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A friend just went to hospital in Queensland, Aus with pain in his hand. The booked him in to stay the night and did surgery the next day and he stayed for two
by andrewstuart 3y ago
A friend just went to hospital in Queensland, Aus with pain in his hand.
The booked him in to stay the night and did surgery the next day and he stayed for two more days then went home.
Without a bill.
Thank goodness for Australia's healthcare system. It's far from perfect, but when it works, it really works well.
- peteradio 3y ago3 days in hospital bed for hand surgery?!
- andrewstuart 3y agoHe arrived around lunchtime, had to wait 9 hours or so to be seen, they scheduled him for surgery the next day and booked him in that night, then two days post surgery (general anesthetic) to keep an eye on him. I'm not a doctor, don't know the details.
- zapdrive 3y ago9 hours to be seen? I thought only Canada was fucked up. I think all the countries with "free" healthcare end up with having absurd waiting times. I had some issue with harmones and the family physician referred me to endocrinologist. I called his office and guess what? There was a 6 month waiting period. They gave me an appointment 6 months away. Luckily I was traveling to Mexico in a couple weeks. I saw an endocrinologist there (no appointment, just walk in). He told me if i had waited 6 months, it would have taken a drastic irreparable toll on my health.
- warent 3y agoI think all the countries with "free" healthcare end up with having absurd waiting times The irony is that we also have absurd wait times in the USA for our paid healthcare. At least other countries get it for free. This is such a common trope that the USA tradeoff is that we pay to get higher quality expedited care, but it's just not true
- graymatters 3y agoUS healthcare is absolutely horrible. Both outrageously expensive and utterly lacking in availability. This is why average longevity in US is declining while it is growing in other developed countries. It’s not health-care, it’s health-don’t-care.
- adventured 3y ago> Both outrageously expensive and utterly lacking in availability. US healthcare is easy to access. I've used it at every economic tier and it has never been difficult to get access to proper care. It is obnoxiously expensive. > This is why average longevity in US is declining while it is growing in other developed countries. It's growing in most, not all of course. Britain as one example is seeing something between stagnation and decline in its life expectancy, despite their vaunted NHS. And for seven decades it has lagged increasingly behind its peers, being ahead of only the US in its peer group. Universal healthcare will only take you so far. "Life expectancy in the UK has grown at a slower rate than comparable countries over the past seven decades, according to researchers, who say this is the result of widening inequality. "The UK lags behind all other countries in the group of G7 advanced economies except the US, according to a new analysis of global life expectancy rankings published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. "While life expectancy has increased in absolute terms, similar countries have experienced larger increases, they wrote. In the 1950s, the UK had one of the longest life expectancies in the world, ranking seventh globally behind countries such as Denmark, Norway and Sweden, but in 2021 the UK was ranked 29th." [0] --- "A new analysis of global rankings of life expectancy over seven decades shows the UK has done worse than all G7 countries except the USA." [1] [0] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/mar/16/life-expectancy-in-uk-growing-at-slower-rate-to-comparable-g7-countries https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/mar/16/life-expecta... [1] https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2023/uk-drops-new-global-ranking-life-expectancy https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2023/uk-drops-new-gl...
- thfuran 3y ago>US healthcare is easy to access Emergency care is typically easy to access. Non-emergency care is pretty easy to access in some places and quite inconvenient in others.
- rubyn00bie 3y agoIn the US I’ve had to wait just as long, I had a broken arm and was required to wait like 8+ hours to even get x-rays. The absurd wait times for health care are not any better with private health care. I’d say they are substantially worse because you wait just as long AND have an unknowable bill every time you go to the doctor. I routinely am quoted prices, pay them upfront, and then sent a bill for more after (all but one dentist I’ve seen has done this sometimes doubling the costs). TLDR; The US system isn’t “free” and it is still shit.
- cultofmetatron 3y agothats not much longer than what you get in the US. I'll take the slightly longer wait time and lack of bill thanks.
- fencepost 3y ago9 hours to be seen? I thought only Canada was fucked up. Pretty sure there are a LOT of hospitals in the US where that's an expected or short time in the ER waiting room, and once you're taken in (into a room and charges accruing) you may well wait a another hour or more before being seen by a doctor. Note that all of these places should prioritize you if you come in with heart attack or stroke symptoms.
- boplicity 3y agoA friend recently arrived (via ambulance), and was in surgery within a half hour. In the U.S. If you're lucky, for certain situations, the system is set up VERY well. Other situations, not so much. I'm happy to live in Canada, where I just don't worry about the cost of things.
- WWLink 3y agoThat makes sense. Emergency room triage happens really quickly in my experience (even if you walk in, usually less than 10 minutes). If it's clear your life is in serious danger, then even faster! Once they know your condition isn't life threatening, you get to wait until they have some free time to see you, however long that is. Problem is most hospitals are setup to be overloaded aka "every day is a bad day" - god forbid you have some staff sitting around twiddling their thumbs! Better to just have just enough staff that the place doesn't fail.
- groby_b 3y agoGuess what. Mexico has a public health care system. You know, one of those evil "free" ones.
- bandrami 3y agoThey do, but the kind of doctor that a foreigner can just walk up to and receive same-day treatment for cash isn't in the SSA system.
- alluro2 3y agoIt depends on the type of surgery, op room schedule, doctor availability, any kind of needed prep for the patient, etc - but 2 nights is not that unexpected. (Am also not a doctor, but stayed in hospital for 2 months, so seen people undertaking various surgeries in that time).
- dietr1ch 3y agoIf it's free I guess you'd prefer even staying a week instead of working months to pay it with your fun budget. And the clarification comment says only ~8h were wasted waiting to be seen. The rest of the 3 days was probably justified (might be surprising if you are expected to be at work unless you die).
