"But our taxes are so low and our incomes are so high!"
boom 30+ years in debt because student loan
boom Diabetes
boom Insane living costs
boom Hospital bill
boom Homeless
How do Americans sleep at night knowing they could be royally fucked the moment they have just a little bit of bad luck?
That's the fun part! We don't!
Literally, I am so stressed out every minute of every day that I genuinely think I have gone mad.
During Covid, I started playing the guitar, and really got into it, and over 5 years later, I've gotten pretty good.
The biggest revelation was how much better I felt. I realized that I had been operating under a low grade depression for my entire life, I just never knew it, because it was my baseline feeling, for my entire life.
Now that I figured that out, I'm back to being depressed, because other than the guitar, all the other terrible shit is still in my life. Plus MAGA.
But at least I KNOW I'm depressed, so I got that going for me.
I'm very happy for you, or rather I hope you get better.
As for me, I've known I was depressed since I was about 13. The shitty part is I thought it was mental illness at first. But decades later, with a wife I love, I have finally achieved feeling worse than ever.
How do Americans sleep at night knowing they could be royally fucked
A completely honest and deadpan answer? Drugs. We've got whole industries around it
Came to say exactly this.
something something temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
Honestly though, very few people think through "worst case scenarios" until it's staring them in the face.
The sad thing? Even millionaires arent safe. Its not unheard of cancer treatments draining life savings of millions in just a few years...
I knew a guy who was a CEO of a health care company in the 90s, and retired a millionaire. Then his wife got sick, and her health care costs drained their savings. She died anyway, and he had to go back to work as a regular old sales guy. That's where I met him.
Can’t find it in myself to feel bad for him (too bad for her though)
You fucking losers. I'm a temporarily embarrassed BILLIONAIRE.
My medical plan with insurance: wearing a DNR bracelet at all times since I was 25. Hospital bills, even with insurance, would bankrupt me. But, its helpful to have for dental care.
Ambulances cost in Australia too, very expensive.
I was involuntary sectioned once, and the ride to the hospital cost me $1200.
I now pay for insurance, about $300 a year for ambulance and dental. I recently had crushing chest pains while driving out in the middle of nowhere, and they sent me two ambulances, each from different towns. That would have cost me $4k without insurance, but cost me $0 with insurance
That's insurance I can get behind and I'm glad you have that option.
Unlike my insurance (US citizen) which costs me $200/month and when my wife was forced to take an ambulance for a hospital transfer. (We tried to get them to let me drive her and they refused), we now have a $5000 ambulance bill.
The costs for ambulances varies between states, here in qld the ambulance is free and if I remember correctly in Canberra you won't be charged for specific emergencies.
My friend and her daughter were in a car accident a couple of months ago, both went to the hospital in the same ambulance. Both are on the same health insurance. Each one of them got a bill for the full amount of the ambulance ride.
Europe also has capitalism they just have the basic decency to understand that relatively free healthcare is good for capitalism.
My ride cost me around $1,000 USD, which sounds like a bargain compared to numbers I've heard from others. But, it was still a big financial burden considering I'd just been laid off from work.
There's only one ambulance service operating in my rural area, and my health insurance considers them "out-of-network". Not that it would have mattered, when you call 911 (emergency services), you don't get to haggle and negotiate with the operator and your insurance provider to send an in-network unit, you get what you get.
Probably a good thing I refused treatment, other than bandaging to stop the blood loss, during the ambulance ride. The 2 ibuprofen I was given in the emergency room cost $40 since they were considered non-necessary and I did not get prior approval. I can only imagine what the ambulance up-charge would have been if I'd accepted anything from them aside from letting them wrap me up so I didn't bleed to death on the way to the hospital.
How America is not genuinely burning to the ground right now... I'm genuinely disappointed.
Its the ABC's of the american economy: Always Be C-porting market solutions that fuck us over
*"Welcome to capitalism; that'll be $350. Suck my dick"
Fixed that last comment.
For childbirth though we’re definitely driving to hospital here in Europe unless something went very very bad. Plenty of time between the start of the party and the conclusion of it. It would be poor taste to use ambulance for something actually not urgent.
What about for those who don't have a car?
For something rare like a pregnancy, I'd call a taxi if I don't have anyone else who can+wants to drive us.
Back when I didn’t need - didn’t had one I called family to drive us. And then for a few days I took the bus as usual. But that was some 20yrs ago ;-) Now I would take an Uber-like service.
