<story><title>I analyzed hospital price lists so you didn&apos;t have to</title><url>https://www.dolthub.com/blog/2022-07-01-hospitals-compliance/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>javajosh</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt;So I guess I should shop around by moving cities&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;No, the solution to most social ills in America is to simply not be poor. If you are poor, stop it. Then you don&amp;#x27;t have to worry about any of this. Consider abortion, a procedure now outlawed in many US states. If you&amp;#x27;re not poor, you can just pay to travel to another state or country, have the procedure, do some sight-seeing, and come home. The law has no &lt;i&gt;de facto&lt;/i&gt; effect on you. Same with every aspect of healthcare. So, just don&amp;#x27;t be poor and you&amp;#x27;ll be fine. (Even better if you are connected to the wealthy and powerful in your city &amp;amp; state. It is very nice indeed to be a VIP in an American hospital, court, or anywhere else.)</text></item><item><author>Someone1234</author><text>When High Deductible Insurance was introduced the supposed concept was to &amp;quot;give employees a stake in their costs, and therefore lower them for both employer and employee.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;However, even today doing so is very challenging, and before laws like this it was essentially impossible. There&amp;#x27;s no way to shop around American healthcare, with the system itself working against you at every turn (e.g. doctors prescribing named brand, and you not be allowed to switch back to generic without another $100+ appointment).&lt;p&gt;You can try calling and getting quotes, but they&amp;#x27;ll just waste a bunch of time and then give you a RANGE with no assurances. Even getting the quote requires your doctor to write up the entire work-order, which itself can get pushback, and or cost money.&lt;p&gt;Then you have random things like for-profit life flights, which are automatic bankruptcy machines. Imagine one minute driving down the road, then suddenly waking up in a hospital, and then getting billed $80K for just the trip to get there let alone your hospital treatment or recovery. And insurance doesn&amp;#x27;t cover it.&lt;p&gt;Aside but all ambulances around me are &amp;quot;out of network&amp;quot; and don&amp;#x27;t work with insurance at all. So I guess I should shop around by moving cities..?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>JumpCrisscross</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;the solution to most social ills in America is to simply not be poor&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;American healthcare works well if you have money and better than anywhere else in the world if you have money and a chronic condition. If you get in an accident, however, particularly while away from your posh neighbourhood, you’re getting the same overworked, hyper-indebted surgeon as the homeless man. (If you’re a billionaire or head of state, that’s different, but that’s different everywhere.)</text></comment>
<story><title>I analyzed hospital price lists so you didn&apos;t have to</title><url>https://www.dolthub.com/blog/2022-07-01-hospitals-compliance/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>javajosh</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt;So I guess I should shop around by moving cities&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;No, the solution to most social ills in America is to simply not be poor. If you are poor, stop it. Then you don&amp;#x27;t have to worry about any of this. Consider abortion, a procedure now outlawed in many US states. If you&amp;#x27;re not poor, you can just pay to travel to another state or country, have the procedure, do some sight-seeing, and come home. The law has no &lt;i&gt;de facto&lt;/i&gt; effect on you. Same with every aspect of healthcare. So, just don&amp;#x27;t be poor and you&amp;#x27;ll be fine. (Even better if you are connected to the wealthy and powerful in your city &amp;amp; state. It is very nice indeed to be a VIP in an American hospital, court, or anywhere else.)</text></item><item><author>Someone1234</author><text>When High Deductible Insurance was introduced the supposed concept was to &amp;quot;give employees a stake in their costs, and therefore lower them for both employer and employee.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;However, even today doing so is very challenging, and before laws like this it was essentially impossible. There&amp;#x27;s no way to shop around American healthcare, with the system itself working against you at every turn (e.g. doctors prescribing named brand, and you not be allowed to switch back to generic without another $100+ appointment).&lt;p&gt;You can try calling and getting quotes, but they&amp;#x27;ll just waste a bunch of time and then give you a RANGE with no assurances. Even getting the quote requires your doctor to write up the entire work-order, which itself can get pushback, and or cost money.&lt;p&gt;Then you have random things like for-profit life flights, which are automatic bankruptcy machines. Imagine one minute driving down the road, then suddenly waking up in a hospital, and then getting billed $80K for just the trip to get there let alone your hospital treatment or recovery. And insurance doesn&amp;#x27;t cover it.&lt;p&gt;Aside but all ambulances around me are &amp;quot;out of network&amp;quot; and don&amp;#x27;t work with insurance at all. So I guess I should shop around by moving cities..?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gumby</author><text>&amp;gt; No, the solution to most social ills in America is to simply not be poor. If you are poor, stop it.&lt;p&gt;Those people deserve it.  I mean, some people chose to be born to wealthy parents; if you were too lazy to do that why should I have to reward your laziness by paying to look after you?  Really, some people can be so selfish!&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; It is very nice indeed to be a VIP in an American hospital&lt;p&gt;My gf had a life threatening illness and went to Stanford hospital.  They gave her the special blanket just for Stanford Faculty so she&amp;#x27;d get the VIP treatment.  Which in practice meant nothing.  Thankfully she survived; now I wonder if I should be glad or not that VIPs get the same shitty health care there as everybody else.</text></comment>