I called 911 and went to hospital, unable to stand and uncontrollable vomiting black sludge with white specs in it, imagine over-used engine oil with seaseme seeds mixed in. Turns out my liver was leaking into my gi track. 43k bill from hospital, 1200 from ambulance to drive 1 mile, combined 3k from various doctors, 8k for all the tests they ran. Yes all separate bills. I was there for 3 days. That's about a total of 55k in bills for 3 days...

Even if the 25 dollar an hour minimum wage bill passed, and I worked full time for minimum wage with no other expenses(no food, no rent, no gas, no nothing) I still couldn't pay it in a year(yearly pay at 25 an hour is 52k a year).

And how much a month is your health insurance?

We don’t do regular yearly checkups in Sweden.

At a certain point when you reach a particular age or if you are at risk for something, that may change, but the average person doesn’t do yearly checkups.

Can we shoot those in charge of the absurd prices instead? All you did was luck out, but you’re still one of us.

I concur. I grew up in poverty and even though the sum isn’t particularly large for me today, thinking of the economic situation I grew up in every little bit counts.

Sure kids don’t pay, but having a sick parent in poverty is not great.

There's a line, and I don't know where it is. I'd very much rather someone go who didn't need it than the other way, but medical care is to some extent a finite resource that can be over utilized.
Maybe the answer is to incentivise using it correctly instead of penalizing using it incorrectly. Get a check for showing up to or giving proper cancellation notice for all appointments, getting your regular checkups and stuff like that. Appropriate use of whatever we're calling non-emergency walk in clinics. (At least where I am, your doctor has a lead time before appointments, and the emergency room is more geared towards immediate specialized care. The clinics are designed for "let's give that sprained ankle a double check and pop a stich in that gouge". Routine care that shouldn't wait)

The 5 rupees is inclusive of taxes and stuff. Also there are no payment processing fees in India AFAIK. At the counter you can give a 5 rupee coin or pay 5 rupees via UPI or card, and you get a receipt and token number. But paying for the medicines and public transport would cost extra, so you would be spending almost ₹100 (or even ₹200 if expensive antibiotics are involved) by the time you reach home.

Edit: this is only for regular illness such as the flu or COVID, and most people wouldn't use life/health insurance for that. Doing surgeries or therapy (which is still hard to find here) will cost a lot more, and insurance and stuff will likely complicate things.