Author Topic: Yet another reason to always be bankruptible  (Read 4046 times)

swampwiz

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Yet another reason to always be bankruptible
« on: June 28, 2018, 05:18:52 PM »
https://www.vox.com/2018/6/28/17506232/emergency-room-bill-fees-health-insurance-baby

Quote
After Alexa Sulvetta, a 30-year-old nurse, broke her ankle rock climbing at a San Francisco gym this past January, she faced an out-of-pocket cost of $31,250 ... The hospital charged Sulvetta a $15,666 trauma response fee, a hefty chunk of her $113,336 bill. Her insurance decided that the hospital fees for the one-day stay were too high, and — after negotiations — agreed to pay only a charge it deemed reasonable. The hospital then went after Sulvetta for $31,250.

6 figures?  O U T R A G E O U S !


bugbaby

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Re: Yet another reason to always be bankruptible
« Reply #1 on: June 28, 2018, 10:02:30 PM »
But if the ED or EMT evaluated her and missed a bone splinter in the ankle, she would have sued for $10,000,000 for 'mental anguish'. .. so, ok.

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Nate79

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Re: Yet another reason to always be bankruptible
« Reply #2 on: June 28, 2018, 10:38:54 PM »
You can not be always bankruptable. That is a stupid statement. Unless you plan to live broke with no assets not sure how you will be bankruptable and then pray you don't have another problem before the 7 year time limit is up before you can file again. But no doubt there are brain dead stupid people who think they can just file for bankrupcy any time they want.

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fuzzy math

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Re: Yet another reason to always be bankruptible
« Reply #3 on: June 28, 2018, 10:46:39 PM »
But if the ED or EMT evaluated her and missed a bone splinter in the ankle, she would have sued for $10,000,000 for 'mental anguish'. .. so, ok.

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Oh boy. Where to begin with this comment? Non sequiter, non helpful, not verifiable since it didn't happen.

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Bucksandreds

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Re: Yet another reason to always be bankruptible
« Reply #4 on: June 29, 2018, 05:18:58 AM »
Reason number 8,751 to move to Western Europe or Canada as soon as you can.

dude

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Re: Yet another reason to always be bankruptible
« Reply #5 on: June 29, 2018, 05:57:57 AM »
https://www.vox.com/2018/6/28/17506232/emergency-room-bill-fees-health-insurance-baby

Quote
After Alexa Sulvetta, a 30-year-old nurse, broke her ankle rock climbing at a San Francisco gym this past January, she faced an out-of-pocket cost of $31,250 ... The hospital charged Sulvetta a $15,666 trauma response fee, a hefty chunk of her $113,336 bill. Her insurance decided that the hospital fees for the one-day stay were too high, and — after negotiations — agreed to pay only a charge it deemed reasonable. The hospital then went after Sulvetta for $31,250.

6 figures?  O U T R A G E O U S !

She's got shitty insurance. I f'ed myself up snowboarding this past winter, got an ambulance ride to the hospital, a CT scan, meds, etc., and paid a whopping $375 out of pocket.

Penn42

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Re: Yet another reason to always be bankruptible
« Reply #6 on: June 29, 2018, 06:21:36 AM »
https://www.vox.com/2018/6/28/17506232/emergency-room-bill-fees-health-insurance-baby

Quote
After Alexa Sulvetta, a 30-year-old nurse, broke her ankle rock climbing at a San Francisco gym this past January, she faced an out-of-pocket cost of $31,250 ... The hospital charged Sulvetta a $15,666 trauma response fee, a hefty chunk of her $113,336 bill. Her insurance decided that the hospital fees for the one-day stay were too high, and — after negotiations — agreed to pay only a charge it deemed reasonable. The hospital then went after Sulvetta for $31,250.

6 figures?  O U T R A G E O U S !

She's got shitty insurance. I f'ed myself up snowboarding this past winter, got an ambulance ride to the hospital, a CT scan, meds, etc., and paid a whopping $375 out of pocket.

I dunno, I think the take home here isn't the quality of get insurance, it's that a 6 figure bill for a broken ankle is ridiculous.  Insurance notwithstanding, we need simple and non obfuscated healthcare pricing.

