>>Does this not seem absolutely absurd to anybody else?
It does, and it's shit like this that makes me absolutely convinced that US is a 3rd world country, where people have to weight their own health vs the financial cost. There's plenty of people saying they don't want to call an ambulance because they are worried what their bill would be. That people would risk their lives and that of their new born baby because there is a financial cost associated with staying at the hospital for another day is beyond absurd, it's like bad fiction about some distant society where things have gone horribly wrong, except that this is real and calls itself the greatest country in the world.
If individuals aren't free to make these financial decisions for themselves, then insurance companies or the government will. My mom had a severe infection while on chemo because the insurance company didn't want to pay for an injection that would've boosted her immune system. Having these decisions made at the population level, instead of the individual is far worse.
If the state was paying and your mother wanted to pay out of pocket nothing would stop her. Elective course of action is not banned in any single payer system that I know of.
Canada -- a Quebec ban on private health insurance was overturned in 2005, but there are still open court cases on whether that applies nationally and whether healthcare providers may charge privately for services.
I don't know about Canada obviously but in Poland hospitals are not allowed to charge for anything that is refunded by the national health service, but they are free to charge for anything else. So if a patient says they want an extra injection that is not funded and they will pay out of their own pocket for it, they absolutely can.
What do you mean individuals aren't free to make that decision? Even in a fully public healthcare system you can always opt to pay for treatment which is not covered(as rare as those are). How is that different than your insurer in US refusing to pay for treatment and you paying from your own pocket?
That’s a red herring though. Few countries have a system that forbids paying extra for extra care. The point is that in the U.S. system you can’t get basic care without paying extra, which is not the case in other countries.
why not do some research online, buy the meds for a penny on the dollar via the darknet, and give them to your mom's nurse with a $100 note to seal the deal?
is it absurd that i have plans for these exact situations already worked out?
It does, and it's shit like this that makes me absolutely convinced that US is a 3rd world country, where people have to weight their own health vs the financial cost. There's plenty of people saying they don't want to call an ambulance because they are worried what their bill would be. That people would risk their lives and that of their new born baby because there is a financial cost associated with staying at the hospital for another day is beyond absurd, it's like bad fiction about some distant society where things have gone horribly wrong, except that this is real and calls itself the greatest country in the world.