What do Americans do if they have no healthcare?

[summeriscomingsoon]

Seeing posts on Reddit about the costs of routine medical visits and the astronomical breakdown of figures charged, but I'm assuming these are all covered by health insurance.

But what if you have no insurance. What happens if you get cancer etc. Are you left to die?

Essentially, yes.

If you need emergency treatment, e.g., you're in a car accident, then you'll be treated and sent a bill afterwards. If the bill isn't paid it gets passed on to collection agencies. If you need routine treatment but you have no insurance, or your insurance doesn't cover it, and you can't afford to pay then tough. Some people qualify for Medicaid but it's basic and not accepted everywhere, around 26,000 people a year die due to lack of healthcare.

A friend of mine is American, living over here now, and when his mum died of cancer even with insurance the bills were so high that he had to sell his house to pay them and still owes several thousand pounds. It's a shit system and when I asked him why people don't demand universal healthcare he said that it's considered to be socialism and there is a big mistrust of socialism, its basically a step away from communism, and (generally speaking) people don't like the idea of paying money into the pot for others to benefit especially if those others haven't paid in anything/as much.

Makes me appreciate our nhs even more after reading that post.

There’ve been documentaries on this - I think Louis Theroux did one on healthcare in the States, but there have been a lot of others you could find. There was one I saw where a US charity would set up temporary hospitals in sports centres to try and provide the basics, including basic dentistry, to those who couldn’t afford treatment. They’d been established to assist in places like Africa, but saw that the problems were actually worse in the States.

If you don’t have insurance in the US, or if your employer provides only a very basic plan, then you’re pretty much shit out of luck. Get something like cancer and you’ll end up selling your house to pay for the treatment. Childbirth is insanely expensive and often not covered by employer health plans.

Many US employers don’t provide sick leave either. Employees have to save up a pool of holiday days as a fall back, in case they need recovery time. And if they’re in an “at will” State then they can pretty be fired whenever the employer wants, meaning they lose their income and their insurance cover with little notice.

Why the fuck anyone over here, other than the greedy rich bastards who want to milk us all for even more money, thinks that moving the NHS over to a US style private system is a good idea is totally beyond me.

We are so lucky to have what we have. Not perfect but available to everyone

I believe standard protocol is to start cooking crystal meth...

Some states have quite good programmes for those with no health insurance, particularly children.

My sister is in the states and has a terminal illness. Lord alone knows how she managed (she had to retire early as she just couldn’t work). Her husband had an accident and if was $500 for the ambulance alone - don’t know about the treatment. I did wonder what would happen if you had an accident -would you really have to think twice before calling for an ambulance? A cousins little boy fell off a slide and broke his arm - their friend is a surgeon who did a cast at ‘mates rates’ $1k!

I have a df in the states whose dm was ill for about 11 weeks after an operation that didn't work. She spent all that time in icu, had further operations and treatments and sadly died.
I have never dared ask what the cost was (obviously inappropriate) but imagine it must have been a fortune and I have no idea who or how it was paid for.

@BabyYoda

In every hospital I've been to here there are signs up in the lobby/ER saying that if you don't have insurance they will set up a plan for you to pay. I'm not going to muse on what that might be or how affordable it is - we all know the stories! But it's not about being "left to die", more that you'll be treated but will then pay for the rest of your life/declare bankruptcy etc.

We're leaving US for Canada in a few months and leaving the ridiculous US health insurance system is what we're most looking forward to. I have some stories about it I'll be telling for the rest of my life.

@toffeebutterpopcorn

My sister is in the states and has a terminal illness. Lord alone knows how she managed (she had to retire early as she just couldn’t work). Her husband had an accident and if was $500 for the ambulance alone - don’t know about the treatment. I did wonder what would happen if you had an accident -would you really have to think twice before calling for an ambulance? A cousins little boy fell off a slide and broke his arm - their friend is a surgeon who did a cast at ‘mates rates’ $1k!

When my son had his first seizure I drove him to ER. They said I should’ve called an ambulance so they could start treating him straight away, but of course that could cost $1000 so it does cross your mind not to use them.

I also had to be admitted to hospital after going to the ER which was a standalone one and they did a transfer in the ambulance. they kept reassuring me that there would be no charge for the transfer as it was the same hospital system.

Why do Americans think this system works? Sounds dreadful.

Thank god for our NHS

Healthcare costs are the number one cause of bankruptcy in the States

The whole system is a con. My son needed a test which they wanted $2000 for, I found out they were not in network of my insurance. I tried to find an in network provider. The out of network provider got wind of this and called me and said we can come to some other arrangement and I said you have to reduce it to what I would pay to an in network provider so it was reduced to $1000.

