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Comment by patientplatypus | Hacker News Reader

Well...doctors and nurses are some of the highest paid people in the US and these problems are directly caused by a lack of a social safety net and mental health care. It's like they took the Hippocratic oath and didn't think it applied to not bankrupting people for getting sick.

Color me completely unsympathetic.

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You misunderstand how the system works. Doctors don't have that much influence over how billing works. It's actually also more inconvenience for them the way it's fragmented now. They don't decide the amount country spends on mental health care, or economic rules which influence the social safety net. It's still a high risk job they're doing. The mental health care issues impact them too - see doctor suicide rates.

So you may want to direct that lack of sympathy towards people who created the system as it exists now instead of those working in it.

People become doctors because they want to become rich. If they wanted to help people they'd become fire fighters or social workers instead.

I see you don't know many doctors. Sure, some of them have that motivation, but that's a bad generalisation. (on the other extreme, you know that Doctors Without Borders exists, right?) There are also easier ways to get rich where you don't have to spend years training and working crazy hours.

There's also a big difference in required skills between doctors, fire fighters, and social workers.

Doctors make on average $294,000/year. And 2/3 of all bankruptcies in the US are caused by medical issues (https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/11/this-is-the-real-reason-most...).

Full stop doctors are profiting off the sickness and suffering of others, when they take an oath to do no harm.

Yes, I agree, the Doctors Without Borders people are saints (no sarcasm here - there are truly good people in this world). That is not the rule in the US - the rule is that we have greedy evil people who are making money off of cruelty.

Again, if that's what you think, if recommend taking to actual doctors. It's really not a "get rich quick" job.

Sure, the pay is very high, and they could live a good life with less. But it's not the biggest expense in the system overall - ie it doesn't really impact your bill that much. Other countries also have high doctor pay and don't suffer the same issues with healthcare billing, so concentrating your anger on people who actually do the work to help you is a bit misguided.

They take an oath to do no harm and the system they are supporting harms people. And they get a lot of money to do so.

I just disagree with you.

Hate the game, not the player.

It isn't doctors that deny US Americans a proper healthcare system instead of a "health business".

Those decisions are made way higher up on the political level, that's where you need to vent your frustrations.

That's ridiculous. If you want to help people, becoming a doctor is a very common choice.

You're "completely unsympathetic" that ER nurses (making a little over minimum wage in some cases) and on-call doctors are getting assaulted at work?

A few years back, my wife had to go to the ER due to sudden life-threatening illness. They were getting ready to stabilize her (barely) and turf her out because of an issue with health insurance (my employer was happy enough to take the premium out of the paycheck but never informed the insurance). It took a lot of pleading to keep her that night. A young black guy might well have been arrested.

Right now I am dealing with fantasy bills from an ER visit a few months ago.

The whole medical-industrial complex can die right now. I have no sympathies for anyone in it. If they get assaulted in the course of work, they earned it many times over.

I can totally see being upset with the people in administration and billing. But how can you be that upset with the doctors and nurses, when your whole complaint is that you wanted more of their attention?

The physicians and nurses are the public face of the healthcare mess. It's only natural that they would attract ire. You go to the physician and you know they'll overbill you. It's sickening. You get angry the moment you walk through the door.

You could stay home instead.

Yes stay home witha severe injury. Why does no one think of that? Are you even being serious or just making antagonistic posts?

The dude hates doctors and nurses so much that he thinks they deserve to be physically attacked. And yet he is desperate for their services. This is a contradiction. I’m attempting to point this out.

I can see that but suggesting a course of action that is absurd on its face doesn’t do anything to refute his stance. Medical treatment for a severe injury isn’t optional.

You can look at it the other way: you need physicians and nurses, and because you have no alternative they fleece you by any means possible, and the rule of law doesn't apply to them.

A couple of years ago I fell for the high-complexity drug testing scam at the intake visit. It goes like this: you pee in a jar, and they send it to an out-of-network lab. A few weeks later the 4.5 kUSD bill arrives, which isn't covered by insurance. Everyone denies responsibility: the physician says you gave us the sample, the insurance says out-of-network, and the lab says services rendered. The charges eventually went away, after several afternoons on the phone.

Civil society offers no solution. It's no surprise that people give way to their anger. There isn't even a contradiction.

Ridiculous. The best part about paying for a drug test is that it literally offers no benefit to the patient. He or she knows firsthand whether they took any drugs. (Excepting cases where something is slipped into a drink but that accounts for ~0% of tests performed.)

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