wth is a copay

[Angst]

so uh i don't think focusing on copay is useful here. even with the title of the thread. at least not in the way that people are discussing it

we technically sometimes have the equivalent of copay in denmark when it comes to some doctor's visits. it costs a bit of money sometimes if you don't reserve time within their schedule afaik. (i have heard nothing about people abusing the healthcare system in denmark that's a such loss to the degree that El Machinae brought up. i severely wonder why that would be the case in the states)

anyways, copays. naturality of them/wth are they, etc. so in this thread they were compared to subsidized payments of other public services, such as toll bridges/roads, museums, whatever. sure! but y'know why it's missing the point? those other services are not called copays.

why is this relevant when it's the same? just the monicker of the thing? because looking at what copays concretely are is looking at the granularity and the concrete that i don't think is feasible here. realizing what copays actually are in other industries is a step outside the insurance jargon to parse it. copay, in effect, is specific jargon. which would be fine if it was navigable, but it's not. the term copay is incessantly legalese, specific to a confusing field, on top of a roster of a billion other jargon words you need to internalize to navigate the sphere.

y'know what a copay is called in denmark (when it uncommonly comes up)? a fee.

 

[Farm Boy]

Ah, but a 'fee' is usually an additional cost on top of the service that you discover at point of service or payment. Like for paying with credit, or a cheque, or the website. Or whatever they make up.

 

[El_Machinae]

Oh yeah, we definitely use different words. If I want to get my driver's license renewed, I have to pay a fee. But I would be very surprised if the registry was running at a profit. It is essentially a copay. That said, I live in socialist Canada with socialist Healthcare, but we definitely have copay on our Dentistry, given that usually Dentistry is included in employment benefits. And yeah, I can get a discount if I don't have insurance.

 

[Ajidica]

"Health Insurance" is a weird term in that it is used to cover 'traditional insurance' like broken bones (ie, for car insurance I was in an accident and insurance kicks in to repair my car), "regular maintenance" like your annual physical (ie changing the oil, checking the frame, etc), and "running expenses" like prescribed meds (ie putting gas in the car).
Car insurance works because not everyone is getting into car wrecks and needing payouts. If car insurance all of a sudden had to start covering regular maintenance and gas, it would fall apart quickly.
So health insurance is a worst of all worlds that, while it has gotten better under the ACA, is still largely reliant on trying to screw the consumer over.

 

[Farm Boy]

Yeah, but the oil change place doesn't bill at the rates therapists sometimes bill at. I think last one I was paying for was getting billed out through insurance at roughly a week's take-home for one hour.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Healthcare and health insurance used to be non profit in the US. Reagan changed it to a for profit industry.

 

[sophie]

Maybe car insurers should help cover the cost of preventative maintenance.

How many accidents does the US have every year because of infrequent servicing? How often does someone get hit with a $4000 total replacement of the front suspension because they didn’t get it checked when the handling felt rough the previous year? How many blowouts and traffic jams do we have because somebody was driving on bald tires that were too costly to replace or rotate?

One of the core arguments behind health care, and in particular universal health care is precisely that a population that feels and is empowered to go to the doctor when they’ve had a weird cough for a week, saves on more costly and dangerous procedures later on down the road. Which in the long run leads to better health outcomes, a happier population (and more productive workers if we want to be Gramscian about it). It’s no coincidence that the least healthy country with the lowest life expectancy and worst health outcomes among wealthy nations also just so happens to be the one with the most costly health care and with consistently very low rates of utilization relative to peer nations?

