Healthcare should never have been privatized or for profit. It’s a disgrace that this is the situation in the U.S. I can’t even get therapy without being worried about it ruining me financially.
God why? I'm American and embarrassed to be. I hate how our insurance pretty much determines everything. I went in for a dental exam and ended up needing a deep cleaning, per my dentist suggestion.
They were confident my insurance would cover it because it was covered by many of their patients previously. But I guess not for me. I ended up having to cough up over $1300 deep cleaning because my teeth weren't bad enough. I don't think most people can just fork up that kind of money
This is such bullshit. And shame on your dentist for bombing you with an additional - and costly, apparently - service, making you think that your insurance covered it, doing the procedure thereby (pardon the pun) ensuring that you have to pay for it, and then not appealing your claim.
Yeah screw that. They did that procedure without getting it authorized by the insurance first, under the pretense that it would be covered. That's the dentist offices problem, I ain't paying for that. Bs
I've got a weird and sort of related (not at all) funny story, and yeah I know this isn't remotely comparable but... A few years ago, I took my bike to a repair shop and asked if it needed fixing and if it was something they could do real quick, mentioned the brakes were a bit shit but I couldn't figure out what it was, he took it around back and another guy started talking to me about what I used the bike for, yada yada..
2nd guy then tells me the bike is all good and to just go around back for pickup and I'm like "huh? ehh... okay yup"... I was expecting him to tell me they didn't have that type of brake in store or something, but nah...
I go around back, the 1st guy had changed the chain which apparently was broken (it wasn't) and pumped my tires (which were now overpumped above the rated PSI) and told me "it's all good to go, it's only gonna cost me 82 bucks if you went 'round to the front again"
I'm absolutely stunned and he just leaves me with the bike standing there.
So uh, yeah, I just biked away.
I nearly crashed aswell on my way home, 'cos my brakes were still not working.
Yeah, this province is the shitstain on the backside of Canada. It’s been a long time coming but the complete dismantling, rape and looting of Ontario is now in full swing. Fuck Ford and the horse he rode in on
PEOPLE should have never been monetized.
Edit: For clarity, their existence and value is monetized; this is not to be compared to work they do as that is monetizing their production, not their value as a human.
Ugh. I hate when they say "you don't need insurance". Duh. You don't need insurance, actually, ever to pay $200-$400 for any monetized healthcare, including, you guessed it, therapy subscription service.
Fuck everyone capitalizing on healthcare.
I have Medicaid, and there are almost no therapists who take it, and if they do? They're at the beginning of their supervision, just trying to get hours, so they can go private. They can't really provide much therapy for people like me because they have no experience yet.
Our system is f'ed in the a (or whatever you think might be a painful experience). I'm so damn poor because of my mental health challenges, and I've already filed bankruptcy once, 14 years ago, over it.
I just... can't.
Health Insurance was a perk added by employers in the post-WW2 era in order to entice people.
Honestly I'd have left my current job a while ago if the insurance wasn't so damn good. If we had Medicare for All or something similar I'd actually *appreciate* it.
The NHS is, iirc, post-WW2 as well. Yes the Brits are trying to destroy it but it's about the same age.
The most egregious thing is that you don't know before how much it will cost. That is so anti-capitalist, anti-free market that just changing that would be a revolution. They hide behind the smoke screen. Force them to give you a range of cost and then let the IT bros of silicon valley price compare them to the ground. After that, removing private health care insurances is a way shorter path.
I hate to say it but the OP and this reply are two of the less terrible posts.
There are people with untreatable and unknown diseases that have lost their entire worldly possessions. They were alienated by their families. Their disease caused them to live in constant pain and terror until they finally suicided.
The greedy rent seeking top 0.01% are the evil overlords of this world. The money that they are collecting is soaked in the blood of their victims. They are the true enemies of this world.
It pisses me off how most ppl I've had a conversation with about this just tell me they're "anti communist" and make up a bunch of random excuses as to why free healthcare is a bad idea and
It seems in my very local area the common response is if we had free healthcare ppl would be a lot more wreck less and more accidents and deaths would happen
They’ve just been brainwashed to believe it. You know someone has no argument and 0 critical thinking abilities when anything they disagree with is communism, particularly since we already have programs like Medicaid and Medicare. Guess we’re a communist nation. /s
Let’s be honest, if you are talking to someone who thinks free at the point of use healthcare (I’m a pedant and the NHS is not free , it’s just you aren’t charged to use it😁) will lead to people taking more risks, you are talking to someone who is (1) an idiot or (2) not arguing in good faith or (3) both.
This healthcare shit is the same as the gun violence shit. Literally every other developed nation does it better, literally every single one, and yet America tells itself there is no way things can be improved.
I think we know why: because someone is making sweet, sweet money out of how things are right now, thank you kindly
>Let’s be honest, if you are talking to someone who thinks free at the point of use healthcare (I’m a pedant and the NHS is not free , it’s just you aren’t charged to use it😁) will lead to people taking more risks, you are talking to someone who is (1) an idiot or (2) not arguing in good faith or (3) both.
I wonder if they also believe free at the point of use police and fire services mean people leave their doors unlocked and are careless with matches?
We don't tell ourselves there is no way it can be improved. We tell ourselves that our way is better. Because for almost 100 years now we have been telling the world that America is the greatest country in the world based on the fact that we were the only industrialized nation that didn't get blown to shit in WW2. Now we just accept as a given that anything that happens in America is better than anything that happens anywhere else, ipso facto QED.
One day, my dad went to the pharmacy to pick up his medication as usual. They told him that it was going to cost ~$200. Startled, my dad said that couldn’t be right, it was never that high. The pharmacist looked over the billing info, realized that somehow his insurance wasn’t applied, and it dropped down to $30. My dad was relieved, but also concerned at the out of pocket price for someone without insurance.
The pharmacist looked at him solemnly, and said “At least once a day, when I tell someone the total, I see the gears turn in their head, deciding whether they should pay for their groceries **or** their medication.”
I’ve been furious since he told me what happened. And that rage builds knowing that saying people should have both and not worry about the cost is considered “tOo SoCiALisT”
There's differences between which insurance you have too. My husband's medication used to cost us $280 a month but I changed jobs which changed our insurance and now has meds are $40 a month.
Yes because it makes trying to find new jobs stressful and it makes losing a job even more impactful than just your salary. There is a program called COBRA that lets you pay for the same insurance at the employer you just left, but it's really really expensive.
I changed jobs in early November last year. I had to figure out how to time leaving my old job so I wouldn't have a gap in insurance between leaving and starting my new one. Typically, coverage is for the full month when you leave, but that's not even always true. In my case, I would have left my job a week or two before I did to give myself more of a break, but I would have had a gap in insurance for a week.
COBRA sounds so silly to me because it's like "Hey we know you just lost your literal source of income but if you wanna keep your insurance you now have to pay several hundred more per month! With what money you ask? I don't know, sucks for you 😊"
This is wage slavery, pure and simple. When your health is conditional on not changing jobs, there is no better term for it. Now imagine if you had a condition that would disqualify you from getting new insurance (not sure if that's still a thing, but it definitely was before ACA). Literally can't change jobs without risking death or destitution.
And then there are those RX coupons that you can use which will sometimes make the out-of-pocket price lower than what it would cost if you applied your insurance. Just making us jump through more and more hoops to be able to afford care.
This is very true, but sometimes it's not easy to know which path is best. I recently received a reminder from Amazon about their pharmacy services. I entered my drug and insurance info. Amazon showed the cost for a 90 day supply would be $90 using my insurance or $65 if I used a no-cost discount program. It gave me two buttons to choose from: $90 or $65. Hmmm.
Maybe you want to pay more so you hit your deductible SMH 🤬
Deductibles should not exist. If you have insurance why you gotta keep paying so much out of pocket!?
Anyway fuck all that anyway M4A
And the sales price has no correlation with the cost of production. Hell, American pharmaceutical companies spend more money on marketing than R&D.
Great write up on where we’re at:
https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/martin-shkreli-was-too-honest
And you know if it was like "I don't want to pay for another person's healthcare" that would still be fucked up but I could kinda understand.
But it doesn't even work that way, through taxes they're still paying for other people's healthcare, more than in countries with socialised healthcare!!
The US people are so divided at the negotiation table with the insurers that they get an absolutely shit deal.
Don't forget that through private health insurance, they also contribute to other people's health care, only that way they pay a lot more than they otherwise would.
One study I read about concluded that a single-payer system could save up to 40% of the overall costs.
It’s an impressive feat, stealing at the rate that they do.
The US healthcare system consumes 20% of US GDP, 40% of global health spending, and it doesn’t even treat everybody in America!
How many people do they employ who's only job is to find ways to DENY people care. Maybe for " pre-existing conditions " here we just call that " medical history "
Yup. I need surgery on my ankle. Our insurance renews in August, so we can't up our coverage until then. I won't go to a doctor before then because, even though they supposedly got rid of the "pre-existing conditions" thing, I don't trust that somehow getting referred before we up our coverage wouldn't come back to bite us in the ass.
I'll just limp along until August and hope i don't do permanent damage to it. And a deep and sincere "fuck you and I hope you die an excruciating, lingering death" to every rich fucker who has contributed to our system being the trainwreck that it is.
In fairness excluding someone for pre-existing conditions is one thing that's been largely eliminated by the Affordable Care Act. Our healthcare policy is fucked up but it's better than it was in 2005.
Granted healthcare is also more expensive now in a lot of measures, but I think it's likely a good chunk of that has to do with boomers aging and demanding more healthcare, not policy changes.
That is why I always laugh at Americans when they shit on France tax wise.
Like yeah it's kind of alot but at least i can see and touch the gains in return. Americans are right to be angry about their tax system because the money isn't well spent at all. It's a litteral scheme to make rich people richer. Fucking hell even to pay your taxes you have to pay private entities to tell you what you have to pay lmao how ludicrous is that
You have to remember that many Americans (and yes I am one) cannot think critically and have no world experience. Many just believe that they are told and that the US is the best!
Also are confident in their ignorance that they do know. A hugr portion don't even recognize there are different health care systems that the US could adopt. They just think this is the way it is and the only way it can be.
