7 ms·

the whole title is clickbait. he got insurance.

by jaykk 5y ago

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 ago
  So 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 ago
    The 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)?
  - mustacheemperor 5y ago
    Since the typical fast food service worker see almost their entire paycheck go to living expenses before any opportunity for luxuries or savings, that does indeed sound like a crippling if not insurmountable financial burden for someone who incurs an x-ray expense like this unexpectedly. Especially since whatever reason they have for needing an x-ray could affect their ability to earn income from McDonalds. I don't think hourly wage work offers the same perks as entry-level development roles at facebook with regards to paid sick leave.
  - matthewmacleod 5y ago
    Alas, still no cure for Stockholm Syndrome.
  - buescher 5y ago
    This example is totally unrealistic. In the USA someone supporting themselves working at McDonalds would qualify for Medicaid and have essentially no out-of-pocket medical expenses.
  - roywiggins 5y ago
    > 3-3.5 weeks of work at a McDonalds Sure, if you don't pay for rent, food, or transportation to work.
- db48x 5y ago
  True, but it’s also more complex than that. I don’t know the story here, but the $69k bill sounds like he went to a hospital to get treated. Hospital prices in the US are always lies; his insurance company probably paid around $10k in total and perhaps even less than that. Of course the insurance company doesn’t generally tell their customers exactly how much they actually paid the hospital. He could have gotten a more reasonable bill by asking the hospital for the cash price for everything, writing them a check for that amount, and then getting reimbursed by his insurance company. It might still have been more than his out–of–pocket limit, in which case he still would have paid the $2,500. But his real mistake was probably going to the hospital in the first place. He probably should have gone to his Primary Care Physician or to an Urgent Care Clinic. Either one of them can admit him to a hospital if it turns out to be necessary, but it probably would not have been. I see in another comment that he needed an X–Ray, a CT scan, and some medication. He could have gotten all of that at an urgent care clinic for $1,000 or so, and slept in his own bed that night. It pays to shop around, and you can do so _before_ you get hurt. Finally, don’t forget that in addition to the $2,500 he paid, he also paid his insurance company even in years that he wasn’t injured or ill. Likewise, you pay taxes every year and part of that goes to pay for healthcare, even if you aren’t actually injured or ill.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    $10k is still a ridiculous amount.
    - its_ethan 5y ago
      So how much should it cost? And how do you arrive at that number?
      - phkahler 5y ago
        It should not cost more than a pair of shoes. They used to use x-rays to check fit at the shoe stores - for free.
        5y ago
- lbriner 5y ago
  The problem is that the cost for healthcare is hidden. In the UK, we have "National Insurance" but it doesn't work like normal insurance. It goes into the same big pot as everything else and gets spent on whatever. It is a hard balance but sometimes when I see people doing stupid things that land them in the ER, I kind of wish that their premium would increase as a result. That said, I think the largest cost in healthcare is the care of the elderly: We somehow keep people breathing for much longer than 50 years ago but it doesn't stop their bodies needing some big maintenance or long-term residential care.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    Health insurance premiums in the US don't raise people rates if they do stupid stuff, with the single exception of smoking. Rates are basically set based on three factors: age, location, and smoking status. You do share costs if there's an accident, but daredevils and school teachers get the same rate at the same age in the same city.
squarefoot 5y ago
> the whole title is clickbait. he got insurance. Those fees are crazy nonetheless. I don't have any insurance and during the last 1.5 years I suffered symptomatic Covid (medicines and vaccines free), then a road accident with multiple fractures: left arm, right shoulder, both wrists and L4, (nearly 2 months hospitalized plus long rehab to learn to walk again: all free excluding the fees for printing the medical data, which were over 400 pages, and MRI/RX/CT images DVDs: around 20 Euros all included), then last January I got a heart attack and was hospitalized in a coronary care unit for 4 days plus 1 day at the ward where I was planted two stents: again all free including the 1st bag of medicines. 20 years ago I worked in the IT, pays were very good and therefore taxes were high, but all considered, in the end I got a lot more than I paid for. I could think of a thousand things I don't like at all about my country, but healthcare is definitely not one of them.
- azinman2 5y ago
  Your healthcare cost a lot more than the 20 euros or “free” that you said. In the US it’s a bit more transparent since you’re receiving the bill. In a shared public healthcare system everyone foots the bill via their taxes. I’m sure hospitals make out more in the US — the entire system is designed to create profit at every stage - but saying things are “free” elsewhere is disingenuous. He also built an x-ray machine, but his charges per the article were for a CT scan and staying at the hospital. A CT scan is a totally different beast than an x-ray machine, and staying at the hospital means you’re actively under medical care the entire time. It’s all very clickbaity.
  - jackson1442 5y ago
    The US spends the most per-capita on healthcare in the world.
    - Teknoman117 5y ago
      Some days I wonder if we're subsidizing Europe's healthcare in a way. European counties impose stringent controls on how much money their public health system will pay for something and in response, since said company still wants that money, it ends up jacking up rates in the US.

the whole title is clickbait. he got insurance.

by jaykk 5y ago

the whole title is clickbait. he got insurance.

