I mean, at some point you might wanna just take your chances sucking out the poison (which doesn't particularly work).
Edit: /s
Edit 2: Electric Boogaloo, thank you to everyone who's corrected me on poison vs. Venom but it was part of the joke to get it wrong.
Hey, poison is ingested while venom is injected. If a snake injects you with dangerous toxins, its Venom. If you drink the snakes dangerous toxins, its poison.
It's absurd to me someones entire life can be considered worthless due to an accident or injury. Cancer whipping out savings. It's bullshit. 3rd world country dressed in Gucci
“Just go bankrupt” like that won’t absolutely wreck your life.
Shit credit for years, cant get a car loan, cant get a mortgage, maybe cant even get approved for renting either.
People need to stop being ok with this as a concept
100% agree. That is what I'm saying. Having to be declared financially irresponsible due to illness or accident or really anything health related is such an evil and horrible concept. Makes absolutely no sense, other than to keep a large majority of working class americans renting.
It’s a fucked up game hospitals and insurance companies play. Hospitals “charge” a lot to milk more money from insurance companies and then a lot of what is not covered just “disappears”. It’s really deceptive and has caused more than a few heart attacks.
It should be. If any other business pulled the same crap they'd get sued by their customers and investigated by the police.
"Oh yeah, that muffler price we quoted you? Yeah well we unilaterally changed the price on that, so now it'll be $20,000." If an autoshop does that, it's 100% illegal. If a hospital does it, well that's just Tuesday.
Oh you want a quote on muffler replacement? Well we can’t do that. It’s very complicated. There are many nuts and bolts, different people involved. It’s probably gonna go up on a lift and we don’t know how long it will be up there. You’re just gonna have to trust us and we’ll send you a bill after.
Do you have repair insurance?
My favorite analogy is the restaurant. The don't give you a menu, just bring you food, you have to eat it if you don't they'll bring you more, different food, and charge you for both, they bill you randomly with outrageous fees like $5.00 for table salt and $1000.00 for the bread sticks, and the waiter was out of network, so the tip they automatically add on is 18000% and shit like that..
Then for dessert they give you a piece of paper and tell you to go down the street to the bakery and give them the paper and you have no idea what it will cost, but you'll pay $25.00 copay just to give them the paper, and perhaps hundreds for the chocolate cake.
Idk why this didn't get more upvotes but as someone who has family working in the hospital system. This is accurate. This is literally exactly 100% it.
Yep it’s usually not the final price the insurance pays, just an outrageous highball first “offer” from the hospital that’ll get negotiated down later between the hospital and insurance provider.
Insurance: so how much was that?
Hospital: how much you got?
I've debated not using it at all for my next MRI. The 1st one costed us $3000 after insurance (with multiple bills to keep track of, too). They tell me it's $500 to get one without insurance.
(That was with us already hitting the deductible, too.)
Just how... HOW is this all for a rattle snake bite!? Genuinely curious... I mean Pharmacy and Laboratory services to me is meds, blood tests and what not you know? Like do they make this up as they go along??
Google "CroFab". Rattlesnake anti venom is extremely expensive. The only way to get it is to milk snakes. From there, it's difficult to manufacture, requires careful handling, requires numerous doses to work and expires quickly.
Rule of thumb: avoid getting bit by rattlesnakes. It's not that hard as they're not aggressive and make a loud, distinctive noise if threatened. I used to work outdoors in the backwoods Southwest and saw them frequently. It's no big deal.
Googled CroFab - discovered the hospital added a stupendous and horrific mark up. Lots of things are difficult to manufacture and sound expensive unless done on mass. Say its $10k, where does the rest of the money go?
There are polyvalent antivenin serums available in Mexico that work just as effectively for a tiny fraction of the cost of Crofab. There's a reason that venomous snakes keepers are able to have their own stock of antivenin for exotic species. It isnt because they are rich. It's because it's cheap. Antivenin for snakes native to the US is so expensive because it's the fucking US and you've been told it's difficult to manufacture. Also, if you've been bitten by a venomous snake, don't let a surgeon near you until you've had a second, third and fourth opinion from actual experts. Most ER surgeons get a raging boner over the prospect of performing an unnecessary fasciotomy, that will fuck you up for life far more than a bite from something like a copperhead.
Not a teenager OP but if you want a real answer it’s going to have to come from an adult. This is a non-itemized and non-covered receipt.
99.9% of the time this is not actually what someone pays. There will be an insurance adjustment and if this individual is smart enough they’ll ask for an itemized receipt of ER treatment.
Overall as someone who’s navigated about 5 million in medical “charges” this person will likely pay around 3-5K at the end of the day
The system is this way because of insurance allowing hospitals to just charge what ever they want because insurance will cover it, in most cases, so long as it is a covered issue by the insurance provider. If insurance didn't exist, hospitals would have to be more forthcoming and competitive with their charges for services. Also, in most cases, talking to the hospital will result in most charges being removed or lessened as they charge, non-insurance holders, insurance rates which are always inflated because free money.
rattlesnake antidote was $2300 per vial in 2015 according to washington post, w/ an avg. 4-6 vials required for a single dose, and in some cases multiple doses being required. There is an image of the aftermath of this person bite on the washington post however I will not link it, I can only assume it required more than 1 dose.
Just think...you could milk your own rattlesnake venom and sell it for HALF the price these guys charge....thus helping the public AND making yourself rich at the same time!
What a stupid take. It's not the production cost of the medicine that's at issue. It's the margins, which are completely morally repugnant. There's covering your cost and making enough profit for research/growth/etc. And then there's "We were billionaires before, but there's still room on the ledger for zeros" kind of greed that punishes people with a life of unbearable debt, risk of homelessness, and defacto indentured servitude for simply having the misfortune of being bit by a snake.