 

[Angst]

Oh yeah, we definitely use different words. If I want to get my driver's license renewed, I have to pay a fee. But I would be very surprised if the registry was running at a profit. It is essentially a copay. That said, I live in socialist Canada with socialist Healthcare, but we definitely have copay on our Dentistry, given that usually Dentistry is included in employment benefits. And yeah, I can get a discount if I don't have insurance.

makes much more sense with the hypochondriac-esque abuse then. forgot you were canadian. i was dumbfounded that the idea that anyone would cause this kind of economic burden in the states. makes me wonder whether it's a factor in denmark. in general, here, there's a bunch of tiers of where you're supposed to go depending on your ailment; regular doctor's appointments (free unless pressured afaik), the acute telephone (for serious things that require care now, but don't warrant a 911) and 911. is your leg acting weird? regular doctor. did you shoot a nail through your leg, but it's not explosively bleeding? acute telephone. was your leg run over? 911.

 

[E.man]

Glad I live in a place with Commo healthcare.

 

[aelf]

America is full of odd jargon used in everyday parlance. Social security? Concession stands? Grand theft auto? We usually have more straightforward terms for those.

Co-pay is actually a term that's commonly used elsewhere too.

 

[Angst]

America is full of odd jargon used in everyday parlance. Social security? Concession stands? Grand theft auto? We usually have more straightforward terms for those.

Co-pay is actually a term that's commonly used elsewhere too.

problem is the maneuvreability of jargon within healthcare. the sheer density of it. co-pay would be fine if it didn't stand alone among a roster of jargonauts and acronyms, and that's discounting hundreds-page legalese detailings

 

[Harv]

we technically sometimes have the equivalent of copay in denmark when it comes to some doctor's visits. it costs a bit of money sometimes if you don't reserve time within their schedule afaik. (i have heard nothing about people abusing the healthcare system in denmark that's a such loss to the degree that El Machinae brought up. i severely wonder why that would be the case in the states)

This comment indicates you are from Denmark. I take it you live in Denmark. I already know El Machine is from Canada and lives in Canada. I am Canadian, but live in the USA. The topic is very interesting and I decided to check in. In the Obama years, I believe I was on the wrong side of this issue, because I was getting information from the wrong sources.

I do not know the losses in the Canadian healthcare system due to abuse. I wonder if they are exaggerated as you implied they are, because Canada has political influence from the USA. (Does Denmark have a political party that wants to make Denmark just like the USA and what do they call it?) How do Canadian healthcare costs compare to Denmark and the USA?

Your original question was WTH is a Copay. Most likely the question is answered and in your discussion you called it a fee. Is there a reason you are interested in the jargon associated with the US healthcare systems?

Are you opening a general conversation about the US system in general?

 

[warpus]

A copay is a fee Americans pay in order to remain #1 at sucking at healthcare.

The land of the free, the poor, and the dying, etc.

@Harv It seems this graph answers at least one of your questions:

 

[El_Machinae]

Since Japan has famously bad healthcare and horrible life-expectancy, a natural question is whether their system includes a robust copayment system to control costs.
I also do not like the trendline of any of those graphs, especially since people habituate to trendlines. That graph is a great reason to eat more veggies and less processed foods.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Which of those countries have for profit healthcare systems? The US for sure.

 

[Lexicus]

have to ask about the practical purpose of this - who would be abusing too many office visits? hypochondriacs? how many are there of them?

A lot of older folks like to go in every week just to be told they're fine.

 

[Angst]

A lot of older folks like to go in every week just to be told they're fine.

i believe you guys, but it's literally the first time i heard this issue when it wasn't immediately debunked by a like 5 year old paper noting it's wrong. it's not a problem here at least.

This comment indicates you are from Denmark. I take it you live in Denmark. I already know El Machine is from Canada and lives in Canada. I am Canadian, but live in the USA. The topic is very interesting and I decided to check in. In the Obama years, I believe I was on the wrong side of this issue, because I was getting information from the wrong sources.

I do not know the losses in the Canadian healthcare system due to abuse. I wonder if they are exaggerated as you implied they are, because Canada has political influence from the USA. (Does Denmark have a political party that wants to make Denmark just like the USA and what do they call it?) How do Canadian healthcare costs compare to Denmark and the USA?

