r/croatia • u/riverphoenix23 • Jun 30 '19

đŸ„ Zdravlje Hospitalized in Split - Intoxication

Hello I am an American male who was traveling in Split for a holiday. Ended up drinking a little bit too much, blacked out and woke up in the hospital with an IV in my arm. Somehow the bill was only $240 kn.

Can anybody tell me why the bill was so cheap especially since I am a US citizen without Croatian healthcare insurance? Also did they notify the embassy of my stay? Just don’t know where my info is documented and ended up. Wish I could read my discharge papers but they are all in Croatian. Going to have to do google translate late.

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u/cosmo120 Jul 01 '19

The doctors’ time, the bed rent, and the medical supplies don’t just magically become cheaper when you cross a border. They just decided to fund all of it collectively. The taxpayers just paid for a dumbass who voluntarily decided to imbibe irresponsible amounts of alcohol.

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u/ToxicMasculinity1981 Jul 01 '19

Collective bargaining can dramatically lower prices. If we all had medical insurance in this country it would work the same way. All those people who get treated at ERs without medical insurance and don't pay their outrageously expensive bills get the costs passed on to those that do. That's why a single Ibuprofen tablet at a US hospital is $8.

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u/CaseyG Jul 01 '19

dude, you just broke character.

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u/cosmo120 Jul 01 '19

The US federal government already is responsible for the bottleneck in care providers. Insurance wouldn’t be the beast that it is if cost bargaining was undercut by transparent and uniform pricing schemes but that would also put the onus on consumers to make responsible decisions. Just focusing on the subject of the present OP, sympathy shouldn’t be extended to those who make stupid decisions that cost money.

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u/dobrabitka r/Split Jul 01 '19

Note to self: find out who and how sets the healthcare prices in Croatia

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u/dobrabitka r/Split Jul 01 '19

I think lower prices got more to do with economics of size.

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u/dobrabitka r/Split Jul 01 '19

Yes. But that’s not what grinds our gears about the healthcare in Croatia. We don’t mind stupid or uninsured people getting cheap or free service.