Well it Finally Happened (Healthcare Rant Thread)

[Skip]

Someone I know in real life died because he couldn't afford healthcare.

This is a family that had spotty employment/health insurance and in the past few years apparently gave up on any kind of insurance because of the cost. They were barely getting by and living on the generosity of family/friends. Made too much for subsidies/medicare/Medicaid. They could have stopped working to qualify but always struggled to try.

The husband got sick (we still don't know with what) and died. Left behind his wife and kids. All we know is he had a high fever for days and then passed. Nearly 45 years old and otherwise healthy AFAIK.

I know this was a reality before the ACA for folks who made bad choices, BUT prior to that "law" a working family could still find care. Now? Good luck if you fall in between the gap of welfare and a gov/solid corporate job with benes.

[ray1970]

I'm not a healthcare expert by any means, but maybe the guy should have seeked medical attention regardless of his coverage status.

[Skip]

I'm not a healthcare expert by any means, but maybe the guy should have seeked medical attention regardless of his coverage status.

I'm not either but I've watched this disaster unfold (ACA). And I'm sure they haven't always made the best life choices.

The most expensive care is, the more calculated that decision.

If he could walk in to urgent care, pay $60, get a script, and get well, I'm sure he would have. (ETA: Shit, I would have happily paid it for him!)

When you actually pay your bills and care is this expensive, you are taking that money from somewhere else. Rent, groceries, gas, etc... Even for our family this is a big deal because our standard co-pays are $45 and our specialist co-pays are $90. One of our kids had to see a specialist this year and we had to budget those co-pays.

[ray1970]

I'm not trying to be argumentative and I see the angle you're looking at it from.

My only point is (and I would wager his family would agree with me) that you can't really put a price on your life. If you're so jacked up that your condition is going to kill you maybe the smart decision is to go to the ER and get help and figure out the financial side of it later.

Not having health insurance, I'd also be willing to bet he didn't have life insurance either. Now he's gone (along with any income he provided for the family), funeral arrangements are going to cost money they don't have, and generally his family is going to be worse off in every way.

Also, your statement about paying medical bills and having to cut into the food or rent budget is kind of bogus. In the real world you pay the rent and groceries regardless and if there's any money left after that then maybe it goes towards medical bills.

[Zundfolge]

The wife and I pay $300/mo (plus about $50/quarter) for the top-of-the-line plan with CHM http://www.chministries.org/

No, it doesn't pay for preventative care or prescriptions, but we're not avoiding treatment and/or going bankrupt if we get cancer or in a car wreck or something.

Currently these health care sharing programs only exist for Christians as a religious liberty exemption to the ACA, but if we could get the GOPers to actually repeal the ACA I think these kinds of systems could be put in place for lots of people.

[Gman]

The government has really screwed up healthcare. I pay way more for less coverage since the ACA went into effect. We were supposed to pay less and have better coverage according to the lies.

My wife was born in Canada, so she has real experience with government healthcare. She got to see how nationalized healthcare gets pared out based on your age, risk, the potential expense of treatment vs. the future taxes received from the patient. She got to see her god-mother get diagnosed with cancer and delay after delay until she was dead.

There's nothing in the Constitution about the federal government being involved in 90% (I'm being generous) of the stuff they're involved in. Insurance should be left up to the states.

It used to be that if you didn't have money, including healthcare coverage, you could go to the county hospital for treatment.

Sorry to hear about your acquaintance's death.

[hollohas]

I am a sole income earner and pay $674 per month for family coverage. Individual deductible is $3,000, then 80/20 and out-of-pocket max is $6,000. Double those numbers for family.

I have a baby due in Dec. We just reached our deductible for my wife. BUT...my plan year starts over on Oct 1st so we start all over again paying 100% out of pocket.

When the baby is born, he will start getting charged hospital fees as well...basically we'll be paying for two people inpatient hospital stays for a few days.

When it's all said and done, we'll have paid somewhere in the range of $10k @ 100% out of pocket NOT including our premiums (which add up to $8,000/year). For those doing the math, that's $18k I'm shelling out to have a baby. And that's COVERED.

My 1st kid in 2009 cost us about $1,500 out of pocket, not including premiums which were less than half back then.

Yeah, the ACA sucks.

[Skip]

I'm not trying to be argumentative and I see the angle you're looking at it from.

