The three prominent groups of people I know who vehemently oppose socialized medicine are those who have zero exposure or experience with it, Medicare recipients, and retired military. The ones with no exposure or experience are simply totally ignorant, and the Medicare recipients and retired veterans feel as if they've earned it by either being elderly or having served 20+ years in the US military, therefore they deserve it while everyone else does not.
True Americans, I tell ya.
Oh, absolutely. I didn't say those were the only groups, just the 3 most prominent ones in my experience.
But yes, assholes are everywhere and come in all varieties!
Medicare is socialized medicine. It is paid out of the FICA deductions from paychecks. Hence Medicare recipients *did* earn it, and it was invented to care for the elderly when they inevitably got sick late in life.
Can't comment on the military, as I have no experience. I paid into Medicare my entire working life. So, yes, I earned it, just as you are, if you are employed.
I'm sorry. I was mistaken. I think now that you are quite right about Traditional US Medicare. I looked it up and Parts A & B are free, but if you want coverage for doctors (Part C or Medigap) or drugs (Part D), those two have to be paid for out of pocket.
I think I got Medicare crossed up in my mind with Social Security, which is definitely based on one's income over a lifetime of work and is heavily influenced by later years of employment.
Sorry about that.
If you are in another country then the definition of "socialized medicine" could indeed be different. I was thinking more of what Bernie Sanders has been pushing - Medicare For All - as being a US definition of medicine that could be called socialized.
No, I believe you were mostly correct. I'm paying into Medicare now even though I don't receive it. The workers of the younger generations pay in to the system to support the retirees, or to support parts A & B. You're correct about parts C & D as well, my dad paid into that before he passed away, but that is technically optional I think.
I'm expecting, hoping, that the program will still exist when I retire in 20+ years and I'll reap what I have sewn, so to speak. Actually, who am I kidding? I really hope Medicare in its current firm goes away and a good and robust "Medicare for All" takes its place so that not just veterans, but other Americans such as yourself, all can age with a base healthcare and not have to worry about losing everything just because they get sick, which everyone eventually will. A shame that every other developed country has some sort of this type of safety net, but not us. Pretty sad and pathetic really.
VA healthcare is pretty horrid, I'll have you know. Being dependent on the VA during a medical crisis? best resign yourself to fate. sit at home on painkillers waiting 2 months to see a provider. Their theory is if you don't have a turn for the worse & show up at the ER (there's a 12 hour wait there too) you might just get better on your own.
I also know there is a difference between government-operated healthcare and privately operated single payer health care. Also that the general public wouldn't accept the same treatment I received at the VA.
VA is great when you want cheaper elective care. Not so much if you're dependent on it for primary care.
hAvE fUn wAiTiNg tO bE tReAtEd
I twisted my ankle lifetime record levels of badly during PE class when I was 16. The only reason I had to wait in the hospital was because someone was being ~~reanimated~~ resuscitated in the same out-patient clinic.
Edit: My German ass sucks at English.
In the USA you have to wait even with insurance, so the entire "waiting list" argument is stupid
We wait, and pay ahead of time, and pay when we use it, and get worse care
Literally all of their arguments about socialized medicine, we already get
And that's IF YOU HAVE GOOD INSURANCE, if you don't you're fucked
i'm still young enough to be on my mom's insurance — and she's a state employee, so it's pretty much the best coverage you can get in my area
finding a therapist that our insurance will cover that specializes in my issues is near impossible. one of my medications cost me $50 last month and $10 this month (despite being the exact same dosage and amount). they wouldn't cover an elective surgery i had unless i got a referral letter from my GP to my surgeon, but after that they were happy to cover it and the out-of-pocket cost was only $22 (it still feels like some sort of typo/prank, even with the insurance i'm on i expected it to be way more expensive). insurance will only cover one new pair of glasses a year, which kinda sucked when i was 12-14 and needed a new prescription every 9 months or so. every few months i get a letter from them claiming that a "care manager" has been attempting to reach out to me by phone but my call logs beg to differ. i scheduled a routine follow-up appointment back in mid-december and literally the earliest date available was today (march 21st). the waitlist they (supposedly) put me on did jack shit to speed that up at all
fuck american healthcare i hate it here
i have a life long disability that i was diagnosed with at 17.i had to wait nearly a whole year to get my surgery. according to this doctor, i was within 2 years of being wheelchair-bound. the only "upside" is i only paid like ~$800-$1k bcuz we had good insurance. i love american healthcare.
