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Re: Teach Dalty American!

Posted: April 1st, 2017, 7:36 pm
by Mango
I want that Captain Marvel glass

Re: Teach Dalty American!

Posted: April 1st, 2017, 10:12 pm
by The Swollen Goiter of God
I made an honest-to-goodness squee noise when I first laid eyes on it.

Re: Teach Dalty American!

Posted: April 2nd, 2017, 3:56 am
by Dalty
I thought Brie Larson was Captain Marvel

Re: Teach Dalty American!

Posted: May 29th, 2017, 12:38 pm
by Dalty
Do Federal Agents etc. really wear those long 80s style (prob 50s too) waterproof coats? Macs, we call them in the UK.

Re: Teach Dalty American!

Posted: May 29th, 2017, 1:09 pm
by The Swollen Goiter of God
I don't know about the federal agents, but I do know that the banker never wears a Mac.

Re: Teach Dalty American!

Posted: May 29th, 2017, 1:09 pm
by The Swollen Goiter of God
In the pouring rain.

Re: Teach Dalty American!

Posted: May 29th, 2017, 1:09 pm
by The Swollen Goiter of God
Very strange.

Re: Teach Dalty American!

Posted: May 29th, 2017, 1:35 pm
by Dalty
I have no idea what you are talking about.

Re: Teach Dalty American!

Posted: May 29th, 2017, 1:57 pm
by The Swollen Goiter of God

Re: Teach Dalty American!

Posted: May 29th, 2017, 3:38 pm
by Dalty
Ooooooooooh!

Re: Teach Dalty American!

Posted: June 4th, 2017, 3:30 pm
by Scotia
So, I'm wondering about healthcare in the USA. Particularly for the uninsured which apparently is an ever growing segment of the population now that Sarumon is at the wheel.

I'm curious about emergency cases, say a pregnant women who shows up in the ER or maybe a guy rushed to hospital from an accident with a broken pelvis. Would the hospital turn these people away at the door? Would the hospital work on these folks then bill them? What if they were unemployed with little to no income? I've always wondered about this. I work in health care myself and the essential premiss here is to provide care at any cost. Worry about the financials later. I've read ancticdodal pieces about homeless folks getting shipped out to lesser institutions or simply refused care period.

I'm not even tring to be political here. Just generally curious about American protocols.

Re: Teach Dalty American!

Posted: June 4th, 2017, 4:11 pm
by Jubbers
Medical debt collectors are extremely aggressive. Hospitals and doctor offices, at least around us, seem to send remaining balances to them as soon as 90 days hits.

We have insurance, but we had a situation this last fall where Beau and I went to get our yearly checkup, and that doctor sent us to get some labwork done, in another office upstairs. The doctor's office and the laboratory are all part of the same hospital network, but I guess they are not connected to the same patient information network. The check-in person at the lab typed our address in incorrectly; we did not get a bill. And then I started getting daily calls from a very pushy medical debt collection agency... took a while to get it all sorted out correctly. I've also gotten calls from medical debt collectors trying to collect on debts from some of my relatives.

Re: Teach Dalty American!

Posted: June 4th, 2017, 4:41 pm
by Scotia
And here, I thought my student loans officer was a cunt.

Re: Teach Dalty American!

Posted: June 4th, 2017, 9:32 pm
by neglet
Scotia wrote: June 4th, 2017, 3:30 pm I'm curious about emergency cases, say a pregnant women who shows up in the ER or maybe a guy rushed to hospital from an accident with a broken pelvis. Would the hospital turn these people away at the door? Would the hospital work on these folks then bill them? What if they were unemployed with little to no income?
I believe in most cases US hospitals are not allowed to turn away emergency patients for financial reasons. So they get billed after the fact, with collections often unsuccessful. This has the effect of driving up costs for everyone else as hospitals make up the difference. This is what I don't get about opposition to universal coverage, or even broader coverage supported by subsidies. When more people are covered, they get treatment sooner at lower costs, and overall costs go down as well.