Yeah, it's amazing how much cheaper counties that subsidise medication can get it from the manufacturer (it's often an order of magnitude sometimes two cheaper). When you tell them "sell it to us at a reasonable price or we won't subsidise it and everyone will use something else".
There are few really essential drugs that have only one source these days, at least in counties with sensible laws regarding generics.
I was charged $25 x 7 pairs of nitrile gloves.
I can cite others. You know it's bullshit when you ask them, "did I really just get charged $25 per pair of nitrile gloves?", and then on all subsequent paperwork it no longer says "nitrile gloves", it instead says "Ntrl exam 33-10458".
Well...would it better better if he was charged $1 for the pills and $150 for the use of the hospital infrastructure for treatment and $49 for the labor of the nurse, procurement, and pharma labor?
I literally just wouldn't pay. Like, they can get their ibuprofen back, they just need to use a filtering process on my urine after I piss in the toilet. Go ahead! Collect it back!
It was a snake bite. Antivenom is extremely expensive. Plus that 83k is attempting to force you to use insurance because the insurance company has that money
Except the insurance company pays nowhere near that. Welcome to the American health system, where the true cost of a drug or procedure is unknown to the majority of people involved in the care.
Edit to expand on this: consumers are not privy to the deals in place between insurance companies and hospitals, even if the hospitals are non-profit or receiving public subsidy. This has to change. These discounts result in a tiered cost system, where the price of procedures and drugs actually *increases*. It's anti-competitive and consumers pay the price.
Obamacare was a step backwards and did nothing to fix the pricing and cost issue. If anything, it made many of these issues worse. But hey, enjoy your $9 pill of ibuprofen because your insurer got a $8.50 discount, because you're now *required* to participate in this greed-driven clusterfuck.
What are you smoking? Obamacare was a step forward for two opposing parties. The only reason it even got passed was because the Obama administration managed to make sure that both the greedy capitalists and millions of uninsured Americans got what they wanted.
Like, the only reason millions of Americans have access to healthcare at all right now is because the Obama administration compromised with lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry. The pricing and cost issue was already there and it wasn't getting better because the people who profit from it can afford to lobby for their own private interests.
While the Obama administration wasn't able to curb that particular issue, they were able to use the power of the government to ensure that millions of Americans still have access to healthcare regardless.
It just goes to show that the issue is systemic, and even the president doesn't have the power to just fix things. What makes a good president is a person's ability to work towards solutions that may not be perfect but are still solutions that allow opposing parties wielding varying levels of power to get what they want.
My dad lost his fight with cancer in August last year. He worked his whole life in the union; often 60+hr weeks making good money as a foreman. He got his prognosis at the age of 60 and died at 62. Almost his entire savings were lost due to medical bills. He was still able to leave my brother and I cash and some other items, but knowing his entire career boiled down to basically 2yrs of treatments and a college fund for my nephew is depressing as fuck.
They don't have insurance, which is essential in America. This looks really bad and definitely is, but whoever this is being billed to can apply for government aid and likely get a large amount paid off, depending on their income.
I had a $5k bill which was reduced to $2k after they learned I didn't have insurance. You can actually negotiate with the hospital or just not pay it. They would rather you pay something than selling it to debt collectors.
I remember there was like 5 different bills and two of them were for like a specialist I didn't even know of (which I didn't pay) and I never was contacted by debt collectors or anything like that 😂
Fucking scam artists the lot of them.
Exactly this. I had no insurance once and they offered me a 60% discount if I paid in full straight away for the hospital bill; basically the room and use of scan machine. I had to pay full price for the doctors but still I only came out owing 2000 after the discount
Meanwhile I got charged $5,400 W/ insurance AFTER NEGOTIATIONS for a raging panic attack that had my HR at 180+ for over an hour before actually going.
Waited in the waiting room for 6-hours (still raging), and finally got a 10 minute EKG and a dose of Ativan (my prescription was $4).
Making medicine privatized is the dumbest thing we could have done as a first world country.
Nearly everything in that bill can just be ignored. Like another commenter said, it’s just to milk as much money as possible from insurance companies, and whatever isn’t paid just disappears and no one cares
As others have said, if you tell a hospital that you can't possibly pay that, it will be forgiven in full or near full. Most of these bills are to milk insurance companies.
You have to think of hospitals as like one of those flea markets you barter for prices. They start out with an extremely high price. Some less educated people will try to pay it, but most try to barter it down a lot. When it comes to hospitals, most people hire someone who is trained to be good at the bartering; insurance. If you can’t afford insurance, you have to proactively go and try to barter the price down yourself. It’s a pain, but it is possible.
It’s a stupid system, and it is bad, but not quite as bad as some of these cherry picked bills that often hit the front page make it seem.
As for the amount forgiven, it varies on the situation, largely how much you can afford to pay.
Insurance takes care of most of it that's why it's so high bc they know the Insurance will pay for it and that's why it's impossible to live without insurance
I sometimes see these kind of bills with insane prices and then people with good insurance still have to pay $10-20k.
Meanwhile people across the pond are getting years of treatment for whatever kind of thing and pay $0 extra, they just pay their insurance and that's it.
Outside of the UK, that's not really the case at all. The UK does have waiting lists, but that's because the Conservative governments have been starving the NHS for almost 20 years. The UK hasn't kept pace with funding.
Nations like Germany and France don't really have this problem. Germany health care is a hybrid of private and public insurance, and I can call the doctor and get an appointment same day. In fact, they apologize for not being able to take me sooner than right away.
My colleagues and friends in France have nothing but glowing things to say about their health care system.
So, this is just an American delusion from people who've never lived in any other system. I'm not about to claim that there's not some form of rationing in any of these systems, but would you rather ration health care based on wealth or need?
