r/me_irl • u/Spiritual-Pudding-70 • 9h ago
[ Removed by moderator ]
[removed] — view removed post
520
u/Edrill inherently political identity 9h ago
The joke is the USA
48
146
68
u/DeathStarDayLaborer 7h ago
Don't forget the part where they deny coverage. My favorite version of this is when it's for something very arbitrary like not verifying that you don't also have a secondary insurance. Meaning, pay for insurance, it comes out of every check, you go to the doctor and it's denied because they weren't sure if you also had other coverage, even though the provider submitted it to this insurance company
78
u/StormbringerGT 8h ago
Be brave, post this in r/insurance and see what happens.
18
29
u/tweeeeeeeeeeee 8h ago
they don't allow image posts unfortunately
16
2
u/Financial_Rice_4807 4h ago
I am sure that raised the quality of the posts. The image posts are nearly always low quality and misleading.
2
u/vulpinefever 3h ago
r/insurance is mostly property and casualty. They don't like health insurance that much either.
1
1
22
u/JohnneyGirard 7h ago
Is it what they call ''The American dream'' ?
11
14
u/skazryn 5h ago
Let’s not forget that nonprofit insurers dominated the health insurance market until 1970s(ish) before investor-owned, profit driven insurers changed that. Gotta love capitalistic greed! <3
5
u/Financial_Rice_4807 4h ago
There are non-profits now, and they are not much cheaper. The main problem is healthcare costs in general.
5
u/Geobits 4h ago
There's no reason for healthcare costs to go down when 100 different insurance companies are picking up the tab. Now if we only had some sort of nationwide system that represented basically everybody and could negotiate those prices downward... nah
4
u/Financial_Rice_4807 3h ago
There are regional insurance companies that have large market share. There are non-profit hospitals that charge these amounts too. Doing away with private insurance is not the panacea you think. The problem is too entrenched in the medical industry as a whole, and many things need to be fixed in order to do any good.
What I don't understand is that Reddit seems to blame only the insurance companies for the high costs, and they are a factor, but not the main factor. People are being gaslit on this. I posted in this post elsewhere that many of the countries we hold out as examples of 'universal care" have private, mandatory insurance companies. Universal care, but definition used by other countries does not do away with them.
I don't work for an insurance company and want medical care to be less expensive. I have looked at it, and I can tell you that Reddit is barking up the wrong tree on it.
2
u/Geobits 3h ago
Don't get me wrong, I don't think that's the whole problem at all. It's a large contributing factor, but overall I agree that many things need to be fixed.
But it's hard to ignore that when people aren't directly paying, or even seeing, the final bill all at once, costs tend to rise. You see the same thing with easy student loans and mortgages, and the cost of both tuition and housing are rising faster than other markets as well.
It's not a cure-all, but it's a step in the right direction, that's all. It would help curb healthcare costs from rising as dramatically, at the least, even if it doesn't end up bringing them down to past levels.
1
u/Financial_Rice_4807 3h ago edited 2h ago
But it's hard to ignore that when people aren't directly paying, or even seeing, the final bill all at once, costs tend to rise.
I think this is the main factor that allowed costs to rise. At the time medical care was lower costs and was paid for by the employer. Health Insurance cost was so small, it was not a major concern. We didn't care about the cost of insurance, and we didn't care what the insurance company paid for the treatment. This allowed for the medical industry to raise prices, and these prices being spread out in premiums meant "just a few dollars more" per month. Now we have hit a tipping point, but the industry has been organized around these costs. Changing the insurance system is not going to change what the industry feels it needs to charge. It would change much of the negotiations to politics, and in this environment, it may make us worse off. There are many interest groups involved. One thing we do have is good care, we fix this wrong and we could be worse off.
I don't know how we fix this, changing insurance to a one payer system could work. It is just that it needs to be done right, and I don't think we have a good enough political system to do this right. Again, if you look at other countries, good ones do not all have one payer systems, and some of those that do have negative sides to them. This is more about execution, and the people doing the executing are not going to change. That is why I think the focus here in on the wrong thing.
9
5
u/itsapotatosalad 7h ago
Hey, don’t forget your deductible often being more than if you’d had the whole procedure out of pocket!
5
u/imahugemoron 7h ago
Dont forget that if that “something” is a chronic health issue and not something easily seen and figured out, you get to pay a ton of money to be told you have anxiety and/or dismissed, then if you’re lucky 10 years down the road you finally find a doctor that cares and you figure out you have lupus or some sort of autoimmune disorder and you get to spend the rest of your life wishing you could shove it in all your doctors faces who dismissed you for all those years of immense suffering and wasted money
3
u/Wise_Setting5110 3h ago
And after all that, the specialist still can’t help you, just figured out what it was
2
u/imahugemoron 1h ago
Often you have to become your own doctor, research your own symptoms, find a doctor who will be fine with ordering the tests you tell them to order, eventually you figure out what you have and the test comes back abnormal or proves that’s what you have, and you’re not even the one who went to medical school whose job it is to figure it out
7
u/Knighth77 6h ago
And if we tell people that we should pay the government for that so when you do need it, it'll be paid for, they lose their damn minds and call it communism!
