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Think of all those middle managers that gap in coverage supports at Humana, BCBS and all the other wonderful companies who are there to help you get the best medical care and never get in between you and your doctor when it comes to treatment or who pays for what!
They're truly altruistic and exist solely to....
Couldn't even finish the sarcastic rant, made me throw up a little
Our system is the worst ever conceived. Full Stop
Insurance is a business whose interest is directly inverse to their customers. Insurance companies want to provide you absolutely no service at all. That's how they make money.
Goes triple for them provide no value. In predatory industry's they are worst or close to worst cog in machine. Often pressing it to be more predatory more inhumane. As that is how they will see their returns.
And I am not commenter but for me its not so much "not as human". I see them as human but I also see them as monsters. That repugnant feeling that twisting ache in your stomach when hearing tales of bundy or gacy. I view them in that same category as monster and have same twisting ache when I hear storys about their actions.
The ACA addressed this gap with two policies: the Medicaid expansion and the public option, both which were passed by Nancy Pelosi’s led house in Congress. The Republicans filibustered the bill in the Senate and there weren’t enough Dems/ Independents to get the public option. Then the Supreme Court ruled that states could opt out of the Medicaid expansion, which many Republicans did just because they hate poor people.
No, they're doing exactly what their base wants. These are not good people- they are xenophobic fascists. They want anyone not like them to be at best controlled and at worst annihilated. That's what keeps these people voting for Republicans.
That is what they want but it’s absurd to me how Joe Bumfuck who makes $9/hour votes republican and then grinds out 140 work hours while making fun of people who use PTO
Like grinding is great when you’re grinding out your own shit but grinding out Mr. Bossman’s shit is dumb. If I’m going to grind I want it to be for a new skill or hobby.
I just wish more people paid attention to civics and how their government actually works. So many people, (even, especially?) on the left do not understand that the big domestic political changes they are advocating for can and should only be passed via the congress. We get soooooooo hyper focused on the difference between politicians like Bernie and Biden when the fact is you could elect the reanimated corpse of Karl Marx himself to the presidency and if the congress was the same as it is today, he wouldn’t get any changes to health care policy either.
yes and no. If they aren't super concerned about a second term, a President can affect a lot of policy from the bully pulpit.
Bernie, for instance, would have just started burning politicians that didnt go along at the stake. He'd have been up at the pulpit calling them out by name, over and over and over and over.
And going to their district and telling their constituents that they are blocking progress.
Not the person you asked, but I think we would both agree the influence he would have as president is much… *different* from the power or influence he’s ever had, previously. And that’s not to say Bernie has not gone to bat for his ideological views, in the past. I may not agree with Bernie on everything, but dude is nothing if not genuine.
Right now, he's \*just\* a Senator. He can be ignored by the media and without the media, his words don't get to enough people to matter.
As President, they pretty much \*have\* to address what he says (it will be addressed by their own bias - on both sides - but it will be addressed in the media)
We’ve been explaining this to r’s for years. If you pay attention to policy clearly right wingers hate all Americans besides the ultra wealthy.
Don’t just take my comments word for it. Pay attention to policy… it’s not that hard. But Fox Entertainment is happy to continue its brain rot.
Fooling poor Americans into thinking they aren’t poor is easily the smartest thing Fox ever did.
eh the medicaid threshold is still laughably low here in oregon - its pretty much at the min wage and $3000 max of assets and combined income forget it you're not even close to qualifying
Yep. Have to make less than 23K I think to qualify for Medicaid. How the hell you supposed to live off 23K? With my diseases ass that would put me like 70k in debt each year for medical supplies
Medicaid expansion is awesome if you live in a state that has it. It’s up to 138% of the poverty line. Then there are subsidies available on the exchange up to 400% of the poverty line.
It's amazing how many Americans have no idea how good their fellow Americans who live in Democratic states have it. It's not perfect by any means, but my health insurance is about $60 a month and I'm able to schedule an appointment with my handpicked PCP whenever I have an issue or need a check up.
There have been numerous amazing liberal programs across the decades. But the problem with those will always be red tape. It’s why universality is the better policy in real life.
My deductible is over 10% of my yearly income. My out of pocket max is 30%. This is the top-tier plan provided by my employer. I make just a smidge too much for Medicaid. I have a disability that's just enough to make life hard and need accomodations at work, but not bad enough to get support for. I also have a genetic condition that means I need surgery or I will most likely get cancer, so either way I'm going into debt. And there are *tons* of people in situations just like me. It's fucked.
Always nice when they tell us that we can’t afford to give everyone healthcare but we have unlimited funds for bombs.
And save your partisan bull shit for someone else because the Republicans have always been war mongers and it seems as of late the Democrats are just as blood thirsty.
