They lose their job to disability and thus their income and now they can’t pay any kind of bills. Or they were just in a bad financial state to begin with.
- aqme28 5y ago> You never hear stories of people being utterly bankrupted by a huge hospital bill. Isn’t medical bankruptcy the leading cause of bankruptcy? What are you talking about?
- kumarvvr 5y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiJAq53knwc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiJAq53knwc The link to the video.
- octagons 5y agoIt’s worth noting that William Osman stopped producing videos on his YouTube channel due to the fallout of this video. It was a long time coming because he comes off as very aloof and has received criticism about the safety of many other projects, but this one appears to have triggered a lot of outrage. FWIW, I think we need more young, brilliant minds sharing this kind of content. It has the entertainment value needed to capture the interest of young viewers who may not be otherwise interested in engineering disciplines. There are many, many other channels out there (backyard scientist, action lab, Cody’s lab, stuff made here, etc.) who are very successful on YouTube, but they tend to cater to viewers who are deliberately choosing to watch their videos.
- mkdirp 5y ago> It’s worth noting that William Osman stopped producing videos on his YouTube channel due to the fallout of this video. Was it really because of that video? My impression from his last video was just people being unnecessarily mean to him for no reason in general, not just because of that video, but maybe I missed something. Personally, I was super impressed by this video. It was the first time I had seen his videos (or heard of him). It was an instant subscribe for me when I saw it. I hope he's doing well. He seemed in a really bad place in his final video.
- jaykk 5y agohe's okay and currently does a super nice podcast with other youtubers like nilred and the backyard scientist called "safety third". He will release videos sometime soon again - He talked about his backlog with his releases because he wanted to release a video about his mr. beast's squidgame involvement first and didnt find a good angle to tell the story.
- Ruthalas 5y agoI enjoyed his main channel content, but found the first few episodes of the podcast to be a little rough going because they had a strong focus on complaining about the people complaining about their lack of safety measures. (Which just wasn't interesting listening to me.) Have the more recent episodes moved past that? I'd like to give it another shot.
- atum47 5y agoHe kinda quit after this video. Apparently people gave him all kinds of sh*t in the comments
- criddell 5y agoWere you unable to turn comments off back then?
- blamazon 5y agoTurning off comments as an independent YouTube creator is these days potential career suicide, as ‘engagement’ is a huge part of the algorithm. What you’re “supposed” to do these days, is engage with comments (literally like and reply!) early in your career, when the stream of feedback small and manageable, to drive engagement, and stop looking when they become unmanageable. This strategy is rewarded by YouTube. Many creators struggle to draw that line because it can feel like turning their back on their fans.
- mistrial9 5y agoadverse legal actions with non-disclosure perhaps?
- dekhn 5y agoRightfully so. I've worked with people who are qualified to do this (literally, a person who stared into a synchrotron) but they limit their commentary to the scientific literature.
- ck2 5y agoI was looking for mobile x-ray truck services when I came across this article. I do wish by now there was some kind of DIY at-home safe alternative to x-ray with resolution say better than ultrasound, so you could check for fractures in your feet, etc. Guess we have at least another decade for that, requires a leap in technology. But I bet by the end of the century you'll be able to do it on your smartphone or whatever people are using by then. How about some kind of film or sensor that needs minutes of particle exposure from a far lesser powerful source? You would rest your foot or limb on the film or sensor for a minute. There would be a little blur but manageable, maybe corrected digitally?
- hef19898 5y agoWe had home-use x-rays in 50s. There is a reason we stopped having those, there are reasons why medical devices are regulated. Promoting home-build stuff is dangerous. Especially since non-trained people just don't know what they are looking at when looking at x-ray pictures.
