Mastodawn

🅰🅻🅸🅲🅴 (🌈🦄)

US healthcare is so fucked! I just got a bill for $20 for a copay, so I checked the bill, and holy shit...

I have had three doctor visits this year:
- one to meet my new doctor (and get my jabs)
- one to sign paperwork for my chronic condition medication
- and one for lab work for my chronic condition medication

Amount I've paid (this year):
- ~$50 for copays
- ~$600 for visits
- ~$300 for medications

Amount paid by insurance: ~$1070

(which is notably less than the cost of 4 months of insurance premiums)

Amount insurance is still deciding on: ~$3700

Not only have I paid for the insurance, but I've also paid out at almost 50% of the cost of care so far, *and* I could be on the hook for nearly 4x that amount if insurance doesn't feel like paying.

Just saying, I wouldn't have ratted on Luigi.

#US #Healthcare

the elder sea 20h ago

@alice It should be illegal to have a copay. WTF am I paying insurance for if not for them to fucking insure me against the individual costs of all the things?

American healthcare (lolsob) is such a joke.

Kevin Karhan 20h ago

@eldersea @alice+9001%

https://jorts.horse/@kkarhan/116377218275840064

Kevin Karhan (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image @[email protected] @[email protected] that's absurdly expensive even by German standards... - Mine's 17,59% gross income, but that means basically no co-pay except dental & vision and non-prescription drugs, with drug costs capped at 1% net income, but even if I were to make €120k p.a. that would've been capped at < €500 p.m. or <€6k p.a. - almost as if regulating #healthcare as a utility & human right works! Source: [Net Income Calculator](https://www.nettolohn.de)

jorts.horse

@eldersea @alice the health profit extraction industry does not “care”

@alice the fact that you even have to pay copay when you already pay for visits and medications

Loohoosaher 20h ago

@thehole @alice it's like when cable started adding ads on top of already making a tidy profit from just charging for the service... Just because they can

Ms. Rachel Andry (Isn't Real)20h ago

@alice I love it that, unlike other national health care systems where you just go to the doctor, America's for-profit healthcare industry has decided that doctor's visits cost an arbitrarily exorbitant amount so that they can cover 80% of it and make it seem like you got a good deal. if, you know, they cover it at all.

Ms. Rachel Andry (Isn't Real)20h ago

@alice "this head of cabbage normally costs $200, but thanks to your food insurance it only costs $20! ...what do you mean it only costs $2 most other places? we have the best food distribution system in the world!"

Steffie 🏳️‍⚧️ :rubber_pride-heart-600: :triple-moon-transfem: 20h ago

@YKantRachelRead @alice …but the Free Market will fix this - just get multiple bids from doctors and hospitals while you’re sick and needing care.. or so I’ve been told.

Amo Bishop Rodent 19h ago

@steff @alice @YKantRachelRead

Let me just rub some Market Forces on that, should fix it right up

Inspired 11h ago

@steff @alice @[email protected] Don't forget to flex your equivalent market power. If none of the bids from the many medical facilities competing in your neighborhood are good, don't get the necessary medical procedure. Hold out for a better price even if it kills you.

kat donegan 🇵🇸✊20h ago

@alice when the empire falls, i hope you'll get a national health service out of it.

@alice Bonkers.

Kevin Karhan 20h ago

@alice JFC you'd be cheaper off paying cash in #Germany…

The Orange Theme 20h ago

@alice I would have smuggled Luigi out of the country in a suitcase.

DFX4509B (Joshua Mason)20h ago

@alice What you get when you have decades of lobbying by the for-profit healthcare industry.

diana 🏳️‍⚧️🦋🌱19h ago

"Insurance" is a total scam in the USA. Existing in the USA is being a target of the billionaires.

DFX4509B (Joshua Mason)19h ago

@dianea @alice Insurance is a legal protection racket, essentially. The only difference is if you lapse on your protection money, the insurers don't go and blow your kneecaps out, although United Health has essentially killed people who lapsed on their payments before or denied them potentially life-saving drugs.

