I'm a US citizen, people in other countries, what do you think when you read stories like these about the US health care system?

Submitted ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨catch22@programming.dev⁩ to ⁨nostupidquestions@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.vox.com/health-care/2019/5/10/18526696/health-care-costs-er-emergency-room

I’d like to know other non-US citizen’s opinions on your health care system are when you read a story like this. I know there are worse places in the world to receive health care, and better. What runs through your heads when you have a medical emergency?

A little background on my question:

My son was having trouble breathing after having a cold for a couple of days and we needed to stop and take the time to see if our insurance would be accepted at the closest emergency room so we didn’t end up with a huge bill (like 2000$-5000$). This was a pretty involved ~10 minute process of logging into our insurance carrier, and unsuccessfully finding the answer there. Then calling the hospital and having them tell us to look it up by scrolling through some links using the local search tool on their website. This gave me some serious pause, what if it was a real emergency, like the kind where you have no time to call and see if the closest hospital takes your insurance.

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michel@friend.ketterle.ch ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
@catch22
If we want to go on vacation, it is strongly recommended to check the insurance not only in the USA but also when traveling to Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand or Cyprus.
According to an article in a consumer magazine, it is strongly recommended to negotiate if you have to pay bills yourself. In most cases, the costs can be massively reduced. There are also said to be specialized companies that take over negotiations, some of which are also used by insurance companies.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
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cali_ash@lemmy.wtf ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I think “That’s the US health care system for you” or “Yep, that checks out”.

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RegalPotoo@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
My wife needed her gall bladder out last year the most expensive part of the whole week-long ordeal was paying for parking at the hospital. She has private medical insurance through her work, but needing to deal with the paperwork and all that from the hospital wasn’t worth the effort.

The fact that people have to choose between bankruptcy or dying of preventable illness is kinda like school shootings: the fact that you tolerate this at all - let alone having a major party campaign on “these things are actually good and you should be happy about them” - is pretty much proof that all of you are completely insane.

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Lauchs@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I just feel bad for y’all. Most Americans I’ve met are at least nice people who probably deserve healthcare.

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- ABCDE@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  “Probably” made me chuckle.
  
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MudMan@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Honestly? The real feeling I get from this is being scared for the future. I do know that there are powerful forces seeing a business opportunity in that status quo that can be exported. And you can see the impetus towards eroding the safety nets here following marching orders from the far right, anarchocapitalist mothership all throughout the world. In some of the countries I've lived in there is already a push towards this model, just moderated by the existence of some sort of universal health care. Sure, even the bare minimum of public service care takes a TON of the edge off. Those ER bills are what some of my friends in those places paid for, say, having major surgery or good care while having a baby... but it's a slippery slope.

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h_ramus@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Two main benefits/“public goods” from having your lives in a societal arrangement:

Having an educated population allows overall advancements that wouldn’t be possible where education standards are low. If the protestant dogma of “work hard and you’ll get salvation” was still prevalent in all groups we’d still be chiseling stones as that is real manly work. Intellectuality is still mostly frowned upon in the US. The whole purpose is to work less and enjoy living as the benefit of having basic needs solved for. Access to free education has plenty of positive externalities that we aren’t even able to quantify. Would the US still be engrossed in its culture wars or other wars?

Having a healthy population allows a sense of group and care for a country. Belonging to a country should mean that your fellow countrymen have your back in time of need. Father time comes for us all. How unpatriotic it is that people proudly wave their flags whilst letting their own fellow countrymen die from preventable causes or having to face choices such as living longer and getting bankrupt or let sickness fester until perishing. Not having free healthcare from an outside perspective is as unpatriotic as you could get.

The US seems a prime example of too much emphasis on GDP and limited focus on quality of life. I’d rather be homeless in Cuba than in the US albeit all wealth and quality of life indicators are better in the US.
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Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
When i hear these stories i think im so grateful to not be born in such a horrible country. A country that can not look after its own isnt a country i want to be in

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monobot@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
First thought is that you need to do that research aa soon as you move to the new house, change your insurance or job.

Second is obvious, strange county you have over there. But I guess most of the people are satisfied with that, as with paying for school.

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- wavebeam@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  i don’t think it’s reasonable to say “most of the people are happy with that”. Most people in the US are definitely NOT happy with how the medical industry or insurance works. But i do think it’s fair to say that most people don’t understand that voting for the guy that says they will prevent higher taxes is also working to keep the insurance system in place OR they would rather have lower taxes than better insurance (and are too dumb to realize that would be a net gain) OR they don’t vote at all.
  