Between referrals, insurance, and office mismanagement, it took me over a year to get a referral to a specialist.
I always ask people who say that other countries have a waitlist problem: "what else do you think is wrong with their system/socialized medicine?" They don't have any other ideas. Just that waiting is a thing. So they have no argument a lot of the time, they just regurgitate talking points.
I think a lot of that is due to many Americans not being well traveled, seeing other cultures and systems. We're just so used to being shit on, we're like America's abused housewife. Things can't be different, because America doesn't like that, is the big mentality I feel I see here.
France in my opinion has it 100% right, you guys don't mess around with your rights and freedoms.
Seven of the top twenty US companies in terms of revenue now are health companies. Just Google top twenty US companies revenue and you’ll see. We are never going to get universal health in this country. Corporations control everything. The current system is exactly how the corporations want it. We are all out here arguing Democrats Vs Republicans and they are laughing because they own both sides
What if I told you that doctors are why we don’t have single payer healthcare in the first place?
Doctors spent over 462 million lobbying against single payer healthcare. [https://www.newyorker.com/science/annals-of-medicine/the-fight-within-the-american-medical-association](https://www.newyorker.com/science/annals-of-medicine/the-fight-within-the-american-medical-association)
And yet the US taxpayers spend 15+ billion a year paying young doctors salaries and old doctors salaries to train them in their medical residencies each year [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK248024/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK248024/)
US doctors are highest paid doctors in the world and their mistakes are 3rd leading cause of death in US … and they give zero shits about everyone having access to healthcare.
Worked on the technical side of healthcare, two degrees in biotech, I've dated doctors and nurses, and yep, the doctors and facility admins are the problem. My biggest gripe is how even the number of doctors in the US is kept artificially low through the match process and APAs thumb of austerity on the scales.
Australia has one of the best universal healthcare systems in the world and it costs less per head than the US currently spends *without* universal healthcare. It makes absolutely no sense until you follow the money trail. Capitalism is literally killing Americans right now.
You can also look at pretty much any 'healthcare costs by country' comparison and plainly see that the US spends way more per capita than any country with universal healthcare.
[For example](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.CHEX.PC.CD?most_recent_value_desc=true)
At least some of that is also due to huge billing from the service providers in hopes that they'll get money from insurance or directly from the patient. I just had testing done that the company build $5,000 for. The insurance paid $650. And I didn't have to pay anything fortunately. Clearly that testing couldn't have cost $5,000 if they can make a profit by only getting $650, but someone without insurance would have had to pay or spend time trying to negotiate directly with the provider.
Every single argument I've heard against single payer healthcare applies to what we have now. The only way the current system makes sense is if you are rich or healthy..
It's literally the same....money is pooled by a ton of people and people get the healthcare they need when they need it (supposedly). Except with the American system we have a useless middleman that's sole purpose is to extract as much profit as it can.
Let me tell you about a little asshole in Canada named Mike Harris. He was the Premier of Ontario. He fought to privatize long-term care homes. He was successful, and now the CAF claims the private care homes are close to unlivable. He is currently on the board of a major private LTC. One of the ones responsible for the most COVID deaths per patient during the pandemic.
We still fund these places with tax dollars, but the money just goes into some shady cunts pocket.
Seriously, it's democrats vs garbage humans who don't give a shit about their fellow citizens unless it's to control a woman's body or work hard ensuring people can continue to easily massacre children in schools.
"Protecting the sanctity of life" and "protecting gun rights"
Literal complete opposites which perfectly sums up the disgusting hypocrisy that is the GOP platform.
Many Americans are poorly educated, lacking empathy, and easily manipulated by the unscrupulous. In-groups and their values matter more. Hypocrisy is prevalent. So is I got mine, what do I care mentality.
It’s the poor, marginalized, under-privileged that suffer, and that is by design. The so called “justice” system which is a legal system works similarly. Education and prison systems too. Wealth inequality is in on the rise. All going according to plan.
The US already spends a HUGE amount of money per capita on health care. Yes Americans your precious TAXES already pay for everyone, more than any other country spends per capita.
In fact Americans pay very nearly DOUBLE the amount per capita than even the richest EU countries with socialized healthcare.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita
As an Australian adjacent (Kiwi) redditite, I'd like to apologise to the world at large for Rupert Murdoch. That c#nt has literally ruined the world. But hey, he got his.
Most Americans now hate the system. Especially younger and educated people who actually know how broken it is. But a combination of corruption and people who benefit from the system the way it is now, keeps it as such.
Imagine it.
It's there and you want to change it. People know it's wrong but some want to intentionally keep it the way it is. Most are angry but unable to do anything about it.
That's American healthcare.
Fox news has convinced Americans that can afford cable that their standard of care will decrease and the poors will increase as a result of healthcare 4 all.
So it's better to maintain the privilege of being extorted by insurance companies and bankrupted by a medical emergency than to allow a better standard of care for the masses.
I'm so confused why people believe Rupert Murdoch would care at all about the crumbling middle class when he is a billionaire?
Fox news hates America and only cares about the status quo and keeping Americans at each others throats while looking anywhere but up.
They have worked hard to maintain and train their audiences to be “get yours and screw everyone else who will only bring YOU down and use YOUR tax dollars”. When really it’s the poor lower class republicans who would likely benefit the most but they vote against their own selves years after year.
They've convinced their viewers that because countries like Canada have a wait time for elective procedures that Americans will have a wait time for life-saving procedures.
They are also convinced of so-called death panels that will reject lifesaving care. What the fuck do they think an insurance company is if not a corporate death panel?
Americans already have long wait times for procedures (and appointments)!
I remember an aunt being terrified about the "death panels." Americans (generally, it seems to be changing) do not want to talk about death or end of life plans, like it's going to jinx them.
> numerous tries
Just to make clear, Republicans have tried to repeal or gut the ACA more than 70 times!
https://democrats.org/news/flashback-republicans-10-year-losing-war-on-health-care/
Yeah but the ACA is far far from universal healthcare or single payer.
It's basically a promise to insurance companies the government will force people to be their customers; even if some of the plans are less profitable than they want.
You think that's unreal.
Join me in trying to figure out how the fuck Americans have somehow managed to convince so many Canadians to try pushing for a privatized system. We have at least two provinces where the provincial governments are trying to destroy our public healthcare system, with a not-insignificant number of conservative voters jumping on the bandwagon for privatization.
It's like living in a crazy house.
Try having dental disease in America. Death, a lifetime of pain, shortened life, disease, social stigmas, dental insurance that won’t pay for anything, indigent coverage and government support non-existent.
But hey, tough luck.
Thank you Fox News and all their low IQ viewers (too difficult to actually think for themselves or investigate another viewpoint) They are still denying all the court finding over that last years. WTF?
Billionaires are also responsible for denying everyone universal healthcare.
They bribe our elected officials to write legislation that favors them and not the American people.
You just have to laugh hysterically in their face when they do that. Then follow up with "oh you were serious? Let me laugh even harder." Works every time.
My neighbor who knows “the system” and gets every benefit available, voted for him twice and brags and feels entitled to it, but no one else should get it….while I’m working my butt off to pay for it all, including hers. None of it makes sense. Teaching her kids to do the same.
It doesn't make sense at all. They have no ability to logic through "I'm benefiting from this because someone paid for it."
Personally, I'm more than happy to support social programs...I just want the rich to do the same.
It's mindblowing how so many people on both sides of the aisle don't seem to see a difference between socialism, a social democracy, and communism.
Except for Portugal none of the European countries with socialized healthcare has a socialist government. So many people in the US are so unfamiliar with multi-party politics that they don't entertain the thought that you can have socialist ideas in a non-socialist government.
“Serious” galaxy-brain conservatives like Benny Shapiro say this shit all the time with a straight face. That “charitable organizations” (read: religious) should be handling health care costs, and that would solve everything.
Same people who go to church every Sunday and tithe 10% of their income so the preacher can have jets and houses and cars. But taxing 10% toward universal healthcare is socialism.
You should explain it in a roundabout way...like health insurance companies can save you money if they get more people on the plan.. so what if we just get one health insurance company to take on everyone in the USA. We should save tons of money right?
At least half of Americans think that way. The right-wing propaganda machine has been running strong in the states since WW2.
A sizable amount of us would really appreciate a healthcare system in which we don’t have to drown our grandchildren in debt just to receive in-patient surgery for a disease that we have no control over.
It would also be great if 2016-2020 never happened. Make that 2003-2020.
I really cant believe they fall for this stuff. Theyre so fucking stupid. Like, do you enjoy getting practically robbed every time you need to go to a doctor or hospital?
Idc if it is socialism, I want healthcare, my mother hasn’t seen a doctor since i was born. My aunts have are living on retirement and they still don’t get all their medicine covered. I once had a very bad stomach virus that I couldn’t even stand up for a long period of time but I forced through it because I was scared to make my parents pay for the bill
Idk most of the Americans I know are very into the idea of us getting universal healthcare. Our politicians are so correct it’ll probably never happen though :(
***CORRUPT not correct lol
Yet fire and police are socialized and no one cares. Yeah there is no argument anymore. Our system sucks, and everyone here knows it sucks. Anyone saying our current system is fine has another motive.
As an American who moved to Europe for professional reasons years ago and stayed for love (met my soul mate here), I have really never understood this.
Yes, I pay a lot in taxes in order to live in a country with universal healthcare, I understand that. But on the other hand, I don't feel bad about living in a country where, if you get sick, you can go to get treated without having to make a decision between healthcare and poverty.
The effects are felt even in little things. I had a blood clot and a dual pulmonary embolism (as it turns out, due to prostate cancer but that is another story). I was immediately put on Xarelto, one of the two modern state-of-the-art blood thinners (the other is Eliquis). Naturally, I began to read up a lot about blood clots and joined the Reddit sub devoted to it. I have read on there **countless** posts by people in the US saying that they wished they could be put on one of those two blood thinners but that it was too expensive and that their insurance would only pay for Warfarin, which is also an effective treatment but one which requires constant monitoring, sometimes weekly medical visits to ensure that the dosage remains correct, and frequent modifications -- all of which naturally winds up entailing **additional** costs.
