I am not from the US. Had my close relative fight with cancer. If not for the government which sponsored it almost fully, excluding a couple of procedures like PET, it would cost our family a lot. Just for the scale: pial for one infusion of one out of three drugs would cost us $8k and my relative would’ve needed 16 infusions.
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are you asking how we treat, or what do we pay?
many people with cancer in the u.s. go the cheapest routes for treatment because some are incredibly expensive. hospitals are only required to ‘stabilize’. they are not mandated to cure. poorer people have worse outcomes as they cant afford the best treatments.
are you asking how we treat, or what do we pay?
Both actually.
cheapest…they are not mandated to cure
So even the stabilization requires paying the bill? Isn’t it like an emergency medicine where doing nothing just kills?
yes, there is no free healthcare.
those with the lowest incomes qualify for government assistance in the form of medicare/medicaid but this is fairly minimal and specifically excludes most novel treatments. our republicans/conservatives continually find ways to reduce this funding. they are truly awful human beings despite being the ‘pro life’, ‘pro god’ block of our electorate.
the united states sucks donkey balls for poor people considering its wealthy status otherwise. all that money is at the top, and its getting worse.
You have money or insurance (if they dont deny coverage) or you die.
In financial terms, for most people the government doesn’t help you at all[1]. Either your private health insurance pays some of the costs, or else you pay completely out of pocket. Even if you do have health insurance, it’s still going to cost you several thousand dollars per year until it’s resolved. It’s quite common for cancer to cause people to go bankrupt even with good health insurance.
If you’re 1) old or 2) through means testing are found to be both poor and physically unable to work, then you get government-funded a health insurance plan. You still might go bankrupt though, just as with private health insurance. ↩︎
And after I go bankrupt, my children go broke, could I receive the governmental treatment for remission?
Are you asking about the specific course of treatment, which will verify by type and stage, or how people pay?
As for paying, the only national programs are Medicare (restricted by age) and Medicaid (restricted by income). The US veterans administration is a separate govt program for military veterans and I believe their families, too. Everyone else either has some level of insurance provided by their employer (which will still generally be terrible), or nothing at all.
The charts here are helpful https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6778988/
It looks like if a person is above the poverty line and is under 65 they will have to pay like 20% of the medical bill which could be insane, given they have an insurance. Otherwise most first line treatments are covered by Medicare and Medicaid Plan B.
So if a person earns, like not insane $3k/mo, they will most certainly be billed with enormous bills and be refused to be treated again in case of relapse, just because they haven’t paid the previous bill?
In addition, medical costs in the US are higher than many places, because the insurance companies don’t have to bargain with the whole nation at once. Even Medicare and Medicaid have historically been prevented by law from using their full bargaining power in some cases.
I don’t actually know what happens to medical coverage if you have medical debt. It will eventually go to collections and can be used to garnish your wages, I believe.
That’s really sad
If your country has a better system, it is because the unions and the left have fought for it. Don’t let the Macrons of the world do to you what Reagan did to us.
Like most other countries, expect that a lot of people only treat what they can afford. A lot of Go Fund Me sites have been created due to expensive medical treatments.
Ok, I get the Black mirror reference, but I wanted serious answers
they are being serious, though. a lot of people in the US use fundraising platforms like GFM in order to afford medical treatments. not just cancer, but other important surgeries, medical devices, service animals, etc. even if they have health insurance. insurance companies can semi-arbitrarily decide if the issue is “severe” enough to warrant full coverage (or coverage period).
TIL that go fund me is actually charity and not a onlyfans predecessor
This was a serious answer.
Sorry, googled it. The actual fuck