But that means poor people might get something they didn't "earn," so the GOP ain't down with that.

Re: Teach Dalty American!

Posted: June 5th, 2017, 11:34 am
by Mal Shot First
Jubbers wrote: June 4th, 2017, 4:11 pm We have insurance, but we had a situation this last fall where Beau and I went to get our yearly checkup, and that doctor sent us to get some labwork done, in another office upstairs. The doctor's office and the laboratory are all part of the same hospital network, but I guess they are not connected to the same patient information network. The check-in person at the lab typed our address in incorrectly; we did not get a bill. And then I started getting daily calls from a very pushy medical debt collection agency... took a while to get it all sorted out correctly.
Something similar happened to my wife recently. Her primary care physician referred her to a specialist who used to be in the same patient information network but was no longer part of it, and the PCP wasn't aware of this, so neither were we... until we received a bill for the visit that was quite a bit higher than it should have been. I mean, it wasn't so outrageous that we couldn't afford it, but just out of principle, we didn't want to pay the full amount. After all, that's why we pay for health insurance every month, right?

Anyway, Vespa followed up with the insurance carrier, which is when we found out that the specialist is now out-of-network. It took weeks and months for all the involved parties to move their goddamn asses to provide the necessary documentation to resolve the situation. In the meantime, we got two reminders about the bill and a final notice stating that they'll turn the matter over to a collection agency if we miss the final deadline. Once everything was finally sorted out, it was only a few days before the deadline, but the case apparently didn't get registered as "adjusted" in time for the collection agency to be notified about it, so we got a letter from them anyway. :roll:

What we found out, though, from one of the hospital staff during this process was that the collection agency takes about 90% of the sum they collect, which is pretty ridiculous. If hospitals are willing to settle for getting only 10% of the amount they initially bill, then why don't they send a bill for that amount in the first place? Hell, even if they charged 25% of the current price, they'd probably get a much higher rate of payment compliance and would probably not lose as much money as they do when passing the bill to a collection agency. The entire healthcare system in the U.S. is just fucked up, and I'm pretty sure it's that way by design.

Re: Teach Dalty American!

Posted: July 6th, 2017, 3:18 am
by Dalty
Is it really true that 101 people were shot in Chicago over 4th July weekend and that 1700 people have been shot there so far in 2017?

And if so, just what the fuck is wrong with Chicago?

Re: Teach Dalty American!

Posted: July 6th, 2017, 6:34 am
by The Swollen Goiter of God
Trump blames Obama.

Re: Teach Dalty American!

Posted: July 6th, 2017, 8:16 am
by Adam54
Well obviously. Obama's from Chicago. He's also black. Therefore he encouraged the violence and even shot a few people himself. Probably.

Re: Teach Dalty American!

Posted: July 6th, 2017, 9:07 am
by Mango
I'll be in Chicago in about 9 hours. I'll ask around.

Re: Teach Dalty American!

Posted: July 6th, 2017, 12:53 pm
by Dalty
"Excuse me, my good man! Why are you fellows so shooty around here?"

Re: Teach Dalty American!

Posted: July 6th, 2017, 4:48 pm
by Mal Shot First
Snooty?

Re: Teach Dalty American!

Posted: July 6th, 2017, 6:24 pm
by The Swollen Goiter of God
Snotty!

Re: Teach Dalty American!

Posted: July 7th, 2017, 8:31 am
by Mal Shot First
Snotty?!

(I just thought it would be cute to do this bit because of the Chicago connection.)

Re: Teach Dalty American!

Posted: July 7th, 2017, 10:51 am
by The Swollen Goiter of God
"The Chicago Connection" sounds like a bad US remake of a Bruce Lee film.

(Yes, it also sounds like a band name. I think it may, in fact, be a band name.)

Re: Teach Dalty American!

Posted: July 7th, 2017, 12:19 pm
by Mal Shot First
Is that band composed of members who all have connections to members of Chicago?