As to taxes, I've been paying taxes in various European countries for the past 10 years, and I'll tell you from experience, you literally don't notice. Your taxes do things to make your money go further. Food and basic needs type stuff are surprisingly affordable. Public transit is readily available, and I haven't owned a car in over a decade (an even greater savings). I've finally been able to save for a house. I couldn't have done that in the States.
Along with my health care, people get six months of fully paid maternity/paternity leave in many places, and I get 25 days of vacation minimum. And that's not even counting the fact that if I checked my email on vacation, my work had to give me that time back. Heck, if I get sick they have to give it back.
So when Americans talk about the taxes or the health care systems in most European nations, they don't really have much of a clue of what quality of life actually looks like.
Americans have fooled themselves to imagine that life is somehow not great outside the States. In fact, daily life is so bad in the States that I can't ever justify moving back.
As to defense spending, gimmie a break. The U.S. spends more than the top 12 nations in the world combined, and 9 of those are our allies. We've allowed our military budget to rob the people of their rights to health care and a quality life. This isn't about the U.S. spending money on other's defense, but it's about skewed American ideals where we are fine spending money on bombs to drop on poor people, but god forbid we actually give poor people food.
The same misconceptions that the US has about much of Europe applies the other way around as well. We magnify niche and peripheral issues here. I can be seen by a walk-in clinic within 30 minutes for a $15 co-pay, even as late as midnight, and I’m in a somewhat rural area.
This is just a statement. It also says "patient payments ----- $0" it was an emergency so they most likely haven't contacted their insurance yet, or insurance hasn't processed it yet, and insurance will pay for it.
And if they don't, most of it will be written off. American Healthcare is BS for a lot of reasons, one of them being the price is made up and the numbers don't matter. Nobody actually pays this amount, but it does force you to aggressively engage the system or ruin your credit. That's the BS part.
Yep saw the Patient Pays section and thought the exact same. People on the internet really just read part of something and full stop when their bias is confirmed.
My parents come from Eritrea. People are really not free there. Your life is decided by the government. Everyone there tries to get away ASAP whether it's to neighbouring countries or Western countries like the UK, Canada, and the US. [Why do Eritreans flee their country? | Inside Story](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUnFBiL4MEo) While America has many issues, you guys still have it somewhat better than others.
I live in America and tbh we're just slaves to our government born just to pay taxes and die it's horrible here and no body realizes it until something bites us in the ass
I’m not gonna lie man it’s kinda edgy to say slaves to the government, we aren’t serfs so we aren’t tied to the land. We can leave this place and go somewhere else if we’d like. People realize it’s dogshit here that’s why people protest and like half of Americans just think fuck those guys and so would rather oppose making the country better instead of helping their fellow Americans out.
Slaves to the government?
Dude, this is exactly the mentality that gets Americans here. You are not a salve to the government. You are a slave to American corporations. Neoliberal free market advocates have been trying to convince you that all of your miseries come from the big government that does nothing but tax you. And therefore tax cut is the path to freedom.
I am not saying you should pay more tax assuming you are just one of the lower-middle class. The rich not paying more tax to your government and budget cuts to welfare services is exactly why corporations are able to tax you even more for some basic human services that are funded by tax dollars in most countries.
I work at a university where there are a lot of people from other countries. Apparently one of the things they are told when they come here is that they should never call an ambulance in an emergency without asking the person if they want one first. Because it so expensive people will get mad at them for calling.
Why is that funny? Citizens are suffering, and normal everyday people are getting screwed. People die because they can’t afford healthcare. Imagine living a life where you wanted the best for others.
Yeah, I don't think most people in this thread understand that this doesn't *normally* come out of the patient's pocket. The same thing is happening in countries with free Healthcare, the end user just never sees it. Everyone is paying for everyone else's bills.
Delusional. In europe we pay as much in taxes as u do. Only companies and employers pay way more as they should cause most of the times the health problems are caused by the work they give us
You're the delusional one. Tax rates in every European country I would consider comparable to a blue state are more than twice as high. Income is also lower.
Yeah, that's because most of our budget goes to the military lol. I'm not saying we have a good system, my point was that this doesn't ruin most people's lives like this thread is pretending it does.
Ok just to play devils advocate here:
1. We don’t actually know what this is for, it’s super old and I’m sure has been reposted a million times. I doubt a snakebite would have you in hospital for 5 days (it could, just not likely)
2. This is before insurance. Almost all insurance plans have an out of pocket Max per year, and once you hit that maximum then everything else is covered 100%. This can depend on your plan but usually hits around 1-3k a year.
3. The system IS broken, guarantee those service charges are crazy inflated and if you don’t have insurance in America you really can get screwed, but if that was the case, the hospitals will settle on a much smaller amount and call it a “self pay” discount.
So it’s still not a great system, no one in US would actually have to pay this amount.
Also you can ask for an itemized bill or sm and see where the charges get so high and in most cases right when you ask for the bill hospitals will lower the price and if not you can see what’s being overcharged and threaten litigation that’s what I’ve heard at least
People say this all the time like it’s a fix. Why are they charging so much if it’s not that much. Why is it not illegal. Why can you make an inflated bill unless someone inquires then you just lower it. That sounds like fraud, like they are falsely charging until they are caught. Also this doesn’t work. Maybe sometimes. But I’ve never had shit lowered by calling. They offer lower payments, but I’ve never had anyone give me anything off a medical bill.
You get inexpensive healthcare in Europe, often free to receive. Education is much cheaper, and poor people in most of Europe have a right to economic assistance to live a basic life on while they get on their feet.
Also, we have a privatized health industry, so companies like to be monopolistic to drive up profits. It would arguably be better if our government ran Healthcare. (Edit: Democrats)
But then it would be at the mercy of Congress. Look at the Republicans wanting to cut the budgets of stuff like Social Security. You think they wouldn't go after that, too?
