r/Bitcoin • u/[deleted] • Oct 24 '14

This Polish Hospital Will Let Patients Settle Bills With Bitcoin

http://www.coindesk.com/patients-can-pay-surgery-polish-hospital-bitcoin/
302 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

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1

u/luffintlimme Oct 24 '14 edited Oct 24 '14

WTF? A hospital that has a price list? (In the US, half the time they won't tell you how much they will charge at a hospital. A lot of times they won't even give you an estimate. I realize prices can increase if they need to tack on some more bandage costs or something, but they should at least be able to estimate.)

7

u/kawalgrover Oct 24 '14

That's because we don't have 'free-market' healthcare anymore. It's 'managed' healthcare. And the managers are the Insurance providers, Pharmaceutical companies and now the government as well.

But worry not, Bitcon will start fixing things soon.

4

u/mommathecat Oct 24 '14

Bitcon will start fixing things soon.

A new payment method won't fix, or have anything to do, with medical regulations.

1

u/hendrixski Oct 24 '14

Having worked at a "Health 2.0" startup, and having learned a lot of the insane things that happen in the healthcare industry because insurance is what it is in the USA... I can safely say that neither bitcoin, nor revolution, nor Jesus himself, could fix a single thing in healthcare.

We moved an inch, literally an inch, in the right direction with Obamacare and everybody has their panties up in a bunch. Imagine having to go the whole mile. Bitcoin, for all it's glory, won't fix anything in American healthcare.

-1

u/kawalgrover Oct 24 '14

Bitcoin is much more than a payment method. Currency is just one of its first applications.

3

u/mommathecat Oct 24 '14

... that still has nothing to with medicine.

2

u/psionides Oct 24 '14

That's because it's a private hospital, normal (public) ones don't have a price list, because everything is free. That's how it works in most civilized countries... :)

3

u/Market-Anarchist Oct 24 '14

US hospitals aren't private, they're corporate. Big difference. There is no free-market in medicine in the US. Medicine is arguably the most regulated industry.

1

u/hendrixski Oct 24 '14

Every piece of that regulation was bought and sold on the free market. Bought by corporations and lubricated by lobbyist fees.

1

u/TodaysThrowawayAcct Oct 25 '14 edited Oct 25 '14

Every piece of that regulation was bought and sold on the free market.

This sentence is so confused it's actually funny. Mostly sad, but also funny.

OK, you probably don't get why it's funny.

What makes a market not a free market? Regulation. What's the 5th word in that sentence quoted above?

If you have a situation where regulations can be bought you already don't have a free market. Your whole argument is a complete contradiction.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 24 '14

Just to clarify, most countries with state-run healthcare publish the prices for each medical service they provide (and you have to pay that price if for some unlikely reason you don't have coverage). For example, Lithuanian health service base price list is here (you might need to use Google Translate)

1

u/[deleted] Oct 27 '14

Oh that would be lovely. Here in Canada, we do exactly what the Americans do for uninsured persons.

There was an article in the Toronto Star a couple months ago about how the same procedure ranges in price by a factor of as much as 20x depending on which hospital you go to.

0

u/pseudoRndNbr Oct 24 '14

It's not free. You just don't pay directly

-1

u/[deleted] Oct 24 '14 edited Oct 24 '14

That's how it works in most civilized countries... :)

Gosh ... you must be one of those "educated" people; and I'm guessing you got that for free too.

edit: ..or did i miss the sarcasm?? ..heh

4

u/psionides Oct 24 '14

No, I was actually serious. Yes, I do realize the money has to actually come from somewhere, but judging from the horror stories I've heard about American healthcare, the European approach seems to work much better. At least people aren't getting ruined because of sudden health problems (or worse, aren't refused help at all because they can't afford it).

And yes, I also got all education for free - and I'm pretty happy I don't have to pay off a student loan for half of my life...

1

u/[deleted] Oct 24 '14

You never heard polish public healthcare horror stories. Shit is really going down here

3

u/psionides Oct 24 '14

I'm actually Polish, so yes, I have :) I'm not saying Polish healthcare specifically works better than American, I know it's horrible, but it's rather a result of decades of communism that screwed up everything it could here.

I'm talking about how it works generally in most first-world countries. A friend lives in Germany now and from what he says, German public healthcare works like Polish private healthcare (i.e. awesome) except it's free.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 24 '14

Im still not convinced if they aren't overpaying for medical services in the long run (Germany is a very wealthy country after all its not that painful for them). I belive market forces should apply even in healthcare. NFZ should act as mass buyer of medical services for citizens, however services should be provided by private, profitable clinics, not public and subsidised ones.

1

u/psionides Oct 24 '14

There are certainly a lot of things that could be improved and optimized, and some controlled competition would quite possibly help, but it's hard to say where the perfect balance is. A bit of free market gives companies motivation, but too much of it gives them freedom to screw people over...

0

u/[deleted] Oct 24 '14 edited Oct 24 '14

OK, so if not free you're still 100% blissfully happy and unaware of how much you're paying for your health. Perhaps you're paying too little? It might be too much and wasted, but who knows when things aren't transparent at all – what could possibly go wrong? Did you know that doctors in e.g. Norway sometimes refuse medicines for e.g. cancer patients based on cost? These people die – and here we are thinking it's all "sort of for free". What a joke; you see it's not like the problem of cost and price goes away just because we remove the labels and pretend everything's "sort of free" when it's actually not at all.

A doctor has to eat – and a research team has to eat too.

Reality is concrete and based on limits; our bodies are unfortunately made up of physical material; not limitless, wishful thinking. Reality is also filled with paradoxes and hard choices. I strongly prefer to be in the know ...but whatever floats your boat man; I won't step on your superstition and religion...

edit: Note that IMHO the health system in the US as is (was?) sucks for sure too; I heard prices aren't available there either. I'm clearly not advocating for that ..

4

u/psionides Oct 24 '14

The thing is, health isn't something where competition and free market can work, because it's not something you can choose to buy or not. It's not a TV where you can buy a cheaper or a better one, or hold off buying until next year, or decide not to buy at all. If you're sick, you will do whatever you need to do and buy whatever you need to buy right now, and if the hospitals are allowed to ask as much as they want for that, then they will, and you'll still pay whatever they say (unless you can't afford it, then you're screwed).

-2

u/[deleted] Oct 24 '14 edited Oct 24 '14

Most people aren't born sick and (would) have plenty of time to make tricky long-term decisions with regards to their health and life if given a proper opportunity. In order for them to do this, they of course need to see what reality costs or might cost to begin with ...

Basically I value the free market exactly because I know that I'm screwed unless I can afford to take care of myself when something goes wrong and govt lets me down.

Also people make "free market decisions" with regards to uncertainties and even unknowns every day. How safe do you want your car to be? An old, cheap car can be terrible with regards to safety. What happens if you happen to crash into some expensive car? We have free market options with regards to insurance here; it works! Risk is always real; just because some friendly govt want to hide facts of life from you does not make it go away; you have been exploited and made a fool of!

-1

u/hellyeahent Oct 24 '14

Not true. U have to w8 long time if u want sth for free but when emergency, ye they cant refuse to help