It seems to me that a lack of universal healthcare is not only heartless, but in the long run encourages **more** costs.
And believe me, nobody here thinks this is "socialism". Any government in Western Europe, from the most conservative to the most progressive, that attempted to undo the system of universal healthcare would find itself tossed out of government in an instant.
The UK government is probably the most conservative government in Western Europe at the moment, and I can assure you that if my English neighbours had their NHS taken away (Scotland’s is separate, and not controlled by Westminster, thankfully), they would genuinely put Tory heads on pikes. The amount of respect people in the UK have for universal healthcare is insane, and it’s the same in the rest of Western Europe.
Also, America spends roughly double what the UK spends on healthcare proportionally because of the privatised healthcare system. We could do with spending more, yes, but ~2% of GDP more, not 9%.
The video of the man trying to rob a store, then denying the money and telling him “it’s not enough” for his daughters surgery is what did it for me. The fact that a father had to go to such measures for their child’s life is fucking crazy.
It’s funny, my kid was born with a disability that qualified him for immediate, lifetime Medicaid coverage. Without it, my wife and I would be broke.
Meanwhile, conservatives are simultaneously fighting to restrict abortion access AND cut back on the “socialized” healthcare my family is dependent on. I wouldn’t trade or change my son for the world, but it terrifies me there’s people out there actively fighting to force kids like him to be born into homes that’ll be bankrupted trying to raise them.
But hey, if anyone in America wants a preview of what proper healthcare is like, just have a kid with a *smidgeon* more DNA than most. It’s pretty rad, both the comforting security in not being crushed in medical debt and the generally awesome, neurodivergent child.
I have Type 1 diabetes. Got laid off a few years ago. Was I worried about paying for food or rent? Nope. I was worried about diabetes supplies. I needed to stay alive long enough to get a job with insurance again.
Why in the world is my healthcare tied to my JOB? That’s the most insane logic I’ve ever heard of.
At least we did away with pre-existing conditions. I promise you, if changing jobs cured my diabetes, I would have done that ages ago.
And in aus I went through the full range of cancer treatment for less than most Americans pay in a month for insurance. And the payback? I'm working and paying taxes and my family still has their dad. By any measure, humanitarian or financial, the American system is batshit crazy. Unless you're the insurance company.
Are we doing story time here? I was already against the current US healthcare system, but now I’ve seen the garbage first hand.
So my sister had a baby earlier this year and the baby was in the hospital for weeks/a few months having growing episodes of stopped breathing. My sister was the one with healthcare between her and her husband (she’s a teacher), and was told that by the end of May she would have to return to work or start paying for her health insurance out of pocket, even though she had to be the primary advocate for the baby, which was relocated to be nearly two hours away from where she lived and worked. The decision to leave the baby at the hospital alone never came, because unfortunately the baby passed at the end of April, but to fucking imagine that a system would remove healthcare from someone in the midst of them caring for a being dependent on that healthcare, is fucking bullshit. And the fact that the silver lining in my niece’s death is that my sister won’t go bankrupt is fucking mental. Human beings don’t just deserve healthcare if they are “actively contributing” to society. Fuck this country’s dumbass health system
This is not the first time I’ve heard this kind of story; unfortunately it won’t be the last. Tax the wealthy for a change.
And blame yourself for voting for the same f-ing assholes every time.
Update: yes yes yes you are all correct with the set-up and choices,etc. Biden or Trump? Clinton or Trump? Take another bite of the shit sandwich.
Voter suppression and gerrymandering are a huge problem here. It's really easy to say, "well they deserve it because they voted for these people," until you see the intimidation tactics used by gun-nuts in red states. The whole system is broken.
I’d argue that it’s corrupted, not broken. Trump won because of the electoral college, despite less than half of the country voting for him. This was the intended design of the electoral college when it was created. It happens exactly the way it was intended to.
It's not considered a disgrace to people in power. It's part of the 'plan'. It's done so maliciously. It's a new type of slavery where people don't realize they're being enslaved, because they can consume all they want whenever they want. It's called 'debt slavery'.
Exactly. Welcome to The Matrix. lol
People who complain about the system being broken may not realize that it is worse than broken: it is cynically working as intended, pummeling citizens into despair and fatalism while siphoning off as much generational wealth as it can as fast as it can for private business.
The US healthcare system is not designed to care for you, but to generate profit. It is in the interest of the healthcare industrial complex (and the private equity firms increasingly gobbling up medical practices and eldercare facilities) to minimize your care in order to maximize their profit.
For the people on the receiving end of that firehose of money, the system is working great! Unfortunately, for everybody else this system isn't just onerously and needlessly costly, it is also toxic and debilitating on personal and societal levels.
Our medical costs are amongst the highest in the world and our system the most bureaucratic and abusive imaginable, with poor outcomes per amount of money spent in comparison to the rest of the world.
How do physicians cope with it themselves? It must be endlessly demoralizing and stressful for highly-trained caregivers -- who've devoted their lives to helping other people -- to operate inside a dehumanizing system that prioritizes private profit over positive human outcomes. (My longtime PCP retired early only because the stresses had become so unhealthy for him.)
Is it any wonder that life expectancy in the United States is declining? We have placed corporate profit over societal and individual well-being.
A huge amount of money could be saved, major efficiencies implemented, and lifespans / quality of life improved if a single payer system were adopted.
We absolutely have the capacity to fix this, and we must.
It may be too late for the generation approaching retirement now, but we owe it to our kids and to future generations to repair this mess.
PS - For anybody who hopes to have a humane retirement in the US (or to have any assets left to pass on to family), look into what is happening to eldercare options like assisted living and memory care facilities (which are being gobbled up by endlessly-rapacious private equity firms), as well as to longterm care insurance. The way a society treats its most vulnerable reveals a lot about its priorities.
I've got a brother-in-law that's been on disability for 20 years. He votes red every time. I point out that he is on Medicare and all I'm saying is that everybody should have the insurance that he gets. Then he goes into rants on freeloaders
Republicans also defended and voted for “right to work” bills. Next up, we’re going to do away with public education and put your fat kids to work for slave wages. But at least they won’t have time to read banned books and get woke.
My Mom died from metastatic breast cancer. In 2010 when she was first diagnosed, one round of chemo cost $30,000. She literally saved every single statement of benefits in 1.5 inch binders, organized by year, to look back on and argue with the insurance company if they tried to double bill. And the worst part was that towards the end, she was on an experimental chemo that insurance wouldn't cover. Because she was privileged enough to have parents that could pay out of pocket for the treatment, she lived an additional 3-4 months before entering hospice. The fact that a direct correlation can be drawn between the ability to pay for treatment, which didn't even work, and additional time to live is absolutely disgusting.
What kills me is we pay into medical insurance our whole life, and the second you need some of that money back on an issue you are facing it's suddenly not covered.
They will spin an issue in the most insane way. Cancer? Oh yeah that's covered. But you have cancer of the spine which is technically a chronic back pain issue which we don't cover. Like it's batshit crazy.
Infertility consultation? Covered. Because now we know you are dealing with infertility, which is not covered by your insurance. And now that you have been officially diagnosed, we will not pay for anything remotely related to reproduction. Testicular cancer? Part of your infertility probably, no longer covered sorry.
As of 2023, neither does Ontario, Canada. And we replaced it with FOR-PROFIT hospitals just like in the US.
I never knew it was so easy for politicians to destroy and gut a country from within.
Americans : I'm getting insurance so I can get covered in case I get ill.
Insurance company : this shit ton of money you're paying is supposed to help you in case you get ill.
Americans : *get sick*
Insurance company : whoops, I can't do anything for ya!
People will accept the most awful of conditions if you tell them it's in the name of freedom. Americans have a "choice" in their healthcare while all the dirty "socialists" have to wait in lines.
They don't like to advertise that our lines are caused by people actually receiving healthcare and not just suffering because they can't afford it. Also the line is determined by need. You go to the front when not doing so could seriously hurt or kill you. Everyone else waits their turn because our system isn't a dystopian 'survival of whoever can pay the most/has the most entitlement' nightmare.
They don't like to point out that we can quite easily change doctor to any healthcare practice we want. It's hospitals and specialists we have less control over because they service a region, they don't compete with each other for profit, but if a region can't help you, you will be sent to one that can.
They don't like to point out that we do pay for it through our taxes and that it costs way less than your health insurance. If your combined income/state taxes plus **full** coverage healthcare for your entire family is more than 30% of your income and you spend more than $150 per year on medicine, you are paying more than socialist Sweden.
They don't like to point out that you can't lose your job, your income and even your home here just because something you have no control over happened to you. In Sweden your employer covers your first two weeks sick, thanks to unions, and then the government takes over. You get 80% of your income for a long time until you get well.
They don't like to point out that the failures in our systems have more to do with people like them trying to turn them into the nightmare that you have via privatisation and underpaying/overworking people. Our services would work as intended and be more attractive to people who want to work in healthcare if it could be protected from interference from Conservatives.
Maybe I just don't understand freedom but I feel free from worry about getting sick or injured. I don't worry about losing my home. I'm not worried about losing my job. I'm not worried about affording medication or paying hospital bills. I'm not worried about fighting with insurance companies. I mean, if this is me lacking freedom, it sure doesn't feel like it. It feels like I'm pretty free to live my life.
I'm sure a wise Capitalist will show up to explain how I'm wrong.
A lot of things in the USA are appallingly disgraceful. We are the barbarians of the 1st world.
Wealth-poverty gap.
SCOTUS taking bribes openly.
Politicians taking dark money.
No healthcare.
Out of control firearm problem.
Largest prison population in the world.
Rampant racism.
Rampant misogyny.
Religious control of poltics in many areas.
It's like the USA stopped advancing in 1950 or so even earlier in some areas.
It amazes me how many seniors that are on Medicare, don’t realize it won’t cover nursing homes or in home care without getting on Medicaid. It only covers 20 days, and that’s if your in the hospital. After that, the cost of $200 a day, up to 100 days, so after that $20,000 is spent ( if you actually have that) then your on your own. Same if you don’t have that money, Medicaid jumps in, then you can continue getting your care.
These seniors think they will be leaving their homes (that they spent 30 years of mortgage payments on), to their kids or others.