Andrew Zonenberg 19h ago

@dfx4509b @dianea @alice no, they wait until you blow your kneecaps out due to an unrelated medical condition, then leave you hanging

🅰🅻🅸🅲🅴 (🌈🦄)19h ago

@dfx4509b @dianea no, they just let age do tgat (while the government fines you for not paying for the protection).

Andrew Zonenberg 19h ago

@dianea @alice But the scam gets worse: the insurance paid $1070, but also look at the amount they haggled the provider down, and count that towards the value it provided.

Because if you dare to not have insurance, you're not going to be paying $1070, you're going to be paying more like $5000 for the same services because you're not a 500 pound gorilla insurance company who can negotiate with a 500 pound gorilla hospital system. The same hospital system who knows the insurers are trying to fleece them so they jack up prices to exorbitant levels in order to leave room for "discounts".

Scams all the way down.

Andrew Zonenberg 19h ago

@dianea @alice Looking at a random insurance statement for example, the lab billed $390 for some routine bloodwork.

The insurer negotiated this down by $343, they paid $42, and we paid $5 out of pocket.

Andrew Zonenberg 19h ago

@dianea @alice So basically we're not paying the insurer to provide that $42.

We're paying them to go to the lab and go "nice bill you got there, would be a shame if nobody paid it. Here's $40, you better be happy with that or I won't be so generous next time"

diana 🏳️‍⚧️🦋🌱19h ago

@azonenberg @alice

For routine bloodwork, I usually pay about $65 cash. If I went though "insurance" they would likely charge $450 and I would only pay $100 and a $20 "deductible."

I remember major surgery was about $14,000 cash. Through insurance, most of my friends were paying about $100,000 for the same procedure, not sure what their responsibility of that was. But they had to wait a year or two of approvals and delays. I had my surgery within two weeks after offering cash.

@dianea @azonenberg @alice Yeah, insurance negotiates prices for a lot of common stuff way *up* in exchange for the providers agreeing to charge insurance less for some less common (but outrageously expensive) stuff. Cash prices for routine things are almost always far, far lower than insurance prices.

@alice I work for an insurer and have no problem with Luigi.

This shit is awful and if I knew how to make a living elsewhere, I'd already be gone.

@alice such a scam

I paid almost $10k last year in healthcare costs, including insurance premiums. Insurance premiums were like 70%+ of those bills.

Kevin Karhan 18h ago

@theowrites @alice that's absurdly expensive even by German standards...

Mine's 17,59% gross income, but that means basically no co-pay except dental & vision and non-prescription drugs, with drug costs capped at 1% net income, but even if I were to make €120k p.a. that would've been capped at < €500 p.m. or <€6k p.a.
- almost as if regulating #healthcare as a utility & human right works!

Source: Net Income Calculator

Kevin Karhan 18h ago

@theowrites @alice And mind you this is like the mandatory standard, not something fancy or barely eligible thing...

Zero copay for any of these...

🅰🅻🅸🅲🅴 (🌈🦄) (@[email protected])

US healthcare is so fucked! I just got a bill for $20 for a copay, so I checked the bill, and holy shit... I have had three doctor visits this year: - one to meet my new doctor (and get my jabs) - one to sign paperwork for my chronic condition medication - and one for lab work for my chronic condition medication Amount I've paid (this year): - ~$50 for copays - ~$600 for visits - ~$300 for medications Amount paid by insurance: ~$1070 (which is notably less than the cost of 4 months of insurance premiums) Amount insurance is still deciding on: ~$3700 Not only have I paid for the insurance, but I've also paid out at almost 50% of the cost of care so far, *and* I could be on the hook for nearly 4x that amount if insurance doesn't feel like paying. Just saying, I wouldn't have ratted on Luigi. #US #Healthcare

LGBTQIA.Space

Darkas Vim 19h ago

@alice
All the more reason to dust off and sharpen the guillotines.

