Duke Bushido Posted February 25, 2020 Report Share Posted February 25, 2020 I totally get it, LL, but I am trying very hard to avoid specifics: I don't like to be publicly political in the one forum where it's allowed. I certainly don't want to muck up the rest of the board with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Liaden Posted February 25, 2020 Report Share Posted February 25, 2020 Absolutely none of my post was directed toward you in any critical way, Duke, and I apologize if it came across that way. I was just illustrating in response to all the justified concerns expressed on this thread, from my own very recent experience, that alternatives exist, and they more-or-less work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted February 25, 2020 Report Share Posted February 25, 2020 2 hours ago, ScottishFox said: So she's waiting for the 30th year anniversary to yell, "April Fools!!" and let you know it was just a 3 decade long running gag? Her birthday is Oct 1, and she had an ongoing gag of asking for presents for her half-birthday, which is April 1. When I gave her a (cheap) pair of silver & sapphire earrings on April 1, she was thoroughly unprepared. ScottishFox 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted February 25, 2020 Report Share Posted February 25, 2020 I hesitate to think what my open-thoracic heart surgery would have cost me in the US. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duke Bushido Posted February 25, 2020 Report Share Posted February 25, 2020 50 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said: Absolutely none of my post was directed toward you in any critical way, Duke, and I apologize if it came across that way. I was just illustrating in response to all the justified concerns expressed on this thread, from my own very recent experience, that alternatives exist, and they more-or-less work. Didn't take it that way, Sir. Just trying to keep this from getting out of hands amongst my fellow Americans: it's an election year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hermit Posted February 26, 2020 Report Share Posted February 26, 2020 2 hours ago, Lord Liaden said: Yesterday my brother was taken to hospital emergency by ambulance with severe abdominal pain. He was put through an MRI which found stones in his pancreas, which need to be removed. Because his pancreas was so inflamed, he needed a more specialized treatment. Today he was transferred across the city to another hospital where a team with more experience and more advanced equipment sucked the stones out of him. He'll need a couple more days in hospital to recuperate before discharge. My brother is being charged $45 for his initial ambulance trip. Everything else is covered by his provincial government health insurance, which all citizens contribute to. The Canadian government-funded health care system most definitely has flaws. But no Canadian citizen hesitates to see a doctor when they're sick. Respect to Canada *Salutes* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted February 26, 2020 Report Share Posted February 26, 2020 1 hour ago, L. Marcus said: I hesitate to think what my open-thoracic heart surgery would have cost me in the US. That depends. How much money do you have? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted February 26, 2020 Report Share Posted February 26, 2020 Not enough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duke Bushido Posted February 26, 2020 Report Share Posted February 26, 2020 2 hours ago, Lord Liaden said: no Canadian citizen hesitates to see a doctor when they're sick. While the majority of us go to work sick (and contagious) because our employers know if we're going to miss a day of work, then we certainly don't have the extra money to buy a note. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottishFox Posted February 26, 2020 Report Share Posted February 26, 2020 14 hours ago, L. Marcus said: I hesitate to think what my open-thoracic heart surgery would have cost me in the US. My grandfather got open heart surgery at 89 and he could afford it (on his fixed income social security money). My wife had two ER trips, a 3 day hospital stay and multiple scans a couple weeks ago. Our out of pocket cost so far... $0. Generally the problems are either having no insurance at all or having insurance which decides to fight the hospital on what they'll pay for a given treatment leaving a nasty out of pocket cost. The latter is an unpredictability that can be quite painful at times. Granted my wife and I are fairly old and she's had a lot of medical attention the last few years with her ultra-rate auto-immune disease. The costs have been quite reasonable ... so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BoloOfEarth Posted February 26, 2020 Report Share Posted February 26, 2020 2 hours ago, ScottishFox said: My grandfather got open heart surgery at 89 and he could afford it (on his fixed income social security money). My wife had two ER trips, a 3 day hospital stay and multiple scans a couple weeks ago. Our out of pocket cost so far... $0. Generally the problems are either having no insurance at all or having insurance which decides to fight the hospital on what they'll pay for a given treatment leaving a nasty out of pocket cost. The latter is an unpredictability that can be quite painful at times. Granted my wife and I are fairly old and she's had a lot of medical attention the last few years with her ultra-rate auto-immune disease. The costs have been quite reasonable ... so far. Having handled my dad's finances prior to his passing (at the age of 97, and he was hospitalized with a heart attack at 96), I can tell you that the hospital can only bill up to a certain (fairly low) percentage of the cost if the patient is covered by Medicare. IOW, Medicare paid a certain amount, the hospital billed my dad for a certain amount, and the rest was written off by the hospital. So yeah, Dad was charged a (relatively) affordable amount for his treatment and hospitalization, but if I had been the patient, the amount billed for the same hospitalization would have been considerably higher. As to your wife's hospital stay, if it's only been a few weeks, you quite possibly haven't gotten billed yet. My dad's bills didn't start arriving until a few months after his discharge from the hospital. (But this can differ by hospital, as well as which insurance you have.) But yeah, a lot depends on the type of insurance you have. ScottishFox 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hermit Posted February 26, 2020 Report Share Posted February 26, 2020 Yeah, there's a reason "medical vacations" to other countries have gained in popularity in the last 10 years. Mexico has a thriving dentist business for Americans making a run for the border Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottishFox Posted February 26, 2020 Report Share Posted February 26, 2020 29 minutes ago, Hermit said: Yeah, there's a reason "medical vacations" to other countries have gained in popularity in the last 10 years. Mexico has a thriving dentist business for Americans making a run for the border You're completely correct. Somewhere along they decided that teeth and eyeballs aren't part of health. