Silly question! What happens if you can’t afford hospital care I’m America?

[PrettyLittleLiar20]

This is going to make me sound stupid I know!

So here in the UK we have the nhs and even if you’re working you’re hospital stay and care is free!

So what happens in the US if you work but can’t afford to pay hospital fees? Do you have to pay it in instalments or are things like having a baby and cancer treatment free?

You die

Be grateful for the NHS

I have read that many Americans get health insurance with their job.
Today 6 million Americans registered as jobless. I wonder if they lose their health insurance - along with all the ramifications of that.

American living in the UK. The system is really messed up there. One of the reasons I never plan to move back.

There's a lot of Americans that do want universal healthcare but also a lot of people that have the "I'm alright jack" attitude. There's a huge polarization in politics and a lot of people still believe in the Americans dream bullshit. I'm very worries about everyone over there. This pandemic really highlights why we need universal healthcare. The costs are astronomical even with insurance as pp already pointed out.

Oh the infamous xenia. I had not seen one of your posts before hun.

We lived in the US for a couple of years. Even though my DH had a very good job which came with medical insurance, it still cost us several thousand dollars a month in premiums. Once I drove a friend to the ER as her toddler had hurt himself (not serious but needed to be stitched up). While we were being attended to in a curtained cubicle I could overheat the conversation in the adjacent cubicle. There was a woman in there with an eye infection. She didn't have insurance. She needed antibiotics and was begging for them, but the staff wouldn't prescribe them, telling her to wash her in salty water.
As an aside, and in response to a poster above: my DH is a very high earner and we pay A LOT of tax. Guess what? Delighted to do so. Very happy to be contributing to society.

We're not headed to anything remotely like the US system. Both the US and UK systems are extremes and neither are very good. There are however plenty of other countries in the world with an element of mixed provision within a universal system that function perfectly well and are better across all outcomes than either ours or the US.

Yes, I’d welcome something like the French or Irish systems now. Seen too much sloppiness in primary care in the past few years and GP fund holders reluctant to refer etc.

@KenDodd* CV is another opportunity for American health insurance companies to take rake in huge profits. Those army built field hospitals and hospital ships are a perfect PR exercise for the Federal Government (Trump).

You can apply for your state's equivalent of KidCare which is basically free maternity care for pregnant women and babies and children up to 18. It is means tested.

You then phone around and find a provider who accepts this, and make sure the hospital they have admitting privileges to also accepts this coverage. After that is all sorted out, you get decent prenatal care, deliver in a hospital that offers private or semi private rooms (no wards) and usually your room is ensuite.

Every other health issue though - you're on your own.

............
Private health insurance involves lots of people paying over the odds too, Xenia, for other people's bad habits and poor choices.

I presented at my drs with symptoms of a pulmonary embolism. The needed to get me to at CT quickly. My insurance company refused to authorise it. Dr told me to only way for me to get one at that point would be to turn up at emergency and he strongly suggested I did. Turning up at emergency turned a £2000ish bill into a £10k bill. It’s all a fucking scam - my insurance paid out most of it anyway but the hospital made more money.

Today 6 million Americans registered as jobless. I wonder if they lose their health insurance - along with all the ramifications of that.

Yes, they lose their health insurance, if they had it in the first place. Many of those losing jobs now are people working part time or in small operations like restaurants or other small businesses and did not have health insurance with their job. They may not have qualified for Medicaid because their income levels were too high even though pitiful in real terms.

If people have lost insurance along with their job they can apply to keep the insurance but pay the premiums themselves, a system called COBRA which is a sick joke.

@chomalungma yes health insurance is often paid by your employer but you will also make a contribution. if you lose your job you lose your healthcare, but you may be able to stay with your existing healthcare provider for six months, and you will pay a reduced Premium.
My husband was made redundant many years ago now and we paid £2000 per month for a family if I recall during the time he was unemployed.

Dependent (SAHM) spouses who divorce can also find themselves losing their insurance.

As you can imagine, this is a factor for women when deciding whether to divorce an abusive husband.

