> you are kinda expected to know that there's taxes and tipping to pay

Also not reasonable, so at least in Spain the menu has to include VAT.

The courts can only act where there is law. It's a legal system, not an inherent fairness system -- current law upholds the status quo, which is why this measure passing is good news.

Some people wear a tag with their blood group on it.

Perhaps we should be wearing tags with the amount of money we're willing to spend on a hospital visit.

I have joked before that I should wear an undershirt that says “Healthcare accepted only by in network providers <insurance ID #>. If out of network, stay away and let me die”.

I'm curious, would this even be essentially "accepted" by any hospital in the US? Not just a tag, but if you were going in for a procedure, could you even say "I want to be sure I will not be treated by anyone not covered by my insurance plan"? Because basically all the forms you need to sign upon admittance essentially say "We can charge you whatever we want and you are responsible for paying it."

They would tell you that you need to talk to billing, and billing would tell you they can't provide pricing at all and they can only tell you after going through your insurance, or they would require a zillion digit billing code that only your doctors can provide, and your doctors are not going to waste their time giving you the list of a thousand codes for whatever operation you're doing, or at least not accurately.

In short there is no way. Either you accept treatment and you're billed what you're billed and you hope insurance only fucks you over a little bit, or you're denied any service short of immediate life saving.

Whenever I took my vehicles in for service at a dealership, they would always provide a form for me to sign to pre-authorize any work they deem necessary. I always leave those forms blank. Never had an issue.

Whenever I go to a new doctor or medical facility, they always ask for tons of personal information such as my social security number. I always leave most of that blank. Never had a problem.

I've never been asked to write a blank check for a medical operation like I have at a dealership, but perhaps we should just make such practices illegal?

That's interesting. My mechanic always provides an estimate, then I sign something authorizing up to that estimate and that requires them to separately approve any further funding.

I would probably refer to the ethics dilemmas around "do not resuscitate" tattoos as the closest analog that I've heard about.

"How do courts uphold this? You go to a restaurant, they say you can buy the tasting menu for $100, but they have a temp chef working that day which will cost you $50 extra, which you find out as you're paying. "

In the US you go to a hospital and basically sign a contract "you can charge me for whatever you feel like". What surprises me is that they get away with often charging for stuff that never happened. When you confront them they just say "Oops!" ad take it off only to try it again next time. I don't understand how they get away with that.

> I don't understand how they get away with that.

99% of people don't confront them.

From what I know about the US even your restaurant example has hidden service fees and mandatory tips and taxes that aren't on the menu?

Every restaurant I've been to with mandatory tips or fees has it written on the bottom of each page. The only shady thing I've seen them do is add the mandatory tip, then give you the bill with an option for an additional tip, hoping people will forget that the tip was already included in the bill.

But generally the tips and taxes is something you know about if you are a US resident. And you might not be unconscious at the time of payment :) And restaurant staff getting paid a decent wage without relying on tips is also something that should get fixed sooner than later.

not really the same. tipping is a custom, but it's not legally required unless the restaurant clearly states that it will be added to the bill.

sales tax is not really a hidden fee. americans usually know the general sales tax for their state. it gets a bit more complicated with specific excise taxes (eg, alcohol), but these rates are publicly available. if you're really concerned, you can always just ask your server or their manager what the after-tax cost of an item on the menu is.

even if you know exactly what medical procedure will be performed, it is still pretty hard to get an exact quote for the cost. it certainly can't be calculated from freely available numbers.

No hidden service fees. Taxing is not so simple in the US. My county has a lower sales tax rate than other counties around me. When I worked as a waiter the municipality had a special tax on alcohol in addition to the county and states alcohol and regular sales taxes.

> Taxing is not so simple in the US

Isn't this an argument for including taxes final prices, so people don't have to keep track of this? Maybe you're travelling. And it isn't like businesses don't already have to keep track of it for the bill. But instead of requiring businesses to print accurate menus or price labels, the burden is put on the customer to have this detailed knowledge, no matter where they go?

I guess the only two reasons I can think of for this not to happen is so that people have a less intuitive sense/transparency in what taxes the municipality/county/states impose, and so big multi-nationals can show the same "price" in different locations or ad campaigns. None of which ultimately helps the consumer.

To bring it back to the original issue, I guess people don't usually notice because taxes aren't orders of magnitude different, unlike some medical expenses. If you had a beer on holiday, and then found out it was taxed at 200% or even 2000% instead of 20%, you'd be rightfully mad.

Psychologically, if they quote to you the price without taxes, it looks cheaper even if you know about the extra 20% in sales tax and service fees and city tax and and...

Someone showed me the bill from some street corner food vendor in SF. It had like 4 taxes on it over the advertised price.

> and tipping to pay

Tipping is demeaning and derogatory to the person being tipped, especially in the manner it is done. Also, it can be reason for discrimination against the expected tipper. It always astounds me how people (mostly a lot of Americans) defend this practice just calling it "custom" and that it helps the receiver.

> Tipping is demeaning and derogatory to the person being tipped, especially in the manner it is done.

Why?

Nationalistic flamebait is not allowed here, regardless of country. You've posted like this before, too (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25016561) — that's not ok on this site, so please don't do it again. We're trying to avoid the tedious, nasty flamewars this kind of thing leads to.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

That is inappropriate word choice here or anywhere. Remove your slur.

re·tard verb past tense: retarded; past participle: retarded /riˈtärd/ delay or hold back in terms of progress, development, or accomplishment. "our progress was retarded by unforeseen difficulties"

It seems to me that the word's usage is an accurate description of America's lack of progress in this area...

The word itself isn’t wrong per se, but it has a negative connotation that’s associated with “slow” people (from the medical terminology “mental retardation”). It’s a playground insult to call someone “retarded” because they’re “stupid”. It could just be an American thing, but using it like that is very common.

I think a good comparison is “fag”. Sure, it means a cigarette, but it is (was?) a common insult towards gay people.

Should we not use the word? I don’t know. I’m just explaining why dpeck wrote their comment.

At least here in the US, it's generally no longer considered appropriate.

https://www.specialolympics.org/stories/impact/why-the-r-wor...

Thank you. My wife worked for the Special Olympics for several years, and we were privileged to meet so many wonderful athletes in the program. I doubt a single one would think this usage of the r-word was appropriate.

It's perfectly fine in a technical context: "bacterial growth is retarded by refrigeration" or something of that nature.

But that's not how the commenter used the word. There are other, far less ambiguous and far more polite words to refer to a general lack of progress... old-fashioned, primitive, backwards, antediluvian, obstinate, ...

Take a read about "The Euphemism Treadmill"

It's not wrong. Imo the issue isn't the treadmill - that's natural, and will always happen with or without PC police. Unacceptable words existed long before PC police (in the modern sense) existed. Communities have long self moderated acceptable words.

The real debate is about how fast the treadmill moves.

How so?