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Medical fees with hospital care


reko

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Hi! I just want to hear the player base's opinions on adding obligatory medical fees to healthcare. I saw some people mention the topic in other threads, but I've yet to find a recent one with a focus on medical fees specifically.

It's not a suggestion yet since I've yet to hear sides to it I probably haven't thought of. (There's also some brainstorming about it already, I hear, but I received no response to my inquiries and still wanna' see what's up!)

 

I feel like it would encourage being more careful of one's health, stimulate roleplay, make people's financial statuses more realistic, and in general, bring immersion.

 

At the moment, healthcare is free unless a player roleplays having them and doing /charity to self-inflict a financial hit. This sometimes results in the person suing another for the fees, but that would border in powergaming since the player is the one coming up with the costs.

Obviously, since Los Santos is based in the United States, this isn't exactly realistic. Imagine what an utopia it would be if professional healthcare was free and accessible!

 

This is what I have had in mind:

 

  • Fees for ambulances and medical care:
    > The ambulance could have a base cost* somewhere between $500 - $3,000. This would encourage those roleplaying poor to rely on other options to get the care they need, such as calling a cab or having a friend drive you instead. This actually happens IRL! // *EDIT: I realize the FD is in need of roleplay. The fee could either be low or 0 - I don't personally mind, as long as some other fee system regarding healthcare is implemented. I thought this would be fun and immersion-bringing, but may have less amicable OOC consequences.

    > The bills for healthcare would depend on what injuries are upon the character, roleplay- or scriptwise. This would require an on-duty FD, medic or other hospital staff member to assess it (according to a set procedure) in order for the cost to be realistic and non-PG, but a script 'base' price could be implemented for cases of emergency where this isn't possible. The passive roleplay would stay the same, but actually having money come in through the hospitals could invite people to roleplay staff. Someone detached from the situation counting the fees makes suing others for the costs more fair.

    > Private healthcare providers are given more range in the way they handle payments. Because non-roleplay hospitals are free and there are no 'waiting lines' or difference in quality of care, it doesn't make sense for roleplay-run healthcare providers to charge actual rates for their service.

    > Bills would have a time frame which they would have to be paid in, like citations. 

 

  • Insurance:
    > The fact that money actually has to go towards their well being would invite people to invest in health insurance. Wealthy or just comfortable characters could easily afford a monthly payment and dodge the worst of medical fees when it comes to it. The most basic form of health insurance could be a script implementation like car insurance, but because it's not obligatory, it could also encourage people to set up insurance companies with better benefits.

 

  • Exceptions:
    > PKs; because a PK is always disorienting to go through and a character obviously cannot remember what led to them ending up at the hospital, they could not seek reimbursement for any medical fees. Still, some service fees could be applied so the point of looking after one's health is not completely lost, these still being lower than the 'base' fee for an injury one would survive.

    > 'Passive' healthcare like cancer treatments and other non-emergency, ongoing care taken to non-roleplay hospitals could also have set fees that one pays as they go, or could simply be roleplayed as this is a choice made by the player and not something that occurred through interactions with others. I'm not sure how this would apply into the system, if at all.

 

I usually play somewhat poor characters as the struggle for money gives me incentive to act even in times where I don't feel particularly creative, and seeing money be so available and scarcely lost on things that would really damage your economic situation IRL is immersion-breaking, personally. I have no issue with people who roleplay being rich, but getting above the middle-class line is much, much more difficult than GTAW would make you believe, and I think some sort of medical bills system would bring at least some reality into the mix.

Even the tips that show when loading up GTA tell you that having a dangerous lifestyle can get expensive because of the cost of healthcare...

I want to hear suggestions, ideas and criticism from the other sides of the server, please! This is all based on my views of the situation.

Edited by reko
FD thing
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While I'd love to see something like this happen, for us FD folk, I can already tell that a lot of people would simply refuse transport to avoid paying anything.

Ambulance rides can be free just so our faction doesn't intentionally lose roleplay(and honestly, this is more up to faction leadership to decide anyway), but I'm all for medical fees overall. Good opportunity to bring up the fact that having a hospital faction would make all of this a lot better & easier.

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Unfortunately, my concerns match those above - we will instead see a rash of persons suddenly experienced in personal first aid, and Ambulances will arrive to see John McClains and Rambos extracting bullets from their own shoulders and cauterizing wounds with heated knives.

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1 hour ago, DasFroggy said:

Unfortunately, my concerns match those above - we will instead see a rash of persons suddenly experienced in personal first aid, and Ambulances will arrive to see John McClains and Rambos extracting bullets from their own shoulders and cauterizing wounds with heated knives.

This already happens in fact!

 

1 hour ago, Gryffin said:

While I'd love to see something like this happen, for us FD folk, I can already tell that a lot of people would simply refuse transport to avoid paying anything.

Ambulance rides can be free just so our faction doesn't intentionally lose roleplay(and honestly, this is more up to faction leadership to decide anyway), but I'm all for medical fees overall. Good opportunity to bring up the fact that having a hospital faction would make all of this a lot better & easier.

As well as this.

 

I think Hospitals should definitely have a fee attached however... the issue is that most of our roleplay that isn't GSW's, stabbings and otherwise require players to actually cause the medical problem on their own, if we have say, a fee attached to going to a hospital, not only will people not want to go to a hospital ICly, they won't want to go OOCly. And that causes our roleplay which isnt super traumatic GSW's, stabbings, falls, to drop from 2% back down to 0. Non-critical calls and injuries are already SUPER rare as it is. And it would be a shame to cause them to go away at all.

 

Maybe if there was a complete hospital faction this could change. As of now, not really worth it to have a fee with an empty hospital.

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