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- PeckerBrown@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  When you don’t have viable choices, that is most certainly NOT ‘being satisfied with that’.
  
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- Tinks@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  The problem here is that hospitals do not remain under the same management consistently. Apparently I am responsible for knowing when each of the local hospitals changes administrations (because capitalism and they get bought out) and stops or begins accepting my insurance. When I first moved into my house the closest hospital did NOT accept my insurance, last I checked they do, but that was a few years ago, so who knows now. The hospital closest to me has changed names 3 times in the last 15 years.
  
  It’s ridiculous that in an emergency that “when was the last time we checked to make sure that hospital takes our insurance” is even a question.
  
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tsonfeir@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’m sure they laugh at us, then feel a bit of pity, because most of us aren’t terrible people, but most of us can’t afford good healthcare because we vote for corrupt politicians in 2-party system of basically the same options, except one loves Russia and uses abortions to seduce the religious

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- steb@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Nobody with a little bit of compassion laughs at stories like this. People read this with a bit of incredulity and a lot of compassion. We might make fun of Americans at times, but there’s no humour here.
  
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  - tsonfeir@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I’d argue most people on earth don’t have much compassion outside of their own circle.
    
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fiat_lux@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
In Australia, it's not too uncommon to hear people have conversations about how fucked the US system is. That's partly a symptom of how intertwined my life is with the topic of medicine and healthcare systems though, I'm sure most people have far fewer discussions about those topics than I do.

Having said that, I have certainly said "Thank God I'm not in the US" and received emphatic agreement in conversations.

I've also had a doctor say "well at least you're not in the US" to me during an appointment, after I expressed some displeasure at how much something was going to cost me - because i wasn't considered a valid demographic for that specific drug to receive the subsidy.

Socialised medicine doesn't mean free medicine, sadly. And our system has been run down by the ruling class attempting to emulate the US version's money-churning machine.

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- ABCDE@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  Socialised medicine doesn’t mean free medicine, sadly.
  
  It does in Scotland.
  
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SwingingKoala@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Yeah, no, I don’t think about you.

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PoliticallyIncorrect@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Definitely, people health it’s a big business, big pharma sell a remedie they don’t sell the cure. There isn’t a better business than big pharma and privatized health care.

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FellowEnt@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Some experience of the UK system, I’ve called for an ambulance twice in the UK recently for what I consider (and any reasonable person would) to be an emergency. Both times I was told it would be about 4 hours wait and could I get someone to drive me to the hospital. My partner has been phoning her GP to try and get an appointment for over two weeks and keeps getting told to phone back ‘in a few days’ because they have nothing available for over a month, including phone consultation. I’ve experienced dangerous ineptitude from multiple NHS doctors. I’ve also seen corruption in that if you know someone who works in the right department you can jump queues. So I’ve learned from experience to go private if I actually need medical aid.

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livus@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Honestly I just feel really sorry for you. What's even the point in living in the world's wealthiest country if it treats so many of you like shit at your most vulnerable.

What runs through your heads when you have a medical emergency?

whatever first aid I was taught that's relevant to do immediately e.g stop the bleeding

do we need to wait for an ambulance for this or shall we just drive straight to Accident and Emergency

go go go

That's about it followed by some of the usual "oh please let this person be okay". Emergencies are horrific. I can't even imagine having to factor being bankrupted into it.

I'm in New Zealand so the doctor costs money and prescriptions in some places cost $5 each. So there is still a lot of weighing up that the poor do around that kind of care. But as soon as a hospital is involved everything is free. None of that stuff is a factor any more.
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- Uranium3006@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  In the US there are videos of people losing limbs in train accidents begging to not have the ambulance called because it's too expensive - and that's before you even get to the hospital. Better hope they take you to one your insurance covers or they might not cover the ER visit
  
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  - livus@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    @Uranium3006 that's so tragic and awful. I read that the US has a weirdly high death in childbirth rate for a developed country, probably because some of people who really should be giving birth in a hospital can't afford to.
    
    I can't even imagine.
    
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RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Texas. She probably votes for people telling her she needs to vote against affordable anything, much less single payer health care.

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aidan@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’m a dual citizen, so tbh I miss it, because at least in US I was covered by my parents and health care workers are nicer.

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