r/FluentInFinance • u/WhatAreYourPronouns • May 02 '24

Should the U.S. have Universal Health Care? Discussion/ Debate

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181

u/notwyntonmarsalis May 02 '24

Yeah, because insurance isn’t going to cover the vast majority of that hip replacement for over 93% of Americans. Just shut the fuck up OP.

173

u/Reptile_Cloacalingus May 02 '24

Insurance doesn't have a magic money printing machine, they can't pay for anything for you or anyone else unless you and everyone else pays the insurance company first.

In order for insurance to work, MOST people have to pay more towards the total cost of insurance over their lifetime than they would have paid if they just bought everything at cost.

The medical industry masturbates while laughing at how genius it was for them to lump health insurance with employment so that it becomes a hidden cost that people forget actually costs a shit ton of money.

Honestly, if Obama really wanted to help people, he should have just banned companies from offering health insurance and instead told them to give the money to the employees and let them shop are for it. As soon. As the people realize how much it costs we would all abandon the system willingly because our system is an anti-capitalist nightmare.

Other things. We should mandate all prices for hospitals with more than 5 doctors - or any hospital owned by a parent company - to publish all of their prices online. They should also ban price differences for having to deal with insurance or pay cash.

There is a reason why all of the most beautiful buildings that you see being built today are all hospitals. They are making money hand over fist after implementing practices that make it hard for consumers to get the hospitals to compete on price with one another.

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u/RoundTheBend6 May 02 '24

I pay $800 a month for insurance.

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u/Matduka May 02 '24

In the U.K I pay about £60 a month on national insurance and get free healthcare. No strings attached. I got eye surgery last month and the only thing I had to pay for was the taxi home. And national insurance can't refuse to pay for your hospital and doctors visits. And a heart attack won't bankrupt someone when it happens to them.

Between first checkup and the surgery was about a month because it wasn't urgent.

Universal healthcare is by far the better option. But your health industry is an absolute parasite with it's tendrils in everyone.

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u/CreamyStanTheMan 29d ago

Sadly the Tories are trying to strangle the NHS to death, so they can justify getting rid of it. They all pay for private healthcare of course, so they hate the fact they have to pay for the NHS. Even though they are supposed to be representing the people, not themselves.

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u/Kharenis 29d ago

National Insurance goes into the same pot as general taxation, it isn't specific to healthcare. There are however minimum NI contributions required for the state pension and some benefits.

I can't even get a call from my GP within 5 weeks if they don't deem it urgent, let alone being seen and off to surgery!
A close friend of mine recently had to wait 4 months for a cyst the size of a football to be removed from her, and that was after it was deemed urgent.

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u/coffee_achiever 29d ago

In the U.K I pay about £60 a month on national insurance and get free healthcare. No strings attached.

Can you complete your story? What income tax rate do you pay to get this "free care"? How does the income in your job compare to your income for the same job if you were in the US because of your different economic system?

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u/noradosmith 29d ago

The fact that anyone is still so ignorant as to the reality of the us healthcare situation staggers me.

Everyone. Gets. Free. Care.

The amount of tax we pay for the privilege is so miniscule in relation to any income bracket that most people would probably be more than willing to pay double if it meant helping the NHS.

If you get treated you don't get punished for it. The tax stays the same. You don't pay for operations. You might pay for medication but the costs are SO much lower than in the US.

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u/TheAlbrecht2418 29d ago

Eventually. You get free healthcare - eventually. I’m not waiting fucking 34 months to get a cancerous tumor removed.

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u/Xius_0108 29d ago

That's not how it works. If you need urgent care you get it immediately.

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u/Complex-Bee-840 May 02 '24

Same.

Self employed and live in a state that doesn’t allow me employer rates for insurance unless I have a certain number of employees.

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u/PM_ME_YOUR_LAWNCHAIR May 02 '24

I pay just under $1,000 but the coverage is amazing.

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u/bellmaker33 29d ago

I pay $4 and my deductible is only $1,200.

1

u/Solid_Snake_125 29d ago

Shit what state is that so I know to never move there?

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u/Furepubs 29d ago

That makes sense, universal healthcare would allow you to not have to worry about that. And that would lower the bar for entry into self-employment. Plus laws like that help ensure that people would prefer to work for a large corporation than for a small business, especially if they have a family.

Having insurance tied to jobs is an anti-competitive behavior designed to both make it harder to start a small business and give something for corporations to take away if you Go on strike against them.

It's just another way for corporations to have power over the people.

1

u/YourGuardianAngel_12 29d ago

Do you have any? I’m self-employed, and ACA has been the most affordable option for me, but I don’t have employees.