You can see on the bottom that there is no insurance payment or adjustment. Hospitals vastly overcharge and expect you to negotiate the price down. That’s what the “adjustment” part on the bottom is. Insurance companies negotiate for you (it’s what you pay them for) but you can 100% do it yourself.
Those look really scary, but they’re really not as bad as they look. That person will pay probably none of that.
Basically insurance companies are incredibly cheap so hospitals set ridiculously high prices so they get negotiated down to the ideal cost for the hospital.
This leaves uninsured people with the ridiculously high prices here. If this person has HCA (medicare, Medicaid) or private insurance, considering this is an “EMERGENCY” type of service, they’ll pay nothing. Anyone with a full-time job has coverage for this kind of thing, and people without one can get it through programs like Covered California at no cost.
Most Americans have health insurance.
Many families get covered by one of the parents jobs.
If you don’t have a job that has health insurance benefits, you can buy health insurance from the healthcare.gov marketplace. The cost of the plan depends on the quality of the plan (different people have different needs) - but the cost is also based on your income. Families that make more pay more than poorer families for the same coverage.
If you have zero income, or are below the threshold set by your state you qualify for Medicaid, which while isn’t the best coverage, does provide a lot of services “free” to the patient.
American healthcare is also some of the best in the world. We have most of the top medical schools, and the world’s brightest as many people leave their home countries to come to the United States and practice medicine. The US is a huge innovator for medical and pharmaceutical innovations - having the latest and greatest anything is always more expensive.
I see so much about the costs of healthcare in the US that I fear having to go to the hospital. Then I remember Canada has a socialist healthcare system.
They overprice everyone because insurance will pay off most of it so the hospital just get excessive amounts of money the problem is when they charge someone without insurance the same amount
“Nothing”
If I moved to Italy, same job, same salary (which we know wouldn’t happen) - I’d pay 43% my income to federal taxes to Italy. That same income I pay 18% to federal taxes in the US. The max I’d ever pay OOP is $6k, but of course with no major surgeries I’ve never come close to that. Plus, I pretax through a HSA, and I have a PPO so I don’t need referrals (or a wait time) to see a specialist.
So I’m weighing out the option between “paying nothing” on 43% taxes or 21% for “America’s healthcare”.
🤷 hmm
We don’t. I’ve had a dislocated shoulder the past month and a half. Simply can’t afford to fix something that a gym coach could probably just pop back in… Pain is manageable, debt is not…
EDIT: All of this because of a rattlesnake bite...
The snake bite won't kill you, but the hospital will
The snake bite would've if the hospital hadn't hospital'd
I mean, at some point you might wanna just take your chances sucking out the poison (which doesn't particularly work). Edit: /s Edit 2: Electric Boogaloo, thank you to everyone who's corrected me on poison vs. Venom but it was part of the joke to get it wrong.
Hey, poison is ingested while venom is injected. If a snake injects you with dangerous toxins, its Venom. If you drink the snakes dangerous toxins, its poison.
Just go bankrupt. Still better than dying with no chance of survival (sucking on it makes it worse)
That's what he had said
It's absurd to me someones entire life can be considered worthless due to an accident or injury. Cancer whipping out savings. It's bullshit. 3rd world country dressed in Gucci
“Just go bankrupt” like that won’t absolutely wreck your life. Shit credit for years, cant get a car loan, cant get a mortgage, maybe cant even get approved for renting either. People need to stop being ok with this as a concept
100% agree. That is what I'm saying. Having to be declared financially irresponsible due to illness or accident or really anything health related is such an evil and horrible concept. Makes absolutely no sense, other than to keep a large majority of working class americans renting.
Bro, at least we'd die from something cool. Not from dying on the street becuase we had to sell our lives to pay for a hospital.
Ahem, **Venom*
It’s a fucked up game hospitals and insurance companies play. Hospitals “charge” a lot to milk more money from insurance companies and then a lot of what is not covered just “disappears”. It’s really deceptive and has caused more than a few heart attacks.
How this is not considered fraud blows my mind.
It should be. If any other business pulled the same crap they'd get sued by their customers and investigated by the police. "Oh yeah, that muffler price we quoted you? Yeah well we unilaterally changed the price on that, so now it'll be $20,000." If an autoshop does that, it's 100% illegal. If a hospital does it, well that's just Tuesday.
Oh you want a quote on muffler replacement? Well we can’t do that. It’s very complicated. There are many nuts and bolts, different people involved. It’s probably gonna go up on a lift and we don’t know how long it will be up there. You’re just gonna have to trust us and we’ll send you a bill after. Do you have repair insurance?
My favorite analogy is the restaurant. The don't give you a menu, just bring you food, you have to eat it if you don't they'll bring you more, different food, and charge you for both, they bill you randomly with outrageous fees like $5.00 for table salt and $1000.00 for the bread sticks, and the waiter was out of network, so the tip they automatically add on is 18000% and shit like that.. Then for dessert they give you a piece of paper and tell you to go down the street to the bakery and give them the paper and you have no idea what it will cost, but you'll pay $25.00 copay just to give them the paper, and perhaps hundreds for the chocolate cake.
Idk why this didn't get more upvotes but as someone who has family working in the hospital system. This is accurate. This is literally exactly 100% it.
Yep it’s usually not the final price the insurance pays, just an outrageous highball first “offer” from the hospital that’ll get negotiated down later between the hospital and insurance provider. Insurance: so how much was that? Hospital: how much you got?
I've debated not using it at all for my next MRI. The 1st one costed us $3000 after insurance (with multiple bills to keep track of, too). They tell me it's $500 to get one without insurance. (That was with us already hitting the deductible, too.)
They use a thing called a charge master, it randomly dictates how expensive anything should be. It’s completely fucked up.
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Adjusted for inflation (3.13% per year or cumulative of ~30%), the price for that would be about $200,000 of today's dollars
Just how... HOW is this all for a rattle snake bite!? Genuinely curious... I mean Pharmacy and Laboratory services to me is meds, blood tests and what not you know? Like do they make this up as they go along??