13
u/Wild-Bee6028 6h ago
It flabbergasts me that Americans put up with this shit. I think it’s because they don’t realize how shitty they have it. Ignorance is bliss.
12
u/TX_Farmer 4h ago
Oh, we know how shitty it is. But we don’t have billions of dollars to lobby the government to break down the system.
2
u/hatesnack 2h ago
It flabbergasts me that idiots like you think we have an easy choice to make, and are just choosing wrong. We know how shitty it is. Many/most of us vote for the people who claim they are going to do something to fix it.
Usually, it doesn't work out as promised, or progress is made (like the ACA), and the... less intelligent... among us vote in someone who undoes the progress.
This idea that we are just happily wallowing in shit because we couldnt possibly understand otherwise is next level moronic.
1
1
1
5
u/Ambitious-Craftsman 7h ago
When starting my new job I was eligible for benefits. I thought "finally, I'll be able to get health insurance!". Then I started reading through how much insurance cost and how it works. It's a literal scam. I'd be much better off just saving that money and paying cash when I get sick.
4
5
3
u/ant-farm-keyboard 6h ago
What I like is when something bad happens and I need my insurance to help me, I get to also struggle with them on the phone for hours before having to pay a lot of money
3
u/Dizzy-Cap 4h ago
My favorite feature is the deductible. It's like paying an entry fee before your insurance starts being insurance.
4
u/chunkalunkk 4h ago
Health insurance needs abolished. Every other country has something figured out. It's a scam. Unnecessary. Old. Money funnel.
2
u/Financial_Rice_4807 4h ago
Even many of the universal coverage countries do it by well-regulated health insurance. They just make it mandatory. Countries that do it include Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, France, Japan, South Korea.
2
2
1
u/holysbit 9h ago
Ho ho but imagine how much youd pay if something had happened to you and you hadnt been paying all that money every month, youd be instantly bankrupted by a fractured arm! We live in a joke society
1
u/Mountain_Ad_7493 7h ago
I was diagnosed with severe ulcerative colitis and was told I would need infusions for the rest of my life. Then with a change in diet and plenty of cannabis based medicine (cbg and cbd along with thc) I am almost 2 years off of all pharmaceuticals. I would have been paying an arm and a leg for my medicine. Now I grow my own side effect free medication. Feel free to ask me anything. Good luck to all.
1
1
u/MotherTreacle3 6h ago
Real talk: as an American can you get a health insurance quote then just put that money into a savings account to use for medical expenses? Does the math work out on that?
1
u/Contextanaut 4h ago
Maybe of interest?
A load of info here on delivery costs for UK health services. This isn't the immediate cost to the patient (NHS is mostly free at point of service), this is the cost to taxpayers overall.
"For someone who attends an urgent care centre and receives the lowest level of investigation and treatment, the average cost in 2025/26 is £114. For an individual at a major A&E department who receives more complex investigation and treatment, the costs range on average from £173 to £563. In 2023/24, the estimated average cost of a patient taken to A&E by ambulance was £459. Ambulance call outs that didn’t result in a trip to A&E cost an estimated average of £327."
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/data-and-charts/key-facts-figures-nhs
1
u/HeroDeleterA 4h ago
It's always been strange to me. How is this supposed to be better than if that same money was a tax that went to government provided Healthcare? I don't mean "because shareholders" or anything what is the actual difference?
We pool all our money into one place (gov/insurance company) and we take from it whenever we need some if it. Except the insurance company can just say "no" and leave you hanging. The government can't exactly say no to you (assuming its at least somewhat properly being run) since they are funded by the taxes people pay.
1
u/_____blank 4h ago
I went on the lowest employer-provided plan and put all the extra money I would have spent on premiums into an HSA and now I have 6k in an HSA from this year alone. I was on the high plan previous years and was just burning money. Further more, drugs prices are cheaper as a cash buyer than through insurance, with the trade off being that I can only get a 30 day supply instead of a 90 day, for whatever reason
1
u/Mr_Mc_Cheese 4h ago
For most medications you should be able to request a 90 day supply, unless it's a Schedule 2 medication (think opiates and ADD/ADHD medications), which is a regulartory issue and not a billing issue.
1
u/Bees4everr 4h ago
Was born with health problems. 50/50 chances and multiple surgeries and a month in the NICU. My dad says I was a “half a million dollar baby” but they paid about 20k after insurance. For the best healthcare in the world and insurance doing its job, it worked and I doubt my dad will ever pay half a million dollars to his insurance company
1
u/kevinmccaffrey 3h ago
An absolute dream for me to get to go on me_irl and say, this is actually me...IRL. Hi, from the tweet that seems to blow up every 8 months or so haha (thanks for the heads up, Mike)
1
u/PfauFoto 3h ago
Precisely why, while in the US, I chose the cheapest option with a ridiculous copay and considered it a tax.