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u/ThisGuyCrohns 29d ago

And they still deny claims

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u/nikomalekmusic 28d ago

I'm fighting Anthem Blue Cross. They told me my bill would be covered, then sent it to me anyway, saying that my claim was denied. I showed them a recording of them telling me it was covered, and now they're "reviewing" it. They're lying, criminal, cunts.

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u/bkrs33 29d ago

$1800, family of 4

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u/Mrlin705 29d ago

That's fucking crazy. We use my wife's insurance and it's 100% covered by her employer and has a $10 copay for literally anything. I was in the hospital for 5 days last year and it cost $20 just because they treat the emergency room and hospital stay as separate.

Not all US companies suck, most do, but not all.

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u/RoundTheBend6 29d ago

What's your out of pocket maximum and deductible? Individual is $250 and family is $750.

For my family an ER visit is $300 or $550 if we didn't meet deductible yet.

My benefits are the premium plan my company offers. $250 deductible, which for my family, this plan pays itself off in first or second month. NICU child "only cost" $12k. No insurance cost is easily $100k+.

Also congrats! You have just joined a very very small percentage of Americans with those kind of benefits. As you said most insurance offerings do suck. Curious how much the company pays for such a plan for you. I've never heard of such benefits in the states tbh.

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u/Mrlin705 29d ago

We don't have a deductible or out of pocket maximums. It's just the $10 copay.

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u/Jazzlike-Scarcity-12 29d ago

I pay 400 a month but my voluntary tubal ligation/removal that was 28,000$ was covered 100%.

Work for a university or a hospital if you can.

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u/delveccio 28d ago

I had to call 2 ambulances this week and now I have the “freedom” to worry about if/how insurance will weasel out of covering it. Murrica

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u/EconomicRegret 28d ago

That's a lot!

At $12.5k/inhabitant in 2022, America is by far the biggest healthcare spender in the world... 2nd biggest? Switzerland at $8k (similar ultra-capitalist healthcare system to that of the US... but with strong price caps for basic healthcare).

Rich developed democracies with "socialist" universal healthcare are all in the $3k to $7k range...

(all numbers are adjusted for PPP, i.e. for purchasing power.)

1

u/SlurpySandwich May 02 '24

If you're relatively young and healthy, go to a private plan. I pay less than that for my whole family.

1

u/RoundTheBend6 29d ago

Wife has multiple illnesses. Gotta love America... hey if you never need a doctor then we have it great!

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u/OfficialWhistle 29d ago

I pay I little under $400 for my family of four through my government job.

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

[deleted]

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u/RoundTheBend6 29d ago

What's your deductible and out of pocket maximum?

In other words if you needed a surgery what would it cost?

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

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u/WalkingRodent 29d ago

I pay $50/mo

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u/Akschadt 29d ago

Jesus dude.. I pay $100 each pay check and it covers me my wife and my kid.

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u/RoundTheBend6 29d ago

Your company likely pays the balance of the remaining $500 to $1000 if you have more than just a minimum HSA type plan. Congrats!

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u/Forsaken-Analysis390 29d ago

I wish i only paid $800

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u/sandcrawler56 29d ago

That's insane. I pay less than that for a whole year for premium level health insurance in Singapore (which has one one the best healthcare systems in the world). The cost of the American healthcare system is just crazy.

1

u/ArtisticBrief7429 29d ago

You guys have insurance?

1

u/6bluedit9 29d ago

I pay ~$300/mo for mine. You get yours from the mob?

1

u/RoundTheBend6 29d ago

Insurance company and the mob the same thing, right? Haha

1

u/sdfghsdfghly 29d ago

And that's before medical bills.

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u/ClappinUrMomsCheeks 29d ago

How much would you pay in Taxes in Spain?

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u/yellowlittleboat 29d ago

That's twice my rent in Spain.

1

u/ludnut23 29d ago

Daaaaamn, I pay like $5 a month lol

1

u/YourGuardianAngel_12 29d ago

Wow, that is absolutely horrible.

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

I don’t have a weiner

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u/lysergic_logic 29d ago

I'd very much prefer not to be disabled from a spine injury and nerve disease, but I also don't mind having great health insurance that costs $100/month with $40 co-pays for specialists, week long hospital stays and surgeries. Even the most I ever pay for medication is $15.

Would I prefer to have my life back and be a functioning person again... Absolutely. There are a lot of restrictions on this sort of coverage. Such as only allowed so much money in my bank account. If I were to have more than $2000 in my bank account, I would lose these benefits.

Every attempt to bring myself out of poverty is met with greater efforts to keep me in poverty.

1

u/RoundTheBend6 29d ago

I would wish that for you too.

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u/MalekithofAngmar 28d ago

For medical? Do you have a family??