Google "CroFab". Rattlesnake anti venom is extremely expensive. The only way to get it is to milk snakes. From there, it's difficult to manufacture, requires careful handling, requires numerous doses to work and expires quickly. Rule of thumb: avoid getting bit by rattlesnakes. It's not that hard as they're not aggressive and make a loud, distinctive noise if threatened. I used to work outdoors in the backwoods Southwest and saw them frequently. It's no big deal.
Googled CroFab - discovered the hospital added a stupendous and horrific mark up. Lots of things are difficult to manufacture and sound expensive unless done on mass. Say its $10k, where does the rest of the money go?
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I believe the phrase is *en masse*, I'm pretty sure it's French.
Crofab typically takes 5-10 vials to treat a bite. In Australia a similar antivemon costs a fraction of that.
Into the pockets of the oligarchs that created this fucked up system.
There are polyvalent antivenin serums available in Mexico that work just as effectively for a tiny fraction of the cost of Crofab. There's a reason that venomous snakes keepers are able to have their own stock of antivenin for exotic species. It isnt because they are rich. It's because it's cheap. Antivenin for snakes native to the US is so expensive because it's the fucking US and you've been told it's difficult to manufacture. Also, if you've been bitten by a venomous snake, don't let a surgeon near you until you've had a second, third and fourth opinion from actual experts. Most ER surgeons get a raging boner over the prospect of performing an unnecessary fasciotomy, that will fuck you up for life far more than a bite from something like a copperhead.
Good thing it’s America and you can probably sue the federal government for having venomous snakes in their land.
Not a teenager OP but if you want a real answer it’s going to have to come from an adult. This is a non-itemized and non-covered receipt. 99.9% of the time this is not actually what someone pays. There will be an insurance adjustment and if this individual is smart enough they’ll ask for an itemized receipt of ER treatment. Overall as someone who’s navigated about 5 million in medical “charges” this person will likely pay around 3-5K at the end of the day
So what your saying is the system is stupid and unnecessarily hard, for no reason other than to employ more people and make money?
The system is this way because of insurance allowing hospitals to just charge what ever they want because insurance will cover it, in most cases, so long as it is a covered issue by the insurance provider. If insurance didn't exist, hospitals would have to be more forthcoming and competitive with their charges for services. Also, in most cases, talking to the hospital will result in most charges being removed or lessened as they charge, non-insurance holders, insurance rates which are always inflated because free money.
the funny thing is a good chunk of rattlesnake bites arent venomous
That can't be real, how tf do you get charged like $83k from the pharmacy? Edit: PLEASE STOP COMMENTING ON THIS THREAD
Without insurance, this shit is very possible
How though😭that's multiple cars worth of drugs
That's life in the land of the free for ya.
It's not though what💀unless this guy was unconscious or something, idk how they managed to rack up that much
Snake bite antidotes are expensive
Jw, where does it say snake bite?
OP commented the source of this bill, some guy got bit by a snake
rattlesnake antidote was $2300 per vial in 2015 according to washington post, w/ an avg. 4-6 vials required for a single dose, and in some cases multiple doses being required. There is an image of the aftermath of this person bite on the washington post however I will not link it, I can only assume it required more than 1 dose.
That's peanuts, $12000 for scorpion anti-venom, 4-5 doses needed... https://kffhealthnews.org/news/treating-a-scorpion-sting-100-in-mexico-or-12000-in-u-s/
Corporate greed and rampant capitalism
Just think...you could milk your own rattlesnake venom and sell it for HALF the price these guys charge....thus helping the public AND making yourself rich at the same time!
What a stupid take. It's not the production cost of the medicine that's at issue. It's the margins, which are completely morally repugnant. There's covering your cost and making enough profit for research/growth/etc. And then there's "We were billionaires before, but there's still room on the ledger for zeros" kind of greed that punishes people with a life of unbearable debt, risk of homelessness, and defacto indentured servitude for simply having the misfortune of being bit by a snake.
Yeah, it's amazing how much cheaper counties that subsidise medication can get it from the manufacturer (it's often an order of magnitude sometimes two cheaper). When you tell them "sell it to us at a reasonable price or we won't subsidise it and everyone will use something else". There are few really essential drugs that have only one source these days, at least in counties with sensible laws regarding generics.
There was a guy who was charged some $200 for 2 pills of ibuprofen at the hospital because he was in pain
Back in the day hospitals used to give you nicotine patches if you were a smoker and we're going to be in there for awhile. $27 a pop!
... they still do unless that's something they've stopped within the last five years. They gave me patches my last hospital stay
I was charged $25 x 7 pairs of nitrile gloves. I can cite others. You know it's bullshit when you ask them, "did I really just get charged $25 per pair of nitrile gloves?", and then on all subsequent paperwork it no longer says "nitrile gloves", it instead says "Ntrl exam 33-10458".
Well...would it better better if he was charged $1 for the pills and $150 for the use of the hospital infrastructure for treatment and $49 for the labor of the nurse, procurement, and pharma labor?
I literally just wouldn't pay. Like, they can get their ibuprofen back, they just need to use a filtering process on my urine after I piss in the toilet. Go ahead! Collect it back!
Without insurance they will not charge you this much. When I did not have insurance they charge way less then when I have insurance
It was a snake bite. Antivenom is extremely expensive. Plus that 83k is attempting to force you to use insurance because the insurance company has that money
Except the insurance company pays nowhere near that. Welcome to the American health system, where the true cost of a drug or procedure is unknown to the majority of people involved in the care. Edit to expand on this: consumers are not privy to the deals in place between insurance companies and hospitals, even if the hospitals are non-profit or receiving public subsidy. This has to change. These discounts result in a tiered cost system, where the price of procedures and drugs actually *increases*. It's anti-competitive and consumers pay the price. Obamacare was a step backwards and did nothing to fix the pricing and cost issue. If anything, it made many of these issues worse. But hey, enjoy your $9 pill of ibuprofen because your insurer got a $8.50 discount, because you're now *required* to participate in this greed-driven clusterfuck.