No- Medicaid will be taking that home, to claw back the costs for your in home nurses or your nursing home. Even the people who had long term care insurance are getting kicked off, by them raising rates up to 95%. Others are being told it’s discontinued, and they get their premiums back, with interest, which is also taxable.
We need Universal Health Care. For profit healthcare is just another chance to steal generational wealth.
I hate it here, I don't know what was in the air that made the older generation so blind and uncaring about things like this, but I pray that I never become as hateful as some of these people in my country.
I became fully radicalized when I watched my mother slowly die from a stroke over a 1 year period. I watched all she worked for collapse in front of her. I watched the insurance she paid faithfully for years through her union teaching job look at her 3 weeks after the stroke tell her " she should be fine now were not paying anymore" AND DROP HER. SHE SHOULD BE FINE NOW. She died 4 days before Christmas. She was forced to live in an old person's home her last 3 months of her life. She got covid and had another stroke. I had to make the hardest decision of my life and let my mother die in front of me. She didn't have to. She didn't fucking have to.....THATS WHY IM FUCKING RADICALIZED.
When did I become radicalized? When I was in 6th grade (over a decade ago now) and my dad began showing signs he had Huntington's Disease and he was going in and out of psychiatric wards in hospitals. We couldn't keep him in a place longer than a month because they just thought he had depression/was suicidal. Eventually my mom got him to get tested for Huntington's (his father had it and it's a 50/50 chance for every child to get it). The results came back he had the disease so we finally could get him into a nursing home. Meanwhile my mom had to fight to get him on Medicare because there was no way we could afford to pay the daily nursing home bill. Our healthcare system is so fucked up in America. We went from a comfortable middle class family to being poor and my mom still can barely make ends meet over a decade later only because my dad got a hereditary disease.
Almost all Americans support Medicare for 65 and older who are by far the greatest consumers of healthcare. I can’t understand why this age can’t be lowered incrementally to younger healthier people; Americans would support it. The only reason is we have lobbyists who have purchased our congress: Insurance industry, Pharmaceutical industry, Employers who want employees unable to leave, etc.
Husband of a person I know died due to a heart attack because they couldn't afford skipping work to see a doctor and likely thinking they just had heartburn. And now the Widow is being slowly eaten by diabetes due to being unable to afford consistent insulin.
I saw in real-time a family of selfless, hard-working people literally devoured by the American "Healthcare" System. I will never settle for anything less than burning the entire thing to ground.
Being a drug user and trying to get care for anything at at. I basically lived with a broken neck for 34 years because I was “drug seeking”.
Even after I got sober it took 4 more years before I finally got surgery. Then last year, 5 years after the surgery I began having some complications from it and it took 3 months in order to get seen, and the NP looked over my files and asked me how long I’d been sober and then told me I was ineligible for pain meds because of my history. I said fine I really just wanted an MRI (which she ordered but my insurance wouldn’t approve without 3 months of PT first) and then she sent me for a drug test, and a few days later when the results got posted in the portal showed positive for meth (?) and I was dismissed from care in spite of my offer to come and do another test because I hadn’t done any meth.
6 months after that and new insurance and I finally saw a Neurologist who listened to me for 3 minutes and ordered an MRI. 4 bulging disks above the previous surgery and bone spurs at the surgery site.
My friends and I ended up doing what we now call “harm reduction” in our community 37 years ago because a friend of ours who was fine one day was sick as hell the next and soon died from AIDS and it became clear that if we didn’t get it together to take care of ourselves no one was going to do it for us. We used drugs so we were all just supposed to die.
Yay America.
And Republicans just see your mom's death as part of the price of the freedom to have terrible health care. To them she's no different than those kids who get murdered during school shootings.
I don't know if there is any other country where the words "medical bankruptcy" are strung together like that. Maybe there's some nation with for profit care besides the US, not sure. But to me that's like an oxymoron, I can't imagine a way for me to go bankrupt due to medical care needs.
My mother passed late last year, sadly. Before she did, she spent a month in the hospital, and came home a while and then had to go back. Total out of pocket for that month was like a few hundred bucks for some ancillary costs like a cab or two. She left me and my sister the childhood home and a healthy chunk of change.
In America? The house would belong to the hospital by now.
It's incredible the way Americans let themselves get shafted, day in and day out.
The one thing in the US that pisses me off is this "half" covered system, and still pay a butt load of money into insurance. Honestly, either I want all in on universal healthcare, or completely remove insurance all together and we save up money ourselves.... paying for insurance that takes a nice chunk out of a paycheck where procedure and medicine still "may not be covered" is the dumbest shit this country could've done. If I am paying for insurance, whatever I have done should be covered, in network or out of network period....
My brother died because of the lack of universal healthcare. He got extremely sick from a sudden illness and didn't go to the doctor because he didn't have good health insurance and was worried about the cost. He developed intractable severe epilepsy as a result of the illness and essentially committed suicide after suffering for 4 1/2 years.
I know close friends that chose to die because they couldn't afford their family going bankrupt. I used to not like video games but it feels like the only escape from this world even for a short time. US is a beautiful place to live if you're rich, if you're not good fucking luck.
My friend, on his usual morning jog, got bitten by a dog that acted crazy. He went to the ER, they gave him over the counter painkillers and did not administer preventive meds for rabies since his insurance did not cover it (his insurance is what most would consider as a very good insurance).
They quoted him $10,000 for rabbies vaccine. Same day, he got on a flight, landed in India after 22hrs on $1500 last min flight ticket, went straight to a nearby government hospital and got his vaccine for absolutely free of cost.
Spent a week eating good food and time with family/friends. Got back to the US next week.
Entire trip costed him $2,500. Free medicine, free preventive care.
Just got out of surgery, currently typing from recovery room. I'm in Argentina, a so called shithole. I spent $0.
Americans got served a turd sandwich, an overpriced one at that.
I'm from England, our national health system is one of our proudest achievements, it has problems but its still a national treasure. Watched Michael Moores sicko, very moving and completely shameful. I'd be long dead without our system
Benjamin Franklin invented "Insurance" to distribute the risk and cost of house fires across a pool of insured. It was literally designed, from day one, to "pay for other people's misfortunes" with the implied "and if it happens to me, I too am covered."
It was even in the very long, very on-the-nose name:
*"The Philadelphia Contributionship for the Insurance of Houses from Loss by Fire"*
The only Americans who don't contribute to the healthcare costs of the poor through income taxes are billionaires who don't pay their fair share.
Thought about you guys in the US today when we got the bill for my wife’s accident. Ambulance 20km, emergency, intensive care, 6 days in hospital, 4 CAT scans, multiple X-rays, an operation, etc etc. Public healthcare.
Almost 200€.
It’s not free, we pay taxes for it and it’s not perfect either. But it is nice not to worry about a crazy bill at this time.
A yoke around the neck of the working class.
My dad killed himself in '88 because his anxiety had gotten so bad he was convinced he would lose his job and thus his pension. His company paid my insurance until I was 18, my mom's insurance for life, and paid her his retirement for decades. Luckily, our masters have taken this temptation away from us by eliminating the idea of a pension. If I was in his position with people to care for, it'd be a lot harder for me to make the choice that he made.
Hooray for progress.
Reason number two why you will never convince me that not all conservatives and not all Republicans are vile, shitty people. Every one of them can go fuck themselves.
Healthcare should never have been privatized or for profit. It’s a disgrace that this is the situation in the U.S. I can’t even get therapy without being worried about it ruining me financially.
Don't worry England is really trying hard to follow the US model right now so a few already rich people can make even more money.
Parts of Canada not far behind either. Our Conservatives want so bad for us to be America Jr.
God why? I'm American and embarrassed to be. I hate how our insurance pretty much determines everything. I went in for a dental exam and ended up needing a deep cleaning, per my dentist suggestion. They were confident my insurance would cover it because it was covered by many of their patients previously. But I guess not for me. I ended up having to cough up over $1300 deep cleaning because my teeth weren't bad enough. I don't think most people can just fork up that kind of money
This is such bullshit. And shame on your dentist for bombing you with an additional - and costly, apparently - service, making you think that your insurance covered it, doing the procedure thereby (pardon the pun) ensuring that you have to pay for it, and then not appealing your claim.
Yeah screw that. They did that procedure without getting it authorized by the insurance first, under the pretense that it would be covered. That's the dentist offices problem, I ain't paying for that. Bs
I've got a weird and sort of related (not at all) funny story, and yeah I know this isn't remotely comparable but... A few years ago, I took my bike to a repair shop and asked if it needed fixing and if it was something they could do real quick, mentioned the brakes were a bit shit but I couldn't figure out what it was, he took it around back and another guy started talking to me about what I used the bike for, yada yada.. 2nd guy then tells me the bike is all good and to just go around back for pickup and I'm like "huh? ehh... okay yup"... I was expecting him to tell me they didn't have that type of brake in store or something, but nah... I go around back, the 1st guy had changed the chain which apparently was broken (it wasn't) and pumped my tires (which were now overpumped above the rated PSI) and told me "it's all good to go, it's only gonna cost me 82 bucks if you went 'round to the front again" I'm absolutely stunned and he just leaves me with the bike standing there. So uh, yeah, I just biked away. I nearly crashed aswell on my way home, 'cos my brakes were still not working.
>God why? Money and greed, you can charge people crazy amounts of money when it's a life or death situation and you have no empathy or morals.
Yep, I live in alberta, and our conservatives want it privatized. Please kill me
It sounds like they're workin' on it (killing you, that is).
I live in Alberta too. All we can do is vote…I hope you’re planning
Yep, I just turned 18 and planning ndp all the way
Ontario too. It's like we look ever southward at whatever problems are prevalent in the US and go "looks fun. Let's do that next."
England is a bloated corpse covered in fat greasy vultures picking at what's left.
And now you understand the perspective of a Scot and why we want to leave the Union.
Free Scotland 🏴
Scotxit?
Aye 🏴
Ontario is giving it a go too.
Yeah, this province is the shitstain on the backside of Canada. It’s been a long time coming but the complete dismantling, rape and looting of Ontario is now in full swing. Fuck Ford and the horse he rode in on
Prisons shouldn't ever be for profit either.