- everforward 5y ago> How about some kind of film or sensor that needs minutes of particle exposure from a far lesser powerful source? You would rest your foot or limb on the film or sensor for a minute. There would be a little blur but manageable, maybe corrected digitally? I think that blur would be problematic for fractures, at least for the variety where you aren't sure whether you should go to the hospital or not. More generally speaking, even if we had a safe way to get X-rays at home diagnosing them is hard. The "bone is torn in half" ones are easy to see, but I don't think you'd even need an X-ray to diagnose that. The more subtle breaks are hard to pick up on. I googled for fracture X-rays, and on a lot of them I can't tell whether there's a fracture or not unless it's obviously snapped in 2. At home X-rays make less sense to me if you're going to have to have a radiologist look at it anyways. You might as well go to an outpatient imaging place anyways.
- aorloff 5y agoAmerican medical industry is worried that once the xray is taken, you can ship it to another country where a trained physician can look at it and diagnose it for $50. The problem is that the American doctor needs to make orders of magnitude more money to diagnose. Hopefully we will see this kind of disintermediation, because for routine stuff (broken bones) costs should be way lower than they are.
- sofixa 5y agoI wonder what kind of innovations we're missing in the EU with our affordable healthcare.
- jaykk 5y agothe whole title is clickbait. he got insurance.
- sofixa 5y ago> Luckily, Osman's insurance covered most of the bill, but that still left him on the hook for $2,500. That's still far more than you'd pay for most healthcare related things across the EU.
- floor2 5y agoSo about 3-4 days of work as an entry-level Facebook developer, or 3-3.5 weeks of work at a McDonalds (based on every fast-food place around me having billboards up offering starting wages of $18-20/hr). Getting access to emergency life-saving treatment, which leverages billions of dollars in research & development and hours of work from a team of doctors, radiologists, nurses, pharmacists, support staff, etc in exchange for being asked to contribute back to society by cooking burgers for a month feels like a pretty amazing offer compared to how almost all humans have existed in history and most still do around the world today.
- ljp_206 5y agoThe fact that we have better health infrastructure in most places worldwide than ever before in human history is true. But saying a surprise, out-of-the-blue 2.5k medical bill can be taken care of by working nearly a month at McDonalds without factoring the high cut of that wage that goes to living is facile at best and cruel at worst.
- cjrp 5y ago> 3-3.5 weeks of work at a McDonalds With a broken limb (which is presumably why you required the X-ray in the first place)?
- karmicthreat 5y agoKreosan also did something similar and far less safely. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shV2qoZShV0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shV2qoZShV0
- buescher 5y agoThere's an irony in the breathless "built his very own x-ray machine" slant - x-rays are literally Victorian technology. Not for the reckless or uninitiated I suppose, but I remember books showing how to make x-ray devices from the wrong vacuum tubes and spark coils and such. Probably by Alfred Morgan but I can't find the reference now. Don't try any of this today, only bad things will happen, right? To quote the more contemporary source below "Any person who regularly works with any combination of high voltage and vacuum should maintain a dosimetry program." http://www.belljar.net/xray.htm http://www.belljar.net/xray.htm http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects/89/797/334dc8f2a5379bb03525ce1a3c3e6131.html http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projec...
- Jeema101 5y agoYea exactly. Anyone with experience with electronics who is willing to work with high voltage and has some knowledge of vacuum tubes could probably make one. Side note: old TV rectifier tubes from the 1950s and 60s were notoriously known for being x ray emitters, and were often made with leaded glass or kept inside shielded enclosures specifically because of the X-rays. So X-ray emitters were literally in everyday standard consumer electronics back then! Kind of crazy to think about these days...
- willis936 5y agoAnd the TVs themselves were three particle accelerators steered by magnetic coils slamming voltage rails of a few kV 15,750 times a second. The beams emitted X-Ray Bremsstrahlung. In everyone's home. The last truly cool piece of physics in the house today is the magnetron, which is pretty damn cool.
- dekhn 5y agoMy kitchen microwave kills any 2.4ghz wifi within 30 feet.
