The American for-profit healthcare system is fucked, and primed to fuck every American who doesn’t have more than seven digits stashed in their bank account. No lube, no Cialis, no romantic bathtubs with rose petals and lit candles. Lawful and unlawful attempts to unfuck this system have continually been thwarted by McDonald’s CCTV cameras and billionaire oligarchs alike.
It’s easily one of the most fucked up games we’ve ever covered on this site. Despite messages sent both via peaceful protests and untraceable ghost Glocks, hundreds of thousands of Americans continue to be plunged into exorbitant medical debt each year. One new series that has been sending a message and shedding light on how fucked this system is, is the new Max medical drama “The Pitt.”
The show recently wrapped its first season, taking place over the span of a single shift, as the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center lives up to its name. Helmed by Noah Wyle’s Dr. Robby, he and his staff work together through the most harrowing and horrific day shift possible. An unfathomable amount of grief and human tragedy unfolds over the course of 15 hours, culminating in the doctors sharing some much-deserved beers.
This series provides an unflinching, unrelenting look at the issues, inequities, and struggles that healthcare workers face in the US, as well as those their patients face. Though it thoroughly examines the heart wrenching human cost inflicted on both parties, the show seldom touches on the financial cost of the emergency medical procedures it depicts. We found that to be a rather strange creative choice; after all, that’s the cost our capitalistic, profit-driven, private healthcare system values the most.
So, out of sheer morbid curiosity, we decided to calculate, estimate, and make wholly uneducated guesses about the cost of the emergency medicine treatments portrayed on the show. Both the treatments themselves, as well as the years upon years of intensive therapy sessions that each provider will need to cope with the horrors of the American healthcare system. The following is a spoiler-filled run through of the top 10 examples of these horrors in The Pitt’s first season. Read on to learn some financial factoids that will make you wish Luigi had never gone into that Altoona McDonald’s that day.
10. The E.R.’s Recurring Rat Rendezvous
A running gag that brings some levity throughout the unrelenting sadness of this series is a trio of rats. The emergency department staff have to deal with these rodents from fairly early on, as a patient lets them loose in the second hour of their shift.
This gives Dr. Heather Collins a scare, and Dr. Robby yet another stressor to top off the most nightmarish possible shift in his medical career.
Dr. Whitaker manages to deal with one of these rats later on the shift, but the fate of the other two ultimately remains unanswered by the season finale.
In the United States, pest control and vermin extermination can cost anywhere from $300 to $1000. It can also cost the future of a likable Italian-American man with a backpack full of Monopoly money, but he’s still innocent until proven guilty.
9. Dr. Santos’ REBOA Procedure In S1E13
While the emergency room’s crises come to a head, Dr. Santos performs a life saving, finance-destroying REBOA on a patient. A resuscitative endovascular balloon occlusion of the aorta can easily cost upwards of tens of thousands of dollars in the US.
While this individual is probably grateful to be alive, they probably aren’t so grateful to be upwards of 49 grand in the hole. The insurance executive sipping margaritas at his all inclusive beach resort, however, is probably having a blast.
8. Episode 13’s IO Drill Incidents
Dr. Samira Mohan uses this nifty tool to relieve a patient’s intracranial pressure, and stop the bleeding in his head. We also see Whitaker misuse and mutilate a patient with this tool, drilling into a party clown’s arm.
If Pagliacci or the other guy doesn’t have insurance, there goes up to 3 grand! There are a lot of reasons to be a sad clown in this healthcare system. Speaking of which, a 30-day supply of an antidepressant like Zoloft can cost you another $544 out of pocket.
7. The PittFest Mass Casualty Incident
From Episodes 11 through 14, the ER workers are confronted with an all too routine American phenomenon. A local music festival is wracked by a tragic crisis that our abject farce of a government has decided to collectively shrug its shoulders at.
A gun violence crisis that will cost a lump sum of thoughts, prayers, and empty platitudes from lawmakers who won’t actually do a damn thing about the problem.
6. Dr. Santos’ Saline Injection In Episode 9
Much to Dr. Langdon’s chagrin, Dr. Trinity Santos attempted to treat a patient who had an adverse drug reaction with a saline injection. This intravenous therapy is used for a variety of purposes, from wound cleaning to emergency hydration.
These IV packages can sometimes cost up to $625 out of pocket. Look forward to skyrocketing lifesaving care costs once the pharmaceutical tariffs go into effect!
5. The Drowning Victim In Episode 8
Not gonna make any jokes about this storyline.
If you didn’t shed at least a single tear in response to this subplot, that’s a damn near sociopathic lack of empathy right there. Rest in peace, Amber.
4. Teddy, Episode 10’s Burn Victim
The horror of the mutilated eye at 4:00 P.M. is subsequently outdone by the horror of Teddy, the man covered in third-degree burns wheeled in by Whitaker. The doctor warns him that he runs a high risk of dying of sepsis, but we don’t know if he lives or dies.
Treating full-body third-degree burns could easily be ballparked into six or seven-figure medical bills, depending on the severity of the injuries. If Whitaker sought talk therapy for that trauma, amongst many others, he could cough up to $200 per session without insurance as a medical intern. God bless America!
3. Dr. Javadi’s Eye-Opening Operation in Episode 10
As the shift gradually approaches the evening, we watch Dr. Victoria Javadi perform a lateral canthotomy on a high school baseball prodigy who took a fastball to the eye.
We watch her and Dr. McKay slice it open Salvador Dali style, as they successfully perform a surgical procedure that can cost upwards of five grand without insurance.
On top of the therapy Dr. Javadi will need to handle her narcissitic mom, it might take some pretty costly exposure therapy to get over seeing gruesome images like that on your first emergency room shift.
That’s not even touching on the patient with the degloved foot, or the one going through testicular torsion. All of those would earn a firm frown on the Universal Pain Scale.
2. Dr. Mel’s Road Rash Treatment In Episode 9
In Episode 9, we watch Dr. Melissa King pluck hundreds of gravel specks out of a guy’s leg. Depending on the severity of a motorcycle crash, you could pay anywhere from five to six figures out of pocket for surgical procedures to treat it.
As far as EMDR therapy sessions to cope with witnessing something that gruesome and gory, you could pay up to $250 per session without insurance.
1. Cost of the Treatments of Dr. Whitaker’s Patient In Episode 3
In the third episode of the series, we watch Student Doctor Whitaker struggle to keep a patient alive with CPR, only for them to tragically pass away.
This patient suffers from gallstones and a subsequent heart attack, both of which are a double whammy to treat out of pocket in the United States of America. Expect to cough up to 25 Gs to pay for gallblader surgery with no insurance. With heart attack treatment, expect to lose upwards of $20,000 on the low end. This poor man was damned in life and in death.
As for poor Dr. Whitaker, medical students in the United States are typically paid a grand total of jack fucking shit. Meaning that he endured his first shift, fifteen hours of unrelenting tragedy, horror, and traumatization with no mental health benefits and for not so much as a penny.
