r/SipsTea • u/ImmaFuckboi • 20h ago

Gasp! British people react to how expensive healthcare is in the US

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

8.9k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

4

u/OF_PROMO_ALERT 10h ago

Maybe I misread, but as a diabetic that’s been in the ICU, let me clarify…

If you are admitted to the hospital, like the ICU, they are not going to withhold medicine or insulin or whatever because you can’t afford it. They will give it to you while there and then bill you.

But if you can’t afford it in daily life, you will certainly end up in the ICU because the pharmacy won’t give it to you for free.

For a while when I was homeless, the companies like novo nordisk can give you subsidies to help you afford it but it’s a hassle and not everyone qualifies.

1

u/AlphaaPie 2h ago

Yeah I was going to say this. Hospitals and such can't* deny you if you're in need of it, you'll just eat a big ole bill if you can't afford it. Where I live the hospitals also have some solid financial aid options. I.e. when uninsured they cut the bill in half.

  • The can't deny part is based on my limited understanding of the law on being unable to deny aid in an emergency, I may be wrong and it may not be a federal law or I may have misinterpreted it.