- x0x0 5y agoNot just consumer electronics. We used to install xray machines in shoe stores to see how well your shoes fit. Common through the 70s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe-fitting_fluoroscope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe-fitting_fluoroscope
- jypepin 5y agoI just saw someone on tiktok showing how they made their own invisiline from a scan of their teeths. They programmed their own multi-step adjustment, bought a special 3d printer and printed all their invisiline things. Unsure how efficient or comparable theirs will be to the right thing, but I found that very interesting what a single person can do nowadays!
- sergiotapia 5y agoNote that guy said he had personal connections to an "dental mechanic" (mecanico dental, don't know what it's called in English). Basically someone professional and licensed to verify his molds and steps were correct.
- kube-system 5y ago> (mecanico dental, don't know what it's called in English) Dental lab technician?
- jrockway 5y agoNo, probably orthodontist.
- dghlsakjg 5y agoMaybe orthodontist? They are the people that make braces, invisalign, etc.
- drBonkers 5y agoDo you have a link to that?
- adenta 5y agoCould you send a link? I thought _I_ was cool for just making a thermoform mold of my teeth that I've been documenting at https://www.tiktok.com/@unofficial_denta.istry https://www.tiktok.com/@unofficial_denta.istry
- lbriner 5y ago
- ghotli 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25 ^^ I won't editorialize much, but this is the first thing I thought of. It was involved in at least six accidents between 1985 and 1987, in which patients were given massive overdoses of radiation. Because of concurrent programming errors (also known as race conditions), it sometimes gave its patients radiation doses that were hundreds of times greater than normal, resulting in death or serious injury.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoChemotherapy radiation is not x-ray radiation.
- roywiggins 5y ago"The machine had three modes of operation... A "field light" mode... Direct electron-beam therapy... Megavolt X-ray (or photon) therapy, which delivered a beam of 25 MeV X-ray photons" So, still x-ray radiation, but at much higher voltages than diagnostic x-rays. (The accident was indeed overexposure to the electron beam, not to the x-rays, but the electron beam was part of the process for producing the x-rays in normal operation)
- habi 5y agoChemotherapy is fighting cancer with drugs, not radiation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemotherapy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemotherapy Often, the fight does involve radiation therapy in addition, though!
- ghotli 5y ago¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Hope you enjoyed the link regardless
- Rebelgecko 5y agoWhat is "chemotherapy radiation"?
- AlexanderTheGr8 5y agointeresting thing to see a week before my concurrent programming course finals! I hate race conditions. I don't blame those programmers 1 bit. It is extremely hard to find race conditions, and 10x harder to fix them.
- candiodari 5y agoWhy not do tomography instead? Uses infrared radiation mostly, so it's less harmful than looking at a fire.
- habi 5y agoClassic tomography does not necessarily use IR light. One needs radiation that penetrates the object to be imaged, hence X-rays.
- kartoolOz 5y agoSingle X-ray session costs 4$ in my state in India
- brezelgoring 5y agoHe's American, it probably costs him thousands just to book it. I'm from a third world hellhole and it costs me just 8 bucks to do it.
- hackmiester 5y agoYes, but unfortunately modern medical billing practices have not yet come to Osman's home country.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- vilhelm_s 5y agoSteve Yegge tells the story[1] of his dad cooking: > When I was a teenager, my dad and my brother Mike decided to make homemade chili. I'd never seen it made before, and I watched with keen interest as they added beef, beans, some veggies and spices, and other ingredients. Dad would taste it, add some more ingredients, wait a bit, taste it again. My dad has some pretty good recipes. So you can imagine my puzzlement when he opened the cupboard, pulled out 2 cans of Hormel chili, opened them and dumped them in. I waited a respectful moment or two before asking him why he was adding canned chili to his chili. Similarly, I think it detracts a bit from building a home-made x-ray machine if one of the ingredients is an x-ray tube from an old x-ray machine. [1] http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/10/egomania-itself.html http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/10/egomania-itself.html
- robbedpeter 5y agohttps://youtu.be/-0G4-JicCIw https://youtu.be/-0G4-JicCIw Diy xray tubes are doable, but I don't fault them for the store chili or the reused tube. It's not always important that parts be as authentically diy as the whole, in my view.
