200K in the bay area is not exactly wealthy. It's a solid middle to upper-middle class wage. Taking a 50K hit for something you did nothing to deserve, just because you love your parent is stupid. I would hate it if my daughter tried to do that for me.

" I would hate it if my daughter tried to do that for me."

But you are OK if other well-meaning people pay? If you make 200k you can take the hit and you should have known better.

You do realise that if you buy insurance and don't claim anything that's literally you paying for other people's healthcare, right? That's how insurance works. The only difference between that and the socialised national health systems around the world is that you also pay for the insurance company's profit.

I feel like I have to say this to everyone all the time when they try to defend the US as having the greatest healthcare system ever. It's literally impossible to offer the same service as a socialized, government program for cheaper when the non-socialized option has to make a profit. If a non-socialized system can drive costs down, so can a socialized provider. There's literally no situation where the socialized system loses on this.

> There's literally no situation where the socialized system loses on this

Actually, there is- it's when the socialized system decides they're good enough, and stops trying.

Thankfully here in the UK that sort of situation is incredibly rare. 99.9% of necessary treatments are available. That's one of the advantages of having socialised healthcare in a very wealthy country.

Huh? So really, all services should be socialized is what you are saying?

There is literally no way a private company could offer something cheaper and better than the government?

In theory, no. A private company (by the commonly understood definition) always needs growth and profit to continue providing a good service. Neither of those things are compatible with being cheaper than a provider that doesn't have to optimise for those things.

Obviously in practice that's not how things work out, so in most cases private companies end up moving faster, leveraging efficiencies, utilising innovation better, and generally being cheaper. The lesson shouldn't be that means the government shouldn't provide services though, but rather that the government should act more like a business and do things businesses do to be competitive.

It's very noticeable that when government does this it works really well. The UK government has brought a lot of it's web and IT services in-house in the past decade, and they're so much better now.

I never said all services should be socialized. For example, I don't think auto repair services should be socialized. Do you see how silly your statement is?

And no... there is no way that a private company could offer something cheaper because both entities function the same way except that a private company also has to make a profit. Governments are not profit-making entities. Take whatever method a private company has to make something cheaper and remove profit and you have something the government can handle.

I didn't realize we were talking fantasy hypotheticals. Reality is, private companies can and will always do better than the government in almost everything. For the exact reason that you claim to be the problem. They want profit.

Industries like healthcare are plagued with government interference. Some regulations are important. Many just serve as a moat around the oligopoly that is the current private health Care system.

No one's talking fantasy hypotheticals except for you. The "reality" that you're claiming is not at all actually reality considering that every other industrialized nation on the planet pays less for healthcare and prescription drugs than we do in the United States. If private industry can drive prices down, then so can government. The USPS was the poster child for efficient and effective government service until Republicans decided to absolutely decimate it because of lobbying from private industry. Government services don't need to make a profit, they don't need to lobby, and they don't have any of the greed-driven motivation that private companies do.

You're either being intentionally obtuse or you're intentionally being misleading for some reason. This isn't rocket science. If two things are equal and one has the requirement to also generate profit, there's no way the other can possibly cost more.

It's not "literally impossible". The socialized healthcare system could be corrupt, poorly run, or have other serious problems.

So can a private company. We're talking about the comparison of private to public. All things being equal, a public trust will always cost less because profit is not necessary as part of the cost of service.

I agree with you but this is not what this is about.

To put family first before other people ? Of course.

That's not putting family before other people. That's asking other people to put your family before themselves.

She wouldn’t take the bill as far it is concerned legally (as far as I know and dealt with medical bills myself).

She might get mails and phone calls but the collection agency will not go after her assets, well unless her dad has assets in the USA.

The story lacks some details but if she contact the hospital and negotiate based on that, they would likely reduce the bill. Is this moral or not that’s another question, but I agree that she had few options before asking people for money early on. Specially when making 200k.

200k may not be wealthy, but I bet it's enough for an annual vacation abroad. That is a luxury many cannot afford. I think it's really inappropriate to create a gofundme campaign in this situation.

Because she should be responsible for her fathers condition?

Because they are not in a position of need. There are other people which were more reliant on such help to avoid a disastrous situation. If this family got no crowd sourced help, I think they would have been OK. Of course, there are a lot of assumptions in this assessment.

My comment has nothing to do with my opinion on the cost of medical services in the US. If you would like that, I think the Affordable Care Act used up a very rare opportunity for improvement to put us into a worse situation. What we really needed was a public option for the private companies to compete with.

Here in California our subsidized option, Covered California, was horrendous, at least at launch. Also, subsidized was not enough to help, and the subsidization counted as taxable income which was a slap in the face for those who needed it.

What did their friends and acquaintances do to deserve the bill?

Sorry but this sounds a little bit backward to me. Helping a friend in need or being altruistic is never a punishment. It's like refusing to donate money to some cause because what did I do to deserve that? Really an odd statement.

Nothing, but GoFundMe isn't an obligation, it's an ask.

Until "hi how you doing, I saw you decided not to fund my father's healthcare" or "wow, $30, he makes 200k a year! What an asshole!"

It's a high enough salary where the 50k bill is easily affordable on a repayment plan, which most hospitals offer interest free. She didn't need to beg others for money.

Firstly, I don't see how she has any legal obligation to pay for the medical care, at all. Your friend didn't get the medical care, her father did. Unless the father is a legal dependent of your friend, she isn't responsible for his medical expenses, at all.

Secondly, it sounds like you are making assumptions about her overall financial status, based on what you know about her current salary.

She might have substantial student debt, medical debt, spousal debt, be upside-down on a mortgage, have other family that she is supporting financially, etc.

Just knowing someone's salary doesn't provide a very clear picture of their overall financial status.

she started a page to help her father, she isnt responsible for paying all of his bills, she just wanted to help out. At least thats what it seems to me.