Asklemmy

48986 readers

632 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 6 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

How do you treat cancer in the US? Asking out of curiosity but I want serious answers. (lemmy.today)

submitted 12 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

33 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I am not from the US. Had my close relative fight with cancer. If not for the government which sponsored it almost fully, excluding a couple of procedures like PET, it would cost our family a lot. Just for the scale: pial for one infusion of one out of three drugs would cost us $8k and my relative would've needed 16 infusions.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 hours ago (8 children)

are you asking how we treat, or what do we pay?

many people with cancer in the u.s. go the cheapest routes for treatment because some are incredibly expensive. hospitals are only required to 'stabilize'. they are not mandated to cure. poorer people have worse outcomes as they cant afford the best treatments.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 hours ago (7 children)

are you asking how we treat, or what do we pay?

Both actually.

cheapest....they are not mandated to cure

So even the stabilization requires paying the bill? Isn't it like an emergency medicine where doing nothing just kills?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 hours ago (5 children)

We are responsible for paying for emergency medicine

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

But like, after one's stabilized?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

Hospitals are required to provide emergency treatment - what we call ED or ER visits - regardless of ability to pay. Patients are expected to pay for that treatment. It's just that the hospital isn't supposed to deny treatment based on whether they think patients will or won't pay the bill. This is getting-stabilized treatment.

This is an important point in arguing for universal healthcare: if people can't afford treatment, they're more likely to go to the ED where they won't be turned away. ED visits tend to cost more than non-emergency, so that drives costs up.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

That's monsterous.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours ago

Yes.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 hours ago

Found this post as well. ED is not always an option

https://lemmy.world/post/30962921

load more comments (3 replies)

load more comments (4 replies)