Medical Insurance in the US
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@iroal said:
@BRRABill said:
@iroal said:
Perhaps in minor Surgery, if you have a real problem, like cancer, there will no waiting, and of course It's Free
I do not know one way or the other.
The only real person I ever heard speak about it was a co-worker who moved from the US to England. They hated the system over there for elective type stuff.
A real example.
Last night I feel bad and with Flu, using Internet I get a date with my doctor this morning, doctor told me It was just a cold, She gave me the prescription for the medicaments.
I go to the pharmacy and bought the medicaments with a 80% of discount thanks to the prescription, I spend 2 €.
Of course visit the doctor is free.
I love this system.
A decent amount of Americans would respond one of these, if not all:
- You're lying
- That's socialism, we believe in freedom
- Yes but your taxes must be crazy!
- If that's true why do people come to America for healthcare?
- That's communism, we believe in freedom.
- Healthcare is not a right, it's a privilege (I see this one not that often, but often enough to where it's disturbing)
- Hey, if you can't pay, you deserve to be sick (I guess they forget about children and disabled)
- There's no such thing as free! My taxes! My taxes! (meanwhile they pay far more in health insurance, if they have it at all, than they would've paid in taxes).
I see this stuff all the time.
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@tonyshowoff said:
- Healthcare is not a right, it's a privilege (I see this one not that often, but often enough to where it's disturbing)
- There's no such thing as free! My taxes! My taxes! (meanwhile they pay far more in health insurance, if they have it at all, than they would've paid in taxes).
These are the two I hear most often... that and talk about death panels.
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@JaredBusch said:
@BRRABill said:
@iroal said:
It's difficult to me understand why some people in US don't want a public medical service, really difficult.
I have heard many stories of people having to wait a long time for procedures in other countries.
If you are lucky to have good insurance in the US, there is no waiting.
I don't know what planet you are on, but it is certainly not Earth. No wait times in the US? You are f'n crazy.
I've never experienced "high" wait times in the US, but always some wait (few hours) never very fast and nothing like I see in other countries which seem to always be literally zero wait. I think like a lot of things, many Americans are so used to wait times so long that they no longer sense them and actually feel that taking an hour to get from door to doctor as "immediate" because, you know, there is stuff to do and you need to fill out paperwork or whatever.
Whereas seeing a doctor in Greece, as an example, might literally take more time to walk down the hall than to get in and see the doctor. The different in wait time is so dramatically different that being used to American healthcare you actually feel like you might have missed something. It's so fast and so different, but if I had never experienced a zero wait system, I might feel like taking an hour to see a doctor as "normal" and as quick as it could reasonably be handled.
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I don't see how they are going to fix Health Insurance. The insurance companies aren't the only problem. Practices are taken advantage of both insurance companies and patients. Of course insurance companies pass the extra costs down to the patients.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@JaredBusch said:
@BRRABill said:
@iroal said:
It's difficult to me understand why some people in US don't want a public medical service, really difficult.
I have heard many stories of people having to wait a long time for procedures in other countries.
If you are lucky to have good insurance in the US, there is no waiting.
I don't know what planet you are on, but it is certainly not Earth. No wait times in the US? You are f'n crazy.
I've never experienced "high" wait times in the US, but always some wait (few hours) never very fast and nothing like I see in other countries which seem to always be literally zero wait. I think like a lot of things, many Americans are so used to wait times so long that they no longer sense them and actually feel that taking an hour to get from door to doctor as "immediate" because, you know, there is stuff to do and you need to fill out paperwork or whatever.
Whereas seeing a doctor in Greece, as an example, might literally take more time to walk down the hall than to get in and see the doctor. The different in wait time is so dramatically different that being used to American healthcare you actually feel like you might have missed something. It's so fast and so different, but if I had never experienced a zero wait system, I might feel like taking an hour to see a doctor as "normal" and as quick as it could reasonably be handled.
When I first got to America I was really confused with health insurance. I once cut open my hand extremely badly and was bleeding like crazy and a friend took me to some sort of immediate care place. They asked if I had insurance, I said "no" and so they said "oh well we can't treat you" and she swivelled around in her chair and acted pretty rudely.
It was a hell of a shock from, say, even two years prior when my sister had fallen and gashed open her arm. This was in Bosnia (as it's called now), of all places, and they treated her right away, no talk of insurance or anything. The nuttier part was that when I told my new American friends this, they simply did not believe me at all, let alone that it cost nothing.
There were many more similar experiences, I really grew to just hate the American healthcare system, and I still do. It's shocking how many people literally do not want to believe any other way is possible. A broke country in the midst of a civil war can do better than the richest country on Earth.
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@JaredBusch said:
I don't know what planet you are on, but it is certainly not Earth. No wait times in the US? You are f'n crazy.
I mean that if you "want to get the clicking in your jaw" (as mentioned by another person here) looked at here, you can get it done pretty quickly. You don't have to wait 3,6,9 months because the government said so.
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@BRRABill said:
@JaredBusch said:
I don't know what planet you are on, but it is certainly not Earth. No wait times in the US? You are f'n crazy.
I mean that if you "want to get the clicking in your jaw" (as mentioned by another person here) looked at here, you can get it done pretty quickly. You don't have to wait 3,6,9 months because the government said so.
I think it has been pointed out more thanonce that you are referencing a myth.
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@JaredBusch said:
@BRRABill said:
@JaredBusch said:
I don't know what planet you are on, but it is certainly not Earth. No wait times in the US? You are f'n crazy.
I mean that if you "want to get the clicking in your jaw" (as mentioned by another person here) looked at here, you can get it done pretty quickly. You don't have to wait 3,6,9 months because the government said so.
I think it has been pointed out more thanonce that you are referencing a myth.
