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389 Comments
- AndreiOttawa, on 08/29/2008, -43/+218Mistake #1: Living in the U.S.A.
- Smegzor, on 08/29/2008, -10/+158Yay for the welfare state I live in! :D (not in America).
If he lived in New Zealand, he would owe $0.00 - SwornPacifist, on 08/29/2008, -3/+146Wait a second, "Alex Trim was knocked unconscious when a car hit his bike and he slammed into the windshield"
Why isn't that driver (and his/her insurance) paying all the medical bills plus a settlement? - inactive, on 08/29/2008, -9/+82Why he couldn't sue the guy? Very simple:
1)He might not have the emotional and financial resources to sue the driver.
2)They might have never found the driver.
3)The driver might be broke and unable to pay a cent.
4)The driver might be rich and able to hire a very good lawyer and SUE HIM for damage to his car.
5)He might have been responsible partially.
6)Etc.
I was also hit by a car two years ago. Blood everywhere, operation, surgery, hospital for a mont and such.
All of this was free. Zero. Nada. Not one cent.
A doctor told me my treatment would have normally cost 15,000+$ and could even have costed 100,000$ in USA (in the best hospitals with best treatments/all meds included).
Viva Canada. - kingmanic, on 08/29/2008, -3/+74Health costs are the leading cause of bankruptcy in the states. The states spends twice as much for health care per person in private and public dollars than Canada, for generally worse care unless you are rich. 90% of America is one bad accident and one insurance company decision away from bankruptcy.There may be something wrong with this set up?
- mrgeo, on 08/29/2008, -6/+63Add Canada to that list. I would hate to find out how much I'd owe for a 1 nights trip to the ER, as I had to last summer.
- inactive, on 08/29/2008, -2/+56Not until the family sues the driver. You think they are gonna wait on the medial until the trial is over?
Even still, the US insurance market is a joke. - InJectaH, on 08/29/2008, -5/+50When I got in a bike accident in Greece, I paid $0.00
It's funny how in the states you get robbed if you get hit by a car and have no medical, that's just ridiculous - failedpimp, on 08/29/2008, -3/+45I pay $100 a month for health insurance, and still have to pay for medical costs. I think having to pay that $100 in taxes, then owe NOTHING for medical bills would be a far better deal.
- Triticum, on 08/29/2008, -1/+41These aren't 5 mistakes that will land you in medical debt. These are 5 mistakes that will make your medical debt worse.
- oinyo, on 08/29/2008, -8/+46Cure. Become Canadian or get a system like Canada :D
Socialist Medical is as helpful as Schooling, Police, fire department and postal. So why have you guys not fought to get it in place yet? :)
I know I am happy to pay a little of tax to get free health care. ( needed surgery to have my tonsils removed and some work on my lungs for infection spread from tonsilitus. ) Plus at the end of the year I usually get a tax return of 500 - 2000$ depending on the year :)
Also please dont believe the lie about long wait times. It took me 2 days to get into surgery. And in every hospital there is a priority list. If you are walking wounded you wait. If there is a gun shot or poisoned person they skip the line and go right in. :) The only people that wait hours live in Toronto and go in for a cold.
OH! and you can get a family doctor and just make apointments and never wait :D Free as well. Ottawa where I live has 4 major hospitals that hold thousands as well as hundreds of smaller family doctor offices where you go when your arm is not falling off :P
Organs however may take a while as you need to wait for one to pop up :P That cannot be helped :)
Thank you for taking the time to read this. I just wanted to clear up any confusion anyone may have. For more info or if you would like some links please send me a email through Digg :) In the perfect world we would all help eachother. Not to 100% socialism ( Health wont do that.. Is Canada a horrifying socialist facist dictatorship? :P ) but on the things we need to help eachother on. :)
Oh and lol.. Do a little google on Doctor and canada and house :P Those guys are not in a little shack. There places should be seen on MTV Cribs :D
Thank you again and have a great day!
* Ex Canadian that moved to the states due to Dell Closing down and moving all the money from canada and USA and investing it into Benglador / India - macbookpromat, on 08/29/2008, -5/+41You'll say that until you get some weird condition that your insurance won't cover. When you'll get your house repo'd because you can't pay those bills we'll talk.
- mogoi, on 08/29/2008, -3/+38Maybe the accident was his own fault, silly!
- jsauter, on 08/29/2008, -4/+39I do.