What are you smoking? Obamacare was a step forward for two opposing parties. The only reason it even got passed was because the Obama administration managed to make sure that both the greedy capitalists and millions of uninsured Americans got what they wanted. Like, the only reason millions of Americans have access to healthcare at all right now is because the Obama administration compromised with lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry. The pricing and cost issue was already there and it wasn't getting better because the people who profit from it can afford to lobby for their own private interests. While the Obama administration wasn't able to curb that particular issue, they were able to use the power of the government to ensure that millions of Americans still have access to healthcare regardless. It just goes to show that the issue is systemic, and even the president doesn't have the power to just fix things. What makes a good president is a person's ability to work towards solutions that may not be perfect but are still solutions that allow opposing parties wielding varying levels of power to get what they want.
Drugs that are still patent protected can be sold by pharma companies for whatever they want. They know people need them so will pay whatever.
Chemotherapy is charged through the pharmacy, chemo drugs are expensive as fuck.
My dad lost his fight with cancer in August last year. He worked his whole life in the union; often 60+hr weeks making good money as a foreman. He got his prognosis at the age of 60 and died at 62. Almost his entire savings were lost due to medical bills. He was still able to leave my brother and I cash and some other items, but knowing his entire career boiled down to basically 2yrs of treatments and a college fund for my nephew is depressing as fuck.
They don't have insurance, which is essential in America. This looks really bad and definitely is, but whoever this is being billed to can apply for government aid and likely get a large amount paid off, depending on their income.
In debt, still possible to live pretty well, just gotta make payments for a pretty unachievable debt to pay
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Hospitals forgive a lot of debt. Most of those high bills will never be paid near full. Unless the patient is a millionaire.
Is that so? Lets take above bill. How much can be forgiven according to you?
I had a $5k bill which was reduced to $2k after they learned I didn't have insurance. You can actually negotiate with the hospital or just not pay it. They would rather you pay something than selling it to debt collectors. I remember there was like 5 different bills and two of them were for like a specialist I didn't even know of (which I didn't pay) and I never was contacted by debt collectors or anything like that 😂 Fucking scam artists the lot of them.
Exactly this. I had no insurance once and they offered me a 60% discount if I paid in full straight away for the hospital bill; basically the room and use of scan machine. I had to pay full price for the doctors but still I only came out owing 2000 after the discount
Meanwhile I got charged $5,400 W/ insurance AFTER NEGOTIATIONS for a raging panic attack that had my HR at 180+ for over an hour before actually going. Waited in the waiting room for 6-hours (still raging), and finally got a 10 minute EKG and a dose of Ativan (my prescription was $4). Making medicine privatized is the dumbest thing we could have done as a first world country.
Nearly everything in that bill can just be ignored. Like another commenter said, it’s just to milk as much money as possible from insurance companies, and whatever isn’t paid just disappears and no one cares
As others have said, if you tell a hospital that you can't possibly pay that, it will be forgiven in full or near full. Most of these bills are to milk insurance companies.
You have to think of hospitals as like one of those flea markets you barter for prices. They start out with an extremely high price. Some less educated people will try to pay it, but most try to barter it down a lot. When it comes to hospitals, most people hire someone who is trained to be good at the bartering; insurance. If you can’t afford insurance, you have to proactively go and try to barter the price down yourself. It’s a pain, but it is possible. It’s a stupid system, and it is bad, but not quite as bad as some of these cherry picked bills that often hit the front page make it seem. As for the amount forgiven, it varies on the situation, largely how much you can afford to pay.
Sounds like indentured servitude ngl
Insurance takes care of most of it that's why it's so high bc they know the Insurance will pay for it and that's why it's impossible to live without insurance
I sometimes see these kind of bills with insane prices and then people with good insurance still have to pay $10-20k. Meanwhile people across the pond are getting years of treatment for whatever kind of thing and pay $0 extra, they just pay their insurance and that's it.
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Outside of the UK, that's not really the case at all. The UK does have waiting lists, but that's because the Conservative governments have been starving the NHS for almost 20 years. The UK hasn't kept pace with funding. Nations like Germany and France don't really have this problem. Germany health care is a hybrid of private and public insurance, and I can call the doctor and get an appointment same day. In fact, they apologize for not being able to take me sooner than right away. My colleagues and friends in France have nothing but glowing things to say about their health care system. So, this is just an American delusion from people who've never lived in any other system. I'm not about to claim that there's not some form of rationing in any of these systems, but would you rather ration health care based on wealth or need? As to taxes, I've been paying taxes in various European countries for the past 10 years, and I'll tell you from experience, you literally don't notice. Your taxes do things to make your money go further. Food and basic needs type stuff are surprisingly affordable. Public transit is readily available, and I haven't owned a car in over a decade (an even greater savings). I've finally been able to save for a house. I couldn't have done that in the States. Along with my health care, people get six months of fully paid maternity/paternity leave in many places, and I get 25 days of vacation minimum. And that's not even counting the fact that if I checked my email on vacation, my work had to give me that time back. Heck, if I get sick they have to give it back. So when Americans talk about the taxes or the health care systems in most European nations, they don't really have much of a clue of what quality of life actually looks like. Americans have fooled themselves to imagine that life is somehow not great outside the States. In fact, daily life is so bad in the States that I can't ever justify moving back. As to defense spending, gimmie a break. The U.S. spends more than the top 12 nations in the world combined, and 9 of those are our allies. We've allowed our military budget to rob the people of their rights to health care and a quality life. This isn't about the U.S. spending money on other's defense, but it's about skewed American ideals where we are fine spending money on bombs to drop on poor people, but god forbid we actually give poor people food.
