Comment on Hospital Bill 1961
JoMiran@lemmy.ml 1 day agoAre you saying that people who give birth in a hospital are sent a 13 000 USD bill afterwards?
Without insurance? Yes, it can be that or more.
What if you don’t have the money?
No hospital will refuse service in case of an emergency. I believe that it is actually illegal. They will send you a bill afterwards though.
What if something does go wrong and you call an ambulance, du they bill you for that afterwards as well?
Absolutely. A lot.
What if you have no money for that either? Just… die?
Ambulances cannot refuse service in case of emergency, but they will invoice you later.
Even with insurance, many plans have a deductible that requires you to pay the first couple grand on your own before they’ll cover anything, and even once you’ve paid that amount they will require you to cover a couple hundred per day of hospital stay (doubled for two patients: mom + baby).
It is entirely normal to pay thousands of dollars for a normal uncomplicated hospital birth even with insurance.
This is 100% correct. My plan has a $10,000 yearly deductible, which means that every year I am responsible for the first $10,000 of medical expenses.
I’m a little bit mad that the US still a higher birth rate than us despite of all that parent hostility.
“doubled for two patients: mom+baby” I’m dead… dude, this is so beyond comprehension that it is comedic!
This sounds so dystopian I’m having a hard time comprehending it… what happens when they provide the mandatory emergency care and invoice someone who just doesn’t have the money to pay?
It is dystopian, but there arr plenty of programs to mitigate the issue. If you go to a charity or teaching hospital (like the one referenced in the post), and you have no insurance, your bill might be mostly forgiven if not entirely written off. Emergency rooms cannot refuse service and if you are broke, they might write it off. More than likely they will sell off the debt to a third party for a small fraction and those guys will hound you for life. Again, if you are poor, plan ahead (teaching or charity hospital) and you should be fine.
PS: I am sure you have heard of Planned Parenthood due to the GOP’s crusade against abortion. The real thing to note is that they offer pre and post natal services to make sure that mother and child are healthy, free of charge. Every time a Planned Parenthood clinic is forced to close, those services disappear for the poor.
And in the rare case where they do not forgive the debt and you do not pay, at some point they write it off for the tax break.
I’m sure they write it off at the original invoiced amount without any discounts so that their tax deduction for you not paying is probably equal to or greater than what they would have made had you paid it.
And to expand on the other answers you received, it’s hilarious (and perhaps old now… I saw something about medical debt now being counted on credit scores and I’m sure attacks have been made on medical debts in general) that the advice typically given was to NEVER make a payment on any medical debt, because that counted as a commitment towards paying, and the laws that eventually made medical debts go away no longer applied, so the debt companies would have more ammunition to use against you in court.
Tangential, for ambulance cost only.
Once a year, I get a sort of info letter that lists every bill my healthcare has paid for me that year. So, I know what medical costs actually are in my country where healthcare prices aren’t being artifically inflated by healthcare being privatised.
I had a short ambulance ride in 2020. It was billed for about 90€. That’s what it would actually cost if they couldn’t charge whatever tf they want due to privatised healthcare.
basxto@discuss.tchncs.de 13 hours ago