Note: Transcript fully created by automated AI
[00:00:00] Jesse Lin: Hi, my name is Jesse Lin
[00:00:01] Angela Lin: And I’m Angela Lin. Welcome back to another episode of, but Where are You really from? Today, we are talking about healthcare again in a mini. We have previously talked about healthcare from the context of, I think we analyzed like the Taiwanese healthcare system. Yeah. Just to bitch a little bit about the brokenness of the US healthcare system.
We’re bringing back this topic because it is top of mind from a recent experience that I had in Korea. and I made a TikTok about that kind of unexpectedly blew up. So I went to the dentist when I was in soul because , okay, very embarrassing, but I thought I tripped a tooth and what really? Well, okay, so I thought I tripped a tooth.
let’s stop it there, . So then I was like, I gotta go to the dentist. So I found one and then I showed up and. Tldr. I didn’t chip. It was plaque, which is disgusting. Oh. Or like tartar or whatever. I forget which one. I think it’s tarter is the kind of like solidified version anyways. But he was like, yeah, Y needs like a deep clean, um, to get rid of all this shit.
And obviously I didn’t have crane insurance, so I made a TikTok about my experience doing that. And how kind of like, Crazy. It was too, from the differences of the actual like dentist visit, um, experience and also the price tag difference. So I think that video has like 120,000 views on it or something.
And it was because most of the comments are people being like, what let me like fly the fuck over to Korea, asaps to have cheap, affordable dental
[00:01:43] Jesse Lin: care. I mean, there’s a reason our. De delay all of their healthcare shit until they’re back in Taiwan as well. It’s
[00:01:49] Angela Lin: true. It’s true. So yeah, so inspired by people’s, surprisingly very interested reaction to my Rando Korean dentist story.
We are bringing back the topic of healthcare for a mini for y’all. So I think the first thing we wanna talk about is cost difference, money. Yeah, and so I can’t really speak to like non-dental, cause I, the only thing I did was the dentist experience when I was in Korea. But I will say, I think the kind of fundamental difference is that in the US at least, Doctors and dentists can set their own prices and because of insurance largely being run by private companies, they’re just constantly trying to like milk as much money as they can out of the insurance providers.
So then they make up like crazy prices for stuff to try to. Haggle it to a point where it’s like a pretty high price that they get, right. So I tried to look up like how much , how much would a dental, like the dental procedures that I got cost without insurance in the us. And the funny slash sad thing is that the range is, So wide, like you cannot find a singular source to say like it would definitively cost this much because doctors and such can just set whatever they want.
And I think dentists notoriously are like one of the worst offenders for pricing. Pretty high. to try to milk the insurance companies. Sorry, dentist friends. Yeah, sorry. Anyways, so what I did at the dentist was I got a deep clean, which includes scaling, which I had never heard that term, but basically it’s when they used those like metal tools to like scrape away the, the built up tartar and stuff.
Including like in your gums? Yeah. Yeah. Which is like not goes beyond your kind of like basic cleaning. It’s not really. it is painful. Yes. . Yeah. So I had to, uh, practice my meditation during it. Um, anyways, so I did that and then I did an x-ray because, okay, so just to like, give myself a little leniency on all, y’all judging me with all the like plaque I had built up.
I had a fucking dentist appointment scheduled for like March, 2020 or whatever, like right before the, um, pandemic shutdown happened. And then that happened and I was like, I’m not going into a like office where I have to have my mouth open and like the person could be spitting into my mouth. No way.
Right? So I push it off and then eventually, . I didn’t have a corporate job anymore, so I didn’t have insurance and I was like, I’m not going to . So like that’s how it all happened. And spiraled was. Uh, after everything said and done, it had been like over two years since I had cleaned my teeth professionally.
So anyways, so then the dentist I saw in Korea was like beyond the cleaning. Um, we should also do an x-ray to make sure that you don’t have cavities, because it’s been a while since you’ve been to a dentist who knows. . So I was like, okay. But like he and his assistants were all like very concerned for me because I didn’t have insurance.
They were like, are you sure you wanna do these because like you don’t have insurance, it’s gonna be pretty expensive. And I was like, how, how much is it gonna be? And so, okay, my cleaning plus the x-ray was 137,001. And because the dollar was really strong and still is really strong against the one currently, it was like $106 at the time that I did it for both things.
So I was like laws. I was like laughing. I’m like, I’m chill. Y’all like I’m good. Let’s just roll with it. So those two things I looked up and in the US. It’s such a huge range. So a basic cleaning, which is not what I did. I did deep cleaning. A basic cleaning could be anywhere from like $75 to $200 alone.
And then the scaling, it’s so I cannot find a single source. It was like, it could be as cheap as a hundred dollars up to like $900 or some shit. It was just like astronomical. What people can charge and the difference. And then the x-ray. Another reason I said it was kind of like a crazy experience is that.
