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.
Man, I live in shit country where opposition is killed every february and ruling party of oligarchs have been destroying my country’s healthcare system for last 20 years, but I’m glad commies built it tough.
I’ve heard you even pay for ambulance.
You do. And not a small amount, like an Uber. Hundreds of dollars, regardless of how far it goes. I’m sure there are markups for care received, but I’ve not been in one to know.
*out of pocket
Why doesn’t uber (or equivalent) do ambulances?
Liability and drivers don’t want to clean up blood to start.
For a higher fair, some may be happy to do so.
I’m pretty sure the amount you’d have to increase it to break even with the new insurance you’d need and all the cleaning would rather defeat the purpose.
That’s probably why uber ambulance doesn’t exist.
They don’t have doctors. Ambulance is not a glorified taxi.
An ambulance is a very specific type of taxi.
Yes, you need an EMT and some equipment so the cost is higher than a taxi, but not the $500+ a ride currently charged.
How about 0 charged?
At that price some (particularly old) people use ambulances as a medical taxi service.
How about a fully refunded deposit on A&E admittance?