Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

Re:Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality by rpedela on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @05:19AM (#20623582)

While traveling outside the US, I have found many people think Americans are cold and heartless and just let people die. It is an understandable conclusion the way people talk about the US system in the media and internet, but it also isn't true. The US has dysfunctional, public healthcare but it isn't so dysfunctional that you just die if you fall or get an ear infection without insurance. So saying the US has "no public health care" is not only incorrect but it is also overly dramatic.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality by louwrentius on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @06:17AM (#20623863)

But you are fucked with a huge bill that would cripple your life in a way that you might as well be dead.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality by Broken_Hippo on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @06:41AM (#20623961)

And folks do skip going to the doctor, ration their medicines, and other such things.

Folks suffer until things are an emergency as well and hospitals won't always help if you, say, need surgery for cancer that isn't presently killing you and isn't an emergency.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality by rpedela on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @07:22AM (#20624151)

Yes, it is dysfunctional. No one is arguing otherwise.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality by rpedela on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @07:14AM (#20624113)

The government reimburses hospitals for ER visits if the patient can't pay.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality by cpuguy83 on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @10:09AM (#20625286)

Hospital will gladly send you to collections and fuck your credit, though.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality by martinflack on Wednesday August 07, 2019 @03:34AM (#20632662)

Citation? Genuinely curious.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality by rpedela on Wednesday August 07, 2019 @03:45PM (#20638141)

The source is my wife who is a clinical pharmacist at a large hospital which has a sizable uninsured patient population. Here is the first result on Google which does talk a little about federal funding for "uncompensated care" [1] starting near the halfway point.

My wife's hospital was hit hard by ACA because it reduced federal funding for uncompensated care. The idea was that the funding could be cut because more people overall would be insured. Unfortunately enough of their patients still are without insurance that the funding shortage led to two rounds of layoffs. They seem to have adjusted to the new financial reality now and are hiring again. But the first couple years after ACA passed were tough.

I guess it would be more accurate to say that the federal government funds uninsured ER visits, but the funding falls short of what is necessary especially after ACA.

1. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/07/03/who-...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality by mcv on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @07:41AM (#20624251)

But there are people who choose to die rather than risk bankrupting their family with uncontrollable medical costs.

So there's plenty of drama. Medical bankruptcy in particular is something that I don't think occurs anywhere else.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality by vonmoltke on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @08:42AM (#20624585)

> So there's plenty of drama. Medical bankruptcy in particular is something that I don't think occurs anywhere else.

I doubt the veracity of this oft-repeated meme, but I'll let Snopes provide the detailed analysis: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/643000-bankruptcies-in-the...

I would appreciate similarly-detailed evidence to the contrary.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality by mcv on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @11:16AM (#20625890)

The summary of that Snopes article is that while medical bankruptcy in the US is indeed far more common than anywhere else, it's not entirely unheard of outside the US. Not all medical expenses are always covered, and disability can always lead to financial difficulties anywhere. Though medical bankruptcy is still significantly less common; in the US it's the leading cause of personal bankruptcies, in other countries it's a lesser cause.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality by opencl on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @09:43AM (#20625063)

This paper from the American Journal of Public Health says ~530k/year.

http://sci-hub.tw/https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2018.304901

[ Parent | on HN ]