I think it was Gina Yashere (British comedian) who did the math and worked out while she was touring the US, if her leg was cut off, it would be cheaper to take a taxi to the airport, book two last minute first-class seats on British Airways (one seat for her, and one for the leg) and fly home to be treated in the UK than it would be to just go to a US hospital.
An asshole literally called an ambulance for me and I told him not to. He said he was doing the right thing. I told him I was able to decide for myself if I needed an ambulance. The ambulance came and tried to tell me they weren’t allowed to not take me. I told them I was calling the police for kidnapping. They didn’t believe me. I called a taxi and bolted into it. Told the cabby I’d give him an extra $20 if he ignored them. Dumbasses. Fuck that guy that called an ambulance for me. Truly.
I learned this from watching their emergency services shows. The EMS asks them if they want to be taken to the hospital. They always decline.
America has medical bankruptcy at a rate seen nowhere else in the world.
Roger Marshall, a US senator (and medical Dr gynecology) sent dozens of patients (moms) to jail for debt collection as little as $100 and he will likely win reelection in Republican Kansas despite this being a front page story.
America effectively sounds more and more like a feudal state run by different landlords who in turn answer to oil barons and CEO Marquis.
I mean, at least he won’t ve practicing medicine anymore
How much gyneacology can you even get for $100, and would you really want it?
I think you only get one finger for $100.
Depends on if you like getting blasted by an old man for no reason as modern gynos don’t do that anymore.
They do lots of different types of procedures.
MOAR BOOTSTRAPS!
I should be laughing at this meme as a Brazilian who inhabits a country with public healthcare with public ambulance (Sistema Único de Saúde and its SAMU, respectively), but then I check our election results from last Sunday and… Welp, good thing I’m practicing Memento Mori in a daily basis and preparing myself (spiritually, physically, mentally, socially, etc-ly…) to cemeteries (if those who’d be left with my cadaver would afford a coffin and a gravesite, it’s a whole other story). Before I leave this Pale Blue Dot as a homo sapiens embodiment, maybe I’ll eventually going to make a Brazilian version of this meme, with a SAMU ambulance instead of the USian one, so I become, like my therapist once recommended me, a Titanic violinist, playing as the whole ship gets swallowed by the abyss, laughing like a hyena as we all meet the cold touch…
!politicalmemes@lemmy.worldDo not get an ambulance outside of your county of residence, Americans!! It’s much more expensive than inside your county. Which is already expensive.
i was advised once by a nurse to call an ambulance for myself, but i was so afraid of the cost i ended up ubering to the emergency room. i was in serious pain but i didn’t think i was going to die (and i wasn’t), hence what may seem like a stupid choice. the hospital stay still ended up being $700 dollars after insurance.
Usually we choose the “hop in your car and drive double the speed limit there” option.
“Ambulance” doesn’t even enter the conversation in my circles. It’d be like suggesting we take a private jet. “Just dying” is an equally ridiculous option. Everyone should know both basic first aid and how to steal a car
I like you. You get it
It’s messed up… healthcare should be free. No one should have to pay a fortune for emergency care.
One time I got struck by a car while on foot. It flipped me over the top and broke a few things, including cracking a vertebrae in my neck. The fucker driving probably thought they killed me because they hit the gas right afterwards and sped away.
When the ambulance came I tried to argue against getting in it. Told them I’d drive myself if I didn’t feel better after a night. It’s hard to argue when you’re all twisted up on the ground, tho. Anyway, that EMS wasn’t having any of my shit.
On the gurney I went and off to the most expensive 1 mile trip of my life.
How are you presently?
Struggling with chronic discomfort and limited mobility from crumbling disks in the lumbar region. But that’s just getting older, unfortunately. The price of bipedalism, I suppose.
Thank you for asking.
A little pissy it happened so early since I’m not even 50 yet, so it feels like I got robbed of at least 10 years of my active life.
On the other hand, fair trade. I’ve survived quite a number of things that should have taken me out if it weren’t for luck or hardiness. I bounced back from that hit and run pretty quickly. Fell a few stories out of a tree once. I’ve also survived a tornado that went directly over me and collapsed the building I was in. Fought a guy in jail who was about 250 lbs of pure muscle (lost that one, lol, got a trip to the hospital and concussion for my trouble), almost froze to death one night (was literally wavering back and forth between the land of eternal sleep and life before I peeled myself off the ground and stumbled my way through a snow storm for shelter) another hospital trip for trying to save one of our customers in the middle of a city wide riot and bar fight (I was in the local newspaper for that. Earned a punctured lung and some broken ribs). Accidentally released a bunch of chlorine gas into an apartment complex (I could feel the vapors on my skin when I ran in to shut everything off, shoo). A few other manglings not worth going into detail about.
Knock on wood, turns out I’m pretty hard to kill.
Anyway, long story short, I’ll take a little genetic back pain in light of the tremendous luck I’ve had since none of my misadventures left me with any permanent damage.
Good thing, too, healthcare costs are the deadliest thing out there.
