- cross-posted to:
- nottheonion@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- nottheonion@lemmy.ml
A couple were told they faced a $200,000 (£146,500) medical bill when their baby was born prematurely in the US, despite them having travel insurance which covered her pregnancy.
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I stopped paying for health insurance a couple years ago, one of the best decisions I’ve made.
Ah yes, the United States – Don’t get sick or you will have to fight tooth and nail to get your insurance company to pay for necessary medical care. This is a story heard over and over again stateside. If the U.S. was truly the best place in the world to live, this would simply not happen. As a person who has worked in healthcare in the U.S. for over 15 years, I feel this in my bones. I am glad you could get legal help and have the right outcome based on what you paid for. I would love nothing more than to see everyone who comes to the U.S. receive medical care appropriately – Nobody asks to get sick :(
Not germane. Zurich Insurance Group is not a USian medical insurance company.
I don’t think anyone was sick here.
Not trying to victim blame but do not go to America.
Also dont have kids
They’re Brits
I don’t see how the advice doesn’t apply. Do not go to U.S.A
After a nine month legal battle, Zurich has reversed its decision and told the BBC it was sorry for the stress caused.
Yeah, very sorry I’m sure. Oopsie, we accidentally fought a nine month legal battle to avoid paying out the exact thing the insurance is for
“We’ve now strengthened and clarified our wording and guidance so other families travelling abroad at this stage of a pregnancy do not have to go through this experience.”
TLDR: the beat couple is fucked
How’s the US still a country, how do people just put up with it.
Military Industrial Complex
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Don’t get pregnant.
Sorry, I block ads.
Can someone tell me if this article has an ad for vasectomies and condoms?
I’m curious, what happens if you just don’t pay? What if you just go back home and never come back?
Honestly if you never go back, not much. It wouldn’t even impact your credit rating, and your country likely doesn’t have the means to enforce it. I could imagine you get harassed by us debt collection agencies but they can’t do anything about it either. If you’re never returning to the US, it’s fine.
You could likely even still holiday in the USA. It won’t impact your visa as it’s not a criminal offence either.
I’m not a lawyer, and could be totally wrong, but I asked my dad who is also not a lawyer.
After 7 years without any payment, most debt including medical debt and standard loans are discharged. The non-payment is key. Even sending a cent will restart the obligation to that debt
They are bringing back debtor’s prisons in some states, those debts they sell as unrecoverable are bought by shady companies, as in Utah, that sue for them in the big city, and if the defendant doesn’t show up they get a default judgement and then get the judge to hold them in contempt, and jail them. If they pay they get out right away. After they get out of jail the holder of the debt can just file for another action and contempt you again, as I understand it.
And they aren’t the only state either I hear, they were one of the first to end run around the prohibition, I think case law, on debtor’s prisons, over 10 years back.
Utah still has the firing squad, yeah?
They just brought back that form of execution, and it’s an improvement over lethal injection as it is practiced, or the electrical chair or gas chamber.
Lethal injection could be humane, they choose not to make it so. Nothing would be more humane that a hot shot of opioids and benzodiazapemes and the like. They want them to suffer and use their other formulation that does cause pain even as it makes the person unable to show that pain, as I understand it.
The electrical chair is grotesque, as was the gas chamber as practiced that not only is disturbingly similar to nazi shit, but also operated as with the lethal injections.
So firing squad is much more humane, hanging is humane, guillotine, etc would all be better. Obviously though we can’t trust the system to convict the right people so we shouldn’t have the death penalty. But certain exceptions could exist, for people that would use corrupt influence to get their conviction overturned, cancelled, and do more harm, politically connected people, the super rich.
And yes, shady companies like these, are the perfect recipients of said penalty with due process as they would pay off higher ups to get it cancelled and abuse more people.
ICE gonna come to get ya
I doubt any of them have passports and probably couldn’t point to the UK on an atlas, so I think you’d be relatively safe.
and do what? Ensure the U.K also denounces the U.S as an ally?
They can sue, and then try to seize your assets, at least inside the country. Most hospitals don’t, but some do. Garnish your paychecks too. Not sure how that would work in another country.
That poor child will now have to suffer dual citizenship in the US. That kid’s tax stuff will be a PITA when it starts working.
can you really not reject citizenships?
You can, but you have to pay fees and forefit a percent of your net worth.
The baby should do it now, while their net worth is $0
You can, but it’s a pain in the ass.
As long as they spend at least 330 days per 12 month period in non-US countries, they can deduct 130K/y via FEIE, and it adjusts with inflation.
Hope they don’t get a job that keeps them in international waters tho.
I have a friend who had a c section birth that otherwise had no complications (other than requiring a c section. They were in the hospital 4 days iirc, way less than a week. Insurance was billed for 98,000. They had a 10k out of pocket max, thankfully
So… that baby is basically came to USA without approval? Should it be detained in the concentration camp or something?
Doesn’t that baby have birthright citizenship, being born in the US?
I mean… there’s an injunction on the executive order so for now… but we’ll see how the court case goes… 👀
No, it’s white.
They have been murdering white people too
"Hey, man, we told the kid not to be born, that we couldn’t afford it, but he wouldn’t listen, and went and borned hisself anyhow, without any permission. So that’s on him. You have to sue him.
But you can’t, because he’s a BABY! And you can’t sue a baby! BOOM! CHECKMATE, BITCH!"
That’ll work in any court in the nation. Don’t even need a lawyer, save your money.
That sucks… Born in the US…
Paying taxes to the US forever!
Just checked, it appears you can renounce it :
the State Department no longer proactively attempts to prove such intent, and issues a Certificate of Loss of Nationality (CLN) only when an individual “affirmatively asserts” their relinquishment of citizenship.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relinquishment_of_United_States_nationality
Bruce Springsteen has entered the chat. And that song is not celebratory
The US: why is our birth rate so low? Also the US: …
The best way to lower birth rates is free contraception. The birth rate in the US is too high…
Interestingly it is still higher than a lot of European countries which have affordable healthcare
different causes: people are having less kids in the US because they’re living in misery, whereas in europe we’ve long had fewer kids because better education and less need to have 8 kids so one of them survives and can take care of you as you get old.
It’s actually the same in the US. Misery increases the birthrate.
Our birthrate is higher because we traditionally have had a higher immigration rate from countries with higher birthrates.
Yeah in most European countries at least half the kids survived to adulthood now. So if you have four kids at least two of them will survive and that’s all you need to pull the ox
isnt advisable by studies for pregnant woman to not travel outside thier country to avoid situations like these.
It’s advisable not to travel to, over, or near the United States regardless of pregnancy status
It really depends on various factors like how far into the pregnancy she is (travel when you’re 2 months in is vastly different to travel when you’re 8 months in), how urgent the need to travel is (traveling to go to an anime convention is vasly less urgent than traveling to lay your mom to rest), how far you’re traveling (a weekend saunter to the next town over is different than traveling half way around the globe (which it sounds like she did)), whether the doctor overseeing your care says its okay, and other stuff.
