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Comment by pfortuny | Hacker News Reader

Well, as long as you are willing to wait about six months for knee surgery, yes, it is free.

Or for any other type of intervention.

There is a 3 month gurantee. If they have not diagnosed you, and started treatment within that periode, you're free to go to a private clinic or hospital, free of charge.

At least in wife's case there was an additional 4 month gap between "starting treatment" and actual surgery.

And with expected times like that, you are entirely free to use a private hospital/clinic. Both myself and my wife have done so twice.

for certain conditions 3 months wait can be very serious.

Yes, but this is a general trentment gurantee. If you get cancer the times have to be shorter, and are shorter usually messured in weeks. It's better but still not good. If there is suspected cancer, you should get diagnosis started the same or next day, and treatment/surgery within a week.

Uhh, hate to break it to ya, but even with insurance its not all roses and sunshine in the USA, you can easily go 6 months waiting for a knee replacement here. Watched a family member go through 4 over the past decade, and its a slow process no matter the insurance provider.

Plus, hospitals here on the West Coast have amped up doing a bunch of skeezy stuff recently, you could easily end up with a non-functional leg at a place like Swedish or Providence (two major hospital systems):

https://projects.seattletimes.com/2017/quantity-of-care/hosp...

How does one person need 4 knee replacements in 10 years?

Because American health care payments are based on quantity and not quality? ;-)

Partially, the upstream vendor (Stryker) made some defective knee replacement joints that wear out prematurely, causing pain and issues walking. Opening the knee back up and replacing most of the parts with better designed parts is what has to be done after a decade, then you get to sit there for months and heal.

Poor post-op care for the initial two, combined with Stryker making some very low quality knee replacements. Thus why you'd need another knee replacement after a decade

That's devastating :(

Aggressive rheumatoid arthritis could be one reason.

Vs in the US where specialists just tell you that your problems are chronic, are pre-existing so not covered by insurance, and that nothing can be done for you.

and prescribe you Oxy for the pain...

Both chronic and pre-existing conditions are now covered by insurance.

Granted, a large number of the chronic conditions people face are caused by lifestyle choices and doctors don't have the power to make people want to change how they live their lives.

Not smoking, eating less crap and exercising more would drastically reduce the amount of chronic health conditions Americans face.

High blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, COPD and a host of other problems would drop dramatically if people lived healthier.

Maybe, but I've never heard of someone being told that their treatment is not covered, while in US insurance companies always try to weasel their way out of paying for treatment if they can.

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