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Comment by lettergram | Hacker News Reader

It’s called a co-pay and it’s because you’re expected to pay a portion along with all treatment. This is to make sure you aren’t going when you don’t need it.

$8000 for lift saving treatment is nothing really. I can go to the doctor for $20 - $40. However, if I need open heart surgery, $8k is fair.

In Ireland, Canada, etc you have to wait months to get treatment. People die on the list to get treatment. That’s my issue with that setup. I agree the US healthcare can be improved. However, don’t let the propaganda fool you (that’s for political campaigns), it’s expensive and we all want to fix that, but it’s very effective.

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I really doubt anybody needs to be discouraged from frivolous open heart surgery by co-pay.

Also: nobody does on any waiting lists in Ireland or Canada. Or, more accurately: There may sometimes be waits for elective procedures, and people may get hit by busses while on such a list. But there’s no causality. The only waiting lists where people die are for organ transplants, as in most any country.

> . This is to make sure you aren’t going when you don’t need it.

This just does not compute. If you have a health concern, YOU NEED TO GO TO THE DOCTORS.

Trying to scare people away from visiting a doctors until it is bad-enough that their fear for their health overpowers their fear for their wallet is just sadistic madness. Utter utter madness.

>However, if I need open heart surgery, $8k is fair.

No this doesn't seem fair to me at all. No one should have to pay so much out of their pocket for a life saving operation.

> However, if I need open heart surgery, $8k is fair.

A "one-off" treatment such as this is one thing, but the co-pay system really breaks down for the individual once you start talking chronic conditions that require regular treatments for life.

In that case your insurance company may start to see you as a liability and raise the co-pay until treatment is no longer econically viable for the patient.

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