> 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 ago
So 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 ago
  The 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)?
- mustacheemperor 5y ago
  Since the typical fast food service worker see almost their entire paycheck go to living expenses before any opportunity for luxuries or savings, that does indeed sound like a crippling if not insurmountable financial burden for someone who incurs an x-ray expense like this unexpectedly. Especially since whatever reason they have for needing an x-ray could affect their ability to earn income from McDonalds. I don't think hourly wage work offers the same perks as entry-level development roles at facebook with regards to paid sick leave.
- matthewmacleod 5y ago
  Alas, still no cure for Stockholm Syndrome.
- buescher 5y ago
  This example is totally unrealistic. In the USA someone supporting themselves working at McDonalds would qualify for Medicaid and have essentially no out-of-pocket medical expenses.
- roywiggins 5y ago
  > 3-3.5 weeks of work at a McDonalds Sure, if you don't pay for rent, food, or transportation to work.
db48x 5y ago
True, but it’s also more complex than that. I don’t know the story here, but the $69k bill sounds like he went to a hospital to get treated. Hospital prices in the US are always lies; his insurance company probably paid around $10k in total and perhaps even less than that. Of course the insurance company doesn’t generally tell their customers exactly how much they actually paid the hospital. He could have gotten a more reasonable bill by asking the hospital for the cash price for everything, writing them a check for that amount, and then getting reimbursed by his insurance company. It might still have been more than his out–of–pocket limit, in which case he still would have paid the $2,500. But his real mistake was probably going to the hospital in the first place. He probably should have gone to his Primary Care Physician or to an Urgent Care Clinic. Either one of them can admit him to a hospital if it turns out to be necessary, but it probably would not have been. I see in another comment that he needed an X–Ray, a CT scan, and some medication. He could have gotten all of that at an urgent care clinic for $1,000 or so, and slept in his own bed that night. It pays to shop around, and you can do so _before_ you get hurt. Finally, don’t forget that in addition to the $2,500 he paid, he also paid his insurance company even in years that he wasn’t injured or ill. Likewise, you pay taxes every year and part of that goes to pay for healthcare, even if you aren’t actually injured or ill.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  $10k is still a ridiculous amount.
  - its_ethan 5y ago
    So how much should it cost? And how do you arrive at that number?
    - phkahler 5y ago
      It should not cost more than a pair of shoes. They used to use x-rays to check fit at the shoe stores - for free.
      - 5y ago
lbriner 5y ago
The problem is that the cost for healthcare is hidden. In the UK, we have "National Insurance" but it doesn't work like normal insurance. It goes into the same big pot as everything else and gets spent on whatever. It is a hard balance but sometimes when I see people doing stupid things that land them in the ER, I kind of wish that their premium would increase as a result. That said, I think the largest cost in healthcare is the care of the elderly: We somehow keep people breathing for much longer than 50 years ago but it doesn't stop their bodies needing some big maintenance or long-term residential care.
- kube-system 5y ago
  Health insurance premiums in the US don't raise people rates if they do stupid stuff, with the single exception of smoking. Rates are basically set based on three factors: age, location, and smoking status. You do share costs if there's an accident, but daredevils and school teachers get the same rate at the same age in the same city.

squarefoot 5y ago

> the whole title is clickbait. he got insurance. Those fees are crazy nonetheless. I don't have any insurance and during the last 1.5 years I suffered symptomatic Covid (medicines and vaccines free), then a road accident with multiple fractures: left arm, right shoulder, both wrists and L4, (nearly 2 months hospitalized plus long rehab to learn to walk again: all free excluding the fees for printing the medical data, which were over 400 pages, and MRI/RX/CT images DVDs: around 20 Euros all included), then last January I got a heart attack and was hospitalized in a coronary care unit for 4 days plus 1 day at the ward where I was planted two stents: again all free including the 1st bag of medicines. 20 years ago I worked in the IT, pays were very good and therefore taxes were high, but all considered, in the end I got a lot more than I paid for. I could think of a thousand things I don't like at all about my country, but healthcare is definitely not one of them.

azinman2 5y ago
Your healthcare cost a lot more than the 20 euros or “free” that you said. In the US it’s a bit more transparent since you’re receiving the bill. In a shared public healthcare system everyone foots the bill via their taxes. I’m sure hospitals make out more in the US — the entire system is designed to create profit at every stage - but saying things are “free” elsewhere is disingenuous. He also built an x-ray machine, but his charges per the article were for a CT scan and staying at the hospital. A CT scan is a totally different beast than an x-ray machine, and staying at the hospital means you’re actively under medical care the entire time. It’s all very clickbaity.
- jackson1442 5y ago
  The US spends the most per-capita on healthcare in the world.
  - Teknoman117 5y ago
    Some days I wonder if we're subsidizing Europe's healthcare in a way. European counties impose stringent controls on how much money their public health system will pay for something and in response, since said company still wants that money, it ends up jacking up rates in the US.