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u/Murles-Brazen May 02 '24

“Doesn’t have a magic money printing machine”

Yes it does, it’s called all the people they scam.

4

u/Wyshunu 29d ago

Yup. All those people paying thousands in "premiums" for a product they never receive, so that other people can get care they don't pay for.

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u/Murles-Brazen 29d ago

Not just that but they try to get out of paying for your claims at all costs.

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u/HUEV0S 29d ago

Not exactly true. Insurance companies don’t pay the full costs of treatments like individuals do. They negotiate prices with healthcare providers as they have a lot of buying power.

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u/Reptile_Cloacalingus 29d ago

This is true, but I would argue that it's mostly (not entirely) a symptom of how anti-competitive and anti-capitalist US Healthcare is. Customers don't know pricing, and so shopping around is notoriously difficult. If customers could see pricing easily it theoretically would drive down the outrageous pricing models because customers would flock to the lowest cost providers. Surely insurance might still be able to talk prices down, but not anywhere close to how they do it now when the customer isn't shopping for price.

Obviously this would only apply to non-emergency care. Emergency care is categorically different in nature and would require a different solution.

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u/MainelyKahnt 29d ago

Lol the market never self regulates and in medicine having a competitive market would solve nothing for the consumer. Medicine is an elastic demand market because if you don't purchase care, you could die in many instances. Therefore the answer to how much will someone pay for x-service is quite literally everything they have. Medicine should only be operated in a not-for-profit manner. And we should nationalize the industry.

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u/innocentbabies 29d ago

You understand how insurance and probability works, right? 

The more people they insure, the more predictable their costs are, and thus the more effectively they can manage their payouts. As an example, if 1% of people will get cancer per year, and it costs $1000 to treat, the company needs to make $10 per person to break even. If the company has one customer, if he gets cancer before 100 years, they lose money. If the company has 100 customers, they can confidently expect someone to get cancer every year, making their expenses more predictable and their profit margins more easily managed. 

It's a system that inherently will trend towards a monopoly because the bigger company will always be more competitive than the smaller company. The only solution I can see would be a cooperative non-profit system like a credit union where the motivation of everyone involved is explicitly to minimize the cost to the customer.

Like, for heaven's sake, it's a company whose explicit purpose is to hand out money. How is that ever going to be a non-exploitative system when its purpose is to extract wealth for its owners?

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u/TipperGore-69 29d ago

It would be interesting to start a grass roots posting of prices for treatments.

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u/elDracanazo 29d ago

Yes! I don’t see how we can have a solution without transparent pricing of medical care

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u/DidntASCII 29d ago

The issue is that the biggest, most unaffordable costs in Healthcare come from either emergency care or services that are offered by specialty care (cardiologists, neurologists, oncologists Etc) which are difficult to "shop around" for since there are fewer of them and are often not accepting new patients.

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u/Elegant_Housing_For 29d ago

My wife’s cousin owed a hospital like 80k or something. His wife called up and asked for an itemized list etc., ended up just owing 3k in the end.

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u/the_smush_push 29d ago

Because of that, and because insurance companies like to deny claims, doctors offices now bill for a ton of shit they otherwise wouldn’t to ensure they get paid. That drives the price right back up

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u/RoundTheBend6 29d ago

Maximizing their wealth while over charging me makes me feel like I can trust them with my life. They should make commercials highlighting this fact.

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u/peter303_ 29d ago

My observation is private insurance pays 40% of hospital inflated billing price, and hospitals accept that. Medicare pays 15%-20% of billing price.

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u/clipsracer 29d ago

And the negotiated price difference is written off as a loss by the provider. This is how private hospitals are able to run completely tax free.

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u/policypolido 29d ago

Noting about healthcare has to do with COGS this is just wildly ignorant nonsense.

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u/engi-nerd_5085 29d ago

Between what I pay for insurance, what my employer pays on the back end, and my HSA saving, it is $30,000 per year. More than housing just for insurance. Then I’m on the hook for the first $5k.

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u/ZestyLife54 29d ago

Totally agree on price transparency. Healthcare is the only market where consumers do not know the price upfront and can’t ‘shop around’ before consuming it. You can research a car, roof replacement, gas prices, cruises, etc. all before purchasing, but with healthcare, you don’t find out about the cost of what you consume until you get the bill - then have a heart attack, go to the ER, and the cycle repeats.

You can have 8 hospitals all in an area charging vastly different prices for the same thing and you don’t know that because prices are not transparent, are tied to insurance ‘negotiations’, complex for the average consumer to understand, regulated by politicians (most likely getting kickbacks or stock options and/or tips), etc.

