Neither do I. The Japanese system is a lot less expensive, but it does have its problems, mostly the ones stated in the article. Some areas in Japan have a problem with overcrowding or a lack of specialists. I’m lucky to live in one region that actually has neither problem. At least, not to any serious degree. A lot of problems with Japan’s health care system, though, stem not so much from the system itself, but from Japan’s aging population. The health care system is also regulated too much in some areas, making it difficult for doctors and hospitals to make a profit, so few but the most altruistic Japanese students decide to become doctors. With the economy as it is now, though, I doubt the government is going to allow hospitals to start charging more anytime soon.
Until those problems are fixed, I can count my lucky stars that I’m in a small town that has a lot of well-staffed and well-equipped hospitals and clinics.
[rant]
When we went in for our hearing, we happened to be last on the docket. Everyone ahead of us had a bunch of cars/property they were claiming as assets, and the same story: “Well, I used to work 48 hours a week, then they cut me down to 40.” We got up there (DH with his oxygen bottle) with our one working car between us, and I laid it out: “Well, he lost his job at the beginning of the year due to his health, wound up in the hospital for 38 days, was denied twice for social security benefits, and because we don’t qualify for any kind of governmental programs, trying to pay for everything on my salary alone- including the resulting $300,000 hospital bill- just sort of overwhelmed us.” At least the other folks had the decency to look a tad bit ashamed. Seriously, if getting your hours cut down to regular full time instead of overtime (not from regular full to partial full, which has the unfortunate side effect of removing any benefits) pushes you into bankruptcy, you’re doing something seriously wrong. It’s not like the folks there were at jobs that paid $40 for overtime- just doing the math in my head, it wasn’t THAT significant of a difference in pay. One guy had four cars (for himself, mind you, although one was in the shop) and had to be reminded by his lawyer of the existence of two of them. HOW ABOUT SELLING ONE OF THE CARS, IDIOT!!!"
[/rant]
Sorry- I don’t mean to hijack the thread to kvetch about my own issues. It’s just still a little raw.
If I ever get sick, I’m seriously considering border hopping and taking advantage of my Canadian health card. It was bad enough getting a $2k* bill for a few hours in the ER with a migraine.
Not exactly. The cost of health care in the US is seriously screwed up. It’s a symptom of the insurance racket. It however, IS NOT, a result of some imaginary glut of uninsured gobbling up resources in the ER. Yes, part of the price of health care is built-in markup to cover the free services they are required to provide, but that is a small percentage. A larger part of the markup is in place to cover the costs of malpractice insurance and to pay down frivolous lawsuits. Another huge part is to recoup the crippling administrative costs that our serpentine system generates and the intentional confusion the insurance companies profit from when they refuse payment for services they are contracted to cover. There’s a huge amount of built-in cost in pharmaceuticals and other R&D intensive items who’s development costs must be recovered and those costs are disproportionately burdening American patients with coverage.
Universal Health Care is a monumentally complex issue that far exceeds the implementation of simple Federal Health Insurance. The promoted “costs” of such a program are inflated and estimated because the current costs of services are not based on the procedures themselves nor the equipment’s wholesale cost. A major step into Health Care reform is going to be tort reform as it applies to malpractice. It’s going to need some level of transparency and control on the prices for services and drugs to eliminate the gross markup on simple things.
Simply providing insurance to more (all) people isn’t going fix things. They need to eliminate all the waste and greed that pervades the medical and insurance industries. The costs that patients see are almost entirely fictitious.
Heh. My nephew won the genetic lotto and was born with an incredibly rare problem (basically, liver didn’t work for a really rare reason)- we are talking 1 in 80,000 births, and generally catastrophic presentations in newborns, which means means that almost all of them die before the docs figure out what the hell is wrong.
So- six months in NICU, dialysis, drugs, a liver transplant at 3 months, more drugs and lots of 'em… plus anti-rejection drugs for life… six million so far, at least.
Hmm, it has gone up. I had mine done 10 years ago, and got a bill for about $13,000. Luckily it wasn’t mine to pay. I don’t think I paid anything at the time. I worked full time as a lowly bookseller at Borders Books, and my plan covered me. I guess I may have paid a deductible, but I don’t remember it, so it can’t have been much. I had not put but a few hundred into my health insurance deductions when it occurred. Made out like a bandit on that one.
The worst part is that the present situation has been created by CEOs and folks at Insurance and Health Care companies who share the same morals as those in the Banking world. There’s another bubble waiting to pop.
EJsGirl, is your nephew’s name Aidan? I know a boy with that exact story. Well, know in the sense of internet friendship with his Mom.
I know there are millions of problems with the Canadian health care system, but I am right now so grateful for it. We could never have afforded the medical care necessary just to have our son in the U.S.
I had my gallbladder removed, laproscopically in 1994. I only stayed in the hospital for 20 hours including the surgery time. It was just over 20K!!
I didn’t have any insurance at the time. I paid and paid on it for a year or two, and finally the hospital told me they would write the balance off or something. ??? I didn’t question it, but was so happy. I think they also said they submitted my bill for some sort of grant. It is a Catholic hospital, BTW. So in the end I only paid about $1000. I was a part-time waitress and sending them $50 a month or whatever I could afford. I would still be paying off that bill at that rate!
Did you have your surgery already? I hope it went/goes well.
I’m uninsured, and would not think of declaring bankruptcy. So if it was a really big sum of money that I had no hope of paying off any time soon (which would not be a large amount of money for me in my current “job”), I’d seriously think of just getting a gun and doing myself in.
What the flying fuck? Dude, there’s no shame in bankruptcy if it’s caused by circumstances beyond your control. It’s like getting hit by lightning. Personally I wouldn’t hesitate under those circumstances. If the numbers on the calculator add up in that direction, it’s a business decision. Don’t let someone else’s story make your decisions.
Threads like this just make me so glad hubby and I are not in the US.
Since January 2007 he’s had at least four, if not five visits to the hospital. Each one has lasted anywhere between 3 days (shortest) to 2 weeks (longest).
These visits have included endoscopies, x-rays, ultrasounds, scans, medication, physiotherapy visits, dietician visits, home care for 4 weeks after his last visit (Oct/Nov last year) and four separate blood transfusions - the first for about 6-7 units, each subsequent one for between 2-4 units.
Total cost to us? One $800 ambulance bill for his gastric ulcer bleed in January last year, and that’s only because he didn’t have ambulance insurance and isn’t a pensioner. Everything else, including outpatient follow-up procedures has been completely free of cost to us.
>I was hit on my bicycle several years ago. Helicopter, trauma center, ICU, ventilator, lots o’blood, several surgeries, two months in hospital.
>Over 1,000,000
Wow! Is that why you aren’t “bicycler pat”?
No, I think they went to San Fransisco for his treatment. It was nine years ago, long before I got to know them. They live in northern California. He had (as I recall) a liver transplant at a few months old, a stroke, and cardiac arrest. He’s mentally handicapped due to the stroke and oxygen deprivation. He’s also a perfectly adorable little boy, really funny, and really nice.
I have a friend who lives a little north of you Vancouver ,BC. He got a heart transplant. His cost was nothing. He had to wait while they tried other things, but after 2 years he is doing fine. In the US he would have died or declared bankruptcy, or both.
I know half a dozen people (all Americans) who have moved overseas for access to medical care and/or insurance that they could never obtain at home. How is it that I can pay 100% out of pocket here at a price 1/20th or even 1/30th of what the same thing costs in the US?
Wow. Sorry - I didn’t notice you were riding the handcycle when you first posted. If you don’t mind my asking, is that because of the accident? What kind of changes did it leave you with? Just curious.
