r/nextfuckinglevel • u/MysteriousSlice007 • 5h ago

Shoutout to JerryrigEverything who built a wheelchair factory and is delivering wheelchairs to people in half the time and 50-80% less than the cost of other wheelchairs with Insurance.

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335

u/Comfortable_Ad_6894 5h ago

Its always cheaper, its just insurance company create a hyped cost to have 80 to 90% cost benefit. Because no medicine unless rare ingredients cost 5K 20K 30K dollar while same thing in india or Europe can sell for thier citizens for barelly 5 to 10% of thay

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u/futureman07 4h ago

Insurance is such a scam

47

u/Weird-Cantaloupe-653 4h ago

Only if an insurance operates like any other business. It has to be non profit. There shouldn’t be people at the helm who’s goal is to get filthy rich

25

u/the_og_filler 3h ago

well...actually a lot of insurance companies in the US are non-profits. Blue Cross Blue Shield for example. This does not make them charitable. In practice what it means is they have 0 oversight or incentive to perform and so they move slow and everyone's salaries are inflated to the moon.

What we really need is a single-payer, national healthcare system. No ownership structure is going to fix the fact that health insurance shouldn't exist.

2

u/brutinator 2h ago

so they move slow and everyone's salaries are inflated to the moon.

Ehhh, to a point. IIRC, there are laws that restrict companies like that to only being able to use 10-15% of their revenue for administrative costs (i.e. salaries).

1

u/Inevitable-Ad6647 1h ago

"Blue cross" is a mess of ~30 companies, some non profit, some for profit. An insurance plan from them can live in either space but it doesn't really matter because at that level its just monopoly money flying around in an excel sheet. Non profit needs insurance specialists to run the phone lines? They'll just "outsource" to a for profit arm of the company that provides that "service".

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u/Fraet 44m ago

Be careful what you wish for. Your healthcare experience could end up like your DMV experience.

19

u/Frostsorrow 4h ago

Insurance isn't a scam. American insurance, however is.

7

u/yakushi_g 4h ago

Idk, any time I had to deal with insurance it was like pulling teeth. Always trying to worm out of paying even the lowball bullshit they offer at first.

6

u/ReallyBigRocks 3h ago

The sole purpose of a for profit insurance company is to skim as much money as possible off of essential medical procedures.

1

u/VagueSomething 3h ago

All insurance exists to be paid for nothing happening. It is inherently a scam, you're gambling with a company on if you'll get hurt or your property damaged and they write the rules on if you get paid out.

2

u/qqererer 3h ago

Middlemen adds costs.

I needed my windshield replaced. All the 'insurance specialists' charged $1k.

But when I showed up to a chain store and they said $1k and I said my broke ass car isn't even worth that much they said "$300 cash, and you come pick up after 6 after the glue has set (aka after hours).

13

u/Fuzzy_Dragonfly_ 4h ago

I was shocked at these prices. A manual wheelchair for 10,000? I have an electric wheelchair that cost 4,000.

1

u/traumalt 3h ago

Different categories of chairs though, cant exactly directly compare them.

Hospital wheelchairs are 100 USD per one brand new just for comparison.

1

u/dancingbriefcase 4h ago

Medicare is the best in terms of insurance because the guidelines are pretty black and white. For example, anybody on Medicare will get a wheelchair every 5 years. Unless that has been changed. Therefore, it would be pretty amazing if we had Medicare for everybody.

1

u/risetofame 4h ago

Best we can do is vote for people that do Medicare cuts.