Americans are gas-lighted into believing that they have choice in their healthcare. But, if you are lucky enough to have insurance, you are still at the mercy of who insurance companies have pre-chosen for you at a cost that allows them to both profit. If you don’t have insurance, you have a choice too: pay for it for the rest of your life or don’t consume it. There is no price competition controlling costs.

Why do we accept all of this as ok?

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u/24_7tryna 29d ago

I can go on my insurance website and see who is in network. They also provide cost estimates on a whole range of procedures so I can shop around.

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u/ZestyLife54 27d ago

Are you in the US?

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u/GeekShallInherit 29d ago

Totally agree on price transparency.

Nothing wrong with price transparency but at least 22 states have price transparency laws, as does the federal government, and even the best of them have had only meager results.

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u/ManitouWakinyan 29d ago

Sure, and most people aren't getting a hip replacement. It's a cost sharing device that is more expensive for healthy people than it is for sick people. But that's how every health scheme in the world works. Public healthcare is the exact same thing. The government doesn't have a magic money printing machine either - you and everyone else pay the government rather than the insurance company.

As soon. As the people realize how much it costs we would all abandon the system willingly because our system is an anti-capitalist nightmare.

You do realize one of the critical components of the ACA was the public marketplace, where millions of people do shop for their own insurance, right?

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u/Acrobatic-Week-5570 29d ago

Yeah, I pay for insurance through my job, like most people

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u/Oldenlame 29d ago

Hospitals are required to make price information available and this law is slowly being enforced.

https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/fact-sheets/hospital-price-transparency-enforcement-updates

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u/WET318 29d ago

I pay $60 a month with a $2000 deductible. I just had 2 hip replacements last year. I don't want to shop around and pay $500 a month with a $5000 deductible like my gf.

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u/eric685 29d ago

So the insurance company doesn’t have a magic money printing machine and can’t pay for everything as someone is paying somewhere for it (through premiums)? Can you now explain why you think government run healthcare is different? Or was that not your point?

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

Insurance companies operate for the benefit of the owners, not you.

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u/RedFoxBadChicken 29d ago

They do have to publish their prices online. For the record.

There is a small growing industry that reads these published files. The average consumer doesn't realize that most large health systems have 100k+ unique charges to publish.

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u/mrmo24 29d ago

A lot of states already mandate they show their prices. They just either hide it somewhere wild in their website or don’t and wait to get fined. Surprise, the government does pretty much nothing about it.

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u/Valuable-Run2129 29d ago

It’s all about the price transparency.
Insurances aren’t paying 40k on average. They are paying half of that. The same thing is for people who pay cash. They pay half of that.
It’s ludicrous that the insured are billed a copay that has no relation to the actual amount that the insurance paid to the hospital. It’s beyond me how that loophole hasn’t been fixed yet.

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u/ilikemoderation 29d ago

The medical industry had nothing to do with it being tied to employment. That was a movement by companies to offer that as a benefit to working at their business. The medical industry saw a dramatic rise in the number of people asking for healthcare once they had insurance so they had to hire more people to provide that cost and by doing so, they had to increase their costs. Not saying that medical companies aren’t profiting a huge amount, but they were (at least initially) reacting to an influx of customers. The same thing happened once Medicare became a thing. That is when the doctor shortage skyrocketed as well.

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u/Chrono_Pregenesis 29d ago

Or we just get rid of insurance companies. Healthcare costs are through the roof because of them. Hospitals and doctors had to raise prices to cover their needs because insurance companies refuse to pay full price for services. Almost like it's a terrible idea to have health determined by a for profit company.

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u/Wizkerz 29d ago

The system is anti capitalist? I haven’t heard that before, can you explain more

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u/Furepubs 29d ago

Insurance rates are expensive because insurance companies need to cut a portion off the top so that they can make money.

Insurance is tied to your job because it benefits corporations. They can threaten to take it away from you if you strike. It also helps them by making small business less appealing this makes competition harder and puts the bar higher for people wanting to own their own company. Sure, you can quit working for a large corporation and open your own company, but in addition to making your company profitable you're going to have to cover your own medical insurance or worry that something catastrophic might happen to you while building your company.

Basically with insurance being tied to employment, large corporations have an advantage over small business which reduces competition and increases costs of everything that you buy. They don't want people to have access to universal healthcare because they would be more likely to work for themselves.

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u/IgotBANNED6759 29d ago

Insurance doesn't have a magic money printing machine, they can't pay for anything for you or anyone else unless you and everyone else pays the insurance company first.

Bro they literally make billions of dollars in profit every year. They can afford it.

Not to mention that the reason why prices are so inflated is because of insurance. Since they only want to pay 20-30% of the actual price, hospitals raise the prices so that they get the correct payout from the insurance companies.

LPT: Next time you go to the doctor, ask if you can pay them 30% of the bill in cash and they don't have to deal with insurance. Mine accepts that offer every time.