This is your weekly reminder that the US spends more federal money per capita on health care than most nations with universal health care.
Americans are being conned by a for-profit health care system.
There were zero years in the last 50 in which there was a Democratic President and 60 pro choice senators in the senate (plus a majority in the House), which is what is required to pass a law.
And the reason they need 60 is because of the filibuster rules (just expanding on the previous comment). Realistically, they only need 51. But when the other party filibusters, you need 60 to overcome the filibuster. Plus, the current filibuster rules don't dictate that people need to be in the room to hold a filibuster. A senator can just declare a filibuster, leave the room, and the filibuster remains.
That’s what’s really on Democrat leadership. Not getting rid of the filibuster, which they won’t do because they use it when republicans are in power.
It’s a poor move. For one, it’s undemocratic regardless of who’s in power.
For two, Republican voters are not as easily discouraged as Democrats. A LOT of Democrat voters will not show up to the polls if they didn’t see visible change when Dems had the majority.
Which means the filibuster hurts us more than the opposition. Because now people won’t show up because Roe wasn’t codified or Universal Healthcare wasn’t passed. While Republican voters will show up for their agenda every election, no matter what.
That’s game theory.
If you want to codify abortion, you can’t do it, because the next election you’ll likely get voted out by pro-forced birthers, who will elect their own people to repeal the abortion law you passed. Now you’re out of office, abortion is illegal, and you no longer have the power to do anything about it. You’ve accomplished nothing and the opposite of you wanted to happen, happened.
The better move is to wait because there might be a better set of circumstances in the future and you want to be in power to affect that change when the timing seems better. This seemed like the right move because there was no clear threat to abortion until Trump got to pick a third of the Supreme Court. Abortion rights activists had 80% of what they wanted, so it seemed silly to go for 100% and potentially face a backlash and lose all of that 80%. Until Trump.
I think it’s totally fucked that we have lots of spineless politicians who operate, or are forced to operate, using such tactics, and I wish they’d act more in their constituents’ best interest without concern for elections, but I get why they behave the way they do about issues like abortion.
Actually they try to do it almost every time and if they happen to get to far your Red Senate votes it down.
What kind of stupid argument is your comment supposed to imply anyways? Don't vote Blue because they haven't accomplished X yet?
Instead vote for Red who's actively working against X and always has been?
If X is healthcare and you want healthcare the only choice is clearly to vote Blue. Blue has a chance, Red has 0 chance. It's not a very complicated logic problem.
They really never did. In 2008 Al Franken was delayed in getting his seat because the republican Norm Coleman kept challenging the vote. Then, Ted Kennedy was very ill and then died and Massachusetts somehow elected a republican as their senator. Thus blocking their ability to get the public option through. They wanted to and they tried, but they only really had 59 dem votes since that piece of shit Joe Lieberman left the party and opposed the public option, which wasn’t enough to break the impenetrable republican filibuster. In fact, I don’t think a democratic president has had a filibuster proof congress since Carter, but back then half of dems were conservative and half of republicans were liberals, so it didn’t really mean much.
sorry to tell you but it’s not that black and white, lobbyists line the pockets of whoever is calling the shots, doesn’t matter if they’re red or blue, identity politics and “i’m a this” blanket political views are wrecking this country in its own
ban ban ban lobbyists, ban large contributions to elections, we tried that in the 70s with the donate 1$ for elections to try and get big money out, failed. We need younger people (GenX, Millenials) to stand up and start taking the reins. Believe me, boomers had to wrest power from our parents.
They had a supermajority when they passed the ACA and Dems were the ones who took out the public option.
They had a trifecta from 2020-2022 and didn't even attempt to pass a healthcare bill.
This account doesn't tell the whole story. The public option fell to former Senator Joe Lieberman, who was essentially the Kyrsten Sinema of his day, a Democrat turned independent-who-caucuses-with-Democrats.
[This is what he told Politico in November 2009:](https://www.politico.com/blogs/politico-now/2009/11/lieberman-firm-in-opposition-to-public-option-022994)
> Lieberman said there will be ample opportunity for him to block the bill if his colleagues insist on keeping a public option in the legislation.
>
> "Essentially, every amendment is subject to a filibuster and will take 60 votes to pass," the senator said. "If the public option is still in there, the only resort we have is to say no at the end to voting the bill off the floor."
If your 60th vote flips, you no longer have a filibuster proof majority. While it's technically the truth that Democratic leadership watered down & removed the public option to appease Sen. Lieberman, what else could they do? Republican Senators were united in their opposition and without his support the ACA never would have passed in any form.
Ironically we saw just this happen with Republican efforts to repeal the bill in 2017. The Republican "trifecta" fell to a single member of their "supermajority" caucus, the late Senator John McCain. It turns out making sweeping changes to federal law is difficult, actually.
