To be shocked that a US friend is paying $1970 a month health insurance

[crunchymint]

That is her monthly premium for health insurance and is an insane amount of money.

...yet quite often in shops and diners there are posters up with local bake sales, 5k runs etc. to try and raise money for an unfortunate person with a medical ailment not covered by insurance.

I briefly visited the USA back in the mid nineties and was intrigued to see what was, effectively a car boot sale in the middle of a shopping centre.

It turned out to be a family trying to raise money for a child's cancer treatment.

They had a pitiful display of everything you or I would drag out from under the stairs/back of wardrobes/out of the garage and bring to the tip.

There were printed displays detailing the treatment so far, how far she had come and how much they needed to raise.

They were asking for items to sell and donations as well.

The raising money thing is interesting as well. A relative of ours, lovely young man who lives in the States, had a terrible hockey accident. He broke his back and is paralyzed. The community, hockey teams, family raised hundreds of thousands of dollars. All wonderful. However, I kept thinking, what if he was a young, poor immigrant? What if his parents were illegal immigrants? What if he wasn't a shiny-toothed white boy playing sports and involved in community?

The fact is he would not have received almost anything. Is he more deserving? No. So it's all about looking after our own. I'd rather pay taxes and have everyone have care.

She had seen the impact of only being able to afford a Dr if it was deemed to be very serious

James Burke had a lovely line in one of his series about historical medicine...

Here's what happened if you were rich and ill ... er - if you were poor and ill nothing happened.

How the USA can consider itself a Christian country while at the same time allowing people to go bankrupt or even die over their medical bills is beyond me.
They don't get a better standard of service than we do either.

I’m more worried about the cost of the pfi agreement on the nhs at the moment, my local (35 miles away) acute hospital will cost after being opened by Blair in 2000 is approx £587 million over 30 years it’s not even fit for purpose and this will be happening all over the country

My friend in the USA pays closer to $4000 per month for insurance for his family, this is quite basic cover (from what he said). He isn't a professional and is self employed so no employer contributions etc. It's really shit out there for people who don't have health care plans with employment or don't have secure employment... I was shocked when he told me as I know he isn't wealthy!

Very good point MrsTerry

That is awful MovingAgain and it must put people off being self employed, which will not help the economy generally.

Anytime we’ve needed medical service In The US it’s been fast and thorough. No waiting for appointments for months on end, get the tests needed and results within a few days.

I have a child with epilepsy, his last seizure was different from the norm and he was going rather blue so I called an ambulance. Went to ER for 3hrs and discharged. I’ve had to pay $800 so far toward that and haven’t seen an ambulance bill

These costs are the reason we can’t get ahead here. We basically pay out of pocket the equivalent of a very nice holiday every year on top of the healthcare costs.

John Oliver did a good episode on all this. They don’t have a large buying group so are unable to negotiate better/cheaper deals for drugs and equipment. Every hospital has their own arrangement, it’s extremely inefficient and makes everything much more expensive.

I’ve recently been diagnosed with an ongoing health issue. Every appt is $100,
I had a bill for blood tests of $900 although that was a stuff up as my insurance hadn’t been updated. I ended up paying $80 OOP.

There is a better way obviously, but there is no will to research it and implement it. I don’t want to stay here long term and my argument to my DH is, how would we cope in old age, and why would we want to make life difficult for our children, always chasing their tails. We have to leave before they decide to settle here, otherwise I’d be stuck here too.

Just wait until insurers can pick and choose on the basis of genomes. Especially when we get to the Facebook situation where even if your genome isn't known, it can be assumed (the way non-Facebook users managed to get "tagged").

Anyone remember "GATTACA" ?

I have a colleague who had a promising career as a professional rugby, until he got a knee injury. He was sent to the US for pioneering surgery that couldn't be done in the UK at the time, and it cost $1,000,000.

It's done here now and costs you fuck all on the NHS, and in the US is so expensive that it's rarely done.