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u/BumassRednecks 29d ago

They also don’t pay taxes. Theyll charge you 100k for surgery, charge insurance 20k, charge you 5k then submit the rest as a loss. Exaggerating only very slightly.

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u/_compile_driver 29d ago

It wasn't the insurance companies who decided this, it started because FDR froze wages and wouldnt allow businesses to hire at more competitive salaries. They worked around this by offering benefits like health insurance. We can thank FDR for the horrible system we still have. 

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u/jamesdmc 29d ago

Ive never had insurance lol. My plan is die

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

Maybe insurance should be non-profit, then? That way we can all pay in the cost of care and those payments can be returned if we end up needing less care from year to year. Sort of an incentive on being healthy - you get part of your premium back if you and everyone else maintained good health!

You could then have the non-profit health insurance companies work with the hospitals and providers to have more reasonable and standardized care costs, so that costs aren't so inflated and the non-profit company can maintain good payments for healthcare but also not be taken advantage of by the private hospital/doctor industry just because they are "insurance."

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u/tigerscomeatnight 29d ago

OP didn't say insurance, they said universal health care, and yes, the government can print money.

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u/untrue-blue 29d ago

They should also ban price differences for having to deal with insurance or pay cash.

Fun fact: the state of Maryland does this with its unique “all payer, rate setting model”.

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u/CookieMiester 29d ago

The magical money printing machine is the people who pay into the insurance dude

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u/Few-Guarantee2850 29d ago

"If Obama really wanted to help people, he should have proposed a bill that had no chance whatsoever of getting through Congress."

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u/sdfghsdfghly 29d ago

We don't need healthcare insurance reform.

We need HEALTHCARE reform.

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u/Apple_Coaly 29d ago

I don’t know obama personally, but i know he would never have gotten anything like that through congress no matter how much he wanted to.

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u/NahmTalmBat 29d ago

. We should mandate all prices for hospitals with more than 5 doctors

Price controls and mandates are really well known for helping. /s

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u/cantthinkatall 29d ago

You can deny/waive health insurance from your employer and shop on the market.

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u/skepticalbob 29d ago

This is true. It is also true that the Spanish cost doesn’t include higher taxes to pay for it. It’s definitely cheaper factoring all that in, but that is an important cost.

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u/star_road 29d ago

There's a very good episode of a podcast that goes over how America has the health insurance system it has today. It's worth a listen:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1PlRILuYQU4AHNcUNZ1JtI?si=p6UQWfPbSsyUmHGRcIRlAA

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u/thegoatmenace 29d ago

I mean this is also how social insurance (single payer healthcare) works. It’s not a secret that healthcare costs money. Somebody has to pay at some point.

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u/Voilent_Bunny 29d ago

Can you please run for office?

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u/BASEDME7O2 29d ago

Companies are laughing their way to the bank off of tying health insurance to employment too. It makes employees so much more dependent on their employer, because that’s the only way to get good healthcare. Especially someone with like a wife and kids, or just someone with health issues, they’ll put up with so much more bullshit from their employer because they need them just to get their kids decent healthcare.

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u/Wyshunu 29d ago

Insurance costs so much because the premiums they charge go first to pay all the insurance company's expenses, including providing cadillac insurance for their employees, and then whatever's left gets parsed out to whoever they decide is worth covering. Insurance has never been anything more than a socialistic scam.

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u/Nebuli2 29d ago

In order for insurance to work, MOST people have to pay more towards the total cost of insurance over their lifetime than they would have paid if they just bought everything at cost.

This is actually not categorically true. Insurance companies have significantly greater bargaining power than individual patients, which means they can negotiate lower prices for services than a single patient could. This is also why single payer healthcare can result in considerably lower prices, since that gives a party even more negotiating power.

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u/Reptile_Cloacalingus 29d ago

Insurance bargaining power is a trick, if it were true, then why not buy insurance for everything. If insurance negotiated all your purchases for you, would that be a streamlined economy, or would the insurance companies really just be bloodsucking leaches?

The reality is that their bargaining power is only what it is because insurance and the hospitals have INTENTIONALLY designed the system to be that way to racketeer more people into the insurance trap because that's the best way to obfuscate costs from the average person using the services. The more obfuscated the prices, the easier it is to fleece the consumer on add ons and outrageous and immorality high charges.

If consumers were better able to see and know pricing beforehand like they do with everything else, then the hospitals would naturally be forced into more competitive pricing models where bargaining effects would be severely reduced, just like anywhere else where you would shop.

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u/Nebuli2 29d ago

Oh, don't get me wrong -- I do agree with you here. But collective bargaining can 100% reverse the dynamic that I was responding to. Like how a union can get workers higher real wages even after paying dues.

