Comment by devilmoon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by devilmoon | Hacker News Reader

My mom is alive thanks to this machine!

A few years ago she got Legionella pneumophila and had to go in pharmacological coma for more than a month in order to survive, we were very lucky because my dad decided to not trust our GD and bring her to the biggest hospital in the city (only one of two with an ECMO in the whole country at the time).

I thank the amazing people working in medical research for this amazing device, had she got ill a few years before she would've surely died, instead thanks to human ingenuity she is still here, was able to see her son graduate and I hope we will be able to share many more years together. Seriously, if you work on these machines, thanks from the bottom of my heart and keep up the good work!

P.s.: What the actual fuck is up with the US and its medical costs? 4 million dollars for a stay hooked to this machine? We paid a grand total of 0€ for the whole stay, and after being in the ICU for close to two months my mom spent at least another three in the hospital. This is crazy, even if you add up a life time of taxes paid into the system by all our family members you wouldn't even begin to get close to that kind of number. I am truly convinced socialized healthcare is the only way forward, thinking that my mom could've been dead because we didn't have enough money in the bank sound so fucking dystopian

Assuming the patients were covered by insurance it's unlikely they paid anywhere near that amount. Those were the hospital's costs.

It's very unlikely they would pay anywhere near that amount if they weren't covered by insurance either.

However, under a socialized healthcare system it's completely unlikely they would pay anything at all. That distinction probably saves lives on stress-relief alone.

^ This is the main point. I've heard people in the US say stuff like 'I'm one trip to the hospital away from bankruptcy', and I honestly couldn't bear living with that thought always in the back of my mind. What if you fell ill and didn't want to become a burden for your family? Do you off yourself? Do you become the next Walter White? This is absurd.

Haven't done much research into that, so perhaps someone else did already - where was this tech invented and where this tech was implemented for the first time?

>This is crazy, even if you add up a life time of taxes paid into the system by all our family members you wouldn't even begin to get close to that kind of number. I am truly convinced socialized healthcare is the only way forward, thinking that my mom could've been dead because we didn't have enough money in the bank sound so fucking dystopian

If you didn't pay for it, somebody did.

Why should a stranger be forced to pay for your medical care?

>Why should a stranger be forced to pay for your medical care?

Those who don't want to pay for others usually leave for the US. I've known Europeans or Indians too who think there are too many havenots in their country who will be dependent on state for their care and they knew who will foot the bill, so they left for the US.

There are all kind of people, some prefer private healthcare because they want to receive cutting edge treatment for all money they've and there are some who want to receive free treatment even if cutting edge treatment is not feasible for all of them.

> If you didn't pay for it, somebody did.

The tax payers. It's a government service, just like policing or firefighting.

> Why should a stranger be forced to pay for your medical care?

You may want to revisit this question if you ever find yourself in need of medical care. Ultimately, it boils down to which way you prefer to play the game of life - in a cooperative way, or dog-eats-dog, you against the whole world way?

>Why should a stranger be forced to pay for your medical care?

It's always nice to know that there are human beings around that would prefer not to pay a very small sum of money into the system in order to save the life of another human being because apparently taxation is theft. What kind of fucked-up world view is that? Do you really believe that the life of someone with a fat bank account has more intrinsic value than that of someone who is poor? Law and Healthcare should be the two things where everyone is completely equal and deserving of the same respect and care, the money you make should never dictate whether you live or die.

I really, truly hope you will never find yourself in the situation where a loved one's life is hanging by a thread, and that thread might be cut just because you ran out of money. If you can't emphasize with someone in that situation, or worse it, you can imagine yourself not caring or rationalizing the outcome, then I feel very sorry for you and hope you'll be able to find peace within yourself and learn to love other human beings a bit more.

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