- robocat 5y agoSteve rants against Agile - classic. “”” I waited a respectful moment or two before asking him why he was adding canned chili to his chili. They both said it tasted terrible, but, as my dad now-famously observed: "You can start with dog shit, and if you add enough chili, you get chili." Similarly, if you start with an Agile Methodology, and you add enough hard work, you get a bunch of work done. Go figure. But that's a tautology; you can substitute anything you like for "Agile Methodology" and it's still true. It's probably not difficult to find people who believe that Feng Shui has brought them success in their projects for years. Or throwing pennies in fountains. Heck, there are probably some people who practice witchcraft to help their projects out, and a great many of those projects — probably the majority — wind up being successful. If you do a rain dance for enough days in a row, it will eventually work. Guaranteed. So I'm not saying Agile doesn't work. It does work! But it's plain, unadulterated superstition. “”” Off topic, but thanks for the link.
- dekhn 5y ago
- sgjohnson 5y agoIt was not a $69k hospital bill. It was just $2500 for him. But it sure does make a good headline.
- throwaway675309 5y agoTrivializing the cost as "just $2500" speaks more about your privilege than it does anything else.
- sgjohnson 5y agoIt has nothing to do with privilege or anything other than basic relativity. $2.5k is “just $2.5k” relative to $69k for everyone.
- datavirtue 5y agoIt wasn't 69k either. That's the troll number the hospitals and insurance companies use to shock people and justify the actual high prices.
- mrguyorama 5y agoBut when they send you that bill, it is a legally valid debt that you owe them. The fact that you can negotiate large debts does not change that
- datavirtue 5y agoNo, they mark it down as $69,000 and then show the "insurance negotiated" rate underneath. They do this regardless of whether or not you are paying out on of pocket. If you are uninsured they do the same thing but the discount is for "self pay" or whatever. It just seems kind of stupid but most people just see the insurance rate that applies to them when they are paying out of pocket in the deductible range. It's propaganda/manipulation.
- nanoservices 5y agoSure... Who is the hospital billing $69k to, the insurance? Also $2,500 is still a lot.
- kashunstva 5y agoI don’t understand the connection between the cost of hospitalization and a DIY 2d x-ray machine. Where exactly do you go with that? The article states that he underwent an abdominal CT, but of course that’s not what he built. Probably a good thing, too, as whatever radiation he’s emitting would have been substantially higher. I’m just confused about the motivation. There are lots of costs embedded in procedure pricing - some legitimate, some less so. Heaven forbid he goes into hospital and has to have an MRI. I can’t imagine the monstrosity that would result from that DIY project.
- lbriner 5y agoIt just sounds to me like a good story to introduce the project. I suppose he is kind of saying "how can they charge this much when I can build one of these at home".
- tsol 5y agoYeah it seems like an excuse to do the project. X-rays aren't all that expensive, usually under $100. Maybe with a reading by a radiologist it can go into the hundreds
- dekhn 5y agoYou are right to question the narrative. These days it's common for news articles to play this kind of trick. There are just a lot of hidden costs the DIY youtuber is ignoring.
- deltaonefour 5y agoHe's right to question the narrative but absolutely insane not to question the 69k cost. That xray is not worth 69k. It's a literal crime that the hospital charges that much.
- dekhn 5y agohave you run a major medical center? Acquired an x-ray machine? Operated it (and paid the staff) for 10 years? if you haven't done that, I'm not sure you have the experience to say how much an x-ray should cost.
- pkstn 5y agoHow on earth can x ray cost $69,210.32? Here in Finland it costs something like 20 € (well, I know that's not the true cost, but still).
- CogitoCogito 5y agoIt doesn't cost that it's just that medical fraud is legal in the US.
