Had to go to the er for a staph infection, no insurance. In short I’m in about 8k worth of debt to the hospital. I was in the er for about an hour. 8k for an hour get fucked integris, so I never paid it out of principle

My spouse had their lung collapse. Insurance denied it because we didn’t get advance approval for their lung to collapse.

Went to a clinic to get birth control, had to convince them I wasn’t interested in using it to control whether or not I gave birth, when I finally got a prescription it turned out it would cost over $100 for the medication.

I make over $150,000 a year and I live pay check to pay check because my son has autism level 2, speech delays, and other motor skills deficits. He has some sort of therapy every weekday. He’s 13, so we’ve been doing this for 11 years now. And every year it is a fight to get things paid for.

This year my company switched insurance providers and the speech therapist that he has gone to for 6 years was suddenly out of network. So, I either pull him out and start over somewhere new or do what I did and pay $200 out of pocket every week. Which does not go towards our $13,000 deductible. Next year we’re switching again so I’m sure there will be something they won’t cover.

I make too much money to get anything from the state, which seeing how I live in Texas, I’m not really sure I’d want their services. Come hell or high water we getting out of this state and if possible this country next year.

Bunch of dental work all done with no payment at time of service. Fantastic PCP. Amazing rheumatologist. A 10k infusion every two months costs me $5.

I would probably work for no pay with my medical issues.

My wife has a rare disease. Requires expensive drugs monthly. We hit our max out of pocket early every year.

Bye money. forever. until I die.

Sometimes you don’t need anything crazy to describe how shitty our healthcare system is.

Blue Cross denied my claim for coverage of therapy ($125/week) because the address is clearly not a business address. Yes, that’s right, my therapist operates from her home, which is a horse farm. So does this mean BC doesn’t cover any home offices? Or is it just ones that have “ranch” in the address?

We’ll see! I’ve filed a grievance challenging the denial. I’m looking at around $6000 for the year if they persist.

I transferred to a new college and learned the first week of class that they required a few vaccinations I was missing. No problem, the on campus health center can provide them. I confirm with them that they accept my insurance, so I go get the shots.

A few months later, I get a bill in the mail for over $3000. Apparently the health center wasn’t in-network, so I have no idea what they meant by “we accept your insurance.” I layer learned that if I had driven 10 minutes west across the state border, there was an in-network office where those two vaccinations would’ve been completely covered.

I still haven’t paid a penny towards that bill, fuck them. I get daily phone calls from an unknown number, it’s probably collections, but I don’t know for sure since I never answer it. This was years ago and my credit score never took a hit. I’d rather die than reward these parasites with my money.

I’m pretty sure I have a tumor growing on my hip too. I’d get it checked, but between student loans, insane cost of living, and rising costs of literally everything else, I can’t afford to right now. I’m a childless engineer with “great” health insurance and a roommate, so I’m relatively well off. I have no idea why shit hasn’t boiled over yet. Makes me want to depose some CEOs too.

Canadian here. Had an accident and took a ten minute ambulance ride in Minnesota. $1400.

I had major depression when I was younger. I couldn’t get individual insurance because it was a pre-existing condition. I couldn’t afford it, anyway, because getting and keeping a job was very difficult because, uh, depression? So, getting a job with a group plan was also out of reach. I had to research it and treat it myself, which, goddamn right I’m proud I managed.

But now I’m middle-aged, single, and probably will never have the savings to retire. Eat a Grand Canyon full of Godzilla dicks, U.S. healthcrime system.

A friend of mine was feeling ill, but didn’t go to the hospital because he couldn’t afford it. Once the leukemia started advancing though he only lasted a week.

deleted by creator

I have Premera (which is apparently considered pretty good for an insurance company if there is such a thing). I herniated a disc really bad in my back nearly two years ago. When I injured it I knew right away that it was a herniated disc, again but way worse than last time. Luckily, the doctors in my system are way too familiar with all the tricks for insurance to avoid coverage and I wouldn’t have been able to navigate the system by myself, a few examples.

1. I initially reached directly out to my spinal doc instead of primary care first, they told me to go through primary care first or insurance will not pay, but tell me after it’s too late because it’ll take months for them to determine final coverage. This saved me about $60k.

2. Don’t get the MRI at the hospital that is in my network, for some reason they will find a reason to not pay because they use a newer MRI machine or something, instead go to this weird third party company.

3. have the people in the docs office help you fill out the paperwork and always always always say that “this prevents me from doing my job or affects job performance” even if it doesn’t . One thing the insurance company likes is a paying customer, if you get fired or have to quit, you are no longer a paying customer.

4. don’t do the bare minimum for coverage, if you are only required to do 12 weeks of PT for surgery approval, do 16 instead. Insurance will always make a way for 12 to actually only be 10 and void any support for your surgery. If you only need one doctors visit, do 3.

5. you will get sent several forms via mail. Fill every single one out no matter how ridiculous. I had one asking me about pregnancy health, and I’m a guy, docs office said if I didn’t fill it out that the insurance would deny my claim. Also, take a picture each time and make sure you answer the same way every time. Don’t say in one form “I injured myself in my back yard” then in the next form say “I injured myself at home”. They will find a way to say you are talking about two separate injuries and that voids the claims.

Probably a bunch of other stuff I can’t think of

My childhood friend needed an operation, her family made a commercial for the local TV station trying to raise the money, but she died before they could get enough.

I’ve got cluster headache. Only medication that had any noticeable effect was Prednisone. Not even that expensive of a drug, but more than I could afford out of pocket. Insurance wouldn’t cover it because they considered an oxygen mask to be a more appropriate treatment, even though I’d been using them for months with no improvement, and O2 only works for a small percent of people with cluster headache, anyway.

Couldn’t afford to get the meds. Not legally, at least. A coworker was taking Prednisone for a different condition, and managed to convince his doctor to double his dosage, and I paid him for the difference, until he stopped taking it altogether. Ended up having attacks again, and missed enough work because of them to get fired. Between the pain and losing my job, that was easily one of the lowest points in my life.

I wouldn’t wish our healthcare system on my worst enemies.