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mrfoof82 t1_iy643yv wrote

From the article...

>That includes 11 million who owe more than $2,000 and 3 million people who owe more than $10,000.

So assuming that the ones that owe more than $10,000 also owe more than $2,000...

  • (3,000,000 * 10,000) = 30,000,000,000 ... + (8,000,000 * 2,000) = 16,000,000,000, or $46 billion owed

Yet if those two groups however are exclusive, that means over $52 billion owed.

Per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in Oct. 2022 there were ~264,535,000 Americans aged 16 and older, not in prison, that could theoretically work. So equally divided amongst them, that's $196.57 in medical debt per person.

However, in October 2022 there were ~164,667,000 active participants aged 16 and older in the US workforce. Equally divided amongst them, that's $315.79 in medical debt per active US worker aged 16 and older.

Keep in mind that active participant number includes ~17,107,000 men and women of at least age 16, but younger than 20 years old. So if we excluded them, that's $352.40 per active worker aged 20 and older.

That's just the debt. That's an outstanding balance due, not expenses already incurred with balances settled, nor outstanding balances that are yet to be put into debt collection.

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casadecarol t1_iy67q1d wrote

They did the math.

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Chippopotanuse t1_iy698ed wrote

And that’s just if the owe the dead-ass minimum to qualify for the $2k and $10k thresholds.

My guess is there’s a lot of $100k+ folks out there.

There’s a reason bankruptcy is incredibly likely for folks who have a bad medical event like a car crash, cancer, surgery, or a heart attack.

No other civilized country operates this way.

You can thank the GOP and conservative voters for why we can’t have nice things.

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GTAIVisbest t1_iy6lr4v wrote

Wait so the average plan has like a $7,000 max yearly out-of-pocket or something. Max YOOPM is like $9k IIRC. If you have to go to the hospital and get a 100k bill, provided you chose to go to an in-network facility (or you were incapacitated), you just need to pay whatever balance was remaining on that ~$7,000 worst case scenario. Are these people illegally uninsured or something?

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DearMrsLeading t1_iy6nil7 wrote

I had a surgery and it turned out my anesthesiologist wasn’t covered by my insurance, I was responsible for the entire cost of his services despite never having a choice of who I got. Another one of my tests was deemed not medically necessary (it was) and I had to pay for that too. There are a lot of weird loopholes that result in bills.

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GTAIVisbest t1_iy6yiv3 wrote

No Surprises Act :) they can't balance-bill you for anesthesiologists anymore

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DearMrsLeading t1_iy6yl4r wrote

Oh, awesome! My surgery was years ago so my info is a bit old.

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GTAIVisbest t1_iy6z4pj wrote

Yeah, the No Surprises Act was monumental and basically the pinnacle of the Biden administration imho. Before, like you said, an anesthesiologist would just walk in to your room and look at your chart, and you couldn't say anything at all or speak up in time, and BOOM- balance-billed. Nowadays, you'll still get balance-billed, but after spending a dozen hours on the phone or so it gets dropped. Still crappy unpaid work but at least you're not on the hook anymore

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Fabulous-Ad6844 t1_iy8gu6k wrote

That shit needs to be legislated. If you have no choice then it should be automatically treated as in network. Only Doctors should decide what’s necessary, not insurers.

Well if we can’t have universal here then at least make the system a little fairer. Sigh.

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Chippopotanuse t1_iy7uobl wrote

Go look into whether helicopters are covered by insurance when you are airlifted somewhere. It’s like $35k. Or ambulance rides. Easily $1k per ride.

Or an insane amount of other “non-covered” expenses.

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the_eluder t1_iy7exso wrote

And don't forget the amount you spend on premiums. So for most you're actually spending more than 10k before you hit your deductible.

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UrbanGhost114 t1_iy6sirs wrote

That's just for what the insurance company deems worthy enough to be covered.

