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Comment by danans | Hacker News Reader

> I would rather be uninsured and take my chances

So you won't seek medical treatment at a hospital if you get injured or become severely ill? Or do you plan to go to the hospital and pay out of pocket? Or, like some other voluntarily uninsured people, will you ask for medical treatment and then just not pay?

> than work a low waged job and pay for Obamacare.

Why would a "low waged" job be a requirement, unless that's the only job you can get? You can pay for Obamacare with a middle or high wage job too. You can also pay for it if you are self employed (which is a lot of people on Obamacare).

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I would absolutely do the same if I worked a low wage job. Despite our messed up insurance situation, US laws regarding access to emergency care and bankruptcy are very progressive.

Someone making $15/hr is likely does not have any assets that would be surrendered in chapter 7 bankruptcy. A lot of people would gladly crater their credit score for a few years to delete an $80,000 bill. Plenty of people crater their credit scores over dumber stuff.

You don’t even need to declare bankruptcy. Most hospitals will just write it off if you talk to them and work it out.

this may be the most depressing post in the whole thread - healthcare is fucked, insurance is too expensive for normal people, but hey, bankruptcy is pretty easy!

I think he is saying that for many people it's just too much money. And that if they would be denied care, then so be it.

This is where it gets uncomfortable, isn't it? That their lives are so miserable, that they would gladly trade away years and years of expected lifespan for higher quality of life.

It’s illegal to turn anyone down in the ER for their ability to pay (at most hospitals). If you show up with an emergency, you will get treated, and the bill comes afterwards. Now, you’re definitely not going to get a luxury treatment, but they will patch you up so you’re not dying.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Medical_Treatment_...

It isn’t the way we should want this to work, but it is certainly something that people actually do.

The ER isn't going to offer you cancer treatment, pay for costly prescriptions or provide the medical care, routine and otherwise, that is often required to live a long life.

Yeah, anything that requires long term treatment would be a problem, because EMTALA is only good until you get stabilized enough to discharge, and when you come back, it’s scheduled care and not an emergency.

I expect any reason for me to go to a hospital to basically cost me $30k+ without insurance. My plan is to go to the hospital and then declare bankruptcy and hope I don't need to go to the hospital again for another 7 years. I deliberately make lifestyle changes to avoid hospitalization. I don't ride bicycles or motorcycles. I don't play sports. I don't do manual labor or work with saws. I don't drive at night (not sure if this is any real difference but it makes me feel safer).

This is the life I have in capitalist America. I'm afraid to do basic things like ride a bicycle in fear of it financially crippling me to the point that I'm incapable of paying rent and becoming homeless

Well seeing as a sizable majority of human history has gotten by without health insurance for...I don't know, 10k years plus, as I've said, I'll take my chances. As for paying out of pocket, there are plenty of local urgent care centers where their business model is basically only cash. They do things from popping cysts, removing hangnails, to stitches. Lots of stuff that if you went to a hospital, would cost triple or more simply because of insurance.

I'm saying low waged as in I make $14/hr or less. I mean it boggles my mind that you'd even say that because there frankly, is a large portion of the US who don't make Silicon Valley salaries.

For a long part of the sizeable majority of human history, the average lifespan varied from 25 years to 30 years tops.

The reason mortality rates were so high was primarily due to child mortality from disease, virus, or bacterial infection. Not because people just dropped dead after 30 years. Once people got outside of the age of 20+, the average lifespan drastically improved for the individual since they survived the most difficult portion of life in terms of survival.

Actually, one of the leading causes of death, apart from early child mortality was bacterial infection caused by bad dental hygiene. Not to mention a host of other diseases that waited for them such as cholera, Typhoid, TB, etc. People didn't magically live off till their 60s and 70s and 80s after becoming 20 years old. Your statement of average lifespan "improving" for individuals is simply nonsense.

> Your statement of average lifespan "improving" for individuals is simply nonsense.

It’s factually correct. For example [0]:

Life expectancy increases with age as the individual survives the higher mortality rates associated with childhood. For instance, the table above listed the life expectancy at birth among 13th-century English nobles at 30. Having survived until the age of 21, a male member of the English aristocracy in this period could expect to live:

1200–1300: to age 64

1300–1400: to age 45 (because of the bubonic plague)

1400–1500: to age 69

1500–1550: to age 71

17th-century English life expectancy was only about 35 years, largely because infant and child mortality remained high. Life expectancy was under 25 years in the early Colony of Virginia, and in seventeenth-century New England, about 40 percent died before reaching adulthood.

During the Industrial Revolution, the life expectancy of children increased dramatically. The under-5 mortality rate in London decreased from 74.5% in 1730–1749 to 31.8% in 1810–1829.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Variation_over...

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