#U.S. healthcare

[alex21705]

Could use a little help, I've been having dental issues and can't afford the costs, please share and help if you can.

https://gofund.me/4a0d460a

[underestimated-heroine]

You'll read the medical webpages about certain conditions and they're littered with phrases like "not very severe", "still lead a productive life", "not a lot of discomfort." Visit forums for people who have those conditions, talk to them personally, or experience them yourself, and you'll hear about how almost all of them cry multiple times a day, worry they physically won't be able to get out of bed in the morning even though they have to go to work, and a lot of "wait....not everyone's constantly in pain???" type sentiments.

[drgrlfriend]

I just got a bill for $150, and I was like, "That seems like a lot, let me look at what that's for." It was from an MRI I had a few weeks ago. An outpatient MRI, I walked in, got IV contrast, got the scan, and walked out an hour later. It cost $17,000. Insurance paid $16850, and I was responsible for the rest. The price tags on these things are *insane*, folks, because insurance pays a fraction. Do not pay full price, and if you are at all able, look into affordable insurance options, even if they have big copays or deductibles, so you have coverage for catastrophic issues.

ETA:  I will add, the moral of this story is not “avoid the hospital.”  That MRI may end up saving my life.  We all need healthcare, and delaying and avoiding it puts you at risk of even greater problems down the line.

I feel like I should make a post about this because it’s not something that’s very well-known, and that Americans in particular may need to know about given the uncertain state of our healthcare system at the moment. I’ve wanted to write this out for a while, It’s kind of a long post, so sorry about that!

If you have an emergency and have to go to the hospital, you’ll owe the hospital a lot of money. (I got into a car wreck and broke my ankle and my arm. My hospital bill was around $20,000)

You’ll also owe the ambulance provider, if you need one. (My ambulance bill was about $800)

You may get separate bills from the anesthesiologist or surgeon. (My anesthesiologist bill was $1,700)

You may need follow-up appointments. (My orthopedic surgeon billed me for the appointments and his surgery together and it was about $1,000)

You’ve also got to pay for medical equipment you need afterward, like crutches or a walking boot. (Mine cost about $75)

Altogether, I ended up with almost $24,000 in medical debt from one car accident. That’s a really scary number for someone like me who makes $10/hr at a 12 hour a week job.

I got my debt down to $1075 by making some phone calls and submitting some paperwork.

The first thing I did was contact the hospital. They don’t make it easy to find, but many hospitals (perhaps most hospitals?) have financial assistance programs for people who can’t afford medical bills. I don’t make a lot of money, and I have bills to pay, so they were able to help me. I called the billing department and asked if they had any assistance programs for low income people who can’t pay their bills. I had to call multiple times, and I got transferred in circles by people who didn’t know what I was talking about. Finally, I got an appointment with someone in “Eligibility Services” (I don’t know what other hospitals call it, if it’s something different). I had to bring my pay stubs and copies of all of my bills. When I got to the hospital for the appointment, nobody knew what I was talking about so I had to wander a little to find where I needed to go. I spoke with the guy in Eligibility Services, and I waited for a decision on how much of the bill they would forgive. A month later, I got a call telling me it was totally forgiven.

I did the same thing for my ambulance bill and my anesthesiologist, but the process was a LOT easier. I just had to mail some paperwork and it was totally forgiven.

I didn’t bother with the medical equipment suppliers, since the bills came from separate companies and I didn’t feel like going through the process twice for $75. I was assured at the hospital that they had similar programs for debt forgiveness, so I could have probably avoided paying that too.

The only thing I couldn’t get taken care of was the surgeon/follow-up appointment cost, but they were able to put me on a no-interest payment plan.

Medical debt is scary because it’s something that can come from stuff that’s already really scary. I didn’t need the burden of $24,000 in debt on top of trying to get around on a crutch with a broken arm (it’s not easy, believe me!).. but I can’t imagine what it would be like with a bigger debt or a more severe medical emergency. I see lots of people in even worse trouble than I was in, both financially and medically. Please know that there are options for you when that GoFundMe doesn’t do enough. Even if your income is higher than mine, it’s worth a shot even for partial debt forgiveness.

