Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live with medical debt

Re:Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live ... by jasongill on Thursday June 16, 2022 @12:01PM (#31767576)

Go ask any law enforcement officer, fire fighter, or EMT how many times a week they hear "please don't call an ambulance, I can't afford it" and the answer will be so depressing that you may change your tone about this.

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Re:Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live ... by mikeyouse on Thursday June 16, 2022 @12:08PM (#31767680)

Fun fact about the US's system too - even when ambulances are called for things like heart attacks -- they take much longer to show up in poor areas compared to wealthier ones;

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...

There are some common agreed upon thresholds that strongly correlate with positive outcomes, e.g. 15 minute response time after a heart attack. In wealthy areas, this outcome was achieved 97% of the time vs. only 93% of the time in poorer ones. That doesn't sound too bad, but that means you were something like 230% more likely to miss that cutoff if you were in a poor neighborhood. But at least it's not "socialist".

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Re:Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live ... by wahnfrieden on Thursday June 16, 2022 @12:03PM (#31767607)

No point arguing with people about this, they believe those who can’t afford it are in that situation because of personal moral failings

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