Sup
Oh not much, just seething with incredulity at how badly broken the American health care system is. I just got the bill for my little ER trip last week. They charged the ER and the CT scan separately. The CT scan was only $90 which is fucking weird as I've heard stories including from a BLer about being charged thousands in the ER for one. The ER bill was just under $5,000... so let me get this straight, they charged me $5,000 for an ambulance ride to the hospital (15 minute drive), a shot of narcan that doesn't do anything unless you're ODing on opiates, an IV and some fluids, a urine test, and talking to 2 doctors and leaving an hour later. Fucking insane, I can't even wrap my head around how they can possibly justify even close to that much. They didn't really even do anything, just waited for me to sober up enough to converse with them.
The insurance company is still calculating my responsibility for it but it should cap at $400 as that is my deductible. But it's so unacceptable, tons of people don't have health insurance. And yeah I know I brought it on myself, but stuff happens every day to many people that puts them massively in debt because of some random bad luck. This is why privatizing health care is a horrible idea. Keeping the citizens of your country healthy and saving lives shouldn't be done for profit. Privatization encourages high costs and long-term treatment of sick people with medications and medical services. Whereas public health care encourages low costs and preventing disease from developing in the first place. Low costs (or no costs except for, oh right, taxes) encourage people to be proactive about their health, high costs discourage people from seeking medical advice or attention even when it's badly needed, let alone routine visits to make sure they are aware of any developing issues.
Sometimes I hate this country so much. Even though I also love it. But fucking fuck, we really need to get our priorities straight. This is madness.