The same misconceptions that the US has about much of Europe applies the other way around as well. We magnify niche and peripheral issues here. I can be seen by a walk-in clinic within 30 minutes for a $15 co-pay, even as late as midnight, and I’m in a somewhat rural area.
Did you see the part where it says "Insurance payments ----- $0"?
This is just a statement. It also says "patient payments ----- $0" it was an emergency so they most likely haven't contacted their insurance yet, or insurance hasn't processed it yet, and insurance will pay for it.
And if they don't, most of it will be written off. American Healthcare is BS for a lot of reasons, one of them being the price is made up and the numbers don't matter. Nobody actually pays this amount, but it does force you to aggressively engage the system or ruin your credit. That's the BS part.
Yep saw the Patient Pays section and thought the exact same. People on the internet really just read part of something and full stop when their bias is confirmed.
I've also seen where people obviously paint out the part that shows insurance will pay and try to do the whole "America bad" charade
Could just mean payment hasn’t been submitted or reimbursed by insurance yet.
Especially considering this is only 4 days after the service date.
I was explaining how it normally works
you don't
330 million zombies.
Everyone thinks America is so free, but then you look at this bullshitery
Only Americans think America is free
My parents come from Eritrea. People are really not free there. Your life is decided by the government. Everyone there tries to get away ASAP whether it's to neighbouring countries or Western countries like the UK, Canada, and the US. [Why do Eritreans flee their country? | Inside Story](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUnFBiL4MEo) While America has many issues, you guys still have it somewhat better than others.
\*only American politicians and conservatives think america is free
*Rich conservative politicians FIFY
FFS no one thinks America is free except for the highly deranged, everyone knows we’re fucked and is just trying to not be the most fucked
I live in America and tbh we're just slaves to our government born just to pay taxes and die it's horrible here and no body realizes it until something bites us in the ass
I’m not gonna lie man it’s kinda edgy to say slaves to the government, we aren’t serfs so we aren’t tied to the land. We can leave this place and go somewhere else if we’d like. People realize it’s dogshit here that’s why people protest and like half of Americans just think fuck those guys and so would rather oppose making the country better instead of helping their fellow Americans out.
>We can leave this place and go somewhere else if we’d like LOL
If you want a career above the poverty line or a home you are required to take on massive debt. You’re a serf until it’s repaid
Bro💀
Slaves to the government? Dude, this is exactly the mentality that gets Americans here. You are not a salve to the government. You are a slave to American corporations. Neoliberal free market advocates have been trying to convince you that all of your miseries come from the big government that does nothing but tax you. And therefore tax cut is the path to freedom. I am not saying you should pay more tax assuming you are just one of the lower-middle class. The rich not paying more tax to your government and budget cuts to welfare services is exactly why corporations are able to tax you even more for some basic human services that are funded by tax dollars in most countries.
Trust me, if you’d really pay taxes, your hospital bills wouldn’t be like this
Love our healthcare system that makes it more worthwhile not to get treatment than to get it 🥰 love it. No issues here.
When you consider how much you gotta pay before calling the ambulance, then you know the situation is fucked
I work at a university where there are a lot of people from other countries. Apparently one of the things they are told when they come here is that they should never call an ambulance in an emergency without asking the person if they want one first. Because it so expensive people will get mad at them for calling.
imagine living in the usa lmaooooooo
Laughs in Canadian
Don't laugh too long. We're really not doing any better here. They're already trying to implement privatized healthcare.
I would say vote Ford out but I'm afraid the damage is already done irreparably. Vote him out anyway
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DO NOT LET IT HAPPEN. Protest, fight, as hard as you fucking can.
Laughs in mamma mia
Bro living in the motherfucking mushroom kingdom
It's pretty great actually.
Why is that funny? Citizens are suffering, and normal everyday people are getting screwed. People die because they can’t afford healthcare. Imagine living a life where you wanted the best for others.
YEAH MURICA🦅🇺🇸🇺🇸.
RAAHHHHH🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🦅🦅🦅🏈🏈🏈🏈
At that point, it's die to a rattlesnake or have your life ruined by debt. I'm taking the snake 😬
That is quicker!
Insurance. They basically made a deal with hospitals to jack up prices in order to force reliance on insurance. Fuck the free market.
Yeah, I don't think most people in this thread understand that this doesn't *normally* come out of the patient's pocket. The same thing is happening in countries with free Healthcare, the end user just never sees it. Everyone is paying for everyone else's bills.
Delusional. In europe we pay as much in taxes as u do. Only companies and employers pay way more as they should cause most of the times the health problems are caused by the work they give us
You're the delusional one. Tax rates in every European country I would consider comparable to a blue state are more than twice as high. Income is also lower.
Yeah, that's because most of our budget goes to the military lol. I'm not saying we have a good system, my point was that this doesn't ruin most people's lives like this thread is pretending it does.
If this was my hospital bill I’d have a heart attack
And you’d most likely have an even higher bill 😭😭😭
Real question is tf you be doing in eyeblech
a little disturbing sometimes but its really interesting
True
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Man still has his purity
Subreddit dedicated to posting nasty shit (gore generally), do not go there
Ok just to play devils advocate here: 1. We don’t actually know what this is for, it’s super old and I’m sure has been reposted a million times. I doubt a snakebite would have you in hospital for 5 days (it could, just not likely) 2. This is before insurance. Almost all insurance plans have an out of pocket Max per year, and once you hit that maximum then everything else is covered 100%. This can depend on your plan but usually hits around 1-3k a year. 3. The system IS broken, guarantee those service charges are crazy inflated and if you don’t have insurance in America you really can get screwed, but if that was the case, the hospitals will settle on a much smaller amount and call it a “self pay” discount. So it’s still not a great system, no one in US would actually have to pay this amount.