I had never been to a dentist where they had the like panoramic x-ray, uh, machines. Like I’ve been to several dentists in the US because I moved so many times and I. Always lived in big cities, but I always had the kind of x-rays where they like stick a thing in your mouth and you bite down and then they move it to a different spot in your mouth.
You bite down and it takes like 15, 20 minutes to like do your whole mouth. This one, they were like, okay, step into the machine, bite down, and then just close your eyes. And after like 60 seconds it did the entire mouth. from like the one bite. So that’s the panoramic x-ray. So I was like, this is crazy. Cuz it sounded like I was in like a spaceship.
It was just like mirror, mirror, mirror. And then like 60 seconds later it was like, here’s your whole mouth. That kind of x-ray is like extra expensive in the US because it’s like better technology, right? So like again, the range is huge. It could be like $75 upwards of like multiple hundreds of dollars without insurance, right?
So I think I got a pretty banging deal without insurance. And I’m sure with insurance, it would’ve been free for Koreans and to be fair, would’ve been free probably in the US if I had insurance, but I didn’t . And also thinking about the dental costs that I was paying into even my like employer plan, even if cleanings and X-rays are free, I was still paying, I think I was paying like $20.
$20 a month, like 10 bucks a paycheck or something. So 20 times 12 months is $120. So in a year, I still paid more than like my one out of pocket time in Korea. Uninsured. Yep. I
[00:07:40] Jesse Lin: mean, it’s crazy how different the cost is, and even like, kind of what you mentioned between providers, they’ve definitely had that experience where they can’t even tell you how much things cost.
I would go to a place and they’d be, I’d be like, oh, they wanna do a filling. I’m like, how much did that cost? They’re like, we don’t, we can’t tell you. We had to ask insurance first. I’m like, okay, ask the insurance now. And they’re like, um, no. Like, they might not give us the right, the, the right cost. I’m like, what?
[00:08:04] Angela Lin: Yeah. It’s so convoluted because it’s all. Trying to milk as much money as possible from each party. Hey, listeners, wondering how you can support us? The biggest way is by increasing our visibility, by following us on Instagram at where are you from? Pod on TikTok at, but where are you really from?
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Thanks y’all.
[00:08:43] Jesse Lin: What I have noticed here though, is that there are all these kind of like boutique medical things popping up. So it’s like stuff that is not insurance. It’s kind of like if you live in California, and you know what Kaiser Permanente is? Kaiser Permanente is like this one stop shop for all your medical stuff.
So like your primary care, your specialty, whatever. It’s all within this. Network, but you cannot go outside of that network to seek any care. And what I’ve noticed recently is there are a lot of these like small boutique ones that don’t have the same scale as Kaiser, but it’s like cute little boutique plays.
It’s like nicely designed. People are dressed very well, like the experience is quite different. So what was that like going to the dentist there? Was it like also gut wrenching horror and overhead lighting or? , like a little bit nicer.
[00:09:29] Angela Lin: Well, it’s kind of weird. So the guy I chose is actually kind of like funky.
His, um, funky . Yeah. His name was Dr. Dracula . And he was like a, uh, comic book artist slash dentist. So his office was actually kind of fun because he’s an artist. So he had like murals that he drew himself and he had like an arcade machine and like, Figurines and shit everywhere. And he had like dreads. It was the weirdest thing.
Anyways, he was cool. Office was cool. The experience of like actually being there, I would say it’s still pretty stale, like the actual, you know, the place that you were sitting. But the main difference for me was that in Asia, or at least Korea, when they did all the shit for me, they covered my face with this like, That only had an opening for my mouth, so I couldn’t see what was happening.
And at first I thought it was really weird, but actually I liked it better than in the US where you see everything that’s happening because it gives me anxiety to stare at the like sharp things that they’re putting in my mouth. Versus here is like you can’t see anything. So just like close your eyes until it’s over.
Cuz you asked if it was painful. Mm-hmm. . I actually think it. Slightly less painful than in the US because without you adding the like mental pain that you’re giving yourself. Yeah. I was just like, I don’t know what’s happening. Whatever. Just like, tell me when it’s over. Um, so that was a big difference. It was so quick.
And also he was doing, he gave me like tips for actually taking care of my teeth better because I feel like, I don’t know, I feel like a lot of dentists don’t actually tell you anything that you could be doing better. They’re just like, you, you know, you should be flossing. Mm-hmm. or like, you know, blah, blah, blah, but they don’t tell you how.
And he gave me like a specific technique for brushing my teeth to make sure that I was getting my gums and the pockets in between so that I can prevent. Tartar and stuff and building up in the future.
[00:11:20] Jesse Lin: I think actually you, you just mentioned a, a key difference. So he’s the dentist. He is the dentist, yes.
