#you can't just repossess people's limbs

[kedreeva]

By the year 2056, an epidemic of organ failures has devastated the planet and wiped out 99% of the human population. The megacorporation GeneCo provides organ transplants on a payment plan. Clients who miss payments are hunted down by Repo Men, skilled assassins who "repossess" the organs ("Genetic Repo Man").

Every so often I’m reminded of how I won the birth lottery and was not born in the USA.

Health insurers repossessing artificial limbs is not a thing that should exist!

Like it’s someone’s actual job to repossess artificial limbs if people can’t pay for healthcare which their insurers arbitrarily decide whether or not to cover.

Some might say it’s a silly job to have in a country where people can freely own guns.

[clatterbane]

Meanwhile, back home...

US health insurers limit coverage of prosthetic limbs, with some patients facing repossessions

In practice, though, prosthetic coverage by private health plans varies tremendously, said Ashlie White, chief strategy and programs officer at the Amputee Coalition. Even though coverage for basic prostheses may be included in a plan, "often insurance companies will put caps on the devices and restrictions on the types of devices approved," White said.

That means that a patient's costs can also fluctuate significantly, depending on that person's coverage specifics, the plan's restrictions and even geographic cost differences.

Fewer than half of people with limb loss have been prescribed a prosthesis, according to a report by the AHRQ. Plans may deny coverage for prosthetic limbs by claiming they aren't medically necessary or are experimental devices, even though microprocessor-controlled knees like Adams' have been in use for decades...

So, if you end up taking out medical loans to help cover the huge costs?

The federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has proposed a rule that would prohibit lenders from repossessing medical devices such as wheelchairs and prosthetic limbs if people can't repay their loans.

"It is a replacement limb," said White, whose organization has heard of several cases in which lenders have repossessed wheelchairs or prostheses. Repossession is "literally a punishment to the individual."

I may get a little irritated at feeling like they're pushing some particular components pretty hard locally, in a one-size-fits-most kind of way. But, the overall situation for specifically lower-limb amputees (mean age: 74) is looking damned good by comparison. (Also, incidentally, compared to what I saw from the NHS up close, but any similar stats other than for Service personnel are difficult to find. That's also another kettle of fish, though one I suspect is similarly driven by cost considerations--just in a slightly different way.)

Where I am now, they are covering more functional microprocessor knees for folks who need them (luckily I've still got the OEM version, which simplifies things an awful lot)--and nobody is likely to get their limb or wheelchair repoed. That is at least one thing I haven't needed to consider. Zero copay on the actual hardware thus far. Like $20-30 per actual office visit until I hit the annual cap.

There really are some aspects of the US healthcare system that I do not miss. As someone who grew up under the threat of losing our house over one cancer surgery Blue Cross deemed "experimental" after preapproving it. At least nobody tried to repo my stepdad's resected liver.

Some of the folks (employed by the actual Commonwealth of Virginia, I might add--not some sketchy collection agency) who kept trying to harass me over the phone too when I was like 12 probably would have tried that if they'd thought they could get away with it.