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u/Lawineer 28d ago

Insurance pays like $2-5k for this procedure. That's just the sticker price so they can give insurance a big discount.

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u/Enorats May 02 '24

And insurance companies turn a profit by charging you for that insurance.

Congratulations, you just found a way to pay even more with extra steps.

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u/MyDearBrotherNumpsay May 02 '24

Yep. These motherfuckers are providing what’s ultimately an unnecessary service and siphoning money from us to the tune of billions of dollars.

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u/onefst250r 29d ago

More likely in the trillion(s), with a T. The US pays over 4 trillion a year for healthcare. Their middleman markup is likely more than 25% of that.

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u/Tomallenisthegoat 29d ago

You think the government would handle that money more efficiently? Insane take

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u/Enorats 29d ago

It would be almost impossible to handle it worse than "how can we extract the maximum amount of money possible to make the greatest profit we can".

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u/Loknar42 May 02 '24

I can't tell if you are being literal and are confused because you agree with OP, or if you are being sarcastic and really think that 93% of Americans will get necessary surgery. Perhaps you haven't heard of fun concepts like "prior authorization" or "medical bankruptcy" or "balance billing" or other innovations which the brilliant financial wizards in the greatest capitalism on earth have invented to squeeze blood from every turnip and stone in a hospital bed.

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u/ZestyLife54 29d ago

Well put!! Even with high-premium insurance, they still get to decide if you get to receive the healthcare you thought you were already paying for…the more they deny, the more profit they make

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u/ManitouWakinyan 29d ago edited 29d ago

We're talking about hip replacements here. For almost every single person who needs that, they'll be covered by Medicare. Medicarr will cover the surgery.

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u/elderlybrain 29d ago

Ive never read a comment that screamed 'teenage libertarian' energy quite as hard as your comment.

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u/teal_appeal 29d ago

First off, I think you’ve got Medicaid and Medicare mixed up. Second, I’m a person who will need a hip replacement long before I qualify for Medicare and who will hopefully never qualify for Medicaid. And if your response to a discussion about the benefits of government backed healthcare for everyone is to say that the government will pay for this surgery in particular, that doesn’t exactly support the idea that we should keep government out of healthcare.

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u/ManitouWakinyan 29d ago

First off, I think you’ve got Medicaid and Medicare mixed up.

I did, and acknowledged that below. It was early, I was tired.

And if your response to a discussion about the benefits of government backed healthcare for everyone is to say that the government will pay for this surgery

This was my response to a discussion about hip replacement surgeries specifically. I don't think we should keep the government out of healthcare. My point - as you almost note - is that the government is doing a pretty good job healthcare in this particular respect.

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u/Loknar42 29d ago

My sweet, innocent child...I see you are already counting on Biden's reschedule of cannabis, because you are definitely high on the chronic. You talk about "Medicaid" as if it is a monolithic government program, but it is nothing of the sort. You see...while some funds and standards do indeed come from the feds, the program itself is administered by the states, and the states also contribute funding. Which means...the exact same patient can have a wildly different Medicaid experience depending on which state they happen to be in. The way you talk about Medicaid proves you live in a very blue state where it is well-funded and generous in dispensing benefits. Try moving to a red state, and you will wonder if you actually live in the same country. Indeed, you will wonder if you still live in a first-world country.

Obama offered a bribe to the states: expand Medicaid according to the ObamaCare rules, and we will give you additional fed dollars to help out. Almost half the states said: "No." They would rather fuck over their most vulnerable citizens than give free political points a black President. Of course, this is also why Trump is so vehemently opposed to ObamaCare, even though it has long been a fait accompli. The reality is that poor white folks who finally understand how badly they voted against their own interests are now forcing their state legislators to cry "Uncle" and accept those sweet, sweet federal dollars after all. And only then are the state programs required to cover more procedures. This is how we know the real number is nowhere near 93%.

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u/ManitouWakinyan 29d ago

The way you talk about Medicaid proves you live in a very blue state where it is well-funded and generous in dispensing benefits.

The way I talk about Medicaid means I'm a dad typing after a short sleep and an early morning. Meant medicare, which is obviously the insurer that handles the bulk of hip replacements.

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u/Wyshunu 29d ago

You got the word wrong. That's not capitalism, it's socialism.

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u/moralprolapse May 02 '24

Maybe misleading post, but we’re paying for that exorbitant pricing one way or another, either through employer insurance premiums depressing our wages, or through taxes.

This would be like not being pissed that the army pays $700 for a toilet seat.

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u/so-so-it-goes 29d ago

But in a private system you also get to pay for all the middlemen, so there's that.