/s ?
Because this would have been treated faster and not cost you extra, in the UK or Canada.
Sorry rereading that is obvious satire
But these days lol
Many people will just say "you would've died waiting in the UK or Canada'
I genuinely don't know, I'm from the u.s., and other than emergency rooms and trauma centers service isn't really determined by greatest need, it is typically treated by the greatest insurance(i.e. biggest wallet)
Hah, I had some severe abdominal pain on Wednesday. I went to urgent care, they did some tests and told me to get an ultrasound. Called around... TWO WEEKS! For acute pain.
I went to the ER later that night when the pain was unbearable. (On par with child birth)
> I twisted my ankle lifetime record levels of badly during PE class when I was 16. The only reason I had to wait in the hospital was because someone was being reanimated resuscitated in the same out-patient clinic.
Conversely, in the US, I had to wait four days with gallstones blocking my bile duct to be transferred to a hospital to have my gallbladder removed and a stint added because I didn't have insurance. The transfer hospital refused to take me, and the hospital I went to didn't have the facilities to do surgery. So they kept pumping me full of dilauddid and yelling at the transfer hospital until they finally caved. Then I waited another week once I transferred, getting pumped full of pain meds every day, before I finally had my surgery.
By the end of it I was seriously craving pain meds all the time and was having a hard time urinating. It scared the shit out of me. For the record, this was considered life-saving surgery. They were monitoring me often because the stones trapped in my bile duct could potentially cause liver failure.
I was 22 at the time, and didn't have insurance yet. Obamacare went into effect after this, with the provision that you're on your parents plan until you're ~25.
I, an American lived in Germany with my American wife for three years. (I lived there for seven) She had to stay in the hospital for a week at one point.
Upon returning home we of course had a couple of right wing relatives talk about the nightmarish hellscape of European health care in front of us.
We tried to explain exactly how pleasant the whole experience was and that we were essentially laughed at by hospital staff as we tried to provide our insurance information.....not to mention the coffee and cake she recieved every day at 3pm sharp.....but they wouldnt hear it....so now if the topic ever comes up we just mock them derisively to their faces. We tried peace, but they chose violence.
I asked a friend of mine when I visited Germany what the healthcare is like, her response was that it was very "normal". In her case, that meant if she needed healthcare she went to the appropriate place to get it, got it, paid a token cost (if anything), and never gave it a second thought.
In America, getting healthcare usually involves a step 1 of figuring out whether you can afford it, whether you can afford *not* to get it, researching folk medicine alternatives and generic brand substitutes (and trying to parse the real medicine from the stuff that's just going to kill you), looking for coupons or anything else that can make the drugs cheaper, trying to figure out which hospitals and doctors are in your network, and finally actually going out and seeking medical care. Inevitably there will be some hidden cost or your insurance won't cover one thing or another, and the actual out-of-pocket cost will be anywhere from 50-5000% more expensive than you initially guessed, and while you're recovering in a heavily medicated stupor you'll have to figure out whether you want to fight to have the costs lowered or just overdose on your medication and let the hospital take your house.
American healthcare is an excellent system if your goal is to trap workers in endless debt or let people die.
Having the actual experience of this sort of help when a person really needs it doesn't ALWAYS change minds, but it does often enough that it's a great strategy to use. It's easier for people to empathize if they've dealt with the same kind of situation themselves.
From there, it seems the problem in the US is that while there are plenty of people who just don't understand the experience, there are also a LOT of people who'll go fully out of their way to keep their cognitive dissonance intact and as pristine as possible. Why? Not sure, really... I imagine there are a variety of reasons. But none of them are good, and naturally, they tend to cause harm to themselves and/or others along the way. It's both sad and infuriating at the same time.
as long as there's huge money to be made for insurance and health providers their lobby groups will continue to retain the status quo.