The US doesn't have a healthcare system. It has an insurance industry, one of whose side effects is hospitals, doctors, nurses, labs, pharmacies. But the health of each American isn't the primary aim of the industry.

Hi mathanxiety used to see you on the Teenagers forums !

I'm American, it's not always true "go into debt or die" I had no insurance when I needed to get my gall bladder removed. The hospital had a Fund for people with low income and no insurance. That Fund paid for everything, I had no bill. I currently have insurance i pay for through my work, but because I'm still low enough income my son is on Medicaid. They pay for everything he needs. Are there times people are put into the "go into debt or die" situation? Yes, but it's not always like that. In my whole life I've never been denied medical care whether I had insurance/enough money or not. Maybe its different in different states, I don't know I only know what it's like where I am.

Don't forget it happens to everyone. A family member emigrated when young. Loved the American dream, became very rich. And then he got cancer. At first he had insurance but then it maxed and they decided not to pay for things and he couldn't work and the saving went... ended up with family members coming in and dropping $10k cheque's so he could still get meds on his death bed.

One other young man broke his back playing sports. The team fundraised and his family. But in ten years, he's still disabled and no one gives a shit.

I pay in more than I take out. I'm utterly thankful not to live in America.

It is worrying. Hard enough for many in normal times but a pandemic is going to be very tough.

I’m ok with paying in more and am so relieved to not have the US system.

Oh, and there's is no requirement on US employees to provide paid sick leave. My Dh got 2 days per annum, anything else had to be taken from his vacation allowance. so people would
go to work with streaming colds, etc.
Not surprising the virus has spread like wildfire.

Travelledtheworld - hello to you too!

I saw a report on my local PBS news this evening about low income workers in fast food and gas stations being forced by their employers to turn up to work regardless of what their doctor said were clear symptoms of Covid-19.

I can’t find the YouTube documentary I watched but a man in the US a few years ago chopped off a couple of fingers and could only afford to have one stitched back on. The other went in the bin as it would have cost $50k. Another young man had reached 26 and was no longer eligible to be on his step-dad’s medical insurance so had to buy his own insulin at about $1k a month so he was buying the cheaper Walmart version if I remember rightly. It wasn’t going well.

God Bless America 🤦‍♀️

I would recommend watching The Pharmacist on Netflix for anyone wanting to understand the drugs/pharmaceuticals side of things in the US, after watching that I've never been more glad to have the NHS.

My relative lives in the US. Her DS was diagnosed with Epilepsy in his teens. He moved back to the UK, on his own, when he was 19 because they couldn’t afford his care and were already bankrupt from the bills involved in his initial diagnosis and testing.

I worked on the East coast for six months, my employer provided my insurance (which is usual) and I had to pay copays for any treatment.

I needed insulin but unlike the UK a prescription wasn’t issued for a four week period so I was able to buy insulin for around $70 (this is relying on my memory) that would last my entire trip.

I broke a bone, that was an odd experience. We had to call an ambulance (skin had broken) but the paramedics had to see my insurance documents so they could decide what hospital to take me to, until they had seen them they wouldn’t provide any medical care. That was just so bizarre to me.

At the hospital care was poor, I was left waiting around on the trolley for so long that my blood sugars fell hugely and I was close to a diabetic coma, also you know had a limb with a compromised blood supply! Before any treatment my wrist band and the items were scanned, that even included glasses of water!

You actually end up with an itemised bill, paracetamol was around $20 a tablet, it was around $2,000 for the ambulance.

I was lucky, as mine was a travel policy nothing had to be pre-authorised, the entire bill in the end was around $70,000, they did a crap job and when I got back to the UK I needed treated to fix damage the hospital had caused in the States. Luckily I broke it ten days before I was due home, so it didn’t need to be broken again.

Surely nobody with an ounce of humanity, would prefer to bring in an American system of healthcare? It’s shameful @Xenia

we paid £2000 per month for a family if I recall during the time he was unemployed.

Wow! £2000 a month when you're not working? I couldn't afford that while I'm working.

Also, it sounds from many people that even with insurance you still end up paying a considerable amount of "co-payments"?