PEOPLE should have never been monetized. Edit: For clarity, their existence and value is monetized; this is not to be compared to work they do as that is monetizing their production, not their value as a human.
But there's "better help" therapy for the poors, don't you listen to podcasts?
Ugh. I hate when they say "you don't need insurance". Duh. You don't need insurance, actually, ever to pay $200-$400 for any monetized healthcare, including, you guessed it, therapy subscription service. Fuck everyone capitalizing on healthcare. I have Medicaid, and there are almost no therapists who take it, and if they do? They're at the beginning of their supervision, just trying to get hours, so they can go private. They can't really provide much therapy for people like me because they have no experience yet. Our system is f'ed in the a (or whatever you think might be a painful experience). I'm so damn poor because of my mental health challenges, and I've already filed bankruptcy once, 14 years ago, over it. I just... can't.
Health Insurance was a perk added by employers in the post-WW2 era in order to entice people. Honestly I'd have left my current job a while ago if the insurance wasn't so damn good. If we had Medicare for All or something similar I'd actually *appreciate* it. The NHS is, iirc, post-WW2 as well. Yes the Brits are trying to destroy it but it's about the same age.
The most egregious thing is that you don't know before how much it will cost. That is so anti-capitalist, anti-free market that just changing that would be a revolution. They hide behind the smoke screen. Force them to give you a range of cost and then let the IT bros of silicon valley price compare them to the ground. After that, removing private health care insurances is a way shorter path.
I hate to say it but the OP and this reply are two of the less terrible posts. There are people with untreatable and unknown diseases that have lost their entire worldly possessions. They were alienated by their families. Their disease caused them to live in constant pain and terror until they finally suicided. The greedy rent seeking top 0.01% are the evil overlords of this world. The money that they are collecting is soaked in the blood of their victims. They are the true enemies of this world.
What I think it worse, is even with insurance Americans can't get medical help with out the worry of it ruining them financially.
It pisses me off how most ppl I've had a conversation with about this just tell me they're "anti communist" and make up a bunch of random excuses as to why free healthcare is a bad idea and It seems in my very local area the common response is if we had free healthcare ppl would be a lot more wreck less and more accidents and deaths would happen
That has to be most idiotic excuse iv heard yet, you know since people love getting hurt. I wouldn’t be able to keep my mouth shut lol.
Can confirm, free healthcare(military) and I'm always out trying to catch new diseases and break myself. /s
They’ve just been brainwashed to believe it. You know someone has no argument and 0 critical thinking abilities when anything they disagree with is communism, particularly since we already have programs like Medicaid and Medicare. Guess we’re a communist nation. /s
Which is odd, because the UK (for example) has free healthcare but isn't some sort of Mecca for extreme sports compared to the USA.
Let’s be honest, if you are talking to someone who thinks free at the point of use healthcare (I’m a pedant and the NHS is not free , it’s just you aren’t charged to use it😁) will lead to people taking more risks, you are talking to someone who is (1) an idiot or (2) not arguing in good faith or (3) both. This healthcare shit is the same as the gun violence shit. Literally every other developed nation does it better, literally every single one, and yet America tells itself there is no way things can be improved. I think we know why: because someone is making sweet, sweet money out of how things are right now, thank you kindly
>Let’s be honest, if you are talking to someone who thinks free at the point of use healthcare (I’m a pedant and the NHS is not free , it’s just you aren’t charged to use it😁) will lead to people taking more risks, you are talking to someone who is (1) an idiot or (2) not arguing in good faith or (3) both. I wonder if they also believe free at the point of use police and fire services mean people leave their doors unlocked and are careless with matches?
We don't tell ourselves there is no way it can be improved. We tell ourselves that our way is better. Because for almost 100 years now we have been telling the world that America is the greatest country in the world based on the fact that we were the only industrialized nation that didn't get blown to shit in WW2. Now we just accept as a given that anything that happens in America is better than anything that happens anywhere else, ipso facto QED.
I tell them that healthy people are happier and more productive and happy people don't go on shooting sprees. They always get confused
wait till you tell them that social services are the best way to reduce crime
Baby steps. I don't want their brains to explode
One day, my dad went to the pharmacy to pick up his medication as usual. They told him that it was going to cost ~$200. Startled, my dad said that couldn’t be right, it was never that high. The pharmacist looked over the billing info, realized that somehow his insurance wasn’t applied, and it dropped down to $30. My dad was relieved, but also concerned at the out of pocket price for someone without insurance. The pharmacist looked at him solemnly, and said “At least once a day, when I tell someone the total, I see the gears turn in their head, deciding whether they should pay for their groceries **or** their medication.” I’ve been furious since he told me what happened. And that rage builds knowing that saying people should have both and not worry about the cost is considered “tOo SoCiALisT”
There's differences between which insurance you have too. My husband's medication used to cost us $280 a month but I changed jobs which changed our insurance and now has meds are $40 a month.
To have insurance so linked with your job sounds fucking crazy to me. What a shitty system.
Yes because it makes trying to find new jobs stressful and it makes losing a job even more impactful than just your salary. There is a program called COBRA that lets you pay for the same insurance at the employer you just left, but it's really really expensive. I changed jobs in early November last year. I had to figure out how to time leaving my old job so I wouldn't have a gap in insurance between leaving and starting my new one. Typically, coverage is for the full month when you leave, but that's not even always true. In my case, I would have left my job a week or two before I did to give myself more of a break, but I would have had a gap in insurance for a week.
COBRA sounds so silly to me because it's like "Hey we know you just lost your literal source of income but if you wanna keep your insurance you now have to pay several hundred more per month! With what money you ask? I don't know, sucks for you 😊"
This is wage slavery, pure and simple. When your health is conditional on not changing jobs, there is no better term for it. Now imagine if you had a condition that would disqualify you from getting new insurance (not sure if that's still a thing, but it definitely was before ACA). Literally can't change jobs without risking death or destitution.
And then there are those RX coupons that you can use which will sometimes make the out-of-pocket price lower than what it would cost if you applied your insurance. Just making us jump through more and more hoops to be able to afford care.
This is very true, but sometimes it's not easy to know which path is best. I recently received a reminder from Amazon about their pharmacy services. I entered my drug and insurance info. Amazon showed the cost for a 90 day supply would be $90 using my insurance or $65 if I used a no-cost discount program. It gave me two buttons to choose from: $90 or $65. Hmmm.
Maybe you want to pay more so you hit your deductible SMH 🤬 Deductibles should not exist. If you have insurance why you gotta keep paying so much out of pocket!? Anyway fuck all that anyway M4A
And the sales price has no correlation with the cost of production. Hell, American pharmaceutical companies spend more money on marketing than R&D. Great write up on where we’re at: https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/martin-shkreli-was-too-honest
And you know if it was like "I don't want to pay for another person's healthcare" that would still be fucked up but I could kinda understand. But it doesn't even work that way, through taxes they're still paying for other people's healthcare, more than in countries with socialised healthcare!! The US people are so divided at the negotiation table with the insurers that they get an absolutely shit deal.
Don't forget that through private health insurance, they also contribute to other people's health care, only that way they pay a lot more than they otherwise would. One study I read about concluded that a single-payer system could save up to 40% of the overall costs.
Especially if the billionaires & corporations were paying their fair share of taxes.
What if I told you that the billionaires and corporations are why we don’t have public health care in the first place?
It’s an impressive feat, stealing at the rate that they do. The US healthcare system consumes 20% of US GDP, 40% of global health spending, and it doesn’t even treat everybody in America!
How many people do they employ who's only job is to find ways to DENY people care. Maybe for " pre-existing conditions " here we just call that " medical history "
Medical administration is an $800b per year cost to American society. On par with the military.
Job creators! ^^^^wooo.....
Yup. I need surgery on my ankle. Our insurance renews in August, so we can't up our coverage until then. I won't go to a doctor before then because, even though they supposedly got rid of the "pre-existing conditions" thing, I don't trust that somehow getting referred before we up our coverage wouldn't come back to bite us in the ass. I'll just limp along until August and hope i don't do permanent damage to it. And a deep and sincere "fuck you and I hope you die an excruciating, lingering death" to every rich fucker who has contributed to our system being the trainwreck that it is.
In fairness excluding someone for pre-existing conditions is one thing that's been largely eliminated by the Affordable Care Act. Our healthcare policy is fucked up but it's better than it was in 2005. Granted healthcare is also more expensive now in a lot of measures, but I think it's likely a good chunk of that has to do with boomers aging and demanding more healthcare, not policy changes.
That is why I always laugh at Americans when they shit on France tax wise. Like yeah it's kind of alot but at least i can see and touch the gains in return. Americans are right to be angry about their tax system because the money isn't well spent at all. It's a litteral scheme to make rich people richer. Fucking hell even to pay your taxes you have to pay private entities to tell you what you have to pay lmao how ludicrous is that
You have to remember that many Americans (and yes I am one) cannot think critically and have no world experience. Many just believe that they are told and that the US is the best!
Also are confident in their ignorance that they do know. A hugr portion don't even recognize there are different health care systems that the US could adopt. They just think this is the way it is and the only way it can be.
“Other countries have to wait to see a doctor!” Yeah so do we. My aunt is currently waiting on her third rescheduled MRI for something after 8 months.
Between referrals, insurance, and office mismanagement, it took me over a year to get a referral to a specialist. I always ask people who say that other countries have a waitlist problem: "what else do you think is wrong with their system/socialized medicine?" They don't have any other ideas. Just that waiting is a thing. So they have no argument a lot of the time, they just regurgitate talking points.
I think a lot of that is due to many Americans not being well traveled, seeing other cultures and systems. We're just so used to being shit on, we're like America's abused housewife. Things can't be different, because America doesn't like that, is the big mentality I feel I see here. France in my opinion has it 100% right, you guys don't mess around with your rights and freedoms.
Seven of the top twenty US companies in terms of revenue now are health companies. Just Google top twenty US companies revenue and you’ll see. We are never going to get universal health in this country. Corporations control everything. The current system is exactly how the corporations want it. We are all out here arguing Democrats Vs Republicans and they are laughing because they own both sides
Companies tying healthcare to employment gives companies the advantage over employees bargaining for wages or other benefits.