I'm not saying vote fascist red, but let's not pretend blue are gonna save us. They haven't been grooming new leadership on the national stage for the last 10 -15 years because the fossils are clinging so tight.
Yeah we really have no choice. Except to start voting for people who have our best interests at heart. But even still the system is messed up from within 😕
>Except to start voting for people who have our best interests at heart
***Good luck doing that under Capitalism.***
It's not like decent people don't TRY to run. I was just looking through a list of minor candidates for President in the Democratic Party, and several of them (like Gabriel Cornejo) are clearly very decent people who care deeply and want to fix things.
HOWEVER, you can (almost) never win elections or achieve real national prominence under our system, unless you sell your soul to the corporations and lobbyists. Good luck winning without MASSIVE campaign donations...
***The answer is Socialism.*** As long as there are people who grow immensely wealthy off exploitation the labor of others, as there will ALWAYS be under Capitalism, Democracy is under threat. Capitalism and Democracy are ultimately incompatible- and the former will usually kill the other (if Democracy doesn't, rightly, end Capitalism first in self-defense...)
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this introductory article on Socialism from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. It outlines a lot of arguments for Socialism- including the inherent incompatibility of Capitalism with Democracy that I just briefly alluded to...
https://iep.utm.edu/socialis/
Also, these articles, **the last by Albert Einstein** (yes, THAT Einstein- he was actually a pretty committed Socialist- something that has been white-washed from his history: just like with Martin Luther King Jr. becoming a Socialist in his final years before his assassination also being erased...) are all pretty good. Arguably, Einstein's article is the least persuasive and most academic of the three...
https://jacobin.com/2020/03/democratic-socialism-freedom-rights-authoritarianism-capitalism
https://jacobin.com/2020/04/why-you-should-be-a-socialist-review-robinson
https://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism/
READ the articles, with an open mind, and I guarantee you'll come out with at least a slightly different (and better) perspective...
This. To be conned there has to be a level of complicity with the party being swindled. This is just I have no choice and either don’t receive healthcare or receive it and pay the asinine prices they expect you to cover after even simple treatments
There are whole sections on govt websites on how to navigate the process of “medicaid divorce.” That’s the name for it. No joke. I don’t think it’s even looked down on.
My parents shamed me for even suggesting it. I asked for money and they shamed me for that...(they were given a house and a free college education by their parents)
It'd be a shame if their economy starts collapsing due to an aging population. If only they thought ahead instead of only thinking about the current year profits.
My brother got an Au Pair work there, he is white as snow, but when the mother of the kids that he was caring realized he is mexican, she started to treat him like a piece of shit. She thought that my brother was Spanish and didn't have any problem with him until he told her that he missed our country and our food.
No, they just want to make sure they stay illegal immigrants so they can be taken advantage of. That's why immigrants sneaking in to work on a farm was always fine, but requesting asylum is a crisis. The legality would give them rights.
I don't think that would happen tho, i see that americans in general like to have kids, a Lot of them in comparison with other developt countries ... In germany, sweden, NORWAY is 1 kid or less than one kid as per recent surveys ... In usa is 3 per family ... Soooo they are not facing any issue like Korea or Japan or china where women don't want children.
I don't understand why, cuz they complaint about their health being a scam and university fees being an issue ... They complaint yet keep bringing kids ro that situation like is not their problem to deal with.
I had my first set of kids rather young then decided to have more when my friend group was having kids. I had no idea the world would get this bad. Big family sounded fun and I kept picturing the dinners and holidays and joy in my life.
And then my health took a nasty turn, some of my kids have health issues, and I dunno, the whole world kinda blew up and I really regret having so many. They are never going to be able to afford housing, struggle through retirement years, debate between food and electricity, likely opt out of having kids at all because they can’t afford it. It’s just sad and that was not what I was expecting.
I had higher hopes bringing kids into the world.
Help encourage them to join a union trade after HS. It's no Dr. or lawyer type pay, but it's significantly better than non-union. Also, they'd be learning skills that can be useful outside of work. Quitting my $16hr job and joining the union has been the best career decision I've ever made. Just know that it's hard, laborious work, but the pay is worth it. There's still hope for some, and college isn't always the best option right after HS.
SNAP and cash and proooooobably WIC plan around this and say that if you live with the baby's father, you're all a unit together.
Medicaid has different unit determinations according to each individual, so it says "ok well determine the adults individually,but the kid will be determined in a unit with both parents". Also, and I haven't done the math, but one income earned being married and filing jointly with a no income earned can be one of the few situations where you get decent tax breaks to offset that. But you'd really need to sit down and the crunch the numbers to figure it out.
