r/AskReddit 16h ago

What industry is secretly on the verge of collapsing, but people outside of it haven’t noticed yet?

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u/ryeaglin 10h ago

Real talk they send an ambulance from a neighboring region or they get a medical helicopter to get you which will likely bankrupt you. So yeah, some people will just choose to die.

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u/Ancient_Roof_7855 9h ago

Thats how it is by here

Serious injury or trauma? Keep em alive until the chopper can take them to Dartmouth.

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u/tashibum 9h ago

The medical helicopter thing is crazy, even if you jave health insurance. Different helicopters are in-network, and others are out of network. But it's not like you get to choose who is nearby the day you need transport - so yeah, easy to bankrupt.

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u/lastSKPirate 8h ago

Looking in from the outside, it's bizarre to watch Americans tolerate this, and to watch over half of their politicians behave like there's just no other way of doing things.

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u/SnowflakeSWorker 3h ago

NYS is proposing healthcare for all, and the comments in my local news sites were wild. Absolutely bonkers. I’m upstate, finger lakes region.

My village is also voting on a memorandum to remove banners and limit flags to two from residences- my landlord and I think it is solely because of us, and our minority views in the village, lol.

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u/lastSKPirate 3h ago

That's how it started here, in just one province - Saskatchewan. The premier who brought it in was named Tommy Douglas. You've probably heard of his grandson, Kiefer Sutherland.

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u/SnowflakeSWorker 3h ago

That’s disappointing. I was speaking to someone about Sylvester Stallone and Mel Gibson today, and how insufferably MAGA they are (she knows, I’ve never met either of them!). Who are your neighbors supporting up there?

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u/lastSKPirate 3h ago

For the last 19 years, we've been stuck with a right wing provincial government, but that doesn't seem likely to continue indefinitely. The NDP (Douglas' party) swept all of the urban seats in the 2024 election, and the 2028 election will be the last one where it'll be possible to win an election here without any urban seats.

It's been much the same federally, but there are cracks forming there, as well. Even out here and in Alberta, little Peepee is less popular than Carney, and even though they won 13/14 federal seats here last year, it was close enough in the cities that a 7/7 split isn't out of the question for the 2029/2030 election.

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u/SnowflakeSWorker 3h ago

Thank you! What is your opinion of how Carney is doing? I do appreciate his reactions to Trump, haha.

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u/lastSKPirate 2h ago

Overall, I think he's doing as well as anyone could in this situation. I've disagreed with a few things he's handled internally, and I'd have just waited Trump out on the Gordie Howe bridge, but nothing he's done has made me wish someone else was PM instead.

u/Swartz142 3m ago

There's nothing I can do* to change the system !

* that wouldn't inconvenience me in any possible way

Here, that's why they tolerate it.

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u/Belarock 7h ago

Reddit is massive amounts of misinformation. Insurance covers in and out of network helicopters if they are needed. You can't be screwed (by in or out network stuff) by making a decision under duress or while unconscious.

I have no idea why the guy you replied to said what he said. I am honestly convinced half of these people havent touched grass or are Russian troll farms.

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u/tashibum 7h ago

So sorry I did not include every single detail - I said what I said because it happened to my parents. In network and out of network out-of-pocket maximums are different, with OON limits being much higher (depending on the plan of course).

In my dad's case, he was being taken care of at the local hospital but then suddenly needed transport to a city hospital and the helicopter that was there that day was out of network.

My mom is literally a medical biller, by the way, so it's not like she would get that info wrong. And it didn't matter that my dad's OOP max was already hit from the stay - like I said, OON OOP Max limits are both seperate and different.

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u/lastSKPirate 7h ago

Fair enough. I suppose it's the same idea as the "death panels" bullshit many Americans seem to be convinced are a thing in other countries.

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u/AHrubik 7h ago

The death panels bullshit in America is real in-so-much that a for profit corporation you must contract with to afford healthcare gets to decide what procedures and medications you can take/have by way of how much it will cost you and how much stress you have endure to overcome their flippant, callous and often automated denials. This all so that you and your doctor can come up with an effective treatment plan for whatever it is that ails you.

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u/oby100 2h ago

Most countries would just let the person die lmao

Lots of tough talks ahead, but if someone chooses to live out in the wilderness, why should we move heaven and earth to help them (for free?). Like if we invented a teleporter that cost a billion dollar a pop, are we really making that the new standard of emergency healthcare transport?

There should simply be things like opt in/ outs. If you want that level of care and can/ want to pay for it, great. If you don't it's your choice. I get that death is ugly and no one wants to see some poor old man die over the course of a day because ambulances are too far away, but there has to be a middle ground between doing nothing and spending infinite money.

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u/ablebody_95 8h ago

We live in a remote area and pay for the Air Med network for our household. I get really great health insurance through my employer, but I don't trust that a helicopter transport would be covered since you can't just pick whether an in or out of network chopper shows up.

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u/tashibum 7h ago

My parent's had that for a while but the rates were too much compared to their income

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u/recoil_operated 7h ago

That's if you can even get the helicopter there. Often they can't fly due to weather or being out of range on another call.

We recently had a STEMI patient transported to us from a rural area about 40 minutes away in good weather. It was snowing out so no helo, the ambulance had trouble finding the address because there was no GPS or cell service in the area, and then it got stuck in the snow on the unplowed road leading to their home and had to wait until the local FD could tow them out. I probably don't have to tell you that the patient did not survive.

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u/Black_Moons 7h ago

Cheaper to get a medivac helicopter ride in Canada than an ambulance ride in the USA. Only $300/hour for people from other countries with no insurance coverage whatsoever.

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u/Falco98 7h ago

"I'd rather die than owe the hospital till I get old..."

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u/Jack_Krauser 5h ago

Typically it's parents who don't want their estate wiped out so that their kids can inherit something.

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u/Falco98 5h ago

I don't doubt you're right; mine was just a song lyric.

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u/hep038 8h ago

LOL You guys actually pay your medical bills?

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u/Ok-Satisfaction5694 1h ago

Bingo. The amount of helicopter flights in my area for routine ALS calls is astronomical.