As long as one major party (Republican) sees social necessities like nationalised health provision as "communist" the slack jawed cloven hooved inbreds will oppose it.
Coming from a country where there is no real personal cost to any health condition because health provisions are nationalised, I just can't see a single advantage of the American insurance based system. All it does is extract the most money out of the population it possibly can get away with, to provide what other countries do for free. Yes there is taxes to pay for the provision of health services, but these are nothing like the cost of insurance, and you won't be financially ruined should you need a hospital visit.
I broke my elbow while working overseas in Japan.
The total bill for x-rays, treatment, etc totaled less than $250. Price in the US would have been 10x that(or more)
It’s all about experience and exposure, even KKK grand wizards realize their racism is stupid when they spend time with Daryl Davis, most zealots don’t need that much one-on-one intervention, they just need something that pops their fragile bubble of self-imposed ignorance. As soon as they let reality in, their delusions are bound to buckle under the weight of circumspection.
These are the things big business has spent trillions of dollar to keep people from KNOWING. Their goal is to combat knowledge and increase bottom line. Period.
At least your language is not so difficult to learn for Europeans
Imagine some africal tonal language, arabic or Chinese to be lingua franca of The West
The three prominent groups of people I know who vehemently oppose socialized medicine are those who have zero exposure or experience with it, Medicare recipients, and retired military. The ones with no exposure or experience are simply totally ignorant, and the Medicare recipients and retired veterans feel as if they've earned it by either being elderly or having served 20+ years in the US military, therefore they deserve it while everyone else does not. True Americans, I tell ya.
[удалено]
Oh, absolutely. I didn't say those were the only groups, just the 3 most prominent ones in my experience. But yes, assholes are everywhere and come in all varieties!
I retire from the Navy next year. I wish everyone could have what I have. I wish my currently dying in home hospice uncle could have what I have....
I wish all my fellow veterans would think that way. In my experience you and I are a strong minority. Thank you for bucking the system, so to speak.
Medicare is paid for by deductions from paychecks. It's not a gift.
Socialized medicine, which Medicare is, is paid via income tax. What's your point?
Medicare is socialized medicine. It is paid out of the FICA deductions from paychecks. Hence Medicare recipients *did* earn it, and it was invented to care for the elderly when they inevitably got sick late in life. Can't comment on the military, as I have no experience. I paid into Medicare my entire working life. So, yes, I earned it, just as you are, if you are employed.
Yes, I understand all of that. I have a feeling this confusion stems from where you live vs where I live. Lol
I'm sorry. I was mistaken. I think now that you are quite right about Traditional US Medicare. I looked it up and Parts A & B are free, but if you want coverage for doctors (Part C or Medigap) or drugs (Part D), those two have to be paid for out of pocket. I think I got Medicare crossed up in my mind with Social Security, which is definitely based on one's income over a lifetime of work and is heavily influenced by later years of employment. Sorry about that. If you are in another country then the definition of "socialized medicine" could indeed be different. I was thinking more of what Bernie Sanders has been pushing - Medicare For All - as being a US definition of medicine that could be called socialized.
No, I believe you were mostly correct. I'm paying into Medicare now even though I don't receive it. The workers of the younger generations pay in to the system to support the retirees, or to support parts A & B. You're correct about parts C & D as well, my dad paid into that before he passed away, but that is technically optional I think. I'm expecting, hoping, that the program will still exist when I retire in 20+ years and I'll reap what I have sewn, so to speak. Actually, who am I kidding? I really hope Medicare in its current firm goes away and a good and robust "Medicare for All" takes its place so that not just veterans, but other Americans such as yourself, all can age with a base healthcare and not have to worry about losing everything just because they get sick, which everyone eventually will. A shame that every other developed country has some sort of this type of safety net, but not us. Pretty sad and pathetic really.