- phkahler 5y ago>> How on earth can x ray cost $69,210.32? Here in Finland it costs something like 20 € (well, I know that's not the true cost, but still). How can an x-ray cost more than a pair of shoes? They used to use x-rays at the shoe store to check fit - for free. Say this to any doctor in the US and watch the silence on their face.
- recuter 5y agoThe doctors of course have as much to do with the price of x-rays as Al Bundy.
- phkahler 5y agoMost doctors don't know what the cost is, and it's way beyond their hourly rate. Edit: BTW, loved the Al Bundy reference.
- kube-system 5y agoA radiologist may give you a better medical diagnosis. "Is my foot broken? Not sure, but it's a size 10"
- lbriner 5y agoI was wondering the same. Sure, I get the fact that people can hike the prices but I thought that the insurance companies would not allow a hospital to charge whatever they like, at least if you want to claim it from insurance. XRay machines are pretty basic afaik compared to say, an MRI and at that price you could get 2 nights in the New York Hilton penthouse!
- TomK32 5y agoHe just could move to Canada or Europe and avoid insane hospital bills. Just saying.
- txcan 5y agoAnd wait for 100 years to get their free X-ray done in Canada ?
- TillE 5y agoI got an MRI (way more complicated than an x-ray) done in Berlin in about a week, for no charge, on public health insurance. But sure, defend an objectively insane system because it's what you're used to.
- fesoliveira 5y agoI don't know where did you get such information, but it takes a few days of wait at most in Canada to get an X-ray.
- mardifoufs 5y agoIn quebec it can take months, maybe weeks if it's a simple radiography.
- deltaonefour 5y agoI'm weirded out by the number of people on HN defending the US medical system. As someone living in the US mayself, everyone is well aware how crazy the medical system is, but in this thread there's a large number of people trying to justify 69k for an "expert" pushing a button to zap you with rays.
- kube-system 5y agoIt's a system that needs some changes, but also, the bill wasn't for an x-ray and nobody paid $69k.
- Maursault 5y agoMy issue with X-rays is that they are massively overused and rarely help the diagnosis. 99.9% (an estimation) of X-rays are used to rule out diagnoses. Sprain your wrist? Need an X-ray to make sure it's not broken, which your orthopedic already knew. Unless there's a broken bone or cancer, all X-rays do is pay for the X-ray machine. Tip: never X-ray your pet (unless there is a broken bone or cancer is suspected). Trust me, it is very unlikely to show anything. If you're very concerned, go right for the ultrasound, which probably also won't show anything. Vets are generally awesome individuals, however, veterinary medicine is a business for profit quite unlike the health system, and most vet X-rays merely serve to pay for and justify the expense of the machine.
- q1w2 5y agoHumans are far more likely to break bones than pets - so I agree that it's almost never worth it to get a pet xray. For humans though, as someone who's worked in a hospital, xrays are extremely useful. We see lots of broken bones. Confirming the break is important so that you know to put the patient in a cast, but more importantly, the type of break can sometimes require surgery to set the bone. I'm not sure how many xrays rule out a fracture, rather than confirm it, but it's not 99.9%. If I had to guesstimate, maybe 10-20% of possible fracture xrays confirm a fracture. That percentage probably increases greatly as patients age. Kids very often come in with sprains that their parents want xrays, whereas a lot of elderly people break bones more easily.
- Maursault 5y agoI think a broken bone, or a reasonable possibility of a broken bone, or suspicion of cancer, are excellent reasons for an X-ray. But I refuse to believe an orthopedic can't tell the difference between a broken bone or fracture and soft tissue trauma. At some point during the physical examination, they know. It's not like they don't know, and they need to eliminate possibilities to whittle them down to reveal the problem, otherwise hidden from their eyes and mind. They know. And yet, we'll order $2000 worth of X-rays just to be sure the damn machine gets paid for.
- 5y ago
- emkoemko 5y agowhy are hospitals charging money?