I happily pay more in taxes for everyone to get no-cost decent health care. - LHopi, on 08/29/2008, -1/+34Do you say that when your local fire department comes and puts out a fire at a house down the block?
- mydigglogin, on 08/29/2008, -1/+33Would you be able to keep your quality job if it was you in that accident, but say, you went into coma for 3 months? Without the quality job, what about your quality health insurance? I'm sure you'd be able to afford COBRA at $1300/mo. and then quickly find another quality job, right?
BTW, newsflash - if you're in America (US), you pay out of your ass for healthcare. Do you know how much your employer is paying to the health insurance company instead of paying you? Ask. - jsauter, on 08/29/2008, -1/+31You will wait a lot longer then 6 months down in the States for hip replacement if you don't have health care or the cash to begin with.
Generally if you have an urgent situation, you get the care you need right away. Triage always gets bad PR when in the media, but when you have limited resources it is necessary.
As an American living in Canada, I have been completely sold on the Canadian health care system and hope to never have to deal with the horrid inhumane system that my fellow citizens to the South have to deal with. - inactive, on 08/29/2008, -10/+39God Bless Canada.
- pfunked, on 08/29/2008, -0/+28A few years ago I made the mistake of having a gall bladder infection. Had to be removed. Did not have insurance (new contractor job). Cost: $14k. Most of it from the hospital. (The surgeon himself actually charged me less than half of usual for his part of it).
The "itemized list" I asked for was about 10 items. "Medical Equipment" was about $3.5k, they would not give me finer details. - imakeholesinu, on 08/29/2008, -7/+34#1 mistake...privatized health care.
- inactive, on 08/29/2008, -3/+30Actually Americans pay taxes at around the same rate as most welfare states, such as Canada (The American tax rate is higher than the Canadian tax rate for some reason) and New Zealand, so that 'You'll pay more taxes for free healthcare' thing is mostly a myth. The USA just devotes its tax income to different means.
- angrycat, on 08/29/2008, -3/+28This one time my cat ran away and got locked inside a local butcher shop overnight.
Pork can be very expensive. - Uzael, on 08/29/2008, -6/+31Wow. Just wow. And people think this is the way it SHOULD be? I'm glad I live in Canada.
- inactive, on 08/29/2008, -3/+26Medical bills are out of control in the US.
What's even worse is that McCain believes being able to go into any emergency room and receive treatment is the same as universal insurance. It's sickening to hear someone running for president actually encouraging people to incur these bills. Must be nice to be that out of touch with reality. - dafragsta, on 08/29/2008, -6/+29"I'm much happier as a car salesman, where I don't have to worry about getting people into mountains of debt."
Do I need to even point out the contradiction in that sentence? - Chaoticfist, on 08/29/2008, -3/+25Big deal. You pay tax on the things you buy and when you go to the hospital you do not leave with a ***** $10,000 bill. Being in Canada if i ended up with a bill like that i would most likely go mental.
Ask most Canadians if they would rather get rid of the taxes and pay for their own health care or pay taxes and have health care without insurance. I guarantee you 99% will like option 2. - AndreiOttawa, on 08/29/2008, -0/+22"You also pay out your ass in taxes"
Well, not really. The difference in taxes if you earn an average income is not that large (few percentage points). What is your monthly premium for insurance? My friends in US pay about $200/month for 2 people. A couple I know in Florida pays $400/month for a family of 4 (with 2 small kids). The insurance premium is more than the difference in taxes.
What is going to happen if you lose your job? What is going to happen when you are old and have a serious illness? My guess, no insurance company would touch you and you'll have to rely on charity organizations to pay for your treatment or left to die.
Every time there is a discussion about health care in US vs. the rest of civilized world, Americans say how little they pay for insurance because their company covers most of the cost. There are 45 million uninsured in US. In Canada-in you are a Canadian resident, you are covered. You can be poor, sick, or unemployed--you still have access to health care. And you know, that if you get seriously ill, your family will not go broke trying to pay medical bills. - raybury, on 08/29/2008, -1/+226. Don't have medical insurance for your kids.
The liability of the driver aside, it's just irresponsible. - inactive, on 08/29/2008, -27/+47Digg.com, let me be candid with you here for a moment, I used to be a doctor. People used to know my name. Until I saw stuff like this, people at hospitals would just throw their money away.
