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Comment by inglor | Hacker News Reader

In Israel we have public healthcare. I was born at week 32 and spent about 6 weeks in the NICU - everything was free.

It's not always great and I do pay for private insurance in case I need something urgent - but everything emergency is absolutely covered.

I believe it's this state in most developed places that are not the US?

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It depends quite a bit on what happens in that NICU. Our daughter was 32 as well and had a relatively uneventful stay. Same for many other infants. Our (insurance) bill was ~30-40k and out of pocket was minimal. Other's were not so lucky, having all manner of procedures including bowel resections / repair, heart surgery, etc. Many things look routine but I can assure you pediatric heart surgery is anything but.

So, not to defend the (out of control) prices, but only to say no two NICU stays are exactly alike. We can run the gamut from "a nurse could handle 100% of their care" to "we need 4 different specialists with decades of experience each to keep this person alive" and the costs fluctuate accordingly.

It was free to you, but not the system. NICU is very expensive even outside the US, you’re talking several thousand a day. So 6 weeks could run $100,000+ easily.

Same in Argentina.

freedom isn't free! /s

Going bankrupt on a hospital bill isn't freedom, either.

Everything was not free, you just didn't pay directly for it while you were at the hospital.

I don't understand why the word free always gets thrown around for country's with socialized medicine. You are paying for it.

Because mental funds are non-fungible. Amortising health costs through progressive income tax helps a) keep overall costs down, as the state centrally organises the health system / collectively negotiates with providers and b) is more fair. It doesn't feel like you're being utterly screwed through no fault of your own - e.g.: medical bill after an accident or violent attack. Instead society at large acknowledges two things a) we all need medical care and b) our need is largely disconnected from our capacity to pay.

You don’t need to explain this. Everyone knows how “socialized medicine” works.

What they are saying is that it was zero out-of-pocket as opposed to a quarter of a million dollar bill.

Cool well since we're going with that logic I'll just go ahead and say my insurance provide through work is free.

Most roads in the USA are also "free", as are the police, etc. Healthcare elsewhere may be similar.

I've never once gone around calling police or roads free, nor have I heard anyone else do this.

True, but that said, rates in US hospitals are massively over-inflated. They get away with it, insurance companies are not pressuring enough to lower cost (they're probably in on it), and there is no real competition.

I don't disagree I just dislike the dishonesty being presented. The word free is used to make it seem much more palatable to put in universal healthcare and they know it. The reality is there are downsides to having universal healthcare.

In addition to the other replies to you: almost nobody pays $960k in taxes, but they still get this benefit.

Almost no one pays 960k in hospital bills either. That's an insurance negotiating price not what the patient sees.

Free in this context clearly means "free at the point of delivery" - we all know we pay for it in our taxes.

But in the case of the US, we pay for healthcare in our taxes, pay again as companies, and again pay co-pays as individuals.

I think I'd find the uncertainty that seem inherent in your system completely terrifying - its bad enough being sick but then to not know what that would cost seems crazy.

I can't help thinking of the book title by Aneurin Bevan, founder of the UK NHS: "In Place of Fear":

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2042463.In_Place_of_Fear

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneurin_Bevan

Yes, the uncertainty is by far the worst part. I personally won't seek medical help unless I am completely sure I have a problem I can't handle myself (which will likely get me killed eventually, but at least my family will be able to pay for the funeral). A large part of that is not having any way to pre-budget the cost. If I don't know for sure I have a problem I can't deal with, I could go through thousands of dollars worth of testing only to find that it's acid reflux. And at that point the reflux would become worse because I'll develop ulcers just thinking of the debt.

Nothing is free. Even if no money exchanged hands, someone put in some time and effort, which has a cost, even if it was just going and picking an apple for themselves to eat, from their own tree.

Pointing that out isn't helpful; it's not relevant to the point at hand, and everyone knows there is still a cost.

Yes, we are paying for it, but given that governments negotiate prices for 100% of the population you get much better deals. Also, looking at taxation rates in the USA [1] vs. Europe [2] I don't see a difference big enough to justify the need for privatizing healthcare.

Furthermore, considering the Europeans also get basically free higher education (I payed around 20USD every 3 months to get my CS degree) I believe people living in the US got a far worse deal.

Finally, I don't blame US citizens as I have many colleagues and friends from across the pond, but I don't understand how you guys can tolerate the practice of "lobbying", which is what created your healthcare system.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_the_United_States

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_in_Europe#/media/Fil...

The marginal cost to the patient for having that treatment was zero.

Meanwhile in the US the federal government spends 8% of GDP in tax payer funds on health care, for things like Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, etc. That's the same as the UK pays for health care, counting public and private expenditure combined. You are already paying the cost of an entire first world health care system in your federal taxes, and as an employee you and your company also still have to pay for your own private health care to actually get any treatment for yourself.

This American fixation with the word "free" always makes me chuckle. Aa when a bus driver in Las Vegas got angry when I asked them if thag was the "free" bus, and he angrily replied "it's not free, its complimentary " .

Is this a copy pasta? I see this exact story repeated in several sites/comment threads.

Maybe you saw it on a previous story where I shared it as well? If you look through my comments you'll find it. Albeit a bit more expanded I think. Sorry if this bothered you.

Ok then I assume that using the word free for the insurance I receive from my job is just fine?

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