Medical Insurance in the US
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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.
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@BRRABill said:
I ask because that is another sticking point. That there is no "incentive" for good health care.
They are rarely paid "by patient". Meaning they don't make their money by seeing more people and definitely not be selling drugs. It's the insurance and pharma infrastructures in the US that primarily disrupt the healing incentive process. Most countries, certainly not all, pay something more similar to a flat rate - just paying them as a professional with a job to do. More like how we pay IT. Unlike IT, there isn't an unlimited about of work to do, there is incentive to make people healthy because it is your job, your source of pride and value, good for your community and country, good for humanity and you should be showing results similar or better than the average. In the US, some of those things exist, some do not.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@BRRABill said:
I ask because that is another sticking point. That there is no "incentive" for good health care.
They are rarely paid "by patient". Meaning they don't make their money by seeing more people and definitely not be selling drugs. It's the insurance and pharma infrastructures in the US that primarily disrupt the healing incentive process. Most countries, certainly not all, pay something more similar to a flat rate - just paying them as a professional with a job to do. More like how we pay IT. Unlike IT, there isn't an unlimited about of work to do, there is incentive to make people healthy because it is your job, your source of pride and value, good for your community and country, good for humanity and you should be showing results similar or better than the average. In the US, some of those things exist, some do not.
There are some physicians like this in the US that I know. Many of the prospective doctors that I know elected to go for Nurse Practitioner instead as it didn't involve as much pressure to push drugs on people.
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I pay for insurance in the US at a rate of $701 per month right now for a family of 4. This is a plan purchased via a broker and is with BCBS. Of course it is ACA compliant by law.
The plan lists one visit free. I assume that is the mandated wellness check.
My birthday is in April, and thus if I want a wellness check around my birthday like I do every year, I need to have an appointment then.
I was sick as hell in January. I refused to go to the doctor because it was January and it would eat my "free" visit. So my April visit would have to be paid for in full because it has to go against my (insanely stupid high) deductible.
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@JaredBusch Does the coverage for the rest of the family make as little sense as having yourself covered?