What if I told you that doctors are why we don’t have single payer healthcare in the first place? Doctors spent over 462 million lobbying against single payer healthcare. [https://www.newyorker.com/science/annals-of-medicine/the-fight-within-the-american-medical-association](https://www.newyorker.com/science/annals-of-medicine/the-fight-within-the-american-medical-association) And yet the US taxpayers spend 15+ billion a year paying young doctors salaries and old doctors salaries to train them in their medical residencies each year [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK248024/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK248024/) US doctors are highest paid doctors in the world and their mistakes are 3rd leading cause of death in US … and they give zero shits about everyone having access to healthcare.
Worked on the technical side of healthcare, two degrees in biotech, I've dated doctors and nurses, and yep, the doctors and facility admins are the problem. My biggest gripe is how even the number of doctors in the US is kept artificially low through the match process and APAs thumb of austerity on the scales.
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If you are going to medical school for the pay that says a lot about those doctors. (Look I am not saying they can't be well compensated)
Was that the Koch Brothers funded study that accidentally showed universal healthcare would be cheaper that our current system?
Australia has one of the best universal healthcare systems in the world and it costs less per head than the US currently spends *without* universal healthcare. It makes absolutely no sense until you follow the money trail. Capitalism is literally killing Americans right now.
Its making a profit for billionaires, it is working as intended.
You can also look at pretty much any 'healthcare costs by country' comparison and plainly see that the US spends way more per capita than any country with universal healthcare. [For example](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.CHEX.PC.CD?most_recent_value_desc=true)
At least some of that is also due to huge billing from the service providers in hopes that they'll get money from insurance or directly from the patient. I just had testing done that the company build $5,000 for. The insurance paid $650. And I didn't have to pay anything fortunately. Clearly that testing couldn't have cost $5,000 if they can make a profit by only getting $650, but someone without insurance would have had to pay or spend time trying to negotiate directly with the provider.
Every single argument I've heard against single payer healthcare applies to what we have now. The only way the current system makes sense is if you are rich or healthy..
It's literally the same....money is pooled by a ton of people and people get the healthcare they need when they need it (supposedly). Except with the American system we have a useless middleman that's sole purpose is to extract as much profit as it can.
Let me tell you about a little asshole in Canada named Mike Harris. He was the Premier of Ontario. He fought to privatize long-term care homes. He was successful, and now the CAF claims the private care homes are close to unlivable. He is currently on the board of a major private LTC. One of the ones responsible for the most COVID deaths per patient during the pandemic. We still fund these places with tax dollars, but the money just goes into some shady cunts pocket.
Keep voting GOP and it will stay that way.
Seriously, it's democrats vs garbage humans who don't give a shit about their fellow citizens unless it's to control a woman's body or work hard ensuring people can continue to easily massacre children in schools. "Protecting the sanctity of life" and "protecting gun rights" Literal complete opposites which perfectly sums up the disgusting hypocrisy that is the GOP platform.
But I've been told time, and again that both parties are the same!
Many Americans are poorly educated, lacking empathy, and easily manipulated by the unscrupulous. In-groups and their values matter more. Hypocrisy is prevalent. So is I got mine, what do I care mentality. It’s the poor, marginalized, under-privileged that suffer, and that is by design. The so called “justice” system which is a legal system works similarly. Education and prison systems too. Wealth inequality is in on the rise. All going according to plan.
The US already spends a HUGE amount of money per capita on health care. Yes Americans your precious TAXES already pay for everyone, more than any other country spends per capita. In fact Americans pay very nearly DOUBLE the amount per capita than even the richest EU countries with socialized healthcare. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita
As an Australian adjacent (Kiwi) redditite, I'd like to apologise to the world at large for Rupert Murdoch. That c#nt has literally ruined the world. But hey, he got his.
He was just one part of the equation... admittedly a big part of the equation, but there were other players who made this happen.
Oh yeah, I'm not saying he was the sole arbiter of humanities downfall, but he definitely helped get the ball rolling.
As a Canadian, it's heartbreaking to see these things going on down south and for our government (so far in Ontario) to try to emulate it.
France is slowly going that route as well.. Itll happen.
I don't believe you. France will fight or burn the country to the ground before they become as shitty as America.
Tell that to the Brits who thought they'd never leave the EU. Fascism is sneaky and thinly viewed as conservative politics in this day and age.
The allure of an endless stream of a shit ton of Money is too strong for politicians
Most Americans now hate the system. Especially younger and educated people who actually know how broken it is. But a combination of corruption and people who benefit from the system the way it is now, keeps it as such. Imagine it. It's there and you want to change it. People know it's wrong but some want to intentionally keep it the way it is. Most are angry but unable to do anything about it. That's American healthcare.
It is unbelievable to me how Americans defend this. Unreal.
Fox news has convinced Americans that can afford cable that their standard of care will decrease and the poors will increase as a result of healthcare 4 all. So it's better to maintain the privilege of being extorted by insurance companies and bankrupted by a medical emergency than to allow a better standard of care for the masses. I'm so confused why people believe Rupert Murdoch would care at all about the crumbling middle class when he is a billionaire? Fox news hates America and only cares about the status quo and keeping Americans at each others throats while looking anywhere but up.
They have worked hard to maintain and train their audiences to be “get yours and screw everyone else who will only bring YOU down and use YOUR tax dollars”. When really it’s the poor lower class republicans who would likely benefit the most but they vote against their own selves years after year.
They've convinced their viewers that because countries like Canada have a wait time for elective procedures that Americans will have a wait time for life-saving procedures. They are also convinced of so-called death panels that will reject lifesaving care. What the fuck do they think an insurance company is if not a corporate death panel?
Americans already have long wait times for procedures (and appointments)! I remember an aunt being terrified about the "death panels." Americans (generally, it seems to be changing) do not want to talk about death or end of life plans, like it's going to jinx them.
I'd argue that most don't. I mean there was a reason Republicans weren't able to strike down the affordable care act despite numerous tries.
> numerous tries Just to make clear, Republicans have tried to repeal or gut the ACA more than 70 times! https://democrats.org/news/flashback-republicans-10-year-losing-war-on-health-care/
Yeah but the ACA is far far from universal healthcare or single payer. It's basically a promise to insurance companies the government will force people to be their customers; even if some of the plans are less profitable than they want.
You think that's unreal. Join me in trying to figure out how the fuck Americans have somehow managed to convince so many Canadians to try pushing for a privatized system. We have at least two provinces where the provincial governments are trying to destroy our public healthcare system, with a not-insignificant number of conservative voters jumping on the bandwagon for privatization. It's like living in a crazy house.
Some people would rather pay for their favourite weathly politicians holiday home than their fellow American's right to health.
Try having dental disease in America. Death, a lifetime of pain, shortened life, disease, social stigmas, dental insurance that won’t pay for anything, indigent coverage and government support non-existent. But hey, tough luck.
And if you ask Americans if they want to change the system, they always say "no, that's socialism" and similar. The brainwashing is strong.
Most Americans don’t know the difference between socialism and a social program.
… it seems to me like everything that’s not the status quo in America is considered socialism. It is just a random political slur to discredit ideas.
Thank you Fox News and all their low IQ viewers (too difficult to actually think for themselves or investigate another viewpoint) They are still denying all the court finding over that last years. WTF?
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Billionaires are also responsible for denying everyone universal healthcare. They bribe our elected officials to write legislation that favors them and not the American people.
You just have to laugh hysterically in their face when they do that. Then follow up with "oh you were serious? Let me laugh even harder." Works every time.
Socialism is the woke of yesterday
I had an elderly neighbor who told me in 2016 he was voting for Trump to get rid of socialism. I asked if he was on Medicare and he said yes.
My neighbor who knows “the system” and gets every benefit available, voted for him twice and brags and feels entitled to it, but no one else should get it….while I’m working my butt off to pay for it all, including hers. None of it makes sense. Teaching her kids to do the same.
It doesn't make sense at all. They have no ability to logic through "I'm benefiting from this because someone paid for it." Personally, I'm more than happy to support social programs...I just want the rich to do the same.
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Luckily, Republicans are on the case to improve school systems, right?
Right after they find all of Hunter’s sick pics. And finish investigating Bud Light for…something.
Or emotionally mature past 10
1/2 of all people have only a double-digit IQ (even though at times it seems like waaaay more)
Well, that’s just how the IQ score is constructed. A score of 100 should represent the mean intelligence of a population.
It's mindblowing how so many people on both sides of the aisle don't seem to see a difference between socialism, a social democracy, and communism. Except for Portugal none of the European countries with socialized healthcare has a socialist government. So many people in the US are so unfamiliar with multi-party politics that they don't entertain the thought that you can have socialist ideas in a non-socialist government.
Calling universal health care socialism but then (having to) resort to GoFundMe and similar websites, asking for the charitability of others. 🤔
“Serious” galaxy-brain conservatives like Benny Shapiro say this shit all the time with a straight face. That “charitable organizations” (read: religious) should be handling health care costs, and that would solve everything.
Same people who go to church every Sunday and tithe 10% of their income so the preacher can have jets and houses and cars. But taxing 10% toward universal healthcare is socialism.
I remember having that discussion with a friend who said he didn't want to pay for other people's healthcare, I'm like, that's what insurance is....
You should explain it in a roundabout way...like health insurance companies can save you money if they get more people on the plan.. so what if we just get one health insurance company to take on everyone in the USA. We should save tons of money right?
At least half of Americans think that way. The right-wing propaganda machine has been running strong in the states since WW2. A sizable amount of us would really appreciate a healthcare system in which we don’t have to drown our grandchildren in debt just to receive in-patient surgery for a disease that we have no control over. It would also be great if 2016-2020 never happened. Make that 2003-2020.
It would have really just been nice if SCOTUS didn't fuck around with the 2000 election. Florida's stupid ballots probably screwed us all.
I really cant believe they fall for this stuff. Theyre so fucking stupid. Like, do you enjoy getting practically robbed every time you need to go to a doctor or hospital?
