Main reason I ask is because Chillindude, a prominent member of the competitive Melee community had a stroke recently and as he’s relatively healthy and works out often, he doesn’t have health insurance, and even though he’s sponsored by Team Liquid, one of the largest e-sports teams out there, because he is classified as an independent contractor, he doesn’t have health insurance through them.
The way he got the stroke was through an infection in his knee that he got misdiagnosed twice, and the hospital was going to throw him out even because he’s been stabilized, but doesn’t have coverage, which to me is actual BS but I’m honestly curious as to why this would be the case, considering strokes need so much recovery done for them.
Situations like this is part of why I couldn’t write my own thing for the ideal society post I made the other day, because I have no clue how healthcare should be handled. I do know however that portions of why healthcare is so expensive is due to the companies that make the equipment being anti-“Right to Repair” and the actual repair costs of the equipment being outrageous (Louis Rossmann made that a video months ago and I can’t find it), but still, this whole situation is really outrageous to me, that the hospital was going to throw him out after he stabilized due to a lack of proper coverage, and that stroke recovery as a whole is as expensive as it is in the US. I’d love to hear from our European people if it’s really any better there or am I being lied to, but still, idk what the solution really is.
Edit: I’m in the US, so this is pretty important for me to know.
To actually answer your question, if you don't have insurance you're going bankrupt if you have anything significant go wrong at all even if it's a one-time problem. Only exception is if you are in a car wreck in which case your or their insurance will cover the bills OR it's still not enough and you go bankrupt, maybe they go bankrupt too if they were at fault.
If you have Obamacare insurance it's actual insurance, like for disasters. You get a few free checkups and some free preventive tests, but mostly that you'll pay ~10k out of pocket to be treated by residents and the worst physicians because everybody else doesn't take your plan. There are places who could have their billing done for free by the parent company, but choose not to so they can exclude the riff-raff. In a real emergency you'll probably go out of network against your will and pay an extra $14k on top of that.
If you're on a company plan then most big companies you'll pay nothing more than a co-pay of $100 to see a specialist or something like that. You'll be able to see a good doctor and don't have to worry about going bankrupt from an emergency.
...in other words Obamacare created a lower caste that has pretend healthcare. They're like living cadavers for the medical industry to practice on. Since you're in the US and are subject to this, my advice is get a professional type job with insurance, if you're young get a cheap plan and roll the dice, or if you're older pay through the nose for a good plan while you are looking for a professional job as soon as possible. If you're older and lose your job pay COBRA to stay on the plan for a year even though it'll cost a billion dollars because you're not going to get a good plan by yourself for less money.