I've been diagnosed with severe obsteuctive sleep apnea and did a cpap trial to learn that the CPAP machine will completely cure my OSA, at least as long as I continue to treat it.
A lot of good that does me when my insurance wants me to pay $2,400 upfront, before they can reimburse me 80%, leaving me with nearly $500 uncovered at all.
$2,400 is simply impossible for me to come up with, so it doesn't matter that they have a definitive treatment, there is no cure for me.
@ned nasty... Compared to that we have quite a good system in the Netherlands.
Still I would prefer health care in governments hands and insurance payed from taxes.
And most of all I want those taxes to be based on income.
I realise this might still be out of your price range but buying CPAPs online is SUBSTANTIALLY cheaper for better quality than anything you'll get locally.
Alberta CPAP retailers massively gouge patients! 😡
You should be able to get something decent for about half what you're currently being quoted.
(Feel free to PM me if you want to chat more: I've used CPAPs for over a decade and think they're amazing tech, but some details can be fussy.)
@ned Reminds me of how our power company here was public: things were bad, so they sold it to an Italian company. Things are still bad, probably worse, and I have bought an UPS.
@ned We have a public utility here in Clark County, WA and it is measurably better than anything I've ever lived with. Very responsive to the community, keeps rates low, highly reliable, does not set the state on fire and then try to deny it. That last one is a biggie for me.
When I was little we had regulated services. Not public, but at least controlled. Then Premier Ralph Klein came in and deregulated all of it, and it just spiraled downhill from there. Although the most recent iteration of alt-right ultra-conservative government in the province did the most visible harm, eliminating all caps so many of us literally saw utilities double in a week.
(Since you're American:
Premier = Governor
Province = State)
@ned
I live in the US. Whenever my for-profit, predatory health insurance provider sends out a feedback survey, I respond similarly.
Them: How can we serve you better?
Me: Healthcare is a human right. Profit has no business anywhere near healthcare. Your company shouldn't exist. You should lobby the US government for a universal single-payer healthcare system.
@wesdottoday
If that is true, the best part is that we can all be true heroes. Filling out those surveys with boilerplate "your business model shouldn't exist" is really easy to do. And it feels pretty good, too.
@ned “Be a monopoly… that drastically over-compensates its executives (in ways uncoupled from any measure of their performance) while demanding rate increases from consumers”
@3s25q2ec Nobody in entirety... but there are graduations. It's not a binary answer. It's who's MORE accountable, and who's LESS accountable.
Privately-owned monopolies handling basic necessities like utilities have proven themselves to have less than zero accountability. Their actions are nothing short of brazen.
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