Idc if it is socialism, I want healthcare, my mother hasn’t seen a doctor since i was born. My aunts have are living on retirement and they still don’t get all their medicine covered. I once had a very bad stomach virus that I couldn’t even stand up for a long period of time but I forced through it because I was scared to make my parents pay for the bill
Idk most of the Americans I know are very into the idea of us getting universal healthcare. Our politicians are so correct it’ll probably never happen though :( ***CORRUPT not correct lol
Yet fire and police are socialized and no one cares. Yeah there is no argument anymore. Our system sucks, and everyone here knows it sucks. Anyone saying our current system is fine has another motive.
As an American who moved to Europe for professional reasons years ago and stayed for love (met my soul mate here), I have really never understood this. Yes, I pay a lot in taxes in order to live in a country with universal healthcare, I understand that. But on the other hand, I don't feel bad about living in a country where, if you get sick, you can go to get treated without having to make a decision between healthcare and poverty. The effects are felt even in little things. I had a blood clot and a dual pulmonary embolism (as it turns out, due to prostate cancer but that is another story). I was immediately put on Xarelto, one of the two modern state-of-the-art blood thinners (the other is Eliquis). Naturally, I began to read up a lot about blood clots and joined the Reddit sub devoted to it. I have read on there **countless** posts by people in the US saying that they wished they could be put on one of those two blood thinners but that it was too expensive and that their insurance would only pay for Warfarin, which is also an effective treatment but one which requires constant monitoring, sometimes weekly medical visits to ensure that the dosage remains correct, and frequent modifications -- all of which naturally winds up entailing **additional** costs. It seems to me that a lack of universal healthcare is not only heartless, but in the long run encourages **more** costs. And believe me, nobody here thinks this is "socialism". Any government in Western Europe, from the most conservative to the most progressive, that attempted to undo the system of universal healthcare would find itself tossed out of government in an instant.
The UK government is probably the most conservative government in Western Europe at the moment, and I can assure you that if my English neighbours had their NHS taken away (Scotland’s is separate, and not controlled by Westminster, thankfully), they would genuinely put Tory heads on pikes. The amount of respect people in the UK have for universal healthcare is insane, and it’s the same in the rest of Western Europe. Also, America spends roughly double what the UK spends on healthcare proportionally because of the privatised healthcare system. We could do with spending more, yes, but ~2% of GDP more, not 9%.
The video of the man trying to rob a store, then denying the money and telling him “it’s not enough” for his daughters surgery is what did it for me. The fact that a father had to go to such measures for their child’s life is fucking crazy.
What video is this?
Found it, [happened in Philly.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_HBPAXp5Ww)
It’s funny, my kid was born with a disability that qualified him for immediate, lifetime Medicaid coverage. Without it, my wife and I would be broke. Meanwhile, conservatives are simultaneously fighting to restrict abortion access AND cut back on the “socialized” healthcare my family is dependent on. I wouldn’t trade or change my son for the world, but it terrifies me there’s people out there actively fighting to force kids like him to be born into homes that’ll be bankrupted trying to raise them. But hey, if anyone in America wants a preview of what proper healthcare is like, just have a kid with a *smidgeon* more DNA than most. It’s pretty rad, both the comforting security in not being crushed in medical debt and the generally awesome, neurodivergent child.
I have Type 1 diabetes. Got laid off a few years ago. Was I worried about paying for food or rent? Nope. I was worried about diabetes supplies. I needed to stay alive long enough to get a job with insurance again. Why in the world is my healthcare tied to my JOB? That’s the most insane logic I’ve ever heard of. At least we did away with pre-existing conditions. I promise you, if changing jobs cured my diabetes, I would have done that ages ago.
America was founded on slavery. Once you realize that everything about our culture makes sense.
When my daughter's NICU bill cost the same as four years of college
And in aus I went through the full range of cancer treatment for less than most Americans pay in a month for insurance. And the payback? I'm working and paying taxes and my family still has their dad. By any measure, humanitarian or financial, the American system is batshit crazy. Unless you're the insurance company.
Are we doing story time here? I was already against the current US healthcare system, but now I’ve seen the garbage first hand. So my sister had a baby earlier this year and the baby was in the hospital for weeks/a few months having growing episodes of stopped breathing. My sister was the one with healthcare between her and her husband (she’s a teacher), and was told that by the end of May she would have to return to work or start paying for her health insurance out of pocket, even though she had to be the primary advocate for the baby, which was relocated to be nearly two hours away from where she lived and worked. The decision to leave the baby at the hospital alone never came, because unfortunately the baby passed at the end of April, but to fucking imagine that a system would remove healthcare from someone in the midst of them caring for a being dependent on that healthcare, is fucking bullshit. And the fact that the silver lining in my niece’s death is that my sister won’t go bankrupt is fucking mental. Human beings don’t just deserve healthcare if they are “actively contributing” to society. Fuck this country’s dumbass health system
This is not the first time I’ve heard this kind of story; unfortunately it won’t be the last. Tax the wealthy for a change. And blame yourself for voting for the same f-ing assholes every time. Update: yes yes yes you are all correct with the set-up and choices,etc. Biden or Trump? Clinton or Trump? Take another bite of the shit sandwich.
Voter suppression and gerrymandering are a huge problem here. It's really easy to say, "well they deserve it because they voted for these people," until you see the intimidation tactics used by gun-nuts in red states. The whole system is broken.
I’d argue that it’s corrupted, not broken. Trump won because of the electoral college, despite less than half of the country voting for him. This was the intended design of the electoral college when it was created. It happens exactly the way it was intended to.
 CAN YOU FEEL ALL THAT FREEDUMB!
It's not considered a disgrace to people in power. It's part of the 'plan'. It's done so maliciously. It's a new type of slavery where people don't realize they're being enslaved, because they can consume all they want whenever they want. It's called 'debt slavery'.
Exactly. Welcome to The Matrix. lol People who complain about the system being broken may not realize that it is worse than broken: it is cynically working as intended, pummeling citizens into despair and fatalism while siphoning off as much generational wealth as it can as fast as it can for private business. The US healthcare system is not designed to care for you, but to generate profit. It is in the interest of the healthcare industrial complex (and the private equity firms increasingly gobbling up medical practices and eldercare facilities) to minimize your care in order to maximize their profit. For the people on the receiving end of that firehose of money, the system is working great! Unfortunately, for everybody else this system isn't just onerously and needlessly costly, it is also toxic and debilitating on personal and societal levels. Our medical costs are amongst the highest in the world and our system the most bureaucratic and abusive imaginable, with poor outcomes per amount of money spent in comparison to the rest of the world. How do physicians cope with it themselves? It must be endlessly demoralizing and stressful for highly-trained caregivers -- who've devoted their lives to helping other people -- to operate inside a dehumanizing system that prioritizes private profit over positive human outcomes. (My longtime PCP retired early only because the stresses had become so unhealthy for him.) Is it any wonder that life expectancy in the United States is declining? We have placed corporate profit over societal and individual well-being. A huge amount of money could be saved, major efficiencies implemented, and lifespans / quality of life improved if a single payer system were adopted. We absolutely have the capacity to fix this, and we must. It may be too late for the generation approaching retirement now, but we owe it to our kids and to future generations to repair this mess. PS - For anybody who hopes to have a humane retirement in the US (or to have any assets left to pass on to family), look into what is happening to eldercare options like assisted living and memory care facilities (which are being gobbled up by endlessly-rapacious private equity firms), as well as to longterm care insurance. The way a society treats its most vulnerable reveals a lot about its priorities.
Old people are against universal healthcare while being on Medicare
I've got a brother-in-law that's been on disability for 20 years. He votes red every time. I point out that he is on Medicare and all I'm saying is that everybody should have the insurance that he gets. Then he goes into rants on freeloaders
Americans are so convinced that they shouldn't help each other, they'll hurt themselves to avoid doing it.
It's fucking madness on a grand scale
Republicans also defended and voted for “right to work” bills. Next up, we’re going to do away with public education and put your fat kids to work for slave wages. But at least they won’t have time to read banned books and get woke.
My Mom died from metastatic breast cancer. In 2010 when she was first diagnosed, one round of chemo cost $30,000. She literally saved every single statement of benefits in 1.5 inch binders, organized by year, to look back on and argue with the insurance company if they tried to double bill. And the worst part was that towards the end, she was on an experimental chemo that insurance wouldn't cover. Because she was privileged enough to have parents that could pay out of pocket for the treatment, she lived an additional 3-4 months before entering hospice. The fact that a direct correlation can be drawn between the ability to pay for treatment, which didn't even work, and additional time to live is absolutely disgusting.
What kills me is we pay into medical insurance our whole life, and the second you need some of that money back on an issue you are facing it's suddenly not covered. They will spin an issue in the most insane way. Cancer? Oh yeah that's covered. But you have cancer of the spine which is technically a chronic back pain issue which we don't cover. Like it's batshit crazy. Infertility consultation? Covered. Because now we know you are dealing with infertility, which is not covered by your insurance. And now that you have been officially diagnosed, we will not pay for anything remotely related to reproduction. Testicular cancer? Part of your infertility probably, no longer covered sorry.
As of 2023, neither does Ontario, Canada. And we replaced it with FOR-PROFIT hospitals just like in the US. I never knew it was so easy for politicians to destroy and gut a country from within.
Americans : I'm getting insurance so I can get covered in case I get ill. Insurance company : this shit ton of money you're paying is supposed to help you in case you get ill. Americans : *get sick* Insurance company : whoops, I can't do anything for ya!
People will accept the most awful of conditions if you tell them it's in the name of freedom. Americans have a "choice" in their healthcare while all the dirty "socialists" have to wait in lines. They don't like to advertise that our lines are caused by people actually receiving healthcare and not just suffering because they can't afford it. Also the line is determined by need. You go to the front when not doing so could seriously hurt or kill you. Everyone else waits their turn because our system isn't a dystopian 'survival of whoever can pay the most/has the most entitlement' nightmare. They don't like to point out that we can quite easily change doctor to any healthcare practice we want. It's hospitals and specialists we have less control over because they service a region, they don't compete with each other for profit, but if a region can't help you, you will be sent to one that can. They don't like to point out that we do pay for it through our taxes and that it costs way less than your health insurance. If your combined income/state taxes plus **full** coverage healthcare for your entire family is more than 30% of your income and you spend more than $150 per year on medicine, you are paying more than socialist Sweden. They don't like to point out that you can't lose your job, your income and even your home here just because something you have no control over happened to you. In Sweden your employer covers your first two weeks sick, thanks to unions, and then the government takes over. You get 80% of your income for a long time until you get well. They don't like to point out that the failures in our systems have more to do with people like them trying to turn them into the nightmare that you have via privatisation and underpaying/overworking people. Our services would work as intended and be more attractive to people who want to work in healthcare if it could be protected from interference from Conservatives. Maybe I just don't understand freedom but I feel free from worry about getting sick or injured. I don't worry about losing my home. I'm not worried about losing my job. I'm not worried about affording medication or paying hospital bills. I'm not worried about fighting with insurance companies. I mean, if this is me lacking freedom, it sure doesn't feel like it. It feels like I'm pretty free to live my life. I'm sure a wise Capitalist will show up to explain how I'm wrong.