- tinybrotosaurus 5y agoBecause they provide a service?
- emkoemko 5y agonever seen this before and i have been to a few hospitals, only payed for parking.
- cmckn 5y agoI can't get past the paywall on the article, but how exactly did he get a bill for an X-ray that totaled $69,000? Much more advanced diagnostics, like CT scans, MRI's, etc. cost a tenth of this. edit: quick google says a full-body X-ray should run you somewhere around $1,100 without insurance: https://health.costhelper.com/x-rays.html https://health.costhelper.com/x-rays.html
- db48x 5y agoApparently it was an x–ray, a CT scan, some medication, and two nights in a hospital bed. That’s the real problem. Hospitals are great if you have been in a car accident and could die at any moment, but terrible for anything else. In particular, hospitals in the US are well–known for lying about their prices. You’ll get a bill for some ridiculous amount, and your insurance will negotiate it down to something more reasonable. Of course they don’t negotiate prices on a case–by–case basis; instead the large insurance companies negotiate “bulk discounts” ahead of time. It is unlikely that his insurance paid more than $10k. Ironically he probably could have paid even less if he had asked for the cash prices at the hospital, and then gotten reimbursed by his insurance. But even that is too much. If he had gone to his primary–care physician or an urgent–care clinic he probably would have paid a tenth of that or less, plus he could have slept in his own bed.
- gxt 5y agoFine US lawmakers should have Congress outlaw scalping. Then victims of the US medical system would have a novel argument to sue goodness into the damn thing.
- mr_toad 5y agoWhoever charged 69k for some tests and a couple of days in hospital should be put in jail for fraud. That’s about 10x what it actually costs the hospital.
- bittercynic 5y agoI can't quite put my finger on it, but there's something in Osman's style that feels like contempt to me, where he's kind of ruthless in his critique of many things, and then very sensitive to criticism coming his way. Admittedly, many commenters are over-the-top critical of him, and there are a lot of commenters. I can imagine he might feel ganged up on.
- 14 5y agoToo funny after a huge vet bill for x-rays I was trying to look up how to build an x-ray machine myself but only for the question of if it was possible not to actually do it. I questioned why so much for something that probably doesn't cost that much. Some will say it costs lots because of certification and upkeep and licensing but I call bs especially after seeing this video.
- mateo1 5y agoPlease at the minimum do the required lead shielding the regulations require... There's a reason all those pesky laws exist. This sort of youtubers who try to convince people with no relevant background that xray tubes are super safe, metallic mercury is fine to handle with your bare hands and magnetrons are ok to run in the open (or even pointed at your skull) are unbelievably irresponsible. There's a whole generation of teenagers growing up not realizing that these are basically stunts. Stunts even more dangerous than those fake parkour videos showing people jumping off the 3rd floor of a building, because at least in that case we have build-in reflexes stopping us from reenacting them. Also consider that you'll need someone to develop the films and read the xrays. They aren't doing it for free.
- eek2121 5y agoFWIW: The bill wasn't $69,000, it was $2,500. People need to stop quoting bills before insurance discounts. Hospitals always use ridiculous numbers. They do this for the insurance, not for you. For the example in the article, NOBODY pays that much, uninsured included. If you are uninsured, a simple phone call would get this particular bill reduced to $5,000 or so. Sure, it is still a lot, but it's not $69,000. Note that some/many states REQUIRE hospitals to have financial assistance, and those that don't typically have judges that frown upon absurd costs, especially considering the insured/uninsured data becomes factual information in the lawsuit should the defendant hire a competent lawyer. (Translation: if the average person + insurance pays less than you are being sued for out of pocket, the hospital will win a judgement, but not for the amount they are demanding, that is provided you fight it and either make smart arguments or get a lawyer) Note that I'm not advocating for "paid" or "for-profit" healthcare here, rather, I'd like to see people use factual information for the basis of an argument against an unpopular subject. I am socialist, and I've been trying to get Bernie and others elected to office for years.