I’d like to know other non-US citizen’s opinions on your health care system are when you read a story like this. I know there are worse places in the world to receive health care, and better. What runs through your heads when you have a medical emergency?
A little background on my question:
My son was having trouble breathing after having a cold for a couple of days and we needed to stop and take the time to see if our insurance would be accepted at the closest emergency room so we didn’t end up with a huge bill (like 2000$-5000$). This was a pretty involved ~10 minute process of logging into our insurance carrier, and unsuccessfully finding the answer there. Then calling the hospital and having them tell us to look it up by scrolling through some links using the local search tool on their website. This gave me some serious pause, what if it was a real emergency, like the kind where you have no time to call and see if the closest hospital takes your insurance.
It’s just THAT expensive. An ambulance is 2-3k minimum. Just for showing up. Going to an ER, talking to reception and then giving up and leaving? That’ll be a $1200 bill, to NOT see a doctor.
I don’t even know the line where I would voluntarily to go the hospital, knowing it’s sacrificing the next 10-20 years of all my extra income. Would it be when I put my thumb thru a grinding disc on my angle grinder, cutting it clean in two right thru the entire nail?
Naw, hell no. I would have cut my thumb tip off with a chef’s knife and cauterized It if I thought it wouldn’t heal on its own, rather than spend an app $15,000 I don’t have. Took about 10 weeks to heal.
I know how to fight off an abscess tooth without antibiotics. It takes about 8 days, of constant stabbing, arching your back pain. Ive broken knuckles just to have a different pain to focus on. No one should know how to do this in 2024. Abscess teeth kill. Kennewick Man, y’know, the Popsicle? That’s what killed him. My story isn’t unique, America is a third world country with iPhones. Don’t visit. I wish the world would boycott every American company until we learn how to have a civil society.