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Comment by Arnt | Hacker News Reader

What is it that does cost $5k? Keeping a mostly-unused tomography machine and crew ready in case someone at the ER needs it? Insurance premiums charged per patient who walks in the door?

We get these complaints in Germany too (where I currently live) BTW. "A five-minute drive with an ambulance shouldn't cost €500!" someone complained to the newspaper here recently. It doesn't, what costs €500 is keeping enough ambulances ready that one can arrive within x minutes with y% probability, for IMO overcautious values of x and y.

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€500 is still something many people can pay in Germany, 5k isn't something the average American can foot (with no treatment to boot). It's not at all a comparable complaint.

IIRC an ambulance ride in the US is 10-20k, that's indicative of just how much more medical care costs over there.

Sure, there's an extra digit. Much US healthcare seems to suffer from Extra Digit Syndrome.

What might be similar that the billable item is not the costly item. Of course I don't know the first thing about US health care costs (as opposed to billable items).

I have never heard of an ambulance ride costing anywhere _near_ $10K-$20K. The average, out-of-pocket price of an ambulance ride is much closer to $1000 - and often less. New York's 2012 fee schedule offers a good example: https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/fdny/downloads/pdf/about/fee-sch...

> a mostly-unused tomography machine and crew ready in case someone at the ER needs it

No hospital administration would allow this: they would refer you to a separate medical imaging clinic, or run one on hospital grounds that all departments would refer patients to.

eh in germany driving the ambulance is free - if you really need one. of course there are people who call the ambulance without too much reasons and even than as long as the amublance doctor will allow you to take the drive to the hospital you would still be on the safe side.

what German health insurance plan does not cover an ambulance ride in full?

it does, if you take the ride and are allowed (if you are healthy you probably need to pay) to take the ride.

Some of the PKV companies offer cheapish plans that effectively do not, or that make you pay the first €x00/month yourself. Things like that. They're marketed as insurance against big problems for a small price.

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