I have never really understood the full story around Obama Health Care so could someone answer this basic question.

If you are oldish and poor and cannot afford health insurance but fall over in the street and bust your leg what actually happens? Can a passer-by call for an ambulance and will a hospital fix his leg for free? And say a medic discovers the guy has some other serious condition will he be admitted for free treatment?

I feel that the guy might have had a better chance under the Obama regime but really don't know what Trump has planned.

Can anyone shed any light please?

David

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As a medical aside did it strike anyone as odd that the poor buggers hurt on Westminster Bridge didn't have to wait in A&E at Thomas' Hospital for a few hours as happens at every other hospital in the country?

 

Maybe get Medicaid - once they've stripped out all his assets

 

The hospital will fix you up but if you dont have any kind of coverage they give you a huge bill. Next step is to get a lawyer who will fight for you to find blame on someone else, probably someone that caused you to fall. If your fall was in snowy conditions then it could be the owner of the nearest house as they are responsible for clearing the sidewalk. Theres a video somewhere of an elderly lady telling an audience that she was retired and working three jobs to pay off her medical bills. The audience applauded.
As regards Obamacare I was living and working in the states as a permanent resident when he tried to bring it in. IIRC Obama was confronted with the usual legal hurdles from all those lovely lawyers that are so popular over there. Eventually he ended up with a watered down version of the original idea which allegedly helped some of the poorer people.

 

Healthcare costs in the US are brutal. Families with health insurance don't have to worry about these costs since their insurance pays most of them. Family members only pay a small fee per visit, called a co-payment. Most people get health insurance as a benefit from their employer.
If your job doesn't provide health insurance or you are unemployed then things get tricky. If you are poor enough you qualify for Medicaid, paid for by state and federal governments. Those who are older than 65 receive Medicare. They pay premiums that the federal government subsidizes.

 

Basically the above two guys have got it pretty much right.

Companies currently have to offer some form of cover. Those without any of that can get medicaid but, any which way, you're screwed if you get ill over here.

Co-Payments and the Deductible are a massive pain in the @rse. I ended up with $100k medical bills for some minor heart surgery and insurance paid $94k of it, so I have $6k to pay off. Had to pay for the majority of my specialists appointments too (usually $50-$75 a time)

It can actually be really bad if someone calls an ambulance for you when you didn't want one. Suddenly you have a massive bill just for the trip to the hospital and ER work, let alone fixing the problem in a longer term basis. Sometimes there is no other option of course.

There are clinics that you do not need to pay for, very rare. There is of course the option to sue, as stated.

Something like 24 million people would have lost healthcare if Trumps plan went ahead. The funny thing is that a lot of people who say they hate Obamacare used to say that it's fine to get rid of that as they have ACA. ACA is Obamacare....

If Trumps plans went through then premiums would be a lot higher, co-pays and deductibles would be much higher and essentially a lot of people would be further priced out of healthcare.

When I first got here I asked why so many people were al effed up and hobbling around. The answer was that they probably couldn't afford healthcare. My wife is running her own private practice for psychiatric therapy and we put her on my works' healthcare plan through me, to avoid the massive costs she would have had to do it herself.

I love America, it's got a lot of good things going for it if you are in the right demographic but it certainly has not been the land of the free for sometime. Not unless you have money.

 

Thanks guys. Very helpful and it's about as bad as I thought it was. I lived in DC a long time ago and even then was unclear what would happen if I got sick but you don't care when you're young.

I am still close friends with a lady I met there 50 odd years ago who had some dental problems which cost her $ thousands to fix. I told her time and again to take a trip to Poland, get her pegs sorted for a tenth of the price and see a bit of Europe on her way home - but she wouldn't have it. Times like this make the NHS seem almost reasonable

David

 

All right in the summer maybe