[fandom-hoarder]

The way this isn't even an exaggeration 😭😭😭

[truthwars]

Trump's Vision for Healthcare: Dr. Oz at CMS

In a move emblematic of his unorthodox leadership style, President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Dr. Mehmet Oz to lead the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). This decision underscores Trump’s confidence in selecting bold, high-profile individuals to drive transformative change in Washington. Dr. Oz, a renowned heart surgeon and health advocate, is best known for making medical…

[bubonickitten]

Pharmaceutical companies will use "but R&D is so expensive!" to justify upcharging and direct-to-consumer advertising and other unethical practices. Meanwhile, all of the money the company saves by relying on public funds for R&D can then be used for lobbying, direct-to-consumer advertising, and raising the salaries of executives. For-profit healthcare is an unethical shitshow in general, but this specific aspect of it adds an extra layer of Fucked Up.

Forget the concept of "a reasonable price," honestly. It's phrasing too nebulous, easily exploited, and subject to change to act as a standard to hold pharmaceutical companies to in practice. What's a "reasonable" price for one person is going to be exorbitant and unattainable for many more people.

Receiving a significant amount of taxpayer dollars to do R&D (as was and still is the case for COVID-19 vaccines and treatments) should just... disqualify a corporation from patenting & exclusive sale of the drugs/treatments developed as a direct result of that publicly-funded R&D. A corporation shouldn't be able to control (and essentially monopolize) a publicly-funded product for years on end to the detriment of public and individual health. As soon as public funds are utilized, the drug's formula & manufacture process are, to an extent, public property, imo.

After raising the price of COVID-19 vaccines more than four-fold this year, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told investors Monday that the company will also likely hike the price of its lifesaving COVID-19 antiviral treatment, Paxlovid, raising further concern about access and healthcare costs.

[roseandbee]

Apparently when my doctor puts in labs to be completed within the next year in the system it means within two weeks of when the year is up or insurance won't pay for it. They need to work on their wording of shit. Among other things 😑

[whooshingnoise]

In news that will surprise no one in the U.S., my biannual dental was less expensive for me last year, when I DIDN'T have dental insurance.

Frills: x-rays, fluoride (I usually pay for the fluoride out of pocket anyway)

...and this is with the Tier 1 educator insurance.

[hernymills]

does anyone on this website know things about u.s. health insurance? i need to know if doing this inovalon personal health visit that my insurance wants me to do (or risk adjustment purposes I think) would be like the opposite of praxis or what

like also I wanna know if it might raise my insurance premiums but also i really wanna know if cooperating with like the incrementalism liberal healthcare 'reform' stuff would like... help anything? be a waste of time? be actively bad?

[onlytiktoks]

So, telehealth coverage is set to end March 31, 2025

This means trump and the gop right now have the option to end telehealth coverage starting April 1st

No news organization is writing about this.

Representative Ro Khanna seems to be the only one to sound the alarm.

[black-crested-jaybird]

@ghostpalmtechnique is not exaggerating about rescission. My partner has a genetic condition that didn't start causing problems until he was well into adulthood. We knew what was going on, because his mother has it. But we also knew that if he went to the doctor before I had been at my job long enough to qualify for health insurance, he would be denied coverage for at least a year, if not longer, under the preexisting condition clause. We were really lucky that I got promoted to full-time around the same time his symptoms began to manifest and I was able to qualify for health insurance.

But even after I moved to the insurable position at my job, it was still six months' wait before I was allowed to sign up for health insurance. So he went six months before he was able to even begin looking for treatment for a degenerative condition that left him in constant, debilitating pain and barely able to move, incurring irreversible physical damage all the while.