I have a family member who has compression fractures in her spine. Took her 2 months to get into the Nuerosurgeon.
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@BRRABill said:
@JaredBusch said:
I don't know what planet you are on, but it is certainly not Earth. No wait times in the US? You are f'n crazy.
I mean that if you "want to get the clicking in your jaw" (as mentioned by another person here) looked at here, you can get it done pretty quickly. You don't have to wait 3,6,9 months because the government said so.
No, but you still will wait longer than you will in most other countries, I think.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@BRRABill said:
@JaredBusch said:
I don't know what planet you are on, but it is certainly not Earth. No wait times in the US? You are f'n crazy.
I mean that if you "want to get the clicking in your jaw" (as mentioned by another person here) looked at here, you can get it done pretty quickly. You don't have to wait 3,6,9 months because the government said so.
No, but you still will wait longer than you will in most other countries, I think.
Not only that but as I pointed out (poster is referencing what I said), the trade off for the supposed faster wait time for the clicking jaw is said to be bankrupt-level pricing for anything that would save your life. It's a non-sequitur they use to beat the hell out of people.
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@tonyshowoff said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@BRRABill said:
@JaredBusch said:
I don't know what planet you are on, but it is certainly not Earth. No wait times in the US? You are f'n crazy.
I mean that if you "want to get the clicking in your jaw" (as mentioned by another person here) looked at here, you can get it done pretty quickly. You don't have to wait 3,6,9 months because the government said so.
No, but you still will wait longer than you will in most other countries, I think.
Not only that but as I pointed out (poster is referencing what I said), the trade off for the supposed faster wait time for the clicking jaw is said to be bankrupt-level pricing for anything that would save your life.
And those of us with clicking jaws just give up and don't get fixed because even if the wait isn't "all that bad" the cost and quality of care is generally awful. So it causes us to be somewhat less likely to get things fixed that might be fixable. That skews things. If I grew up in Europe, I might have gotten that fixed for free decades ago. Instead, having American healthcare, I just live with an offset jaw that clicks and disconnects regularly.
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@JaredBusch said:
I think it has been pointed out more thanonce that you are referencing a myth.
That came from an actual person with the actual problem in England. But this was years ago.
I think they are saying there is still a longer wait for that kind of stuff, but the tradeoff is free healthcare and immediate coverage in emergencies.
Which is fine. I read an article once that said the US treats health insurance as if auto insurance covered things like brakes and gas.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@tonyshowoff said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@BRRABill said:
@JaredBusch said:
I don't know what planet you are on, but it is certainly not Earth. No wait times in the US? You are f'n crazy.
I mean that if you "want to get the clicking in your jaw" (as mentioned by another person here) looked at here, you can get it done pretty quickly. You don't have to wait 3,6,9 months because the government said so.
No, but you still will wait longer than you will in most other countries, I think.
Not only that but as I pointed out (poster is referencing what I said), the trade off for the supposed faster wait time for the clicking jaw is said to be bankrupt-level pricing for anything that would save your life.
And those of us with clicking jaws just give up and don't get fixed because even if the wait isn't "all that bad" the cost and quality of care is generally awful. So it causes us to be somewhat less likely to get things fixed that might be fixable. That skews things. If I grew up in Europe, I might have gotten that fixed for free decades ago. Instead, having American healthcare, I just live with an offset jaw that clicks and disconnects regularly.
And the it gets worse, and eventually costs vastly more. People avoid basic healthcare until it's a disaster as well due to these things. Wait time is meaningless if it costs too much to bother too.
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How are doctors compensated in non-US countries?
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@tonyshowoff said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@tonyshowoff said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@BRRABill said:
@JaredBusch said:
I don't know what planet you are on, but it is certainly not Earth. No wait times in the US? You are f'n crazy.
I mean that if you "want to get the clicking in your jaw" (as mentioned by another person here) looked at here, you can get it done pretty quickly. You don't have to wait 3,6,9 months because the government said so.
No, but you still will wait longer than you will in most other countries, I think.
Not only that but as I pointed out (poster is referencing what I said), the trade off for the supposed faster wait time for the clicking jaw is said to be bankrupt-level pricing for anything that would save your life.
And those of us with clicking jaws just give up and don't get fixed because even if the wait isn't "all that bad" the cost and quality of care is generally awful. So it causes us to be somewhat less likely to get things fixed that might be fixable. That skews things. If I grew up in Europe, I might have gotten that fixed for free decades ago. Instead, having American healthcare, I just live with an offset jaw that clicks and disconnects regularly.
And the it gets worse, and eventually costs vastly more. People avoid basic healthcare until it's a disaster as well due to these things. Wait time is meaningless if it costs too much to bother too.
Long wait times are used to reduce insurance costs, too. Make it hard to get service and they have to pay for fewer things.
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@BRRABill said:
How are doctors compensated in non-US countries?
Depends on their job, etc. Even in the USSR and Yugoslavia neurosurgeons made more than general practitioners.
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@BRRABill said:
How are doctors compensated in non-US countries?
For healing them instead of keeping them sick
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I ask because that is another sticking point. That there is no "incentive" for good health care.
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@BRRABill said:
I ask because that is another sticking point. That there is no "incentive" for good health care.
What's the incentive for good health care in the US? Patients aren't paying doctors, they pay insurance which makes money on you being sick. The incentive in the US is actually to keep you sick and therefore spend more money.
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@BRRABill said:
I ask because that is another sticking point. That there is no "incentive" for good health care.
My cousin is a doctor (GP) in Sarajevo, Bosnia. He makes about $866 USD per month, may not seem like a lot, but it's twice the average salary. That's the only one I can speak for, I'm sure you can look up others, but I know doctors in Western Europe make sometimes $1 million+ USD per year, depending.