Your original question was WTH is a Copay. Most likely the question is answered and in your discussion you called it a fee. Is there a reason you are interested in the jargon associated with the US healthcare systems?

Are you opening a general conversation about the US system in general?

hey there o/

yes we have quite right wing parties in denmark, and they're gaining power (both of the libertarian and white chauvinist sorts). our hospitals are actually getting hollowed out because the political middle (including the social democrats as a driving force) is looking to the states for inspiration. it's a very expensive endeavour that destroys quality and is honestly really strange. it's part of the problem of being a de facto part of the anglosphere. things just leak overseas. i can expand on some of the problems if people are interested. i'm from a family of doctors so i know of the policies' consequences on the concrete.

anyways, the jargon in question is indeed, well, the question. or the issue. in the OP i put forward the idea that maybe there's always some personal option that allows for better and cheaper healthcare than in countries with single payer. but i consider this irrelevant; the byzantine nature of the system makes it impossible to identify. i do not think it's worth it to look into the rules and possibilities of the american system, nor do i think it's fruitful learning about it (unless of necessity, if you're in it). it's just that bad.

and yes, it's also an open query for anyone to discuss the system in general.

 

[Lexicus]

i believe you guys, but it's literally the first time i heard this issue when it wasn't immediately debunked by a like 5 year old paper noting it's wrong. it's not a problem here at least.

Honestly I don't know the numbers there or what the impact is on the healthcare infrastructure but it's sort of the stereotype. I obviously am not saying this to justify copays, ftr.

 

[aelf]

problem is the maneuvreability of jargon within healthcare. the sheer density of it. co-pay would be fine if it didn't stand alone among a roster of jargonauts and acronyms, and that's discounting hundreds-page legalese detailings

I guess the implication is that there's more at work here than just deliberate obscurantism - or perhaps that such obscurantism is not a uniquely American thing when it comes to legalese/consumer relations. One thing that's for sure is American vocabulary is quite full of technical jargon that doesn't make sense anywhere else, and that seems to be a cultural thing.

 

[Birdjaguar]

2017 data.

Fact 4: Five percent of Americans accounted for half of all U.S. health-care spending in 2017.​

Health-care spending in any given year is distributed very unequally. The half of the population using the least health care accounts for only 3 percent of total (not just out-of-pocket) expenditures (excluding long-term care and some other components of spending),[12] while the top 1 percent accounts for 22 percent (figure 4).

One reason for this is that health misfortunes can strike at random, causing one-year expenditures to spike. In any given year the distribution can be very unequal, but only some of those with the highest spending will continue to have high spending in subsequent years (Cohen and Yu 2012). The bottom half of health-care users are disproportionately young and consequently less likely to need expensive health care (but apt to need it later in life). Many people will incur high end-of-life expenditures—such costs accounted for 13 percent of personal health-care costs in 2011 (Aldridge and Kelley 2015)—but in any given year most people do not incur these costs. Also, at 13 percent, end-of-life care is important but not a dominant part of U.S. health-care costs.[13]

When individuals incur high costs, insurance is usually necessary to prevent extreme financial hardship. The top 1 percent have mean health-care expenditures of over $100,000, and the next 4 percent have an average of $37,000—expenses that are well beyond ability to pay for many families. At the same time, the existence of insurance means that patients bear less financial responsibility for the cost of their care and have less incentive to control costs. In other cases—such as emergencies—patients are often unable to compare costs or weigh prices. Both of these features mean that normal downward pressures on prices may not operate in the standard way in a health-care market.

[IMG alt="Figure 4. Distribution of Health Expenditures for the U.S. Population"]https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/fig4_LO_WEB.png[/IMG]

A dozen facts about the economics of the US health-care system

A well-functioning health-care sector supports well-being and is a prerequisite for a well-functioning economy. Unfortunately, the problems with U.S. health care—from high prices to excessive administrative costs to insufficient competition—are substantial. These 12 facts about the economics of U.S.

www.brookings.edu