You can be fine for years, but a single, major medical event can zero out those salary gains and lead directly to bankruptcy. It's a systemic flaw that isn't obvious until it's your turn to deal with it.
Then all of a sudden fall ill, lose everything and return back to India.
People keep forgetting the US society is a giant stack/pyramid ranking system, the structure keeps getting narrow as you move upwards. You get pushed off the sides, in the ever narrowing funnel, and you need increasing levels of luck at every level to survive.
BTW, this is not just with regards to health care. You could lose your job, suffer from ageism. Lose your home, run out of money. A million different things can happen, that can cause the above said phenomenon.
Its shortsighted and plain stupid and properly selfish move. It works rather well short term if one simply doesn't give a fuck about suffering of others, but even thats shortsighted and stupid long term - we live in hyper-interconnected society and not some prepper wet dream, what goes around always comes around.
Another similar is public education, literally defining future of society. How dumb is to not have it in stellar shape, shitting on one's own kids and mankind future.
But hell will freeze sooner than majority of americans will realize and accept that. Till then, if its important enough for you, you can vote with your feet, its easier than ever.
You can pay a lot of money in premiums, have a $0 deductible, and now OoP maximum, and still end up having claims denied.
Should everyone (anyone?) receive monoclonal antibodies, gene therapies, biologic medications? What criteria should be used to make these determinations?
I had an MRI denied for a partial pectoral rupture. Which was a routine diagnostic as a precursor to open shoulder surgery to determine the extent and location of the rupture to figure out if surgery was absolutely necessary and to prep a viable surgical plan.
I had to fight the insurance company with the assistance of both my surgical and non-surgical sports medicine doctors.
The good news though appears to be that I imagined the entire thing, because denials for routine things never happen.
And from my personal experience with narcolepsy, AI is a much better doctor than most human doctors.
To give an example, about 60 to 80% of the time, when I visit the dentist for a regular cleaning the charge is denied and I have to submit additional paperwork to convince them to pay it. I can't think of any more simple and basic procedure than that.
I have no idea why your experience with healthcare in the US is so much better, but I can assure you that there are many people whose experience is more like mine.
Yes. Everything that they are trained and able to do here, is covered by the national insurance, at least where I live.
We never even have to explicitly ask them to approve anything, it's all automatic. You don't see the bill.
You might have to pay the difference for "nonessential upgrades", like a plastic cast instead of a normal one when you break your arm. Had to pay 5.00 EUR for that and it was the only time I had to pay out of pocket in my entire life.
Diagnostics aren't free, either: many (most?) countries do not have anything remotely resembling the private offerings that Quest Diagnostics and Labcorp provide (breadth of tests, 3+ different methodologies for some tests, etc.)
This is exactly what happens in the US. It's just that in your case the nonessential upgrade is a $5 cast. Sometimes the nonessential upgrade is an expensive surgery. My grandfather had heart surgery at 86 shortly before he died. My relatives went to 3 surgeons who all refused to perform surgery on the grounds that he was too old and frail for the procedure. Then they went to a fourth who agreed to perform it. The first three doctors were right, and he died a few months later. The insurance company quite correctly denied the claim and my family ended up fighting them over a bill for open heart surgery north of $50,000.
Your government wouldn't (and shouldn't) have paid for that surgery either. I think the real difference is that since you have a government system, that in your country that unnecessary surgery just never would have happened in the first place. I will admit this is a more efficient system, but it is no different in that there is a cost benefit analysis being done over what gets paid for and what doesn't whether you see it happening or not.
Yes, if that's an indicated and effective treatment.
Do you think people should just be left to die if they can't pony up the dough in the hospital? Oh, your card's declined, no oncology ward for you?
What if they have a 99% likelihood of death, are unlimited funds expended in this case?
What if there's a shortage on drugs - who should get the limited supply available?
Which country with public health options pays for biologic medications or similar patient-tailored solutions?
It depends on what would be an effective and indicated treatment.
> What if they have a 99% likelihood of death, are unlimited funds expended in this case?
Then treatment would neither be effective nor indicated. But if it was your parent, your child, your granny, wouldn't you rather they at least try?
> What if there's a shortage on drugs - who should get the limited supply available?
The people for whom treatment is most likely to be effective
> Which country with public health options pays for biologic medications or similar patient-tailored solutions?
The UK, for a start.
I realize some people are stuck with UHC. I’d turn down a job unless it was perfect in every other way and paid extremely well if they only had UHC plans.
More importantly, it doesn't solve the real problem. You're still subject to the same system. Fighting for prior authorizations, staying in-network, and navigating all the other administrative friction.
More than likely they'd find a way to make you go bankrupt rather than pay up. That or deny till you die.
I’m on the cheapest plan my company negotiated and my premiums are basically zero, because I’m young enough that most years I don’t spend more than a thousand bucks on health care (for me and my kids). Couple years ago I did hit the out of pocket max, though, and they did indeed cover everything from that point at 100%. I would never have gone bankrupt.
So high deductible it is! Only met the out of pocket max once and it was glorious.
Before Obama, the zero deductible plans were only slightly more expensive than the high deductible plans. (Just an observation)
Seems crazy I was able to make an appointment directly with a specialist and only pay the copay back then…
We're not the customers of healthcare, insurance, mortgages, etc. The planet's wealthiest pensioners are. No difference in comp is going to make that work out best for you.
Also, the existence of Cadillac plans implies that someone in our government doesn't believe the population at large should be receiving world-class care. It's like when Senator Biden had two cranial aneurysms, had top surgeons flown in on taxpayer dime, then fought against universal healthcare.
We're all already paying for the best healthcare in the world, just not for us.
We can say whether those maximums are still too high (some really are), but the mechanism is there.
The real issue is that most people don't have a rainy day fund to deal with such emergencies. And that they are too expensive anyway.
There are 2 concepts you should always keep in mind.
1. Always avoid the hospital unless you are literally dying. Surgery centers are owned by doctors who will negotiate a fixed fee, because there's someone to negotiate with (unlike Hospitals which run on the CYA principle). Also, most doctors can do procedures in office, if they have the right one.
2. Medical debt will never lead to collections. Hospitals may sue you, depending on the state, but that carriers reputational risk. A good PR push and a decent lawyer to threaten discovery will be enough to fend off even the most aggressive hospitals - this allow you to setle at a very reasonable price vs what insurance would normally pay.
"Always avoid the hospital" isn't a choice either. You don't "negotiate" with a surgery center for a heart attack, a stroke, or a major car accident, which are some of the common events that cause this. And the claim that "medical debt will never lead to collections" is factually incorrect.
It is the number one cause of collections in the United States. The idea that every citizen can just "hire a decent lawyer" or "run a good PR push" to settle debt isn't a functional or scalable mechanism, nor is it reality.
I'm sorry but if I need a hospital, my first thought isnt, "well how is their reputation".
I don't understand why people defend the insurance system in the US when you're already paying taxes. If it's not the responsibility of the government who you pay to take care of their people in an emergency then what are taxes for. It's like people just accept it because that's how it's always been.
What we have is all-you-can-eat ferrari care
Insurance is what i have when i drive my car , or get water damage insurance for my house.
The monster we have today is not insurance. Instead, it is the frankenstein born out of the womb of bureaucrats and politicians influenced by money. Decades of tinkering politicians without a clue, messing around with the relationship between the doctor and patient, responding to voting patterns of the electorate, led us to today.
Unless you blow it up, (and it will blow up, just like it happened in sweden) there's no solution, except paying more for ferrari all-you-can eat.