We have free health care in Canada but if you call an ambulance and it was determined not to be an emergency you pay a fine.
How strict is that determination? Do you only get fined if it's an extreme mismatch (like calling an ambulance for a small scratch that doesn't even necessitate a doctor), or also if you actually have serious issues but not quite serious enough to die on the same day?
Here's a case where a woman who called after a car crash got a $552 bill because no one was seriously injured in the crash.
According to the article, she got the bill because she was not a resident of the town where the accident happened. And it's a bill to recover costs, not a fine - the article sounds very much like she still would have gotten the bill if it was an emergency.
CTV News Toronto reached out to officials in London, who confirmed "The City of London charges fees when the London Fire Department responds to a call or incident on any roadway within the city that involves a vehicle owned by a resident from outside of London." "This fee is included in the City of London’s Fees and Charges By-law, and it is intended to recover costs when services are provided to a non-London resident," the spokesperson said.
A $552 bill is more than most parking or speeding fines I’ve ever seen. I don’t think that’s a very important distinction. If you don’t pay it you’ll get hit with more trouble.
It's an important distinction if you also get that bill if it IS an emergency.
And they're probably covered by insurance if you have it anyway.
The article you posted suggests it was because she was from a different municipality?
Another thing that's common in America is that after you drive yourself to the emergency room, you sit in the parking lot for a while to see if you can get through the emergency situation on your own before going in, because you know you're going to sit for hours and hours waiting anyway.
Why risk being charged tens of thousands of dollars and losing your housing when you can wait in your car to see if you're gonna die. And if it's that bad, you can crawl toward the emergency room. And then maybe they'll come help you. Otherwise, you can just sit it out like you would be sitting in the waiting room and then just leave if you get through it yourself.
Unless you’re at a hospital where you have to pay for parking. I’m not paying just to sit in my car in the parking garage.
If I think I'm getting through it with no issue I'm not going to the hospital at all. The only time my family has driven to the emergency room without thinking we absolutely needed to go was for a sexual assault swab (that we knew would never get analyzed, but she wanted it done and I knew it was the best path towards her getting trauma treatment). Everything else was something like difficulty breathing during covid or during a smoke storm, possible anaphylaxsis, or a major concussion. Fortunately we get insurance where one go hits your annual deductible, so the rest are cheap.
And guess what, it's still not free even if the reason you need one is because your current hospital can't handle your needs and you need to go to a different one.
Total joke
Dont even look at the cost of a helicopter ambulance. And ordinary insurance will not cover it.
I'd also mention timing being an issue with ambulances.
My first kid we were about 40 minutes away from the hospital where it was covered by insurance, the second we moved and changed providers so we were 10 minutes away. I drove both times.
First kid it would have taken 20 minutes for an ambulance to get to us, then maybe 30-35 minutes to the hospital.
Second, it would have been about 5-10 minutes, but... Obviously I could be there in the same time as it would take to get there.
For both, I would have to hit the deductible first, so I would have paid about $1500 for each ride on top of that, because ambulance services aren't (maybe weren't? Probably still aren't) considered required care with a pregnancy/birth. Thats not the cost if you dont have insurance BTW, that'd a negotiated price by the insurance companies - it could be several thousand otherwise.
I'm in my 40's, I've been to an emergency room quite a few times over the years, and I've never taken an ambulance there. Everything from a car accident (drove myself to the hospital), to severe 2nd degree burns (drove myself to the hospital), to a sudden infection/massive swelling overnight (wife drove me).
So.... Yeah... Its bullshit. American "healthcare" is a joke.
US healthcare is extortion.
gits hit by car
me: nah I ain't goin to hospital hospital is for weak
Gotta love how this is a convo as old as time, repeating for decades… only now shown as a disjointed mix of shitty memes…
What once was a cogent argument now reduced to a picture of Julia Luis Dreyfus (herself a billionaire shipping heiress) looking confused about capitalism…
To be fair, billionaires arent knowm for being smart or understanding things.
Thank God that where I live, the ambulance rides are free. The hospital care is still expensive, though.
So recently, 5 months ago, I had to ride in the ambulance and it was around $2500. It cost me $75. I have low income insurance so I'm lucky, but most don't.
As someone who is currently very low income, even $75 dollars could cause me a heckton of stress. I'm sorry that healthcare sucks so hard for y'all
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