Ask Lemmy

my insurance paid $100k for 5 days in critical and 3 in regular room in 2014, 4 months should be 12 times that, plus add inflation

Also don't know the answer, but another anecdote.

I was admitted to the ICU where I stayed for about a month, not on any ventilator or any other machines except an IV drip (the medication was very dangerous and needed that level of surveillance). However, I was taking up space, so I was transferred to the next level down, where I spent another month on nothing but just that one IV medication. In total I had two non invasive heart surgeries during my time there.

For basically just room, board, babysitters, and the medication, I was billed over $650,000. I was 26 at the time, in college, no job, living off savings I'd accrued in the military....

Yeahhhh.

You'd be fine, aside from the attorney's fees for declaring bankruptcy.

...Oh, and probably losing your housing.

Jury Nullification

There are a huge variety of factors but one I think people tend to forget: your state of residence

Massachusetts or Hawaii, you'd prob not be much worse off than your current situation. Most states, you'd likely owe whatever your insurance plan's out of pocket maximum. In most of the Southeast and Texas, you'd probably be launched into the sun

Almost all of these comments are talking about the total billed amount, which is correct. On most plans, you'd hit a certain amount, and they'd start covering a larger portion of the bill. But your out of pocket expense would definitely be in the hundreds per day, (thousands if bad insurance), while the insurance company would pretend they did you a huge favor.

It depends on your insurance. You might hit a deductible and only owe a few thousand dollars, or you might be bankrupt.

Great thing about medical debt is you don't have to pay it.

In Canada. A very good friend of mine who is around 70 but acts more like in his 30’s which kept him feeling good. Hey we only have one life let’s enjoy it.

Unfortunately it caught up with him a month or so ago.

He was in a vicious motorcycle (his) accident that took an eye, a leg, needed facial reconstruction and wrecked chest. He cannot speak as his jaw is wired shut. I am disabled and cannot get up north to see him. His daughter calls me once in a bit to fill me in.

I cannot begin to comprehend how much his operations, rehab, prosthetics and hospital fees would be in the states. I assume he won’t be getting out for a few months (I am not very knowledgeable on medical stuff) then a ton of therapy. I was told he also has insurance on top of his Ontario health card so hopefully he is in very good hands.

On the order of hundreds of thousands to over a million dollars without insurance, on order of $50k-$100k in copayments with insurance. Either way will wipe you out financially, effectively forcing you to go through medical bankruptcy and resetting any savings you have to $0. In addition, the equity in your house and car can also be seized, above some personal homestead exemption ($250k in New York for example, where the average house price is $2M, and $5k for vehicle). Not sure if they kick you out of the house immediately, or put a lien on it that comes due when you die/move out and house is sold. The only savings that are safe from bankruptcy are retirement savings in IRA and future social security payments.

In the U.S. with insurance you would have easily hit the deductible and out-of-pocket costs though that does mean you would have been billed a few thousand dollars easily (on top of the regular monthly insurance costs). Everyone has slightly different health insurance plans so the actual amount would be hard to predict for a hypothetical question.

One thing you got me thinking, I'm not too sure how often U.S. insurers would actually cover someone to literally stay 4 months in a hospital, maybe in rare extreme cases? Insurance companies typically only approve x amount of days/weeks in hospitals or rehabilitation facilities so once you use up those approved days the hospital has to figure out how to get you out or start billing you directly at a few thousand per day.

!askusa@discuss.online