- jcpst 3y agoOr years of crushing debt. Most people live paycheck to paycheck
- prepend 3y agoThis would be outpatient in the US. Nice that it was free, but took a long time. For me, I would pay $100 for the ER and then schedule outpatient that day or later some other time and pay up to $350 for the surgery. The tax rates seem similar though with Australia being 23.6% and US 22.6% [0] (average for single worker no kids, of course there are variations). [0] https://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/taxing-wages-australia.pdf https://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/taxing-wages-australia.p...
- Retric 3y agoHospital beds aren’t inherently that expensive. The physical room + attention from medical professionals + deprecation on equipment doesn’t add up to such an extreme number as to be particularly problematic. It’s a huge range of negative feedback loops that drive US medical costs into insane territory. For example insurance companies require more documentation which means doctors can treat fewer people and thus need to change each of them more. High costs mean fewer people can afford services which means more time in collections and charging those who can pay more. High medical costs drive up malpractice payouts for medical treatment which drives up malpractice premiums which drive up medical costs. etc etc.
- carabiner 3y agoUnpopular truth but if you have a job paying at least $100k in the US with decent employer's insurance, you probably receive the best healthcare in the world in terms of availability, quality, and cost. It just sucks for everyone else, especially the unemployed.
- hollerith 3y agoImportant information if true. What is your basis for believing it? Do you for example have data showing that life expectancy in this group is higher than, e.g., the life expectancy of an average citizen of France?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- thfuran 3y agoI went to the doctor a few weeks ago, spent a couple minutes there, got a quick test done, then left. I received a bill for a couple hundred bucks (after insurance paid most of it) the other day.
- lr4444lr 3y agoWhat on earth did your friend have wrong with his hand that he agreed to surgery on the same day as an initial consult? I know we run a ton of expensive diagnostics in the U.S. to rack up bills, but surgery is not without its risks, not to mention the pain of recovery in the best case - financial considerations aside.
- notfed 3y agoAlso can any foreigner do this? Asking for a friend
- tren 3y agoI believe only foreigners from countries that we have reciprocal agreement with: https://www.smartraveller.gov.au/before-you-go/health/reciprocal-health https://www.smartraveller.gov.au/before-you-go/health/recipr...
- ceejayoz 3y agoMy wife broke her foot in Australia. Three days in hospital, surgically implanted pins. $700. Wife said “no no no I’m not a citizen” and they said “yeah we’re so sorry about the cost” and she laughed. Counting premiums, we paid $48k out-of-pocket for healthcare here in the US last year.
- motoxpro 3y agoAs an athlete, this happens all the time if you’re injured or if you get in an accident. Any sort of injury really.
- andrewstuart 3y agoWhy would you not? Australian public hospitals have first class surgeons. In this case they recommended surgery. They're not doing it for financial gain, why not trust their advice? Your alternative is to go to another surgeon for a second opinion but you can only do that in the private health system, and that will take months or maybe longer and cost you alot of money.
- jojobas 3y agoThe idea that Australian healthcare is "free" is rather ridiculous. We have Medicare Levy of 2%, Medicare Levy Surcharge of up to 1.5% (both calculated on your income _before_ income tax), plus according to my latest tax receipt about 20% of the income tax goes towards healthcare as well. On top of that (and in conjunction with Medical Levy Surcharge) the government pushes everyone to have private health insurance, and it makes a huge difference in terms of wait times for "elective" hospital procedures (i.e. anything that won't kill you very soon). All in all, last year I paid some AUD16k getting no medical services at all. Paying all that you're still out of pocket for anything serious, as specialists (anesthetists, urologists, gynos, you name it) are typically charging way above Medicare standard fees and private insurance doesn't cover that completely.
- a-user-you-like 3y agoYes, it amazes me when folks come on to a site like HN and decry socialized medicine as “free”. You rob your neighbor for substandard care, and usually have a smugness about it.
- jojobas 3y agoWell it's not robbery as there seems to be no electoral pressure to abolish it, and it's generally in line with Australian concept of mateship and supporting your neighbour. A minimum wage worker pays more like 1k in taxes per year towards healthcare, still somehow "$1000 for a couple of stitches" strikes people more than "$1000 for nothing at all", and somehow people seem to be grateful to the "free healthcare" for getting a 4-man 10-hour surgery "for free" rather than their neighbours. Go figure.
- bigger_cheese 3y agoDisagree about the robbery part - As an Australia am I also robbing my neighbor to pay for the fire service, or the public roads I'm driving on or the public school I attended? Public health system is just another part of the governments tax revenue I'm happy for it to be distributed this way.
- sakerbos 3y agoYip, really grateful for it. I went into a public Queensland hospital recently and didn't pay a cent. Service was really good too!
- scrapcode 3y agoThe tax rates are also substantially higher. I'm certainly not defending the atrocious health care system in the United States, but Australia's healthcare system certainly doesn't come at zero cost.
- developerDan 3y agoNobody expects it come without a cost. But I would sure as hell prefer paying roughly the same in taxes as what my premium is in order to not have to worry about leaving the doctor or hospital with a lifetime of debt.
- sbenji 3y agoAustralian tax rates are not substantially higher than us tax rates.
- jimmyswimmy 3y agoDepends on your bracket I suppose. According to this [0], an individual $180k salary in AUS is taxed at about $58k. In USD would be about $44k. But... I pay $12k in health insurance, so they're reasonably close. I think AUD < USD though, so spending power is probably a lot different. Don't think you can do a real thorough comparison in an HN post. [0] https://www.trendingaccounting.com/2022/06/comparing-tax-rates-in-australia-and-us.html?m=1 https://www.trendingaccounting.com/2022/06/comparing-tax-rat...