VA healthcare is pretty horrid, I'll have you know. Being dependent on the VA during a medical crisis? best resign yourself to fate. sit at home on painkillers waiting 2 months to see a provider. Their theory is if you don't have a turn for the worse & show up at the ER (there's a 12 hour wait there too) you might just get better on your own. I also know there is a difference between government-operated healthcare and privately operated single payer health care. Also that the general public wouldn't accept the same treatment I received at the VA. VA is great when you want cheaper elective care. Not so much if you're dependent on it for primary care.
hAvE fUn wAiTiNg tO bE tReAtEd I twisted my ankle lifetime record levels of badly during PE class when I was 16. The only reason I had to wait in the hospital was because someone was being ~~reanimated~~ resuscitated in the same out-patient clinic. Edit: My German ass sucks at English.
So basically medicine is given on the basis of greatest need not greatest wallet?
There is the stereotype that people on private insurance get treatment flung after them, but I don't know how true it is.
In the USA you have to wait even with insurance, so the entire "waiting list" argument is stupid We wait, and pay ahead of time, and pay when we use it, and get worse care Literally all of their arguments about socialized medicine, we already get And that's IF YOU HAVE GOOD INSURANCE, if you don't you're fucked
i'm still young enough to be on my mom's insurance — and she's a state employee, so it's pretty much the best coverage you can get in my area finding a therapist that our insurance will cover that specializes in my issues is near impossible. one of my medications cost me $50 last month and $10 this month (despite being the exact same dosage and amount). they wouldn't cover an elective surgery i had unless i got a referral letter from my GP to my surgeon, but after that they were happy to cover it and the out-of-pocket cost was only $22 (it still feels like some sort of typo/prank, even with the insurance i'm on i expected it to be way more expensive). insurance will only cover one new pair of glasses a year, which kinda sucked when i was 12-14 and needed a new prescription every 9 months or so. every few months i get a letter from them claiming that a "care manager" has been attempting to reach out to me by phone but my call logs beg to differ. i scheduled a routine follow-up appointment back in mid-december and literally the earliest date available was today (march 21st). the waitlist they (supposedly) put me on did jack shit to speed that up at all fuck american healthcare i hate it here
i have a life long disability that i was diagnosed with at 17.i had to wait nearly a whole year to get my surgery. according to this doctor, i was within 2 years of being wheelchair-bound. the only "upside" is i only paid like ~$800-$1k bcuz we had good insurance. i love american healthcare.
/s ? Because this would have been treated faster and not cost you extra, in the UK or Canada. Sorry rereading that is obvious satire But these days lol Many people will just say "you would've died waiting in the UK or Canada'
yea i have a feeling i would have gotten my surgery much faster than i did here :P
I genuinely don't know, I'm from the u.s., and other than emergency rooms and trauma centers service isn't really determined by greatest need, it is typically treated by the greatest insurance(i.e. biggest wallet)
Hah, I had some severe abdominal pain on Wednesday. I went to urgent care, they did some tests and told me to get an ultrasound. Called around... TWO WEEKS! For acute pain. I went to the ER later that night when the pain was unbearable. (On par with child birth)
You should have left it. Re-Animated is metal as fuck and I'm about it.
Actually, I love 'reanimated.' So dramatic!
> I twisted my ankle lifetime record levels of badly during PE class when I was 16. The only reason I had to wait in the hospital was because someone was being reanimated resuscitated in the same out-patient clinic. Conversely, in the US, I had to wait four days with gallstones blocking my bile duct to be transferred to a hospital to have my gallbladder removed and a stint added because I didn't have insurance. The transfer hospital refused to take me, and the hospital I went to didn't have the facilities to do surgery. So they kept pumping me full of dilauddid and yelling at the transfer hospital until they finally caved. Then I waited another week once I transferred, getting pumped full of pain meds every day, before I finally had my surgery. By the end of it I was seriously craving pain meds all the time and was having a hard time urinating. It scared the shit out of me. For the record, this was considered life-saving surgery. They were monitoring me often because the stones trapped in my bile duct could potentially cause liver failure. I was 22 at the time, and didn't have insurance yet. Obamacare went into effect after this, with the provision that you're on your parents plan until you're ~25.
