It’s a truism in Canada that socialised medicine is just better than the American system, except among rabid neocons. (Actually the truism is a bit more nuanced, but certainly the perception is that the average person is much better off here…)
Every once in a while you hear a story about some family in the U.S. without insurance that are essentially made homeless by suprise medical bills, etc. It all seems very foreign and strange, not to mention heartless.
This story isn’t one of those–the people in question fortunately have insurance, although as the writer points out he better stay employed, and his kid better always be employed, or it’s basically a sentence of crushing poverty and then death.
Go take a read of this:
Dr. No and the case of the hospital bill
It’s become somewhat of a household game to guess the total when one of these invoices arrives from a recent procedure. Since we were in the hospital for thirty-seven days, we knew this one would be a whopper. Sure enough: the grand total is $549,000. And that doesn’t include the bill from the surgical team (in other words, it’s for just the hospitalization overhead, not the surgical procedure itself).
Last time we had someone in the hospital–Trish and the newly born Sarah in the neonatal ward–it cost us $45 for three nights. And that was because we upgraded to a private room (at the cost of $15 a night over the semi-private).
Man.