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GTAIVisbest t1_iy6yvk0 wrote

It's no secret that you have to take up a full-time job as your own advocate to coordinate between the provider and your insurance company. You have to untangle coding mistakes and do a bunch of stuff that usually requires about 3-4 full days of full time phone work, following up with people, escalating, etc. It always follows the path of least resistance and when the customer doesn't speak up the system crushes them. There are a lot of weird loopholes that result in bills, but a couple dozen hours of phone and coordination work will result in those bills getting dropped, or paid for, due to the No Surprises Act (as long as you went to an in-network facility)

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littlebitsofspider t1_iy6z7ji wrote

This entire wall of text doesn't exist for 32 of 33 developed economies in the world. Not a shred. You might pay for parking; that's it.

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Eizah t1_iy7brwt wrote

Yup. Gave birth a couple of years ago. 3-day hospital stay, everything included. Only had to pay parking, about $20. Sweden.

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[deleted] t1_iy7buye wrote

[removed]

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Chippopotanuse t1_iy7w7oz wrote

Awww, you assume I’m a fatass? Good for you.

I’m amazingly healthy and well off. As is my spouse and 4 kids. It’s just that I care about people, even if I’ve never met them. I want folks who suffer from diseases and poor health to have good health insurance because it’s the right thing to do. And I believe it costs us less as a society if we have access to proper medical care. (Just look at how shitty the life expectancies and economies are in the deep red states. You can’t have a thriving economy when everyone is sick.)

So while your concern trolling about me being a fat slob is way off the mark, sure, let’s talk about each other’s lives. Except I won’t guess and be wildly wrong.

  • You are “40-something”.

  • You seem overly proud of perceiving yourself as some top physical specimen. (Newsflash, almost all of my 40-something peers from grad school have also never/rarely been in the ER, and don’t have drinking or drug problems.)

  • You are still dating in your mid-40’s, and find yourself having to deceive potentials partners about your entire belief system and shitty political views in attempts to get laid.

  • On top of that, in your pea brain, any woman who has slept with more than 5 guys by age 40 is a whore:

> Meh, I'm a man who votes Republican but when it comes to dating, if I think I'm in the presence of someone who leans left and I'm attracted to them, I'll just flat out lie and say I'm a Democrat if the topic comes up. No real way for them to find out the truth (I keep all my papers in a safe and I have a common name so a Google search wouldn't turn up anything), so that solves that issue.

> But more importantly, with all the lies women tell about themselves in relationships (that scene in Clerks about "37 dicks" is a dead-on representation of how some women will use "weasel words" to essentially lie), me lying about my political affiliations is small potatoes.

> I'd rather date a woman who was actually a Democrat and lied by saying she was Republican than a woman who told me she has 5 sexual partners but warped definitions in her head in order to conceal the fact that she'd actually had 40.

(this was your third most recent comment)

And you are not emotionally available to consider that not everyone lies all the time like you.

For instance, assuming someone you were on a date with, who claims they were raped, MUST be lying:

> I lost interest in an actual real-life hot girl I knew after she told me her ex-boyfriend had r*ped her when they were dating. It seemed like something you wouldn't share with a guy you barely knew if it had actually happened, so I assumed she was exaggerating and gradually cut off all contact with her.

You are a massively insecure person. You are so dishonest and lie for everything you want, you can’t understand why anyone would be honest with you.

You can’t comprehend that most folks are good people who don’t have to lie about who they are to get what they want.

And at some level you know that. Otherwise a woman who has dated more than 5 men wouldn’t be a threat to your low self-esteem.

Best of luck finding a “worthy” partner.

And please keep lying to folks since you know you are a shitty person who lies to romantic partners because you know damn well nobody would give you the time of day if you revealed your true self to them.

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ludicrous50 t1_iy7e1tc wrote

You should start Drinking or do some drugs.

They are fun!

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officeDrone87 t1_iy8sthn wrote

You're aware that otherwise healthy people can get diseases, right? Yes being overweight makes many conditions more likely, but it is entirely possible to be thin and get cancer.

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ryanknapper t1_iy852j7 wrote

That sounds almost like if the citizens of each state, or possibly the entire country, banded together and we each paid a relatively small amount, we could all get decent health care and not worry about being devastated by medical debt.

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