The mechanic who changed your water pump can't charge you a 15k "nut tightening fee" out of nowhere.  I don't see how a hospital is much different.

Penn42

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Re: Yet another reason to always be bankruptible
« Reply #7 on: June 29, 2018, 06:22:53 AM »
Also, OP, what do you mean by "always bankruptible".  I'm asking genuinely.  I dunno what factors would 'qualify' someone for bankruptcy I guess.

Bucksandreds

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Re: Yet another reason to always be bankruptible
« Reply #8 on: June 29, 2018, 07:21:49 AM »
Always bankruptible means to have the majority of your assets structured so that you keep them after bankruptcy. Retirement accounts generally cannot be touched and your primary residence equity, or large chunk of it as well. Your savings accounts, cars, etc would be lost.

VoteCthulu

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Re: Yet another reason to always be bankruptible
« Reply #9 on: June 29, 2018, 10:47:23 AM »
Always bankruptible means to have the majority of your assets structured so that you keep them after bankruptcy. Retirement accounts generally cannot be touched and your primary residence equity, or large chunk of it as well. Your savings accounts, cars, etc would be lost.
In the US this varies a lot by state. Some only exempt a certain amount of your IRA, primary residence up to a certain value, one car up to a certain value, etc. and others don't have some of those exemptions.

I'm surprised there's not more financial advisors who specialize in evaluating people's liability exposure by examining their insurance coverage, powers of attorney, asset locations, etc.

swampwiz

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Re: Yet another reason to always be bankruptible
« Reply #10 on: June 29, 2018, 12:54:17 PM »
You can not be always bankruptable. That is a stupid statement. Unless you plan to live broke with no assets not sure how you will be bankruptable and then pray you don't have another problem before the 7 year time limit is up before you can file again. But no doubt there are brain dead stupid people who think they can just file for bankrupcy any time they want.
How about socking away as much as possible in retirement accounts?  Those assets are exempt.

patchyfacialhair

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Re: Yet another reason to always be bankruptible
« Reply #11 on: June 29, 2018, 12:54:30 PM »
I'm surprised there's not more financial advisors who specialize in evaluating people's liability exposure by examining their insurance coverage, powers of attorney, asset locations, etc.

Probably because each of those lines of business require licensing, which is usually expensive and/or difficult to obtain.

That's why you have licensed insurance agents, bar-certified lawyers, and certified financial planners normally acting as separate people.

swampwiz

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Re: Yet another reason to always be bankruptible
« Reply #12 on: June 29, 2018, 12:56:33 PM »
In the US this varies a lot by state. Some only exempt a certain amount of your IRA
WRONG!  It's a standard amount of IRA, which is a little over $1M at this time.

VoteCthulu

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Re: Yet another reason to always be bankruptible
« Reply #13 on: June 29, 2018, 01:10:28 PM »
In the US this varies a lot by state. Some only exempt a certain amount of your IRA
WRONG!  It's a standard amount of IRA, which is a little over $1M at this time.
I am not a bankruptcy lawyer, so I won't say you're wrong, but a number of websites disagree with you, such as this one:
https://berkmyer.com/ira-protected-file-bankruptcy/
« Last Edit: June 29, 2018, 01:13:11 PM by VoteCthulu »

Telecaster

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Re: Yet another reason to always be bankruptible
« Reply #14 on: June 29, 2018, 01:13:34 PM »

She's got shitty insurance. I f'ed myself up snowboarding this past winter, got an ambulance ride to the hospital, a CT scan, meds, etc., and paid a whopping $375 out of pocket.

You got lucky.  Even if your hospital ER is in network, the doctor working in the ER might not be, and you could be stuck with an amazing bill you never saw coming. 

On January 28, 34-year-old Scott Kohan woke up in an emergency room in downtown Austin, Texas, with his jaw broken in two places, the result of a violent attack the night before. Witnesses called 911, which dispatched an ambulance that brought him to the hospital while he was unconscious.

“The thing I remember most was my lips were caked in blood and super dry,” Kohan says. “My head was throbbing, so I touched the top of my head, and I could feel staples there.”