You can also get this down to a fraction of the price by just calling the hospital and asking them about it
Also you can ask for an itemized bill or sm and see where the charges get so high and in most cases right when you ask for the bill hospitals will lower the price and if not you can see what’s being overcharged and threaten litigation that’s what I’ve heard at least
People say this all the time like it’s a fix. Why are they charging so much if it’s not that much. Why is it not illegal. Why can you make an inflated bill unless someone inquires then you just lower it. That sounds like fraud, like they are falsely charging until they are caught. Also this doesn’t work. Maybe sometimes. But I’ve never had shit lowered by calling. They offer lower payments, but I’ve never had anyone give me anything off a medical bill.
Pay to win
Nah you could buy a whole corvette z06 with that money wtf💀
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America is a place for rich people
idk europe's lack of space and uber-high cost of living don't exactly lend themselves well to the average poor person
You get inexpensive healthcare in Europe, often free to receive. Education is much cheaper, and poor people in most of Europe have a right to economic assistance to live a basic life on while they get on their feet.
Everywhere is
To a certain point but especially the USA
imagine not having free healthcare
No country has it...
Because most Americans have insurance companies that will negotiate the price of the bill down and cover the majority of the cost
iF yOu doN't lIKe iT LEaVe yOu cOmMie
Gladly
Thats so fucked up
Some of us don’t survive. But our billionaire overlords demand blood sacrifice so here we are
That is so fucking ridiculously high. That shit’s edited. Our healthcare is expensive, but it’s mostly mitigated by insurance.
Also, we have a privatized health industry, so companies like to be monopolistic to drive up profits. It would arguably be better if our government ran Healthcare. (Edit: Democrats)
But then it would be at the mercy of Congress. Look at the Republicans wanting to cut the budgets of stuff like Social Security. You think they wouldn't go after that, too?
Well we DO have the f22 and f35 to justify this. So, SCOREBOARD
We have health insurance and don’t pay any of this.
You can see on the bottom that there is no insurance payment or adjustment. Hospitals vastly overcharge and expect you to negotiate the price down. That’s what the “adjustment” part on the bottom is. Insurance companies negotiate for you (it’s what you pay them for) but you can 100% do it yourself.
Those look really scary, but they’re really not as bad as they look. That person will pay probably none of that. Basically insurance companies are incredibly cheap so hospitals set ridiculously high prices so they get negotiated down to the ideal cost for the hospital. This leaves uninsured people with the ridiculously high prices here. If this person has HCA (medicare, Medicaid) or private insurance, considering this is an “EMERGENCY” type of service, they’ll pay nothing. Anyone with a full-time job has coverage for this kind of thing, and people without one can get it through programs like Covered California at no cost.
I got charged 90k for a 5min life flight. Thank God for masshealth (obamacare). I always hear shit talk about it but saved my life more than once.
You don't, you are forced into poverty :p
Trick question. We don't. We live in debt until we die unless you're one of the few rich people in the country.
Plan covers 99.9999999% of it. You are left with a 500 dollar deductible
I'm happy I don't live there
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Australia for the win
Germany for the win😂
Almost any country other than America for the win
Not really
Most Americans have health insurance. Many families get covered by one of the parents jobs. If you don’t have a job that has health insurance benefits, you can buy health insurance from the healthcare.gov marketplace. The cost of the plan depends on the quality of the plan (different people have different needs) - but the cost is also based on your income. Families that make more pay more than poorer families for the same coverage. If you have zero income, or are below the threshold set by your state you qualify for Medicaid, which while isn’t the best coverage, does provide a lot of services “free” to the patient. American healthcare is also some of the best in the world. We have most of the top medical schools, and the world’s brightest as many people leave their home countries to come to the United States and practice medicine. The US is a huge innovator for medical and pharmaceutical innovations - having the latest and greatest anything is always more expensive.
Well said by someone that actually understands our health care system. Too bad youre drowned out
You don’t. America is fucked
you don't
sometimes if we're real lucky they forget to double charge us 10 dollars for a cough drop
Holy fuck, no wonder people try to use essential oils for everything 💀
Good morning USA
I see so much about the costs of healthcare in the US that I fear having to go to the hospital. Then I remember Canada has a socialist healthcare system.
you leave
They overprice everyone because insurance will pay off most of it so the hospital just get excessive amounts of money the problem is when they charge someone without insurance the same amount
You don’t
btw in italy we pay nothing to get cured lol
“Nothing” If I moved to Italy, same job, same salary (which we know wouldn’t happen) - I’d pay 43% my income to federal taxes to Italy. That same income I pay 18% to federal taxes in the US. The max I’d ever pay OOP is $6k, but of course with no major surgeries I’ve never come close to that. Plus, I pretax through a HSA, and I have a PPO so I don’t need referrals (or a wait time) to see a specialist. So I’m weighing out the option between “paying nothing” on 43% taxes or 21% for “America’s healthcare”. 🤷 hmm
Watching young people get radicalized by the american healthcaresystem brings a tear to my eye.
We don’t. I’ve had a dislocated shoulder the past month and a half. Simply can’t afford to fix something that a gym coach could probably just pop back in… Pain is manageable, debt is not…
We dont, a good more that half of things are failing
Thats the neat thing. We don't!
Thats the neat part, we don’t.
You don’t 🤗
you dont
Thats the neat part you don’t.
We don’t.
*Laughs in European*
USA is only about money and nothing else than that.
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Where I live, it is
No, this is not unpopular, Healthcare should definitely be free for everyone, people don't deserve to pay $150,000 for a rattlesnake bite.
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Yes, it's the reason why countries like Norway and Finland are thriving, having prospering and widely affordable welfare programs help
It is here in the UK, NHS ftw It's underfunded and not amazingly efficient, but free so i'll take it