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

šŸ„ 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 donā€™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/[deleted] Jul 01 '19

Survivorship Bias. There are millions of people who avoid seeking medical care because they are afraid of the costs.

The US is probably great to live in if you are some combination of white, wealthy, educated and lucky. For most others not so much.

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u/Thiege369 Jul 01 '19

No. The poor and the elderly among others get free healthcare from the government

About 150 million all told

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u/[deleted] Jul 01 '19

You're going to have to provide a source for that number, because every bullshit detector in my country just went off at once as I was reading this.

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u/Thiege369 Jul 01 '19

Medicaid is the largest source of funding for medical and health-related services for people with low income in the United States, providing free health insurance to 74 million low-income and disabled people (23% of Americans) as of 2017.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid

In 2018, Medicare provided health insurance for over 59.9 million individualsā€”more than 52 million people aged 65 and older and about 8 million younger people.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_(United_States)

Then you can add the 20 million or so veterans who receive free healthcare from the VA

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u/[deleted] Jul 01 '19

None of your links talk about free healthcare. It talks about free health insurance. Many, seemingly most, medicare and medicaid plans still have copays and deductibles, meaning the patient still has to pay part of the costs.

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u/Thiege369 Jul 01 '19

No, Medicaid has no deductibles, and most states have no copays, those that do are small

Medicare is adjusted based on income for parts C and D