The US Healthcare Mass Debate

[Brian Peacock]

Ouch.

[macdoc]

Wonder if Seth ever got cancer ...he figured he could cover any bills with his $100k ...

[JimC]

If you don't pay, do they send around the heavies to whip you with stethoscopes?

[Brian Peacock]

No, they just sell the debt on and garnish your wages untill you're dry.

[Tero]

It's the hospitals' own fault for not taking spare kidneys in exchange for services.

[Sean Hayden]

It's so crazy I can't take it seriously. Unfortunately you have to, I just don't know how people do it.

[L'Emmerdeur]

It's easy to run up a monstrous bill when you use a mark-up of 675% for things like sutures.

A former nurse at Scripps Memorial Hospital showed columnist @Davidlaz screenshots of the facility’s electronic health record system.

The screenshots show price hikes ranging from 575% to 675% being automatically generated by the hospital’s software.

- Los Angeles Times · Dec 10, 2021

[Tero]

Medical debt

In Minnesota, Allina Health encourages its patients to sign up for an account with MedCredit Financial Services to "consolidate your health expenses." In Southern California, Chino Valley Medical Center, part of the Prime Healthcare chain, touts "promotional financing options with the CareCredit credit card to help you get the care you need, when you need it."

As Americans are overwhelmed with medical bills, patient financing is now a multibillion-dollar business, with private equity and big banks lined up to cash in when patients and their families can't pay for care. By one estimate from research firm IBISWorld, profit margins top 29% in the patient financing industry, seven times what is considered a solid hospital margin.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-sho ... als-profit

[Tero]

https://c.im/@shansterable/111258375468590353
Found on Mastodon

[Tero]

From there
shansterable
Shannon Skinner (she/her)
@shansterable@c.im
In the US, our for-profit heath insurance premiums increased 7% this year.

For about half of Americans, health insurance coverage is tied to their job. Employers pay 71% on average for the cost of family coverage (now $24,000 per year), while employees pay the balance (now $6,575 per year).

“Employers spend all this money on health insurance because they want to recruit and retain the best staff they can.”

Translation: Employers spend all this money on health insurance because they want to lure you into employment out of desperation for health insurance coverage and entrap you out of fear you will lose your coverage the day you quit."

The average annual salary in the US is $59,428. Your employer would rather pay the equivalent of almost half your salary to a for-profit, health care profiteer than pay their fair share in taxes to support a single-payer system that would relieve them of their responsibility for your health insurance.

her link
https://www.benefitspro.com/2023/10/18/ ... 0918211835