Well it Finally Happened (Healthcare Rant Thread)

[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.

[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!