DEF CON's hacker-in-chief faces fortune in medical bills
theregister.com
theregister.com
I wonder if he has travel insurance or if he has a global healthcare plan. The article is vague about it. But it’s possible that his insurer isn’t even a US insurance company.
Best wishes to him in his recovery.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-marc-rogers-road-to-recov...
It seems like the only way to get health insurance in the US that actually helps you get health care is to get elected to Congress.
> [...] and nothing out of the ordinary showed up on a routine X-ray and an MRI wasn't possible due to insurance delays. [...] A week later, Rogers started losing some sensation in his hands and tried to have the MRI rescheduled, but the approval from his insurance company never came. [...] "Overnight I lost all sensation, all mobility, and became quadriplegic. [...] He begins a course of physical therapy today, but his insurance will only cover the first of three required weeks, [...]
In isolation, that last bit would only sound like normal unconscionable practices of a health insurance company. But in context of their prior shittiness resulting in great harm to the insured, it's like they're doubling-down. Are they so untouchable, that they don't have to care about optics?
I hope a really good lawyer contacts the victim, and they successfully sue the insurance company for a billion dollars. And that that provides a template for other victims to sue. A billion here, a billion there, and, pretty soon, and even the most sociopathic execs and boards have to start rethinking their practices.
If you want to blame someone, consider blaming the avaricious premium payers. And consider going easy on the blame. Blaming is easy but it makes you see people as avaricious when that's not reasonable.
Fire the highest-paid executive and pay for ten hospital treatments. Fire the next-highest, nine more. At some point you've fired all employees at all insurers, can't pay for lack of employees to do the chores, and even at that point the savings cover only a few of the rejected applications.
> If you want to blame someone, consider blaming the avaricious premium payers
What's an "avaricious premium payer"?
Yes, the worst-case scenario for health expenses is indeed bad in the US, this is true. However, this is not the average healthcare experience. It's not a matter of time until you're slapped with a bankruptcy-level bill.
My wife and I, both in our 50s, have had our share of insurance annoyances and frustrating phone calls, but we've had multiple surgeries fully covered by insurance. And this is the same with friends and family members, including at least 4 cancer treatments that did not lead to bankruptcy-level or even truly notable bills. This anecdote includes many people who died of "old age".
Worst-case scenario bills can be bad elsewhere too. For instance, a friend in Europe had to do a 250K GoFundMe campaign to pay for a life-saving treatment for his daughter because well, the only place in the world that performed the surgery she needed was... Guess where? The US. He faced bankruptcy for this bill, but friends and strangers were able to help him out to an extent. I think he's still recovering from the expense years later.
Medical bankruptcies and financially crushing bills are a sad possibility in the US, and certainly much more likely than in most other places. We need to keep working on this. But the vast majority of people will not have to face this problem in their lifetimes.
Absolutely wild to me that in the US you can have insurance - something that's supposed to completely cover the costs of very-expensive-but-very-low-probability events, like house fires - and yet you can still be bankrupted by the thing you've insured against.