He also saw a copy of the bill and said it included things like a box of surgical gloves - not just a few pairs, but a whole box - and a whole box of screws, when only 6 were used.

ilovegin112 after 18 years of chronic under investment the amount of infrastructure improvement needed wasn't affordable and something drastic was needed. Blair used the PFI model introduced by John Major's government. Now we're still paying the PFI model AND the chronic underfunders are in power again. We'll need to find another way to undo the damage they're doing.

That insurance contribution in the OP is more than I actually EARN as a full time working person.

I'd never get insurance, I've had mental health problems and a couple of reasonably benign chronic conditions that mean nobody will touch me (currently fighting for critical illness cover in the UK so actual health insurance would be a joke).

The thing I can't get my head around is that when you see the list of how much the insurance company is charged by the hospital etc for each 'item' on the list - that's so far above what it actually costs! A normal birth in the US can be billed into the thousands. A normal birth in the UK actually costs a fraction of that. But people in the US genuinely believe that what they are being charged is what it costs. How dare someone pop out a baby and cost 'the taxpayer' £11000?? Well actually it's more like £1100 but you're being taken for a mug because you have no choice but to pay whatever they want you to pay. To a point, although I accept some things are too expensive, the NHS aren't going to use something too expensive for the sake of it.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-37555048

For instance, itemised on this bill is $39.95 for 'skin to skin post CS'. $40 to hold the baby. As if that costs anything. Someone commented you need an extra nurse there to make sure the mum doesn't drop the baby... no you don't. Whether you have skin to skin or not, CS personnel numbers remain the same, certainly in this country so it's ludicrous that you could create a cost out of this.

A normal birth in the US can be billed into the thousands.

That's because obstetricians have sky-high insurance (malpractice) costs themselves. It's been suggested that the high caesarean rate is partly due to that.

Jesus thats a massive monthly amount! 2 of my nieces and nephews have severe disabities, i shudder at the costs my 2 dsis's would inccur

Just wait until insurers can pick and choose on the basis of genomes
indeed!

Just wait until insurers can pick and choose on the basis of genomes. Especially when we get to the Facebook situation where even if your genome isn't known, it can be assumed

I've stopped publishing family tree information on the internet for this very reason.

Healthcare insurance is the obvious reason, but as we've seen with the Facebook + Cambridge Analytica debacle, there are always fun new ways for organisations to use your data against you.

Apropos of which, I wouldn't touch genetic testing from genealogy sites with a bargepole. Ancestry get to keep your data and tie it in with your family tree on the site.

Watching this made me almost cry.

Well at least her health care won't kill her. Can grunted the same if one us using the NHS.

Private medical insurance is always going to be extortionate if you have chronic health problems, though.
They'd rather not pay out if they can help it...

I wouldn't touch genetic testing from genealogy sites with a bargepole
this would seem like the best approach to take...then again look how hard it is to get credit if you dont have a credit history.
The same might apply to healthcare, no genetic data available=sorry no healthcare insurance.
We might also see lower premiums for those who can 'prove' a healthy lifestyle via wearable devices which track diet and activity levels

A friend of mine in the US pays similar, no health problems. I work in the veterinary industry so am well aware how much equipment/drugs etc costs. You don't have to look much further than Mumsnet to see all the 'vets rip you off' comments. That's because most UK folk have no clue how much medical care actually costs, most would be in for a massive shock if they had to pay for their own healthcare, hence the high cost of health insurance abroad.

No we need to fight private insurance being introduced here. Yes some people would pay less, but many people would pay a lot more.

I remember reading Lionel Shriver's book "So much for that" a few years ago.

OMG it really opened my eyes to the cost of medical care in the US and the impact of it on everyone.

I highly recommend anyone thinking of emigrating to US to read it. Visitors on a tourist visa will be OK I think with good travel insurance. But co payments by an employer and you (if you move there) can end in an instant too.

Shudder. I think I might read it again now.

I can never for the life of me understand why some in the US look at the NHS like it's a bad thing.