And when we did get the coverage, and he went to the doctor? Very soon after he was diagnosed and started treatment, he began to get phone calls from friends, acquaintances, in some case from people he had not spoken to in years - all of whom had been contacted by the insurance company, which was trying desperately to find evidence of any kind of prior diagnosis or treatment so they could kick my partner off of the list of the insured.

The American healthcare "system" is a greedy, exclusionary nightmare that bleeds people dry even when it's working. We desperately need universal health care so that everyone has access to affordable preventive care and treatment.

But it used to be so much worse before the Affordable Care Act.

i think a big reason that I get frustrated with the "liberals have never made anybody's lives better" is that in the US it used to be legal for insurance companies to charge you more if you were sick or even just straight up deny you the ability to sign up for them if you already had a "pre-existing condition", and this was only stopped by the passage of the ACA during Obama's term. but a lot of people who talk about politics on here are too young to really be affected by that since they would have been on their parents insurance (which the ACA required insurers extend until you're 26). and this was all done via politicking and not blowing up insurance CEOs mansions or whatever.

I'm not saying that the ACA fixed insurance forever, god no. but "you can't deny someone insurance for being sick" is a massive change and people don't realize it!

Most adults want the law’s prohibition on insurers from denying coverage based on pre-existing medical conditions to stay. Two thirds (67%) of the public say that it is “very important” that this provision remain in place, including most Republicans (54%) However, only about 4 in 10 people (39%) are aware that that provision is part of the ACA.

[themisinformer]

Tragic: Luigi Mangione Commits Suicide By Shooting Self in Back of the Neck While Tied Up to Chair

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK - In a tragic turn of events, Luigi Mangione was found dead in his jail cell Tuesday with a gunshot wound in the back of his head while tied up to a chair. The death was ruled a suicide by authorities. This came while Mangione was awaiting trial for the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

“Cases like this are always tragic,” said Detective Roy Hansen, who was in Mangione’s jail cell seconds after his death to declare it a suicide. “He was just about to go to trial, and then boom, he’s just gone. It’s a real shame that we won’t be hearing from him anymore.”

Hansen also made note of the circumstances surrounding Mangione’s death. “He clearly went to great lengths to end his own life,” Hansen stated. “He was tied up to a chair with duct tape covering his mouth. There was a gunshot wound on the back of his head, maximizing the impact. It’s clear that this act of suicide was deliberate and not an accident. I just can’t believe it.”

With Mangione gone, he was posthumously found guilty and all evidence against Thompson and all evidence against UnitedHealthcare was summarily shredded.

[saywhat-politics]

[roseandbee]

More fun with U.S. healthcare, personal version:

I, a 25+ year chronic low back pain patient, get notice of denial of a lower spine MRI ordered by my physician of 15+ years, the day before the test is scheduled.

[marmelade-sky]

"why are you as a european so passionate about the u.s. elections?"

many reasons obviously, but especially because i had an ectopic pregnancy earlier this year. very much wanted, so it was a shock to hear the bad news. ectopic pregnancies are extremely dangerous if they can't be located, and mine couldn't be located for two whole weeks. so i lived in fear of my tube suddenly bursting for that entire time, on top of grieving a pregnancy loss.

eventually they managed to locate it in the upper corner between my uterus and my tube. my choices would have been: surgery, which would have meant losing both my right tube and a chunk of my uterus, or a hefty dose of a drug that induces, you guessed it, abortion. And of course I decided to take the drug.

And while i was hooked up to the IV, neon yellow liquid dripping into my arm, all i could think of was how fucked every person experiencing this under a new trump administration will be. the idea of anyone being in a similar situation and having no safe access to this medical care while going through this pain is horrifying. this pregnancy was wanted, and losing it was traumatic. I was pro choice before, but this ectopic pregnancy made me feel even more strongly about it. abortions are necessary health care. all abortions are health care. and if your political activism stops at voting for the one person out of two options who doesn't want to ban and demonize this health care, what the fuck are you doing.