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sociotard Posted February 26, 2020 Report Share Posted February 26, 2020 Oh yeah, just look at the medical insurance for Utah government workers. They pay patients $500 to fly to Mexico to get their drugs. The insurance pays for the airplane ticket and a night in a hotel (and the drugs), and on top of that gives the patients $500, and the insurance company STILL saves money. www.vox.com/platform/amp/policy-and-politics/2020/2/10/21131921/utah-expensive-prescription-drugs-mexico Hermit and Old Man 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinecone Posted February 26, 2020 Report Share Posted February 26, 2020 On 2/24/2020 at 7:15 PM, Old Man said: 80000 cases, 2700 fatalities. Also an outbreak occurred in a non-Asian country so the stock market finally noticed. I saw an article that shows via statistics that China has been under reporting by about 100 fold...so it might be two more zeroes on those figures.😬 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted February 26, 2020 Report Share Posted February 26, 2020 Yeah, the lack of certainty on China's reporting kind of messes up our understanding of how dangerous the virus is exactly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
death tribble Posted February 26, 2020 Report Share Posted February 26, 2020 Drop litter and get fined..... over a decade later https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-51643086 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottishFox Posted February 26, 2020 Report Share Posted February 26, 2020 One thing that I found SUPER interesting in the by country statistics I saw a few days ago is that most countries are showing a mortality rate of about 2.5%, but Japan is showing 0.5%. Seems like if that holds that someone might want to ask Japan how they're saving 4 out of 5 people that are dying in other countries. pinecone 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
death tribble Posted February 26, 2020 Report Share Posted February 26, 2020 Clive Cussler dead at 88 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-51644229 British actor Michael Medwin dead at 96 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-51649817 Secret doorway found in Parliament https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51630630 Ternaugh and pinecone 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted February 26, 2020 Report Share Posted February 26, 2020 44 minutes ago, ScottishFox said: One thing that I found SUPER interesting in the by country statistics I saw a few days ago is that most countries are showing a mortality rate of about 2.5%, but Japan is showing 0.5%. Seems like if that holds that someone might want to ask Japan how they're saving 4 out of 5 people that are dying in other countries. Statistics. Japan has had one death. That's not a large sample size. Germany has a mortality rate of 0%, they're the ones we should be asking. ScottishFox 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted February 26, 2020 Report Share Posted February 26, 2020 If they shoot you before you can die of the disease, the disease didn't kill you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted February 26, 2020 Report Share Posted February 26, 2020 *racks shotgun* I'm immune! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Badger Posted February 26, 2020 Report Share Posted February 26, 2020 6 hours ago, ScottishFox said: My grandfather got open heart surgery at 89 and he could afford it (on his fixed income social security money). My wife had two ER trips, a 3 day hospital stay and multiple scans a couple weeks ago. Our out of pocket cost so far... $0. Generally the problems are either having no insurance at all or having insurance which decides to fight the hospital on what they'll pay for a given treatment leaving a nasty out of pocket cost. The latter is an unpredictability that can be quite painful at times. Granted my wife and I are fairly old and she's had a lot of medical attention the last few years with her ultra-rate auto-immune disease. The costs have been quite reasonable ... so far. Yeah, I think the latter you mentioned is the biggest problem. It pretty much gives the hospitals the ability to pick any crazy amount they are in the mood to demand, and dare the insurance company to balk at it. ScottishFox 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottishFox Posted February 26, 2020 Report Share Posted February 26, 2020 1 minute ago, Badger said: Yeah, I think the latter you mentioned is the biggest problem. It pretty much gives the hospitals the ability to pick any crazy amount they are in the mood to demand, and dare the insurance company to balk at it. You're not wrong. I had a surgery about 15 years ago. In and out in about 6 hours. The original bill was about $35,000. The insurance company politely said f*ck that and offered $11,000. The hospital wrote the rest off and my out of pocket was around $300.00. From the Joe Worker-bee seats those are scary amounts of money being thrown around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted February 26, 2020 Report Share Posted February 26, 2020 Especially if you don't have insurance, or if you do have insurance and it sucks. My insurances have been pretty good, but last year it cost me $17000 to cover a family of four. I'm told that's on the high end, but still. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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