Michigan man who had seizure on Royal Caribbean cruise forced to pay $2500 bill before evacuating
Michigan man who had seizure on Royal Caribbean cruise forced to pay $2500 bill before evacuating
Vincent Wasney returned home from cruise in thousands of dollars of medical debt
The hospital reduced the payment after learning he was uninsured? Is that like how itemized receipts make it cheaper because it’s all designed to shaft insurance companies who then just shaft their clients to not lose any money?
Also fuck the people who actually enforced that rule on the boat and anyone who would threaten their jobs if they didn’t.
Just another reason to avoid cruises, I guess.
The insurance companies want it that way, though. That's the sneaky bit.
Insurance companies are legally required to pay out 85% of all money they take in back to their insured. That leaves them with 15% to cover payroll and rent and profit and all the other shit.
So by having medical expenditures stupidly expensive, they get to charge higher premiums, which means the 15% they get to keep every year is a much larger amount of money. Why have 15% of $1,000,000 when you can have 15% of $100,000,000?
Most hospitals will remove the cost entirely if you are uninsured and make under a certain amount.
Example. My husband recently (...okay, 2 years ago, but the passage of time hurts) had to go to the hospital, and be admitted for, an infected insect bite. No cost on admittance. Had to stay a few days to be on ivs.
Over the course of the next few months we get the bills. Which we can't pay. But we have the number for the part of the hospital that can lower the costs.
We give them all the information, then wait.
One day a lady drives up to our place, hands my husband a piece of paper saying he owes the hospital nothing, then leaves. It was surreal.
Vincent Wasney was told that after having three seizures aboard the Independence of the Seas liner and receiving a blood test and medication, he owed more than $2,500, which had to be paid before he could disembark.
There's all kinds of what the fuck in this story, but this is the part that really gets me. How can they hold a person hostage like that? How does the cruise line management sleep at night knowing Florida man might be out there looking for revenge?
You know, Capitalism is a choice.
People just use the word capitalism to refer to any economic practice they don’t like.
No, detaining someone on a ship until they pay you is not capitalism. Capitalism is based on free markets. Being imprisoned on a ship isn’t a free market.
This is however, a practice that results from the government being effectively corporate controlled. Which is the end result of allowing your free markets to run wild and allowing corporations to acquire that much power, money, and influence.
A pure capitalist system actively selects for this kind of bullshit. The most ruthless and unethical companies end up winning in the end. And those same companies are buying our politicians.
People blame capitalism when the system clearly favours the rich over the poor to such a dystopian extent that a man is allowed to be held hostage by a corporation
FTA:
"Under the cruise operator’s terms and conditions, guests are required to pay in full the expenses they incurred on their trip, and Royal Caribbean doesn’t accept “land-based health insurance plans.” The company advises guests to consider travel insurance before setting sail.
Mr Wasney and Ms Eberlein had neither health insurance nor travel insurance before they boarded their Caribbean cruise."
You'd have to have your priorities seriously out of touch with reality to pay thousands of dollars to go on a cruise instead of buying health insurance.
The people from the article got the cruise as a gift.
My (dutch) health insurance covers healthcare everywhere, except in areas with negative travel advisory, international waters, or the USA. So this seems pretty common.
You can practically get on a cruise for free if you live near the port and find special off season offers or subject yourself to half a day going through a timeshare sales pitch. Me and my SO did the timeshare pitch for two tickets to Disney world (all 4 parks) about 8 years ago plus a nughts stay at a hotel. Would cost us like $500 otherwise. A room for two on a cruise ship can go for peanuts. If the room is empty, it can't make money. Even if you went on a cruise and never tried to spend a dime you didn't have to, you're still going to end up spending cash one way or another.
Not necessarily if you live in the US.
Sure, it’s really bad and risky not to have health insurance here, but also even if you have it, you’re mostly paying a premium to be denied care and coverage when you’re at your most vulnerable. It’s a truly cruel system and I don’t judge anyone who refuses to pay for health insurance here.
Cruises are absolutely not thousands of dollars for standard rooms, except for the ones that are like a month long.
I wonder if ferries are the same or if it's in cruise ships.
I don't think ferries have their own medical facilities? Not sure, never been on a ferry...
Gotta pay to play even if you hit the medical incident square in the game. That's how it works. That's exactly how all of this works!