True. My buddy was dying of heat exhaustion and we were honestly discouraging him to get a helicopter rescue on the hike. We ended up getting the helicopter though
Believe it or not, straight to permanent debt prison.
Afterwards, he told us that the helicopter rescue was covered/didn’t cost him because it was for an emergency. He said that they only charge if you give up on the hike but don’t have a medical issue.
Not sure if that’s true but that’s what he told us
I wonder exactly how many Americans die every year from not seeking medical attention due to the cost.
Looks like it’s about 68,000 a year or about 186 a day
https://insuredandmore.com/how-many-people-have-died-due-to-lack-of-healthcare
It’s not even a joke.
I once had a co-worker who was having a full blown asthma attack refuse to let me call an ambulance, preferring instead to wait for her sister in law to bike to the store with her inhaler. The system is just broken.
My father-in-law fell down a flight of stairs last week. He just laid on the floor for three hours while he and his wife argued over if they could afford the ambulance. If I hadn’t found out and gone over to get him myself, I think he’d probably still be on the floor now.
I’ve literally seen this in person
Me too, I’ve seen people literally run away to the best of the ability when an ambulance showed up.
It’s really not. I’ve even taken an Uber/Lyft to the ER in an emergency before - with money I had beg friends for + a coupon. Then the absurdly high ER bills went to collections, because we didn’t have the Medicaid expansion here and I’m disabled and couldn’t pay them since I can’t work, and now I have debt collectors hounding me all the time.
When I was a kid and my dad was real sick, my parents got sued for unpaid medical bills we couldn’t afford when my dad nearly died and had to be revived and intubated and shit. They garnished my dad’s already piddly wages (mom’s disabled, or they would have garnished hers, too) and they had to declare bankruptcy.
This country is such a mess.
Remember this every time you consider being polite to a conservative instead of treating them the way they deserve.
I mean at this point they are supporting a convicted felon, adjudicated rapist, probable pedophile and insurrectionist traitor that just joked about Iran destroying two of America’s largest cities because they vote blue.
Conservatives should be treated like traitors, because they are. They have made it very clear they are America’s enemy.
Yeah, fuck empathy and social cohesion, just emulate the worst behaviours of your perceived other. If someone needs a ride to the hospital I’m not going to check their damn voting records
If I don’t know someones politics I’ll help them without question. If they’re wearing Trump merch then they can have the day they voted for. I don’t give a fuck about social cohesion with those cunts anymore than they would with me.
Picturing you at a bus stop rolling your eyes as an 80 y/o in a maga hat strokes out, it’s not pretty. What happened to being the change?
What happened to being the change?
Allowing evil people to die so the world can be a better place is the change I want to see in this world.
Are you suggesting old people can’t be evil?
At least some of them just come out and admit they want death. Your sophistry does not grant any moral high ground. What you are saying is that you more death, that those you judge must die. It is a direct reflection of the ideology you are trying to oppose. An equal and opposite reaction that only perpetuates a cycle.
I don’t care if you think I’m pretty. The change I want is every maga turd in this country in the ground. They abandoned the social contract, not me. You don’t get to abide by it only when it benefits you.
No one is talking about whether or not you are pretty, that’s a deflection from the obvious ugliness of watching someone die. The change you express a desire for here would be more clearly stated as mass death. We only control our own actions, I can only hope that those you would take in reality are kinder.
If someone needs a ride to the hospital I’m not going to check their damn voting records
Not what the person you are responding to said. They just said “be polite to”. And no, you shouldn’t be polite to conservatives after what they’ve done.
I have no empathy for torturers and murderers.
Quick to judge, lacking empathy, who does that sound like to you? Really hope you can find enough peace to try being a good part of this greater whole again man.
“There’s a bad man in everyone, no matter who we are. There’s a rapist and a nazi living in our tiny hearts. Child pornographers and cannibals, and politicians too. There’s someone in your head waiting to fucking strangle you.”
Great song. Best of luck out there.
It sound like YOU have a Nazi living in your heart with how hard you are trying to defend them in this thread.
Think the point of the song is that we all do, and acknowledging and attempting to transcend that is crucial to being “good”. It’s being very clearly demonstrated here that with enough fear and enough hurt many otherwise normal people will resort to paying forward the bigotry and violence inflicted on them. Can you point to where I have in any way defended nazis, rather than advocating against the very behaviors that make their “movement” so reprehensible?
No, there is no rapist or Nazi living in my heart.
Wow, that’s great. Sounds like you’re pretty dang pure, far removed from the flawed individuals you wish death on. A model human, some kind of ‘ubermensch’
I got in a Lyft with nearly bursting intestines and asked him to take me to the ER. He could see on my face that I was sweating and pale. He kept nervously asking me about it and I had to pretend to be OK so he wouldn’t kick me out of his car. “I’m good, just going to a doctor’s appointment. You see that show last night?”. I was desperately clutching my stomach and my shirt was drenched in sweat.
I like to think he understood.
I’ve driven myself to the hospital a few times to avoid paying for an ambulance. The only time I actually went to a hospital in an ambulance was when I couldn’t stay conscious. I still didn’t want to go, but I couldn’t exactly argue.