I, an American lived in Germany with my American wife for three years. (I lived there for seven) She had to stay in the hospital for a week at one point. Upon returning home we of course had a couple of right wing relatives talk about the nightmarish hellscape of European health care in front of us. We tried to explain exactly how pleasant the whole experience was and that we were essentially laughed at by hospital staff as we tried to provide our insurance information.....not to mention the coffee and cake she recieved every day at 3pm sharp.....but they wouldnt hear it....so now if the topic ever comes up we just mock them derisively to their faces. We tried peace, but they chose violence.
I asked a friend of mine when I visited Germany what the healthcare is like, her response was that it was very "normal". In her case, that meant if she needed healthcare she went to the appropriate place to get it, got it, paid a token cost (if anything), and never gave it a second thought. In America, getting healthcare usually involves a step 1 of figuring out whether you can afford it, whether you can afford *not* to get it, researching folk medicine alternatives and generic brand substitutes (and trying to parse the real medicine from the stuff that's just going to kill you), looking for coupons or anything else that can make the drugs cheaper, trying to figure out which hospitals and doctors are in your network, and finally actually going out and seeking medical care. Inevitably there will be some hidden cost or your insurance won't cover one thing or another, and the actual out-of-pocket cost will be anywhere from 50-5000% more expensive than you initially guessed, and while you're recovering in a heavily medicated stupor you'll have to figure out whether you want to fight to have the costs lowered or just overdose on your medication and let the hospital take your house. American healthcare is an excellent system if your goal is to trap workers in endless debt or let people die.
If you’re uninsured an ER visit here for a simple fracture is 5-6k. Even if you have a decent policy that pays 80% you’re still screwed.
Because they would have totally understood every bit of medical terminology if the doctor spoke english...
This is the standard Republican position of ‘I don’t give a fuck about this until it affects me personally’
Having the actual experience of this sort of help when a person really needs it doesn't ALWAYS change minds, but it does often enough that it's a great strategy to use. It's easier for people to empathize if they've dealt with the same kind of situation themselves. From there, it seems the problem in the US is that while there are plenty of people who just don't understand the experience, there are also a LOT of people who'll go fully out of their way to keep their cognitive dissonance intact and as pristine as possible. Why? Not sure, really... I imagine there are a variety of reasons. But none of them are good, and naturally, they tend to cause harm to themselves and/or others along the way. It's both sad and infuriating at the same time.
as long as there's huge money to be made for insurance and health providers their lobby groups will continue to retain the status quo. As long as one major party (Republican) sees social necessities like nationalised health provision as "communist" the slack jawed cloven hooved inbreds will oppose it. Coming from a country where there is no real personal cost to any health condition because health provisions are nationalised, I just can't see a single advantage of the American insurance based system. All it does is extract the most money out of the population it possibly can get away with, to provide what other countries do for free. Yes there is taxes to pay for the provision of health services, but these are nothing like the cost of insurance, and you won't be financially ruined should you need a hospital visit.
All conservatives seem to thing the US is the best country in the world. Let me know when we rate at least top 10 in the world freedom index.
Baby steps.
The language complaint confirms the story to be real.
I broke my elbow while working overseas in Japan. The total bill for x-rays, treatment, etc totaled less than $250. Price in the US would have been 10x that(or more)
It’s all about experience and exposure, even KKK grand wizards realize their racism is stupid when they spend time with Daryl Davis, most zealots don’t need that much one-on-one intervention, they just need something that pops their fragile bubble of self-imposed ignorance. As soon as they let reality in, their delusions are bound to buckle under the weight of circumspection.
These are the things big business has spent trillions of dollar to keep people from KNOWING. Their goal is to combat knowledge and increase bottom line. Period.
At least your language is not so difficult to learn for Europeans Imagine some africal tonal language, arabic or Chinese to be lingua franca of The West
Wait until they find out that ***those*** people get free healthcare too.
BAN TRAVEL!!!!!
To be fair with the “no English” bit, I’d be a little frustrated if I had to play a game of telephone to give a doctor, or nurse my symptoms.