Okay. I wanna say about 95% of the time when I get a dental cleaning, the dentist is not doing it. The dental hygienist is
[00:11:34] Angela Lin: doing it. He didn’t do it. Oh, no, he didn’t do it. Okay. Yeah, he just came by to like talk to me. Okay. But. . You know what it, it is kind of weird because I can’t tell who’s the dentist half the time when I go to somewhere in the US because.
I didn’t have a primary dentist necessarily. Mm-hmm. or healthcare provider in anything. So they, it was changing all the time and I couldn’t really tell who was like a dentist and who wasn’t a dentist. Um, he acted more like a doctor would. In terms of like, you know how when you go to like a, a physician, it’s usually like, you get the nurse in the beginning who like helps you do all that administrative stuff and then the doctor comes in for like all of five minutes to like tell you what the vitals mean and.
It was more like that with him. So he came by to be like, to do the assessment of like, Hey, what’s going on with you? Mm-hmm. , like, let’s talk about what you might need. And then she, a different, uh, technician came in to like do the actual cleaning, and then she did the x-ray for me. But then afterwards he made me go into his office to talk about the X-ray results.
So it was more like a physician consultation, consultation type thing. Oh, cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s,
[00:12:41] Jesse Lin: that’s generally been my experience, but I, I keep going to the, , uh, dental practice. And it’s usually like the hygienist does all the work up front and then the dentist comes to like, inspect it. They check if they like cleaned your teeth well, and they give you kind of like notes on like what they’re seeing.
So
[00:12:56] Angela Lin: shout out to technicians. Y’all are doing actually the actual the actual work. Yeah. And then last thing we wanna talk about was kind of just the difference in like the insurance incentives or punishment and like, . Look, we don’t live in Korea. We don’t live in Taiwan. We don’t actually know how like those are run, but as far as we understand it, the main difference is that a lot of these other countries provide insurance by default to citizens.
It’s kind of like required that everyone is covered by insurance and it’s provided by the government in some way. It doesn’t mean it’s free, but it, everyone essentially has, I. Versus in the US because everything is like privately owned. All these insurance companies, it’s not required necessarily for you to have insurance, but you are punished if you don’t have insurance.
So it’s not an incentive, it’s a punishment. It’s obviously relevant for me now because I no longer work for corporate America, so I don’t have a daddy Warbuck. Company paying for my insurance plan anymore. So I’m currently uninsured, so it’s like top of mind for me. It used to be that the federal government charged you at tax time for not being insured.
That’s why we’ve always had to like show those tax forms that show that we’ve been covered for x number of months. Um, as of I think 2019 or 2020, I don’t remember kind of recently, uh, the federal government at least got rid. The penalty for not being insured, but lucky us. The states do their own shit and not every state has gotten rid of it.
So for example, California is still on your ass if you are uninsured. So you are going to be. Penalized at tax season if you are uninsured, which I just think is like a really backwards way of approaching healthcare. It’s like, oh, you can’t afford this expensive healthcare. Well, sucks for you. I’m gonna milk more money outta you for not being insured.
And if you get in trouble, you know, if you actually have a health scare and you’re uninsured, you’ll be , you know, punished with even more money, cuz it costs way more than if you were insured.
[00:15:11] Jesse Lin: I guess there’s not really a good mo. Well, I mean like our model is never gonna work because it’s trying to like fill in the blanks where there are no blanks to fill.
Really. You’re trying to like improve a system that’s like rotten. It has to be like redone. I remember seeing like not in Korea, but I think in Japan, all the doctors have like this giant book of procedures and it’s like this is the max you can charge for this kind of procedure. And so there’s a cap on.
What they can bill all of the patients. And I just think that provides like some more stability in terms of like, you know, you can go to the doctor and it will not cost more than like a certain
[00:15:49] Angela Lin: amount. Maybe this is something that is quite different in the US versus in. Asia or Korea at least, cuz I was there.
The dentist that I went to his website straight up printed the cost for every procedure. So you knew upfront how much it would cost. Oh, oh cool. They’re not trying to swindle you. Yeah. Cuz they’re not gonna make up a new price. Yeah. Moving into our clothes, since this is a mini, we wanna hear from y’all.
So what is a he. Experience that really surprised or shocked you, whether that be a US one where you got completely ripped off, or if you were out of country and had a pleasant one or a horror story, one who knows? , let us know. Anything that stands out to you on TikTok or Instagram or or YouTube, wherever you’re washing.
In the comments we wanna hear from you. What is a crazy experience that you
[00:16:42] Jesse Lin: had? And don’t forget to get your teeth cleaned if you can. .
[00:16:47] Angela Lin: Yes. And for anyone who cares, I finally flo through . I don’t wanna deal with that experience again. Oh God. Well, and come back next week because we’ll have another fresh episode for you then.