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I think this is something people in the US don’t understand. Many (most?) countries with national healthcare don’t cover elective surgery (cosmetic surgery, etc
by olliej 4y ago
I think this is something people in the US don’t understand. Many (most?) countries with national healthcare don’t cover elective surgery (cosmetic surgery, etc).
Many also have parallel (though obviously smaller) private healthcare providers. Of course because there is large national healthcare people who are paying extra for private healthcare are being gouged - because a facility’s ability to gouge customers is limited by competition.
The problem with the US health system is that it is essentially for profit, there is no “lower priced alternative” you can choose instead, and you cannot discharge medical debt so gouging is a safe and secure source of perpetual income for medical providers. It doesn’t matter if a patient can’t afford the debt, in many cases they literally do not have a choice, and then just pay interest on that until they die.
So you have swathes of the population that have comparatively expensive health insurance (compared to taxes paying for national healthcare), but who can’t afford to get any medical care anyway because the insurance is essentially just a “stop bankruptcy if you have a heart attack” insurance not actual healthcare. Despite that they are often avoiding bankruptcy but still being left with 10s of thousands of dollars in copays which they can “afford”.
- hotpotamus 4y agoThis comment doesn't track for me. I'm not an expert, but I don't think you're using the term elective like a Doctor would - I believe they refer to that for surgeries that aren't really emergent and can be done as desired, like joint replacements, for instance. And I don't think private insurance has ever covered purely cosmetic surgeries. I assume there is also some cosmetic surgery that is medically advisable for quality of life even if it's not strictly necessary that might be covered in private or public systems. I'm also pretty sure that medical debt is dis-chargeable; it's student debt that is essentially permanent in the US. I can agree that profit motives for healthcare are probably inherently problematic.
- maxerickson 4y agoyou cannot discharge medical debt Yes, you can. Out of pocket maximums do tend to be high, but they are typically still less than $20,000 for a family insurance plan. The less expensive option (in terms of my contribution to the premiums) at my employer has an out of pocket maximum considerably lower than that.
- consumer451 4y ago> Yes, you can. Not only that, but you can wait it out. The statute of limitations on medical debt is 5 years in FL and 4 in CA, for example. Once that date has passed, you can just tell the credit agencies and it goes away.