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Comment by roywiggins | Hacker News Reader

it's funny seeing comments like this on the same website where people insist- not unreasonably- that buying $3k ergonomic office chairs and motorized sit-stand desks for office workers is a must. Why can't they sit on piled up packing pallets? It's much cheaper and still kind of chair-shaped.

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I don't believe the parent comment is saying people who need wheelchairs should get a cheaper worse option, they are pointing out that reasonable options in Germany exist for less than a grand whereas in the US, these reasonable options are borderline unaffordable

The Amazon results in the US are basically the same. You can buy chairs for $200 in the same way you can buy a bike from Walmart for $200. $200 chairs aren't suitable for day-to-day mobility, especially outside. This article I found in another comment explains the difference:

https://www.sammcintosh.com/blog/wheelchairtypes0620

Hospital chairs and everyday chairs are both technically wheelchairs, but they are totally different products for different purposes.

We're not talking about tech bros here but ordinary people desperate to get any wheel chair at all and then having to settle for some garbage quality insurer approved over priced thing that may or may not ship on a 6 month schedule.

I don't think these wheel chairs have any magical properties over the stuff used in Germany. Other than that they are really expensive.

You can buy that sort of chair in America too, often called "hospital" chairs, for about the same price. They are "one size fits all" and therefore don't fit anyone. They are not designed to be used long-term. This link from another comment explains the difference:

https://www.sammcintosh.com/blog/wheelchairtypes0620

If you need a wheelchair for a couple weeks it's fine. If you need it for life, not so fine. People who can't afford a proper day chair or are mired in insurance hell sometimes make do with them, but they can suck ass. They're totally different products and are suitable for different uses.

They're different chairs; $200 hospital chairs on Amazon have no relationship to the price of the sort of chair the company from the article is working on.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41716302

I would love to see some comments from German wheelchair users on this. I don't think US has particularly high or different standards for this stuff. I do know its healthcare system is a bit of a basket case.

The chairs on Amazon.de and Amazon.com are the same exact cheapo "hospital" chairs that aren't suitable for long-term use for most people. Germans aren't all zipping around on cheap hospital chairs any more happily than Americans are.

https://www.amazon.de/-/en/PEPE-Wheelchair-Lightweight-Trans...

https://www.amazon.com/Drive-Medical-Wheelchair-Removable-Fo...

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