# Cant pay medical bills



## skip o (Aug 1, 2011)

Most of my friends are Americans and, throughout the year, I usually know about 4 or 5 people trying to collect donations to pay for their medical bills. Mostly via crowd-funding websites.

I'm wondering, how common is it for Spaniards (or any other European citizens) to need to ask for help from friends to pay for medical bills? Is seeking donations a uniquely American thing due to our ridiculously expensive health care?


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

skip o said:


> Most of my friends are Americans and, throughout the year, I usually know about 4 or 5 people trying to collect donations to pay for their medical bills. Mostly via crowd-funding websites.
> 
> I'm wondering, how common is it for Spaniards (or any other European citizens) to need to ask for help from friends to pay for medical bills? Is seeking donations a uniquely American thing due to our ridiculously expensive health care?


Spaniards and Britons would not need help to pay medical bills, as they are covered by state healthcare systems which are free at the point of use. I suppose the only exception might be if they opted for private treatment and couldn't pay, but the private clinic where I go (I have health insurance) requires people to pay upfront before being treated anyway.

The only appeals for help to pay medical bills I've ever seen from Britons are from those who were stupid enough to go on holiday without having travel insurance.


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

Actually there is another exception - appeals are reported fairly often in the press from Britons trying to raise funds to allow them to access treatment which is not available on the NHS, eg parents wanting to take a child to the US or some other country for an operation or therapy which is not sanctioned for use in the NHS.

http://news.stv.tv/highlands-island...cerebral-palsy-make-operation-funding-appeal/


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

skip o said:


> Most of my friends are Americans and, throughout the year, I usually know about 4 or 5 people trying to collect donations to pay for their medical bills. Mostly via crowd-funding websites.
> 
> I'm wondering, how common is it for Spaniards (or any other European citizens) to need to ask for help from friends to pay for medical bills? Is seeking donations a uniquely American thing due to our ridiculously expensive health care?


I'm really sorry for anyone in that situation. But isn't it a little imprudent to go to a country where you are not covered for health care in one way or another?
I thought that you had to show you were covered before you were able to register as resident.


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## Elyles (Aug 30, 2012)

As Americans here in Spain we are blessed with a couple of things. 1. Full coverage private health insurance that pays for everything and an option to buy into the National Seguridad Social programa after a year of residence that will also pay for everything. For example, I am currently finishing a private policy that is covering me fully for cervical spine surgery. The same doctors will be available to me with the Convenio Especial, which is public but I pay for it. 

In the U.S. There are many problems with the medical system, mostly costs in various areas. Physicians are paid too much. Pharmaceutical companies are financially raping the public. And, insurance utilization review boards still deny treatment for some issues. Even with Obamacare, costs skyrocketed prior and getting them even slightly in control would be a disaster. One of the things that has caused physician salaries to rise was the increase of frivolous lawsuits which in turn skyrocketed the cost of malpractice insurance. Of course with the very financially influential pharmaceutical lobbies in congress, they just kept raising their prices. 

For many years I managed psychiatric programs and hospitals. We were often faced with needed but dangerous discharge of clients and patients due to lack of personal financial support. It is also a shame to say that many older Americans are living on small fixed incomes and even with government financial support, often go to the poor house after only the first medical crisis. Even people on moderate incomes are often faced with absurd medical costs when their insurance claims are refused. 

The Britons and other European citizens are not better than Americans but their healthcare programs are.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

There is a standing joke here that if Breaking Bad had been set in Europe, it would have ended after one episode.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Elyles said:


> As Americans here in Spain we are blessed with a couple of things. 1. Full coverage private health insurance that pays for everything and an option to buy into the National Seguridad Social programa after a year of residence that will also pay for everything. For example, I am currently finishing a private policy that is covering me fully for cervical spine surgery. The same doctors will be available to me with the Convenio Especial, which is public but I pay for it.
> 
> In the U.S. There are many problems with the medical system, mostly costs in various areas. Physicians are paid too much. Pharmaceutical companies are financially raping the public. And, insurance utilization review boards still deny treatment for some issues. Even with Obamacare, costs skyrocketed prior and getting them even slightly in control would be a disaster. One of the things that has caused physician salaries to rise was the increase of frivolous lawsuits which in turn skyrocketed the cost of malpractice insurance. Of course with the very financially influential pharmaceutical lobbies in congress, they just kept raising their prices.
> 
> ...


What you have just written refutes all the free market dogma in all the writings of neo- liberal economists such as Friedman, Hayek,Becker et al.


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

I forgot to add that I have also seen charitable appeals locally from Spanish parents wanting their child to get treatment in the private sector or abroad which is not available in the state system. There is also an afternoon TV programme (can't remember the name, I've seen bits of it sometimes at the gym) which features families or individuals in need of help and the public are asked to phone in to make donations, and sometimes the appeals are for people needing this kind of medical assistance.


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## Isobella (Oct 16, 2014)

There was one in the news last year where a woman lied that her Daughter had cancer to plead for funding on one of those websites. She even shaved the child's head for photos

Every week there are sob stories from people who have set up a page on go fund me. People sometimes latch on to dubious procedures they have found on the Internet and it is not surprising that their country will not fund them.


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## skip o (Aug 1, 2011)

Thanks everyone. I do not have any issues with my health, I was just wondering if Europeans do online fundraisers for medical expenses as much as Americans do. It looks like the answer is "no."


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## Elyles (Aug 30, 2012)

Alcalaina said:


> There is a standing joke here that if Breaking Bad had been set in Europe, it would have ended after one episode.


Breaking Bad was both fiction as well as nonfiction. After managing mental health systems for years, I really enjoyed the protagonistas in the show. I worked at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, the Crack cocaine epidemic and the rise of the meth culture. I also had a mental health contract with our jail, sometimes seeing my clients on both sides of the fence. The criminal part made Breaking Bad seem all that much more real. Lots of individuals as well as families destroyed. During the Crack epidemic the addicts would manage to get themselves on Social Security Disability due to having dual diagnoses of drug addiction and depression. It took the government years to wise up to this and in the meantime the addicts would end up spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on medical system abuse. They would go out the third day of the month when their Disability check came in and would smoke up their check in a couple of days. They would then show up at our front door of a very expensive private psych hospital who took government reimbursement for care and say they were suicidal. They would be put in every inpatient recovery program we had to the tune of about $1000 a day. When they were ready for discharge they would become conveniently suicidal again until the third of the month and do it again a few times. Another. Cause of ridiculous medical fees.


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