Kohan called for a nurse, who explained that he would need jaw surgery that night. In the meantime, he tried to check whether the hospital — Dell Seton Medical Center — was in his insurance network.

“I was on my iPhone lying there with a broken jaw, and I go on the Humana website and see the hospital listed,” Kohan says. “So I figured, okay, I should be good.”

Except he wasn’t: While the emergency room where Kohan was seen was in his insurance network, the oral surgeon who worked in that ER was not. That’s how Kohan ended up with a $7,924 bill from the oral surgeon that his health plan declined.


https://www.vox.com/2018/5/23/17353284/emergency-room-doctor-out-of-network

This is so screwed up on so many levels.  You are in the ER for some medical emergency, and the onus is on you to see if you are covered or not.   And even then there is no way to know.   

Mississippi Mudstache

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Re: Yet another reason to always be bankruptible
« Reply #15 on: June 29, 2018, 01:25:48 PM »

She's got shitty insurance. I f'ed myself up snowboarding this past winter, got an ambulance ride to the hospital, a CT scan, meds, etc., and paid a whopping $375 out of pocket.

You got lucky.  Even if your hospital ER is in network, the doctor working in the ER might not be, and you could be stuck with an amazing bill you never saw coming. 

On January 28, 34-year-old Scott Kohan woke up in an emergency room in downtown Austin, Texas, with his jaw broken in two places, the result of a violent attack the night before. Witnesses called 911, which dispatched an ambulance that brought him to the hospital while he was unconscious.

“The thing I remember most was my lips were caked in blood and super dry,” Kohan says. “My head was throbbing, so I touched the top of my head, and I could feel staples there.”

Kohan called for a nurse, who explained that he would need jaw surgery that night. In the meantime, he tried to check whether the hospital — Dell Seton Medical Center — was in his insurance network.

“I was on my iPhone lying there with a broken jaw, and I go on the Humana website and see the hospital listed,” Kohan says. “So I figured, okay, I should be good.”

Except he wasn’t: While the emergency room where Kohan was seen was in his insurance network, the oral surgeon who worked in that ER was not. That’s how Kohan ended up with a $7,924 bill from the oral surgeon that his health plan declined.


https://www.vox.com/2018/5/23/17353284/emergency-room-doctor-out-of-network

This is so screwed up on so many levels.  You are in the ER for some medical emergency, and the onus is on you to see if you are covered or not.   And even then there is no way to know.

Completely f'ed up. On a similar note, our insurance is currently trying to stick us with the bill for a $5000 fetal genetic test that they pre-approved. Our second child was born with a birth defect, so the procedure was approved as a medical necessity, but now they're trying to back up and claim that it was an elective procedure. U.S. health insurance is a disaster, and there's no way to know with 100% certainty that you're not going to get stuck with some massive bill, even if you do your damndest to play within their arbitrary rules.

FallenTimber

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Re: Yet another reason to always be bankruptible
« Reply #16 on: June 29, 2018, 01:59:20 PM »
We paid $22k in medical bills out of pocket in a 12 month period due to having a baby. Hospital wouldn’t negotiate charges because they had already gone through our insurance. Paid $22k cash. Luckily we could afford it... a lot of folks would be in serious trouble.

The hospital charged for a c-section as well (despite it being a completely natural birth), so we got that charge removed. They also charged over $1,100 for my wife to use the hospital breast pump two times. Mind you, we didn’t even get to keep the breast pump—that was simply to use it for a total of 15 minutes.

SunnyDays

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Re: Yet another reason to always be bankruptible
« Reply #17 on: June 29, 2018, 05:25:23 PM »
As a Canadian, I seriously don't know how you Americans sleep at night with the possibility of losing virtually everything over minor health issues.  When I broke my ankle a few years ago, the charge to me was ZERO.  That included the original ER visit, X Rays, casting, 3 follow-up visits to check and remove cast, 2 additional X Rays to check healing progress and a walking boot.  I could also have gotten free crutches, but I already had some from a relative's previous injury.  What this all actually cost the government I have no idea as we never see an invoice.  So one thing I never complain about is high taxes.  Love that socialism!