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Comment by munk-a | Hacker News Reader

When I lived in the states I was on a medication I needed to get filled every month (Methylphenidate for the curious) due to life situation my cost to do so varied in this manner over the span of half a year:

30$ (1$/pill) while on uni insurance

0$ on state healthcare while unemployed (Green Mountain Care)

270$ (9$/pill) while employed and not qualifying for employer healthcare

120$ (4$/pill) while employed with my brand name uncovered (but discounted due to an Aetna preferred rate)

3$ (10c/pill) while employed after switching to the generic

Healthcare costs in the US are unpredictable, arbitrary and cruel.

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Yeah. A lot of people focus on the insured vs uninsured gap - if you're uninsured you're fucked. But the reality is that, even with insurance, medical care is a disaster. Finding a doctor in your network, waiting months to see them, completely unpredictable costs that, to me, borders on fraud, etc.

I've recently started a company, and at the same time a friend was laid off, and over the last 6 or so months I've gotten to experience the absurdity of this system from a few angles. It has been eye opening.

The whole waiting months thing is so shameful, since it is a major talking point from people arguing in favor of the status quo. They point to wait times in Canada, which are entirely misinterpreted and never point to the fact that it can take months to see a specialist in your network in the US. Heck, the number of times I've been told "this Dr. is not taking any new patients" or some version of that, is astronomical.

I'm up here in Canada - my wife's uncle had to wait three months for cataracts surgery, cataracts surgery is good in the long run and extremely non-urgent. He also had to have a rotoplasty in his heart to clear out plaque, he was booked into surgery within a week - my wife's aunt fell off a cliff (a small one) and got a concussion, she had excellent care.

In Canada non-urgent procedures have moderate wait lists, and urgent procedures get immediate attention. In the US monied patients get immediate attention and poor patients get long wait lines.

Honestly, this rationing BS needs to stop, the people spreading it are either maliciously disingenuous or misinformed and I'd bet quite a few are acting maliciously.

It's pretty crazy how this works. Despite having pretty good coverage, I often use GoodRx because the prices are so much cheaper than using my insurance...

Ha! So I work adjacent to the insurance industry and, hilariously, sometimes tier based copays on medication fills can exceed the pharmacy's price - usually pharmacists will catch this and just never bill the insurer, but sometimes patients can end up paying more for a drug because of their insurance.

Healthcare is all kinds of insane at every level.

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