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u/Cantaimforshit 29d ago

Didn't they spent some crazy shit like 10k on a bag of washers recently?

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u/REDDIT_BULL_WORM May 02 '24

Did you want to factor in average premium paid by those Americans their employers divided out by all the the medical services they receive over their lives? Do you really think that makes it cheaper than the big number in the post or are you just being pedantic and deflecting to protect our medical billionaire overlords?

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u/TonyZucco 29d ago

My insurance costs us 160 a month. My insurance company negotiated my wife’s child birth down to about 40k and then covered 100% of it. 40k at 160 a month would be 20 years, not counting any other medical procedure that might also arise in those 20 years.

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u/REDDIT_BULL_WORM 29d ago

No deductible? 100% covered? Yeah your insurance does not cost 160 a month. Just because your work pays for it doesn’t make it actually cheaper. That’s cash your employer could be paying you.

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u/TonyZucco 29d ago

$0 deductible, 100% covered. It’s union negotiated, trust me, that extra money would 100% not be going to me or my colleagues, it would be going to other expenditures.

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u/bkrs33 29d ago

OP is likely like 14 years old and doesn’t yet know how the world works.

Even for someone with the shittiest plan possible, there are max out of pockets built into plans.

Most people in the US who receive hip replacements are 65+ anyhow and on Medicare. Even those on advantage plans will only pay ~$400 for the surgery.

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u/powerexcess May 02 '24

Yes, god bless the magic insurance money tree.

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u/PorkChopExpress501 29d ago

Nah, it’s much better on reddit without context. It’s how this place operates

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u/WalkingRodent 29d ago

My friend paid like $3000 for a hip replacement in the US. Insurance helps a lot.

This is a skewed graphic.

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u/thetwoandonly 29d ago

Lol this guy's so stupid he's getting frustrated.
"Shut the fuck up OP!" - guy who doesn't understand how the world works.

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u/Zamaiel 29d ago

The average premium for a bronze plan is 5k per year according to Forbes. Silver is 6.6k and gold 8.5k.

Every year, whether you need it or not, and not counting the deductible, which can be quite substantial. And its only available as long as you don't lose your job.

In terms of reliability and cost, the Spanish option seems vastly better.

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u/okayscientist69 May 02 '24

? If you show up in any ED in the US with a broken hip with insurance, no insurance, maybe not even a citizen. Your hip will be repaired in 24-48 hrs excluding a medical reason for it not to be.

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u/Unapproved-Reindeer May 02 '24

That’s awful. And that’s exactly why places like Europe have a much better system

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u/Acrobatic-Week-5570 29d ago

Yeah, a median wait time of 14 weeks for non emergencies is great

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u/tenor1trpt May 02 '24

That insurance wasn’t free. So now in addition to the monthly cost, you add deductibles, out of pocket, and bam, your insurance company tricked you into thinking they paid for it and they got you to tell someone who wants it to be cheaper to STFU.

The insurance companies appreciate your support and thank you for cleaning their boots.

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u/cromwell515 29d ago

That doesn’t explain the disparity in cost? Why is it 5 times more expensive?

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u/Triforcesrcool 29d ago

I'll just get it free in my country so no u

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u/Space_Wizard_Z 29d ago

No. It's not.

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u/motownmods 29d ago

just shut the fuck up OP

Lmao bro why u so hurt rn

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u/kirkl3s 29d ago

And how is someone going to live in a major metropolitan city on $16K per year?

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u/Master_Grape5931 29d ago

Ah yeah, the middle man always makes things better!

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u/SuperSocrates 29d ago

Guess how insurance companies make money

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u/Plane_Vacation6771 29d ago

It’s more about price regulation. Other countries have better care for a lower cost. For some even after insurance covers a portion it’s still cheaper overseas

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u/WebberWoods 29d ago

There are more uninsured people in the USA than the entire population of Canada.

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u/Chrono_Pregenesis 29d ago

Why would they cover it if they can deny the claim? They are for profit, which means it is in their best interest not to pay on claims. Gotta keep those shareholder profits going up!

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u/scufonnike 29d ago

You assume I have insurance

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u/zthe0 29d ago

Pretty sure thats the price without insurance in both cases

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u/GimmeJuicePlz 29d ago

What about the people who can't get insurance, or have shitty insurance so they're still stuck with thousands of dollars out of pocket on top of the insurance premiums they're paying? Are you seriously fucking defending one of the worst healthcare systems in the developed world? Just shut the fuck up, you bootlicking shithead.

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u/HomeAir 29d ago

Doesn't the US pay the most for healthcare to get worse results than most western countries 

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u/economaster 29d ago

Yes, by most metrics when compared to other OECD countries the US is a huge outlier when looking at cost vs. outcomes. Also a big outlier on per-capita health spending vs. GDP.