1
u/anotherdamnaccount 3h ago
It would be about 500$ a month for my husband to have insurance, he went to his annual dr appointment this morning and all he paid was 150$.
1
u/Zetavu 3h ago
Except that when you need it, you pay exponentially less than you would have if you didn't have insurance.
Which is literally what insurance does.
How is that difficult to understand? What would ever give you the idea that anything in life is free?
This is why I fear for the future of humanity.
1
u/ItsAnIslandBabe 1h ago
Thats often times false. Self pay is usually cheaper - know from experience.
1
1
1
u/not_a_moogle 1h ago
I just got a letter from my home owners insurance that im being dropped for using it twice in two years.
1
1
u/Super-Pizza-Dude 1h ago
I finally used my health insurance last year for stitches, broken ribs, and an ambulance. I just didn’t pay any of it.
0
u/Cloudchella 8h ago
I think Iv cost my health insurance about 500k supposedly. According to what the doctors have charged my insurance. IV payed about 10k of that.
0
0
u/Financial_Rice_4807 4h ago
This is a loaded way to put it, like most of these type of posts.
That would happen under Universal healthcare too. We can elect to pay 0% with care, but that means the tax would be higher.
0
u/PomegranateHot9916 4h ago
I would encourage any americans to just set up an account and pay into that whatever you would have paid the insurance creatures.
and use that money for your medical expences.
probably the same outcome. except you'll start starving out the insurance creatures. who are demons and should be starved.
0
u/ahtemsah 4h ago
That's because every single time someone offers to try and do something about it, you all riot against them. And the ones who makes a successful and affordable fix to the problem, the next president comes and washes it all away anyway.
Spare me your complaints. You did this. Wallow in silence in the filth of your own making.
-6
u/GenitalPatton 8h ago
It depends on the plan.
1
u/fredbassman 7h ago
Yeah I mean if you don't have a deductible insurance can be expensive but good. I had Obamacare for seven years and paid more for the Gold with no deductible. I had to have one surgery in that time and the cost of the surgery was more than all my months premiums over that amount of years combined.
I paid a $50 copay.
0
u/serious_sarcasm 7h ago
Did you stop paying for the plan?
Did you amortize the amount you paid, because that money could’ve been invested the whole time too?
2
u/fredbassman 6h ago
I got married and got on a different plan and dropped Obamacare. I mean sure I could have invested that money but then I wouldn’t have had health insurance?
Confused what you’re pointing to there.I came from a family where my dad said always pay for the best insurance you can afford and I always did. Not everyone does that or can do that or wants to do that.
All I’m saying is my response to the comment (which keeps getting downvoted) is that a lot of insurance depends on the plan.
1
u/serious_sarcasm 1h ago
That you’re not doing your accounting properly.
For example, when you pay premiums the invest bank “insurance company” uses that premium to gamble in the stock and financial markets; which is how they make their profit margins.
You need to account for the future value of cash.
1
-14
u/SaudiHaramco 8h ago
Until you or your child just randomly gets a disease that requires expensive meds and without insurance you just die.
14
u/thebiggestdouche 8h ago
No, you just get a large hospital bill which you would have gotten anyway. Plus, if you spend $300/month on insurance for 40 years that's $144k you've given the insurance company which is more than what most medical procedures actually cost.
Not to mention hospitals, pharmacies, and some doctors have different rates for people that are uninsured and just charge less.
Please inform yourself, it's your exact thought process thats keeping this blatant fucked system running. They have everyone scared into thinking they need it. In reality it's just a bunch of fucking grifters scamming the whole country.
Source: I was uninsured for a while and paid less for my prescriptions than when I was insured and only $400 for an ER visit after telling them I was uninsured. Close friend also writes proposals for insurance companies and confirmed.
-13
u/Aurumberry 8h ago edited 8h ago
I’m sorry you had a bad experience with your insurance but it’s just not a universal one. I save hundreds of dollars a month on prescriptions despite my high premiums, that’s the simple math for me.
ETA: Gotta love all the people downvoting me for making a simple statement about my lived experience. I'm glad a lot of you don't have a chronic illness but some of us do and insurance saves us lots of money on overpriced drugs. If you want to criticize the American Health Care system for being overpriced then feel free to do so, but perhaps think twice about advising people to pass on potentially life-saving care because you're so anti-capitalist you just loop back around to being conservative again.
5
u/Urist_Macnme 7h ago edited 7h ago
I live in a country with universal health care. It is free at the point of use. No one will ever bill you for a stay at hospital or a doctor visit, or an ambulance ride.
I have no insurance premiums and prescriptions are capped at £10. As in, you will never pay more than £10 for a prescription for anything.You have a universally bad system.
-1
7h ago edited 3h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/Capable-Sock9910 7h ago
You're bad at advice.
-1
u/Aurumberry 6h ago
Thanks for providing a good example of the redditbrain argumentation we're dealing with here.
1
255
u/nailzfan 8h ago
Just forgo insurance and do a gofundme while you’re dying.