Quote:
Originally Posted by Dezzy
US is up there with Japan for countries I would not like to live in (obviously not counting war torn countries and the like).
It's nice for a holiday but I'm not living anywhere where, if you come down with a serious illness, you need to start a gofundme for a chance of getting treatment. **** that.
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Well thankfully, most people/families are insured through employers and it's usually an 80/20 (80% coverage, 20% you pay), 90/10 plan... Most plans cover treatment and diagnostics 100%. The percentage is usually if you have to do inpatient/outpatient procedures, (edit) but in most cases it's a deductible. ERs are copays, so I've dropped stones that have cost $20,000K to only have a $300 copay (which is higher than average). (edit) Also the overall price is actually marked down... just because it's billed $20,000K, isn't the contracted rate. It's usually far less once Medicare/insurance contract rates kick in.
Usually the lifetime deductibles are like $1million, etc, but it varies widely. Also, the giant bills you see from hospitals are usually from people who have either maxed out or are uninsured or are in some crazy rare instance where their insurance company is a moron.
My mother has severe Dystonia and she's had two brain surgeries fully covered by Medicare which are entirely experimental. My whole family has had a lot of experimental research done because the form of it is so unusual. 100% of that research was covered by insurance. We wouldn't have the research capabilities we have if it weren't for
private insurance. Not saying it doesn't happen where the insurance companies **** up, but from what I hear the NHS isn't a picnic either.
Anyway, I've never known anyone but myself who has opened a Gofundme, and it was for a dog I was nursing from being emaciated through a dog rescue I was with and who also needed diabetes testing. But Americans are very charitable... even those horrible Christian people and believe me the hospitals/medical center is floating in money. It's just that you hear the worst cases because that's all the media will cover... they'll never tell you how our system though makes a lot of things that don't happen in other places possible. It's just what it is.
Edit: Oh, as far as Japan, I'd agree (personally). I speak the language and I have had friends there for many years who we communicate daily with. It's not quite Western culture, and I don't really feel like doing English teaching for the rest of my life
... . I was a member at a gaijin forum for the longest time so I knew a lot of expats and we talked about it when I wanted to go into Linguistics. It's got it's issues, but so does any country.