It’s so confusing and You have to be on top of every single thing. If you go to the hospital the hospital might be in network but the doctors treating you might be out of network and you end up with a much higher bill but you have no choice over the doctors that are treating you in an emergency. We have to pay 30% of the bill for an out of network provider and I read 10% for in network provider

@summeriscomingsoon

Seeing posts on Reddit about the costs of routine medical visits and the astronomical breakdown of figures charged, but I'm assuming these are all covered by health insurance.

But what if you have no insurance. What happens if you get cancer etc. Are you left to die?

When I worked in the US (in healthcare), poor health was the leading cause of bankruptcy. Plenty of people were walking around with things that they needed taken care of, but couldnt. For emergencies, A&E departments will take turns to be the one that cant turn you away -in my town there were 3 hospitals which did this on a rota. They spread it like this so that one hospital did not bear all the costs of treating people who could not pay. They will try to set up a payment plan, but often dont pursue people who cannot pay. There are health and human services programs for very poor people, which can be quite good, but difficult to access. Most jobs offer healthcare insurance, but this can trap people in jobs where they are mistreated.

Why the fuck anyone over here, other than the greedy rich bastards who want to milk us all for even more money, thinks that moving the NHS over to a US style private system is a good idea is totally beyond me. couldnt agree more @PaterPower. I was so happy to work in the NHS when I moved back, but cant believe how it is being carved up and how few people seem to be noticing.

My niece-in-law went into labour at 24/3 in the us. I think the total insurance bill came to over $900k but that did include accommodation for the grownups while she was In scbu and some contributions towards grandparents flying over to support. And a private paediatric jet home for the baby (parents flew cattle class). Thank god for travel insurance.

American cousins wife left him - she actually left him for a woman. No hope of reconciliation. She then found she had breast cancer. Her health insurance was via his employer (for him and his family members) He could never divorce her as the moment he did she would have no cover. She died of the cancer in the end after about six years. Still 'married' to my cousin.

@PaterPower

There’ve been documentaries on this - I think Louis Theroux did one on healthcare in the States, but there have been a lot of others you could find. There was one I saw where a US charity would set up temporary hospitals in sports centres to try and provide the basics, including basic dentistry, to those who couldn’t afford treatment. They’d been established to assist in places like Africa, but saw that the problems were actually worse in the States.

If you don’t have insurance in the US, or if your employer provides only a very basic plan, then you’re pretty much shit out of luck. Get something like cancer and you’ll end up selling your house to pay for the treatment. Childbirth is insanely expensive and often not covered by employer health plans.

Many US employers don’t provide sick leave either. Employees have to save up a pool of holiday days as a fall back, in case they need recovery time. And if they’re in an “at will” State then they can pretty be fired whenever the employer wants, meaning they lose their income and their insurance cover with little notice.

Why the fuck anyone over here, other than the greedy rich bastards who want to milk us all for even more money, thinks that moving the NHS over to a US style private system is a good idea is totally beyond me.

The Louis Theroux programme breaks my heart. People queueing all night to see the free doctors.

@BabyYoda

I believe standard protocol is to start cooking crystal meth...

Exactly what I thought!

@applecatchers36

Healthcare costs are the number one cause of bankruptcy in the States

Wow

It is insane - even with insurance on some schemes you still have to pay a "deductible" eg the first 20% of any bills. So if you have something really bad the bills still run up into $$$$$.

I ended up
In hospital in the us for a week some time ago. The bill ran to 20 or 30 close typed itemised pages. Every single time a nurse entered my room, every single tablet, each change of intravenous plus the cost of the content of the intravenous and on and on. No doubt I was charged for the time taken to book me in.
Shocking on two levels - to see the cost broken down like that and the amount - something like 10k and this was some time ago.
Just before I travelled I remembered about travel insurance and sorted some out - nearly didnt. Thank god.
Makes me almost weep with gratitude and feel privileged to live here. So worried about us medi-giants eyeing up the nhs - already here in some london area g0 practice provision.

Some are, yes.

And many insurance policies have pre-existing conditions clauses that rule out Almost everything.

@BabyYoda

I believe standard protocol is to start cooking crystal meth...

There are many memes if you google “if Breaking Bad had been set in the U.K.”.

It's so weird that Americans object to universal health care on the idea that "why should we pay into a pot/pay for people who haven't contributed" etc.

Wtf do they think any insurance is?? do they genuinely think that when they pay for (say) car insurance, they're paying into their own individual pot and not subsidising other customers?

I cannot get my head around the fact that one of the wealthiest and most powerful nations ok the planet has such an archai system where...if you're diabetic you have to choose between rent and food or LIFE SAVING MEDICATION.

It's batshit.