You want something really sad?

GoFundMe is quickly becoming one of America's go-to healthcare providers.

AMURICA!

Yes! We Can!! make things ever so slightly less obscene...

It would have been a crime to waste a perfectly good SuperMajority, after all.

Definitely, Change We Can Believe In.

Adventures in cognitive dissonance:

Dan thinks the healthcare system is obscene, and still somewhat obscene with Obamacare. Millions of Democratic supporters agree.

Hillary Clinton patronizingly says "not everybody can have a pony" in response to such programs, considering them luxuries, and considering such Democrats to be snowflakes who want nice things for free.

Dan concludes that Russia, Jill Stein, and Susan Sarandon are to blame for Trump.

Oh, Dan, you're SO close to seeing the truth, but you just can't do it. You really can't.

We also lead the developed world in mothers dying during childbirth at 26 per every 100,000, nearly three times as many as Germany, which lands at a distant second with 9 deaths per 100,000. Thanks, Culture of Life lunatics!

https://jezebel.com/more-mothers-are-dying-during-childbirth-in-the-u-s-th-1827889479

Cerner runs VM's patient portal.

Health insurance companies do not give nor deny care for anyone, nor do they set prices for procedures or medicines. But this is a common misperception people have when confronted by a subject they know nothing about. It's a complex system, I can sympathize.

Anyway some practical advice:

If you get a doctor/hospital bill for a ridiculous amount and you are uninsured, tell them that you are uninsured and ask for another bill. They charge crazy amounts because overcharging an insurer carries no risk, and possible reward. If they realize there is no insurance company, they will work with you to reduce the bill so that they get something.

Second, if you have health insurance and are denied coverage for a claim, call them and ask to speak to their HIPAA compliance officer (or similar title). By law they have to have one, and this person HAS TO give you the names and credentials of anyone who touched your claim.

They do not want to do this, because they often hire people without any medical training or anything, as their chief job is to look for certain keywords. Companies do not want to do this, and may be inclined to suddenly approve your claim (or a large part of it) so they don't have to admit it was denied by some high school dropout with no training.

Third, medical debt can not be used against you, and can not have interest added as long as you are paying something each month. So that $10,000 medical bill that is threatening to bankrupt you? You can work out a payment plan that pays very little each month, maybe even just 5-10 dollars. As long as you make that payment, there will be no interest or penalty. This is a legally protected option.

Lastly, if you believe a claim was rejected unfairly, just keep calling and calling. Talk to as many people as you can. Never stop demanding they pay. All it takes is that one person. I personally ensured that an infant would have kidney surgery covered last week because no one else was willing or able to add the infant (as the parents totally neglected to inform us that they had a new member, and where well past the contractual retroactive change period). They just had to find me.

I hope that helps someone, and you are still reading, because the last piece of advice is to keep fighting for a single payer option. It's pretty necessary.

Was just on a Greek island

@6: Thank you Theodore

Was just on a Greek island for a family vacation and while there was hospitalized for 3 days with the same illness I experienced 4 years ago here in the states. The cost in Greece for IV antibiotics, MRI, x-rays and CAT scans, multiple blood and urine tests, drugs, food, bed, and really excellent care from the doctors and nursing staff? 660 euros or about $775 USD. Total bill. My deductible 4 years ago here in Oregon (and I have excellent insurance) was in the neighborhood of $2500. Don’t remember what the total bill was but it was well north of 25K. So fuck you, for profit healthcare systems. We the people know we are getting stiffed while the corporate CEO capitalist structure greedily takes it all. Ain’t going to last much longer, we are fed up with your greed. And who needs/deserves a hundred million plus a year anyways? Fuckers.

A worthy mention, Dan.

Forgot to mention that 4 years ago I was hospitalized for 2 days. I know that David Sedaris has written about the cost comparison for the same health procedures in Europe and the US in some of his stories. Just thought I’d add my little story to illustrate the crazy insane costs we are forced to swallow here so that those at the top get huge, obscene money.

"But all those workers who have some or all of their health insurance premium paid for by their employer find the system works perfectly. "

HAHAHAHAHA.

I just had to see that in print again. Precious. Comedy gold. HAHAHAHAHA.

The overwhelming number of the hundreds of thousands of yearly healthcare related bankruptcies come from people WITH employer provided or supplemented health insurance.

And the genius of this "perfect" system is the people who get REALLY sick can't work and lose their coverage.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/06/medical-bills/530679/

@10 I got sick in Vietnam many years ago. Really sick. Vietnam, one of the worlds poorest countries at that time, has socialized medicine. 3 days of hospitalization cost a about a hundred bucks. Antibiotics and other meds ran about $10.

Any reasonable person would obviously want to see single payer implemented, though I couldn't really be less optimistic about the prospects (and I work for an Oregon based Medicaid program that administers benefits on what amounts to fundamentally a single payer type model.)

Was out on the Oregon coast a few weeks ago delighting in the nuances of some right wing talk radio that was tackling the subject and... they're freaking rabid. They had a guest who'd spent time in western Europe on the line touting a book he'd written and he was stoking peoples fears and anxieties with anecdotal tales of lengthy wait times and dwindling provider networks. Moreover, it was the first harrowing step toward totalitarian, Stalin-esque government takeover of your very lives paranoid nonsense. And the callers were lapping it up like starved dogs.

Until we land ourselves the executive branch and veto-proof progressive majorities in both legislatures, we're pretty much stuck working on incremental improvements to the existing system.

*filibuster proof majorities, I meant. Not that it much matters, given the unlikelihood of it's coming to pass

@4 Original Andrew: I know, right? Holy fucking SHIT I'm so glad I got out of an abusive nightmare marriage, and managed to remain childless.

Corporate greed makes me sick.

@17 dumbfuck little of what you’re saying is a “fact.” They are opinions drawn from your own magnificent ignorance.

Most workers are under-covered. Outside a narrow swath of tech businesses most American corporations have been steadily cutting health insurance benefits for thirty years.

The reason we have the stupid system we have now Has it’s roots in an 1942 executive order during WWII called EO 9250 freezing wages. And the IRS at that time didn’t tax benefits. So corporations started offering health plans to attract executives.

After the war we (the US military) helped set up the socialized medical system in Europe. Did you know that? It was modeled partially on military healthcare. Because Europe was so traumatized and needed emergency care that a privatized system couldn’t handle all the trauma, injuries, and diseases as a result of the war.

But the system worked so well most European countries kept it. And as a matter fact it worked so well Truman and Eisenhower both began attempts at implementing a socialized system HERE.

But private insurance companies lobbied against it. Spending millions and millions. At a time during anti-communist hysteria. So no politician wanted to touch it. Because Socialism! So then companies started offering insurance to base workers because there were labor shortages and companies wanted to attract workers and private insurance lobbyists left the country with no choice.

Kennedy tried to resurrect the effort to make a universal system and insurance companies went nuts opposing it but he got Medicare for children.

But no. It has nothing what so ever to do with workers not wanting a better system. Of course they do.

Of course we want cheaper better care and corporations are already ditching benefits. It’s private insurance lobbies. Not workers.

So. I mean. You don’t know what the fuck you’re even saying.

@ 21 - Sargon is not saying that workers don't want a better system, just that they don't want to lose what they already have... as in the saying "A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush".

@22 Ricardo: Thank you and Sargon. That makes sense to me. Sadly, in this ultra-wrongwing downward spiraling err of Mein Trumpfy, common sense isn't so common, anymore.
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