Re:U.S.A., Land of Limitations?
by falcolas on Monday August 10, 2015 @09:29AM
(#10034411)
I don't want to belittle your experience, but we just had something similar happen within our family, in the United States.
My wife's grandmother was on the decline due to dementia. Her care requirements were so high that we had to put her into a care facility. The problem is, because her symptoms didn't require putting her into a $6k a month facility, insurance wouldn't cover it. So for the remaining year of her life, we had to come up with the $4.5k a month for her care.
The care for people here is expensive, so much so that it can destroy families.
> the doctors were so horrible they couldn't even begin to figure out what was wrong with her
That happens here too, unless you have the ability to pay for a trip to the Mayo clinic.
> the local hospital had no MRI or CT machines
Ours does, and the costs for using it are prohibitive if you have no insurance. In fact if you have no insurance, you aren't welcome at the hospital unless you have a life threatening problem, like actively bleeding out.
> I personally grew up in one of the poorest parts of America, Appalachia.
That doesn't describe even my hometown, a relatively rich corner of Montana with lots of disposable income coming in from California expats. We have homeless, folks who can't afford a car, a few murders a year... in a town with a population around 40k.
My wife's grandmother was on the decline due to dementia. Her care requirements were so high that we had to put her into a care facility. The problem is, because her symptoms didn't require putting her into a $6k a month facility, insurance wouldn't cover it. So for the remaining year of her life, we had to come up with the $4.5k a month for her care.
The care for people here is expensive, so much so that it can destroy families.
> the doctors were so horrible they couldn't even begin to figure out what was wrong with her
That happens here too, unless you have the ability to pay for a trip to the Mayo clinic.
> the local hospital had no MRI or CT machines
Ours does, and the costs for using it are prohibitive if you have no insurance. In fact if you have no insurance, you aren't welcome at the hospital unless you have a life threatening problem, like actively bleeding out.
> I personally grew up in one of the poorest parts of America, Appalachia.
That doesn't describe even my hometown, a relatively rich corner of Montana with lots of disposable income coming in from California expats. We have homeless, folks who can't afford a car, a few murders a year... in a town with a population around 40k.