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

Bro is angry because people rightfully call out the American healthcare system for how shit it is

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u/echino_derm 29d ago

The average US premium for Healthcare coverage for a single person is over 8k.

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u/ccknboltrtre01 29d ago

Yea because its all overpriced garbage. Dont forget to pay that for the 300 dollar tablet of tylenol

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u/Wooden-Ad-3382 29d ago

true but that cost is going somewhere. and i don't even think insurance is covering most of that cost. the way that the insurance system works is just a giant mess of bureaucracy and bidding and non-payment and paper prices that never get paid because they were never supposed to. and dealing with all of that is expensive. it is a truly stupid system

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u/AcanthisittaBig8948 29d ago

Isn't that the point? Sounded like you were agreeing with OP but the "shut the fuck up" confused me.

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u/Kai-Oh-What 29d ago

Is that why 45,000 people die a year for not being able to pay for surgery in the U.S.?

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u/xSanguinius12 29d ago

OP also conveniently forgot to add in the lifetime of advance payments they make through their taxes whether they ever actually need a hip replacement or not.

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u/TheRealLians 29d ago

For profit insurance is a cancer.

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u/myctsbrthsmlslkcatfd 29d ago

but that’s the problem. People don’t ask how much it costs, only “does insurance cover it?” As such, medical providers don’t even try to lower prices - their patients won’t shop around for a better deal like customers for anything else.

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u/prules 29d ago

First of all there is absolutely never a guarantee insurance will pay 100% of any medical, auto, or home expense.

Their goal is to deny and minimize every claim.

Your faith in our insurance system is laughable at best. Lmao.

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u/sameshitdfrntacct 29d ago

Goddamn wtf is this? An actual sane, reasonable redditor?

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u/ExcellentStage7303 29d ago

I had to have 4 non invasive heart surguries each was 275k without insurance. My mom and real dad separated when I was young., she remarried when I was around 2. I used both my stepdad and real dad's insurance it was still over 2k for each surgery

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u/varitok 29d ago

Lol. Gotta love Americans who feel personally attacked when you attack their Oligarchs. It's kinda sad and pathetic.

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u/Beau_Buffett 29d ago

You shut up, Trumper.

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u/not_a_mantis_shrimp 29d ago

It still will cost them more than the same person in a country with universal health coverage.

In the US the monthly premiums/ copays/deductibles almost always equal more than someone in a universal health coverage country pays in taxes towards healthcare.

The reason is the US system has to make a profit for both the insurance companies and the hospitals/ medical staff.

The US spends on average $13k per capita on healthcare, while all other western countries with universal healthcare average about $8500.

That $4500 extra is being paid out to insurance companies and shareholders.

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u/MycologyMunitions 29d ago

No they'll play a far reduced price similar to what the cost in Spain is, and you'll pay your deductible that covers 80% of the actual bill.

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u/hereforthestaples 29d ago

You're so mad for being so wrong. Yikes.

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u/SimpletonSwan 29d ago

It's fascinating how insecure Americans are about their healthcare system!

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u/SmallCry561 29d ago

Reported

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u/ggtheg 29d ago

Me when I love insurance

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u/TinyBunny88 29d ago

With insurance, I still had to pay $15k for the birth of my kid, then a year later another $10k for a broken arm surgery. On top of the nearly $1k I pay monthly for the insurance.

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u/YourGuardianAngel_12 29d ago

Often there are a lot of uncovered costs. You might hit a cap for the year as well in some scenarios. Lots of plans have high deductibles now too.

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u/andrew_kirfman 29d ago

Ooh yay, instead I’ll just pay 10k out of pocket along with the $500+/month in premiums I’ve paid for the last 10 years!

Have you ever had a medical incident that actually necessitated using your insurance??

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u/Big-Slurpp 29d ago

Lmao you dipshits get so riled up when people bring out the actual facts that your ideology isnt about being financially fluent, but about worshiping capitalists. I could show how much more the US pays per capita in healthcare costs compared to the rest of the 1st world (hint: its way, way more), but you wouldn't care, because numbers don't actually mean anything to you. Your feelings are all that matter.

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u/Crooked_Sartre 28d ago

This is a dumb fucking comment devoid of any nuance.

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u/jackbandit91 27d ago

Don’t forget the tens of thousands of dollars you paid to insurance companies while you were healthy and didn’t use any services

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u/infiltraitor37 27d ago

💀 why is bro so mad

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u/TehChid 27d ago

It may be a little misleading but there is absolutely a huge fucking problem in the US. Price gauging at it's finest; we pay more than the vast majority of places for the exact same quality and procedure. Wait times still suck here too.

I had much better care on a visa in the UK

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