Is there free medical services in the USA?

Question

Here in Australia if you are an Australian Citizen you are issued with a medicare care an are able to see a doctor who bulk bills free of charge.We also have the PBS pharmaceutical benifits scheem so people who are imployed pay an average of $32.80 per script item and the government pays the rest

Answer 1

The very poor receive medicaid coverage and medicines free.  Seniors receive medicare but pay monthly also must carry private ins. policy and a prescription policy.  Some receive ins. through jobs but pay monthly premiums.  Some insurance companies have a co pay from 5 to 20 dollars.  Some have no copay but a 150 to 1000 deductible.  But we have the best medical services and no long waiting times.

National health care would be a disaster.  costing a fortune and waiting years for treatment.

Answer 2

The poor can't be denied medical care at ER's, the institution eats the charges. Most level one trauma centers in the urban areas are frequented by gunshot and stabbing victims that receive care despite their inablility to pay. It's only the working classes that pay via their insurance or out of pocket. Similarly, the working folks pay for auto insurance but when an uninsured motorist whacks them, it 's their insurance that take the hit. See, it really pays to be poor and uninsured, you have no accountability to anyone.

Answer 3

Nothing is free.  Where do you think the govt gets its money to pay for your medical care?  

btw.........we dont have a govt run system here yet.  Many of us are fighting tooth and nail against it.

Answer 4

To some extent there is free services. But to 48 million Americans not covered by medic-aid or medi-care, their only free solution is the ER (Accident & Emergency Ward). The USA needs universal health care, and we need it soon. We already pay  (as a country) upwards of 40% more every year than the 28 other industrialized nations in the world, and the US is still paying for privatized health care.

  Hopefully we get a single payer system, we can control who our doctors our, but rest assure our brothers and sisters are being taken care of. I think most Americans can agree with that, and I look forward to the change!

Answer 5

There's a misconception in America that the poor doesn't have to pay for treatment they get if they go to ER.

The truth is, ER is, by law, not allowed to refuse patient regardless of their ability to pay or not.

The law does not stop the hospital or the doctor to pursue the patient for money owed.

The system then will bankrupt the lower middle income people straight away, and prevent the poor to be able to acquire wealth within a set of time if they ever be unlucky enough to get any serious sickness that requires medical attention.

A trip to ER will translate into usually 3 different set of bills being send to the patients' home.

- Hospital Bill regarding the usage of emergency room

- Doctor Bill

- Medicine or Equipment bill (X-ray, CAT scan)

The three bills can easily amount to around $3000 to $9000 or even in some cases $15000 depending on how many equipments they use and how long the patient stayed in the room (remember, hospitals charge more money to patients without insurance, it makes the figure looks good in their book and tax report whether the person able to pay it or not)

The poor then can file a form submitting their income report and their bank statement to ask for a concession from the hospital bill.

Hospital then will determine whether to give a 50% discount, 75% or in some cases waive the fee altogether.

That will leave te patients with the other two bills, which usually still amount to easily $2000 - $6000, again, depending on how many equipments used and the kind of treatment he got.

Asking concession from the Equipments department is not as easy as the one from hospitals, and doctors usually use a commercial billing agency to do the bill collecting, meaning concession from doctor fee is almost impossible in many cases.

The person then will be left with that debt, that can easily ruin the lower middle income people's finance or prevent the really poor from ever being able to save money (as the record will stay for 7 years), even if the patient suddenly got promotion from the lowest entry level job to an entry level managerial job, the debtors can easily get court order to garnish paycheck.

Lots of people out there don't even know what involves as they might be children of privileged family, and they only see the insurance bill for the co-pay or not even that.

But, ER is not free (although I believe people like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly keep repeating that as a rhetoric)

The privatization and corporate welfare capitalism in America has reached a cancerous stage. As bad as the Communism reached it's fatal stage in the old Soviet Union.

If nothing is changed soon, the whole system will really go down in flame in US.

btw, there's no such thing as bulk bill in US, they only bulk bill if you have the best insurance that has no co-pay.

Prepare for multiple bills when you visit a hospital.

Answer 6

I live in the US and there are no 'free' medical services. If you have insurance, there's usually a $20 co-pay, but I think that's all.