You don't have to pay them unless they're specific. I got a bill 3 years after being in an accident and I asked them for the documentation they legally have to provide me (itemization, the legal basis, detailed incident record, attempts on their part to contact insurance) of how they arrived at the sum. It's been a year since and they haven't given me anything.

Besides this kind of billing is banned in California now https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billHistoryClient.x...

The insurers just pay the in-network fee and you call it a day.

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Waterluvian 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The last thing I want at that time is to have to reason about any of this.

I think I’m realizing that what I cherish about the healthcare system up here is not just that I don’t pay bills, but that I don’t even see a bill. Not that the bankruptcy inducing costs aren’t wretched, but I just cannot even imagine being put into a fucked up bureaucratic hell while my family is in a life altering crisis.

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alistairSH 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This applies to other things as well - retirement and education come to mind.

Anecdote: my uncle and BIL are auto mechanics. One in the US, the other in Scotland. Similar lifestyles - both own homes, have mechanical hobbies (vintage cars for one, Harleys for the other) - typical working class lives. The uncle in the UK just has much less mental overhead when it comes to major life planning.

	▲	Freedom2 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Many here will say that that's the cost of the freedom of choice and speech in the US.

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asdff 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Medicaid is actually like this incidentally. No copays really. Too bad the electeds don't want to roll it out. The a lot of the most expensive risk pools are already on medicaid or medicare.

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ozlikethewizard 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yea I think this is the bit thats easy to take for granted in nations with rational healthcare systems. Not only do I not get fleeced, but at no point does my healthcare feel like economic activity, a transaction, it feels like healthcare and that the provision of it is being done for the right reasons.

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disillusioned 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

My wife had a miscarriage while we were staying at my Uncle's house in New Jersey. I was going to call 911, but instead, he decided he'd call from his landline. Difference between ambulance being free (because it was to a city resident's home) and costing what would have been $5k or so at least. Wild.

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burnhamup 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yeah, my family was hit by two ambulance bills in California in 2024, and tried to balance bill us contrary to the law. It was a really frustrating experience trying to get them follow the law. One of the ambulance companies waited an entire year to even file paperwork and still tried to get insurance and me to pay.

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yamillove 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Why didn’t you take an Uber?

	▲	the_sleaze_ 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Last view of life: slowly bleeding out in the back of a waymo that has gotten trapped in the traffic circle in front of the ER and won't unlock its doors until it reached its destination.
	▲	asdff 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Cleaning fee