It was horrible, people tossing money left and right, as though they were gambling.
What's more disgusting is that these people would just spend like there was no tomorrow, CAT scan? Sure. PET scan? I'll take two.
One day I'd had enough, I told one of my patient's that was concerned about cancer that getting two separate scans was a waste of my time, and a waste of her money. Of course she was outraged. She must've felt so duped by the hospital community, wasting her financial resources.
Speaking of resources, once HR caught wind that I was not fueling the scan-money hospital machine, they terminated my job. In all honesty, I'm much happier as a car salesman, where I don't have to worry about getting people into mountains of debt.
Thanks for hearing me out,
Johan Marcus Guy - Fracture98, on 08/29/2008, -1/+21Canadian gloat incoming. I had acute pancreatitis that got me an ambulance ride to the emergency room. I needed an ERCP, ultrasound, five days in hospital on expensive I.V. antibiotics, and finally an M.I. colecistectomy (gall bladder into the trashcan).
Never even saw a bill. The only piece of paper I got was a pamphlet on post-op recovery tips.
Same goes for a tibial-plateau fracture that required surgery and a month and a half of physio.
Don't get me wrong; the system isn't perfect, and don't let anyone tell you we don't pay a *lot* for it... but I can't imagine having to try and sleep at night with anything else. - dimadin, on 08/29/2008, -1/+20Those who are talking about taxes: this taxes are not spent only on health care but on other public needs too.
But you also pay taxes, only difference is that your money is spent on killing people in countries on other continents. - inactive, on 08/29/2008, -5/+24Bah, heath insurance is nothing but privatized socialism.
- drmangrum, on 08/29/2008, -2/+20I wouldn't pay it. If they can't tell me exactly what they used and exactly what it costs, then they get nothing. Hospitals charge out the nose for cheapest stuff. $10 for a dose of tylenol they get for free. $50 for a latex gloves. They'll charge you $500 to run a pair a scalpels in an autoclave.
Having to go to a hospital puts you firmly at their mercy. They can charge whatever they want to charge. - DocHoliday22, on 08/29/2008, -2/+20Add the United Kingdom to that list. Even though I pay 40% income TAX and a lot of other TAXs, the peace of mind I get is worth more than what money can buy.
I can't imagine having to pay 100k for a a simple visit to the emergency service. - DryMaltExtract, on 08/29/2008, -0/+18It's already been proven that in the states you pay more for less, I'm not willing to go look for the links, I hear google can help you.
Also, when I go to the hospital, I get all my treatment done as soon as possible. You could sit around with injuries while your insurance broker "get's back to" your doctor about whether they'll cover it or not. That delay? That's them trying to find a way to not have to pay for it. - zushiba, on 08/29/2008, -0/+17I went to Kaiser Permanente once when I had a bit of trouble, I was in college at the time and while I was a student I should have been covered under my mothers insurance. I had them(the people at the counter, whoever they were) check to make sure my insurance was indeed in place and covered any medical treatment I was to receive that day. After being told many times that everything was in order I sat in the waiting room for 6 hours then in another room for another 6 hours where they gave me a shot and hooked me up to an IV without telling me what was actually going on.
I payed the copay and went on my way. 3 months later I was pleasantly surprised by a bill for $900 from a collection agency on behalf of Kaiser who never made any attempt what-so-ever to contact me and had already told me to my face that I was paid up. Took me an entire financial aid check to pay for it and I went without that semester.
I still don't have medical insurance and couldn't afford any sort of sickness or injury, I fractured my ankle months ago and just had to bare the pain and go to work until it healed and sleep it off at night. :/
I still cannot get a line of credit for anything because of that stupid bill. Thanks Kaiser, burn in hell. - inactive, on 08/29/2008, -11/+28I'm sure McSame would say a competitive medical insurance industry will fix this.
- inactive, on 08/29/2008, -4/+21His son did not have insurance. Trim said it was "very expensive" to add him to his own policy at the private school where he's an IT director."
How about Mistake #1: having a dad that probably pays for internet, cable TV, and other ***** rather than getting his kid health insurance. fail. - inactive, on 08/29/2008, -3/+19Texas is no-fault. Basically the state assumes that car accidents are a part of life when everyone is driving around at high speeds. That means the driver had insurance for himself, but there is probably no such thing as no-fault bicycle insurance, so this guys was driving his bicycle around without accident coverage.