My only point is (and I would wager his family would agree with me) that you can't really put a price on your life. If you're so jacked up that your condition is going to kill you maybe the smart decision is to go to the ER and get help and figure out the financial side of it later.

Not having health insurance, I'd also be willing to bet he didn't have life insurance either. Now he's gone (along with any income he provided for the family), funeral arrangements are going to cost money they don't have, and generally his family is going to be worse off in every way.

Also, your statement about paying medical bills and having to cut into the food or rent budget is kind of bogus. In the real world you pay the rent and groceries regardless and if there's any money left after that then maybe it goes towards medical bills.

I understand and I agree completely with your first few paragraphs. I don't think he, his family, or anyone else knew he was putting a price on his life. I think he thought it was just an illness and would pass. Kept dealing with it until it was too late.

Yes, no life insurance. No planning. Given how much they relied on family I think that will be the primary source of support. Like I said, they didn't make the best of choices. But the safety net they (and all of us) are forced to into wasn't there. I even wonder if she'll get a social security survivor benefit. If so, it won't be much.

Obviously, I do things differently and most people I know do too. I have life insurance and an awareness of how bad things would be for my family if I passed. I wouldn't let an illness overcome me if for no other reason than how it would impact my family.

I was saying if you pay your bills, you will cut back to find a way to pay what you owe. Even if you have to make payments. If you don't care, I guess if a person doesn't care, he can say he has priorities. When I was younger, this is how I used credit and I had to learn I needed to stop and start finding a way to live within the means I had.



The wife and I pay $300/mo (plus about $50/quarter) for the top-of-the-line plan with CHM http://www.chministries.org/

No, it doesn't pay for preventative care or prescriptions, but we're not avoiding treatment and/or going bankrupt if we get cancer or in a car wreck or something.

Currently these health care sharing programs only exist for Christians as a religious liberty exemption to the ACA, but if we could get the GOPers to actually repeal the ACA I think these kinds of systems could be put in place for lots of people.

They are Christians. I don't know if they knew/thought about this. I think the $300/month would have been hard for them and he still would have had a problem with paying for primary care/RX.



The government has really screwed up healthcare. I pay way more for less coverage since the ACA went into effect. We were supposed to pay less and have better coverage according to the lies.

[snip]

Sorry to hear about your acquaintance's death.


Yes, I agree! They are making it worse and that is my perspective. We had something problematic in 2009, but they've made it impossible in 2017.

And thanks.



The family glitch is my guess in this situation. It kills people.

[snip]

I'm not sure what % of people this affects, but it has to be a lot of them. I myself would prefer to go without insurance. It is an incredibly poor investment in our system, akin to paying someone for "protection". Even paying over $1000 a month I was still left paying everything out of pocket. Fuck this system.

I think that is exactly what is in play. As I hinted above, they could feign a disability or stop working (or hustle under the table) and gotten a subsidy/Medicare/Medicaid. The system encourages this.

I have a really close friend who talks about this with me a lot. Their situation is difficult too... One spouse works for healthcare and retirement. That's it, she doesn't see a dime of what she works for. The other has to pay all the bills. They also know the deceased too so I think we will be talking about all of this (again) next time we get together. They were actually half-joking about getting fake divorced to get on a program!

[CS1983]

I am a sole income earner and pay $674 per month for family coverage. Individual deductible is $3,000, then 80/20 and out-of-pocket max is $6,000. Double those numbers for family.

I have a baby due in Dec. We just reached our deductible for my wife. BUT...my plan year starts over on Oct 1st so we start all over again paying 100% out of pocket.

When the baby is born, he will start getting charged hospital fees as well...basically we'll be paying for two people inpatient hospital stays for a few days.

When it's all said and done, we'll have paid somewhere in the range of $10k @ 100% out of pocket NOT including our premiums (which add up to $8,000/year). For those doing the math, that's $18k I'm shelling out to have a baby. And that's COVERED.

My 1st kid in 2009 cost us about $1,500 out of pocket, not including premiums which were less than half back then.

Yeah, the ACA sucks.

Look into CHM like Zundfolge mentioned. We have it as well for my wife and kids. I'm covered through VA. CHM caps at $450 per family at the Gold level, per month; children are apparently considered one unit because when we added baby #2, they told us our rate would not increase beyond the current $300 we pay (wife and 2 kids[one unit]). If you opt into Brother's Keeper program (which I recommend), catastrophic is covered.

Deductible is $500 per incident?/per year? I need to confirm on that.