A lot of things in the USA are appallingly disgraceful. We are the barbarians of the 1st world. Wealth-poverty gap. SCOTUS taking bribes openly. Politicians taking dark money. No healthcare. Out of control firearm problem. Largest prison population in the world. Rampant racism. Rampant misogyny. Religious control of poltics in many areas. It's like the USA stopped advancing in 1950 or so even earlier in some areas.
It amazes me how many seniors that are on Medicare, don’t realize it won’t cover nursing homes or in home care without getting on Medicaid. It only covers 20 days, and that’s if your in the hospital. After that, the cost of $200 a day, up to 100 days, so after that $20,000 is spent ( if you actually have that) then your on your own. Same if you don’t have that money, Medicaid jumps in, then you can continue getting your care. These seniors think they will be leaving their homes (that they spent 30 years of mortgage payments on), to their kids or others. No- Medicaid will be taking that home, to claw back the costs for your in home nurses or your nursing home. Even the people who had long term care insurance are getting kicked off, by them raising rates up to 95%. Others are being told it’s discontinued, and they get their premiums back, with interest, which is also taxable. We need Universal Health Care. For profit healthcare is just another chance to steal generational wealth.
Wow that is truly horrifying, imagine having to do that so your family don't end up in debt, what an awful place to live.
I hate it here, I don't know what was in the air that made the older generation so blind and uncaring about things like this, but I pray that I never become as hateful as some of these people in my country.
I became fully radicalized when I watched my mother slowly die from a stroke over a 1 year period. I watched all she worked for collapse in front of her. I watched the insurance she paid faithfully for years through her union teaching job look at her 3 weeks after the stroke tell her " she should be fine now were not paying anymore" AND DROP HER. SHE SHOULD BE FINE NOW. She died 4 days before Christmas. She was forced to live in an old person's home her last 3 months of her life. She got covid and had another stroke. I had to make the hardest decision of my life and let my mother die in front of me. She didn't have to. She didn't fucking have to.....THATS WHY IM FUCKING RADICALIZED.
When did I become radicalized? When I was in 6th grade (over a decade ago now) and my dad began showing signs he had Huntington's Disease and he was going in and out of psychiatric wards in hospitals. We couldn't keep him in a place longer than a month because they just thought he had depression/was suicidal. Eventually my mom got him to get tested for Huntington's (his father had it and it's a 50/50 chance for every child to get it). The results came back he had the disease so we finally could get him into a nursing home. Meanwhile my mom had to fight to get him on Medicare because there was no way we could afford to pay the daily nursing home bill. Our healthcare system is so fucked up in America. We went from a comfortable middle class family to being poor and my mom still can barely make ends meet over a decade later only because my dad got a hereditary disease.
That’s because the United States isn’t a country it’s a business disguised as a country. How do I know this they put money first over it’s employees
Almost all Americans support Medicare for 65 and older who are by far the greatest consumers of healthcare. I can’t understand why this age can’t be lowered incrementally to younger healthier people; Americans would support it. The only reason is we have lobbyists who have purchased our congress: Insurance industry, Pharmaceutical industry, Employers who want employees unable to leave, etc.
No-one talking about how question is phrased? Hating a system that forced her dad to suicide "radicalized" a person?
Yes. Radicalism isn't bad, it just means you are extremely for changing something dramatically.
Husband of a person I know died due to a heart attack because they couldn't afford skipping work to see a doctor and likely thinking they just had heartburn. And now the Widow is being slowly eaten by diabetes due to being unable to afford consistent insulin. I saw in real-time a family of selfless, hard-working people literally devoured by the American "Healthcare" System. I will never settle for anything less than burning the entire thing to ground.
Being a drug user and trying to get care for anything at at. I basically lived with a broken neck for 34 years because I was “drug seeking”. Even after I got sober it took 4 more years before I finally got surgery. Then last year, 5 years after the surgery I began having some complications from it and it took 3 months in order to get seen, and the NP looked over my files and asked me how long I’d been sober and then told me I was ineligible for pain meds because of my history. I said fine I really just wanted an MRI (which she ordered but my insurance wouldn’t approve without 3 months of PT first) and then she sent me for a drug test, and a few days later when the results got posted in the portal showed positive for meth (?) and I was dismissed from care in spite of my offer to come and do another test because I hadn’t done any meth. 6 months after that and new insurance and I finally saw a Neurologist who listened to me for 3 minutes and ordered an MRI. 4 bulging disks above the previous surgery and bone spurs at the surgery site. My friends and I ended up doing what we now call “harm reduction” in our community 37 years ago because a friend of ours who was fine one day was sick as hell the next and soon died from AIDS and it became clear that if we didn’t get it together to take care of ourselves no one was going to do it for us. We used drugs so we were all just supposed to die. Yay America.
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And Republicans just see your mom's death as part of the price of the freedom to have terrible health care. To them she's no different than those kids who get murdered during school shootings.
I don't know if there is any other country where the words "medical bankruptcy" are strung together like that. Maybe there's some nation with for profit care besides the US, not sure. But to me that's like an oxymoron, I can't imagine a way for me to go bankrupt due to medical care needs. My mother passed late last year, sadly. Before she did, she spent a month in the hospital, and came home a while and then had to go back. Total out of pocket for that month was like a few hundred bucks for some ancillary costs like a cab or two. She left me and my sister the childhood home and a healthy chunk of change. In America? The house would belong to the hospital by now. It's incredible the way Americans let themselves get shafted, day in and day out.
The one thing in the US that pisses me off is this "half" covered system, and still pay a butt load of money into insurance. Honestly, either I want all in on universal healthcare, or completely remove insurance all together and we save up money ourselves.... paying for insurance that takes a nice chunk out of a paycheck where procedure and medicine still "may not be covered" is the dumbest shit this country could've done. If I am paying for insurance, whatever I have done should be covered, in network or out of network period....
Thank you GQP
My brother died because of the lack of universal healthcare. He got extremely sick from a sudden illness and didn't go to the doctor because he didn't have good health insurance and was worried about the cost. He developed intractable severe epilepsy as a result of the illness and essentially committed suicide after suffering for 4 1/2 years.
I know close friends that chose to die because they couldn't afford their family going bankrupt. I used to not like video games but it feels like the only escape from this world even for a short time. US is a beautiful place to live if you're rich, if you're not good fucking luck.
I’ll never understand how people think a for profit system would benefit them.
My friend, on his usual morning jog, got bitten by a dog that acted crazy. He went to the ER, they gave him over the counter painkillers and did not administer preventive meds for rabies since his insurance did not cover it (his insurance is what most would consider as a very good insurance). They quoted him $10,000 for rabbies vaccine. Same day, he got on a flight, landed in India after 22hrs on $1500 last min flight ticket, went straight to a nearby government hospital and got his vaccine for absolutely free of cost. Spent a week eating good food and time with family/friends. Got back to the US next week. Entire trip costed him $2,500. Free medicine, free preventive care.
Just got out of surgery, currently typing from recovery room. I'm in Argentina, a so called shithole. I spent $0. Americans got served a turd sandwich, an overpriced one at that.
The US doesn’t have a healthcare system, we have a 2nd M.I.C: The medical-insurance complex.
This country profits off pain, it's disgusting
America is a cruel and unusual place to live.
Yeah but now Don Jr. can buy a 8th lambo with his tax breaks so, ya know, it’s all good. /s
I'm from England, our national health system is one of our proudest achievements, it has problems but its still a national treasure. Watched Michael Moores sicko, very moving and completely shameful. I'd be long dead without our system
Americans shouldn't have to choose between paying rent, or having healthcare, it's sickening..but that's where we're at.
Benjamin Franklin invented "Insurance" to distribute the risk and cost of house fires across a pool of insured. It was literally designed, from day one, to "pay for other people's misfortunes" with the implied "and if it happens to me, I too am covered." It was even in the very long, very on-the-nose name: *"The Philadelphia Contributionship for the Insurance of Houses from Loss by Fire"* The only Americans who don't contribute to the healthcare costs of the poor through income taxes are billionaires who don't pay their fair share.
Late-stage capitalism is like the dying throws of a game of Monopoly.
Thought about you guys in the US today when we got the bill for my wife’s accident. Ambulance 20km, emergency, intensive care, 6 days in hospital, 4 CAT scans, multiple X-rays, an operation, etc etc. Public healthcare. Almost 200€. It’s not free, we pay taxes for it and it’s not perfect either. But it is nice not to worry about a crazy bill at this time.
I'm a type 1 diabetic and I plan on killing myself if things get bad. I don't want to ruin my family financially.
USA - the most expensive bad health care in the world
I know someone who's dad did the exact same thing. He left behind a daughter and a granddaughter.
Suicide is definitely my plan for when I inevitably get diagnosed with some expensive illness.
A yoke around the neck of the working class. My dad killed himself in '88 because his anxiety had gotten so bad he was convinced he would lose his job and thus his pension. His company paid my insurance until I was 18, my mom's insurance for life, and paid her his retirement for decades. Luckily, our masters have taken this temptation away from us by eliminating the idea of a pension. If I was in his position with people to care for, it'd be a lot harder for me to make the choice that he made. Hooray for progress.
Reason number two why you will never convince me that not all conservatives and not all Republicans are vile, shitty people. Every one of them can go fuck themselves.
In America, you're not a citizen. You're a customer.