He could sue the guy who ran into him (assuming he got a ticket..) but the damages are limited ($500 in michigan for example).
I keep hearing the claim that no-fault costs more, but then I need to be insured in both Ohio and Michigan, and pretty consistently my rates are less in Michigan. Even if it cost a little more, it seems like it would be a small price to pay to not have all the ambulance chaser lawers and the near automatic neck injury lawsuit if you have even a minor accident in Ohio. - dougmc, on 08/29/2008, -0/+16In Texas, the state mandated minimum amount of insurance is $20k personal injury, $40 total per incident and $15k property damage. He spent $14k without even being seriously injured ... think how badly those limits would be exceeded if he'd required surgery or something! Or that $15k -- that wouldn't even cover the cost of a nice, new car being totaled.
Other states tend to have similar requirements.
But yeah, the insurance companies will make you work for your $20k. Even if their party is clearly at fault, they'll use anything to string it out and get you to agree to a lower amount. - Mufaka, on 08/29/2008, -7/+23The driver was probably his dad.
- wrxpert, on 08/29/2008, -3/+17Hey. I took a trip to New Zealand last year. It is an awesome and beautiful place. I would love to live there. I would just have to get over them serving beets in there hamburgers.
- kingmanic, on 08/29/2008, -0/+13http://www.demos.org/pubs/Harvard_MedDebtFeb05.pdf
"To investigate medical contributors to bankruptcy we
surveyed 1771 personal bankruptcy filers in five Federal courts,
and subsequently completed in-depth interviews with 931 of them.
About half of debtors cited medical causes, indicating that
between 1.850 and 2.227 million Americans (filers plus
dependents) experienced medical bankruptcy. Among individuals
whose illness led to bankruptcy, out-of-pocket costs averaged
$11,854 since the start of illness; 75.7% had insurance at the
onset of illness."
Doesn't sound much like manipulated figures, as you are suggesting. - inactive, on 08/29/2008, -6/+19Yea this doesnt happen in Canada. THis is mainly a USA thing. Get sick and some people without insurance are better off dying. Sadly...
- davdev, on 08/29/2008, -3/+16Medicine should not be a for profit business, but it does have to cover it's costs.
Disclaimer, I work for a non-profit Hospital network - RogerStrong, on 08/29/2008, -2/+14>> You also pay out your ass in taxes.
Canadians pay less taxes per capita for health care than Americans - even those Americans who end up denied health care, or who end up $15,000 in debt for a single incident like this. - inactive, on 08/29/2008, -1/+13you can kill someone with careless use of a gun and go to jail but do it with a car and you will be fine..all hail the mighty automobile!
- Quaterni0n, on 08/29/2008, -1/+13That is wrong on so many levels.
1. You still end up paying for it...well actually your employer pays out of its ass for your health insurance instead of giving you the money. I know mine does. Man, does it ever! I think it's over $20K.
2. Even with good health insurance (the one I had with my previous job), I still ended up collecting bills piecemeal for over a year for miscellaneous fees that added up to over $2000 when my wife had a baby a few years ago. It's a ***** mess. You get bills from each individual doctor that sees you, plus the hospital, plus the anesthesiologist, plus the labs that run blood tests, etc. Holy ***** man! And even if you give your insurance information to the hospital when you're admitted, they won't necessarily share that information with the others, then you're stuck having to clean up that ***** mess every time you get a bill. Plus they purposely add in mistakes to bloat your bill. When hospitals are trying to make a profit, everybody loses.
Quote:"And I pay a lot less in taxes than you do, that means more money for meeeee!"
3. You are so the typical republican. You'd pull a George Constanza and shove an old lady out of the way to save your own ass. You'd clutch to another swimmer and shove their head underwater and drown them if it would save you from drowning. It's all about you - Oh! Glorious, greedy little you! And then you go to church every sunday to show people that you're a good, decent, morally superior christian. Oh the hypocrisy!
I worked and lived in both Canada and America and I have to say that the Canadian system is better. - fmoliveira, on 08/29/2008, -1/+13It works well when corruption in your gov is low. In Brazil, we pay more taxes than most welfare states, and the free health care is not much better than nothing (people dyeing in overcrowded hospital, in the corridors because there aren't enough beds). If you really need our free hospitals you are as good as dead. Then I have to pay both one of the highest taxes in the world, and private health care.
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