Anyway, Little Jimmy's sniffles aren't covered. But if he breaks his leg, that's covered. And if you get enough discounts for self pay status, or for paying all at once, CHM will often waive the $500. Nor are scripts covered. However, you just fall under 'self pay" at the doc's. We pay something like $50 or $75 for one of those visits. Prescription is almost always generic and thus cheap.

The money we save is incredible. When my company sent me the "benefits" package for health care, I literally lol'ed at how utterly retarded it was compared to CHM.

Our first kid cost us our premiums (which at the time was $150 a month). Our 2nd cost us... our premiums, which was by then $300 a month.
CHM is a no brainer.

[OtterbatHellcat]

Fuck this system.

And all the rest of them.

[Wiggity]

Very tragic. Sorry to hear this.

When it really comes down to it, you can go to the ER and they can't refuse treatment whether or not you can pay for it. He could have totally gone to a doctor. I'm not sure the healthcare system is 100% to blame for this.


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[Skip]

Situation is, any of us can have a genetic ticking time bomb, which may be at play here. A weak artery somewhere, an aneurysm ready to rupture, etc.

Then you get reasonably serious illness that stresses the system, but you should otherwise be able to walk off.

A+B = dead in that circumstance. You can't always say "why didn't he go to a doctor before it was too late?" Some people dealing with a routine illness go suddenly and it is a shock. Would proper care help even in these circumstances? Maybe, but not always. Physicals etc can catch the underlying problem. Early medical care can ease the "stress". Either could avert being dead, in some, but not all situations.

Something for everyone to remember though is always go in if it gets serious. Even if you rack up $500,000 in hospital bills, you can declare bankruptcy if need be, and still keep your house, your car, stuff in your house, your job, etc. If you get a serious diagnosis (e.g. cancer) go buy a policy. They can't deny for pre-existing. As far as the IRS penalty, just don't check the box on the form as to if you have had coverage or not - loophole.

Please, yes!

We are waiting to see if they will do an autopsy. I've been through this with grandparents and cause of death was apparent. With this, who knows. Like you said, there could have been an underlying issue that he never knew about because he went without care for so long.

[MrPrena]

I blame (mainly in order)

1. FDA and its stupid 15 + year for 1 stupid patent to get I to a drug.
2. Pharmaceuticals and its tardness.
So same freaken US brand name drugs cost far less in different country than in US?
3. Stupid generic brand (bottom feeder of pharma/biotech) retard jacking up prices.

I think there are some bullcrap going on here with different generic drug maker like cartelship. This is a big stupid side effect for generic makers to M&A like crazy. This is why people like "Pharma bro" exist.

4. Insurance companies.
5. Stupid lawsuits.

[kidicarus13]

I am a sole income earner and pay $674 per month for family coverage. Individual deductible is $3,000, then 80/20 and out-of-pocket max is $6,000. Double those numbers for family.

When it's all said and done, we'll have paid somewhere in the range of $10k @ 100% out of pocket NOT including our premiums (which add up to $8,000/year). For those doing the math, that's $18k I'm shelling out to have a baby.

That's really taking it in the shorts. Insurance is such a scam.

[Gman]

I blame (mainly in order)

1. FDA and its stupid 15 + year for 1 stupid patent to get I to a drug.
This one is on George W. Bush. He also signed-in the death of incandescent lightbulbs. I had a number of generics, that had been effectively used for decades (one of them for 150 years) in generic form. I used to be able to get a 3 month supply for $11. Then it wqs fast-track patented and went to over $4 per pill.

It wouldn't surprise me a bit if many of the congress critters were invested in the companies doing the fast-track patents.

[OtterbatHellcat]

It wouldn't surprise me a bit if many of the congress critters were invested in the companies doing the fast-track patents.

I don't doubt that for a skinny minute.

[GilpinGuy]

This one is on George W. Bush. He also signed-in the death of incandescent lightbulbs. I had a number of generics, that had been effectively used for decades (one of them for 150 years) in generic form. I used to be able to get a 3 month supply for $11. Then it wqs fast-track patented and went to over $4 per pill.

It wouldn't surprise me a bit if many of the congress critters were invested in the companies doing the fast-track patents.

When contemplating any new legislation, "lawmakers" first ask themselves "How can I personally benefit from this?" Sadly, this is the root of all that is wrong with our political system today.

[rondog]

Really REALLY glad my wife works for Kaiser Permanente, and is union to boot!