Kit Bashir 18h ago

@alice what the actual fucking fuck? I knew the us system was fucked but i didn’t expect fuckoff sprinkles on top! For the uninsured here $80 for a GP visit is expensive (maybe a couple of hundred for tests) enough to make one consider changing providers. Since we have a national insurance scheme (cost is 1.5% of income), visits and tests are free and medications are about $15/mo each.

Roknrol like the slur 18h ago

@alice I was having chest pains a couple of nights ago and my wife asked, "Do I need to take you to Urgent care?" and I said, "No, I'll be fine. I can't afford urgent care."

May Likes Toronto 18h ago

@roknrol @alice That's so messed up.

🅰🅻🅸🅲🅴 (🌈🦄)18h ago

@roknrol I've had similar evenings. Ugh 🫂

Allan Chow 18h ago

@roknrol @alice urgent care to me is a sign of the system falling apart

Roknrol like the slur 18h ago

@alice Clearly I was fine, because I'm not dead as far as I can tell.

@roknrol @alice

Congrats on still being alive, but your heart may have been injured. I hope that is not the case for you.

It sucks that you can't get the medical care you need.

@roknrol @alice A few years ago I started having trouble breathing (a bad asthma attack, although at the time I didn’t know what it was as I didn’t know I had asthma). I took an Uber to the hospital, 8 minutes and US$15, instead of $1,000 for an ambulance and endless paperwork.

American health care.

@alice
The US doesn't have a healthcare system, it has a medical industry.

Я⊛ḶḶ model ☭18h ago

@TicklishHoneyBee @alice

'medical industry' implies functionality. what we have here is an insurance scam that takes your money with no intention of providing healthcare.

Rennan Castro 18h ago

@alice
Come to Brazil ~ we have universal healthcare!
(it means it is not only for brazilians)

Я⊛ḶḶ model ☭18h ago

does this mean i could get my legs waxed, too?

Rennan Castro 17h ago

@saltywizard @alice About that I don't know ~ but I do know that they offer hormonal treatment for trans people.

Lena Riot ☭18h ago

@alice without American Healthcare being shitty, there wouldn't be Breaking Bad tho, which is a great show.

Darth Osler 18h ago

@alice Saint Luigi

Pomegranate_Stew 18h ago

@alice
We have insurance that “pays”, but choose to do self-pay for our daughter’s care because while it doesn’t apply to the deductible, it saves us $300 a year. We also don’t use our prescription insurance because our choices are Walgreens, which we refuse to use for moral reasons, and a pharmacy that we’d have to drive to another town to use.

But if we have some massive issue requiring hospitalization it’ll be there, after our $13,000 family deductible. 👍

The Sleight Doctor 🃏🍉18h ago

@alice You know what the worst part is? The political party currently leading in the polls here - where we have universal free healthcare! - wants to dismantle the NHS and transition to a USA-style insurance system.

And millions of fellow Brits who don't appreciate just how fucking lucky we are, don't mind if this happens because Reform UK are also promising mass deportation of "illegals".

Morgan Fletcher 18h ago

@ApostateEnglishman @alice as a citizen of the USA, this sounds very familiar. They will sleep walk right into it, if not awakened. Ref brexit and Trump

- Captain Obvious

Aura Everitt 17h ago

@ApostateEnglishman @alice I so want to agree with you, but as a trans person in the UK I can tell you we don't have anything like universal free healthcare.

The Sleight Doctor 🃏🍉17h ago

@aura @alice Noted - and thank you for pointing that out. I did a brief stint taking 111 calls for the NHS, and raised in a management meeting that the NHS Pathways system (the branching, flowchart-style series of questions they ask you when you phone), completely ignores trans people.

It assumes a gender binary, whichever outcome you reach.

And yes, I can confirm that no-one could address my concern.

Bongmaster 16h ago

@alice @ApostateEnglishman its terrifying how insanely stupid people are -_-

George Saich 10h ago

@ApostateEnglishman @alice 🤦