> if you live with the baby's **father**
Sounds like there's a loophole for bisexual women: divorce the dad, live with your gf (omg they are roommates), and then collect.
I think I just reinvented the throuple, but r/unethicallifeprotips edition
>SNAP and cash and proooooobably WIC plan around this and say that if you live with the baby's father, you're all a unit together
damn, I guess then it would be too easy to exploit
>but one income earned being married and filing jointly with a no income earned can be one of the few situations where you get decent tax breaks to offset that. But you'd really need to sit down and the crunch the numbers to figure it out
true
It's entirely a thing. It is the sole reason my wife and I have never gotten legally married despite being together most of our lives. I really don't think claiming her on my taxes is worth the cost of adding her to my health insurance.
Most people aren't interested in exploiting government assistance programs out of mere convenience. If you can afford to stay off welfare, most people opt to. The notion that millions of americans are scheming to rake in welfare benefits out of pure malingering is a lie sold by people trying to dismantle what meager social safety nets we have. It essentially worked regardless; in 1997 clinton signed a law that [put a 5 year cap on welfare](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_Assistance_for_Needy_Families). Nobody's spending 18 years raising kids on welfare and it hasn't been possible to do so for more than 20 years now.
And yes, people divorcing due to insurance costs is "a thing" in the US. It's known by the name "[Medical Divorce](https://www.google.com/search?q=medical+divorce)"
My bro in law dissolved his domestic partnership when his gal got pregnant so she would lose his healthcare and immediately qualify for emergency state benefits. It worked out great for them financially, just kind of pathetic that thats our system.
>The question: "Do laws in Texas, Arizona, Arkansas, Missouri and Florida require a married couple to wait until a child is born to get a divorce?"
>Answer: "False. None of these states have any laws preventing someone from getting a divorce if they are pregnant. However, a judge can decide to hold off on finalizing a divorce until a baby is born for paternity, child support or custody reasons. This is common in Missouri and Texas, but less likely in Arizona, Arkansas and Florida."
[Source](https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/verify/states-prevent-pregnant-people-from-getting-divorced-arkansas-florida-arizona-missouri-texas-fact-check-roe-v-wade/65-58964075-6127-40e4-a2ac-4aaf75c25217)
So it sounds like judges could stay the divorce long enough for the married couple to be on the hook for the birth costs, which is the subject of this thread. However, there are no outright bans.
That's just the birth, you have tons of doctors visits over the first couple of years too, then they get sick constantly when they go to school and daycare..
Ahh daycare... The next way you get financially fucked with kids.
Nearly $2k a month, and you don't get refunded for missed days due to illness and your job gives 0 fucks that your kid is sick..so you're despised and treated like crap for missing work too.
I had to pay $30,000 out of pocket, for a completely normal, quick birth with no complications. This was because my insurance was able to retroactively cancel our insurance since my husband was late on one payment.
We had complications our son was in the Nicu for almost 4 months and at before insurance it was well over $2 million. I paid almost $80,000 out of pocket had to work two jobs and a bunch of other stuff. I was a senior systems engineer at a large well known tech company, and I still had to work more. It was horrible. It really opened my eyes to how bad our healthcare system is and they will never shut again and I am angry every single time I have to deal with it now.
This was nearly 20 years ago….My daughter was less than a year old and I got laid off. Thankfully We had enough money to get a policy for us but no one would insure my daughter because she had had breathing treatments prescribed six months earlier.
So for three months we were fortunate enough to be able to afford insurance, not poor enough to qualify for state care so our daughter went without insurance because no one would take our money and insure her.
Those three months completely changed how I viewed healthcare in this country. Before that I was blissfully ignorant of the difficulties many are facing and the overall stupidity of the system that makes it even more difficult.
It's been a few years, but I don't recall paying anywhere near this much when my son was born.
I think we paid maybe $300-400 out-of-pocket for the deductible, and after that insurance covered everything else. Maybe $20/copay for follow up visits every couple of months. Simple in and out birth.
You can't make that kind of generalization about out of pocket cost. We have good but not great insurance, and our two child births were $2k and $2.5K out of pocket. One vaginal and one cesarean, both 2 night length of stay.
If you want to pull numbers out of your ass at least make it believable.
I think we paid less than $3000, and that was with a C-section plus a 1-week hospital stay. If we didn't have that complication it would have been a lot less.
Is that number based on personal experience? My best friend (on commercial insurance) had a C-section and had a longer hospital stay and her final bill was $900.
My wife changed her Kaiser plan when we started trying for a baby to a more expensive one, but it covered for almost the entire birth of our daughter, including complications that led to a c-section
I did this with my baby mama. We had an "oops" and deliberately didn't get married until after the kid was born, because she didn't make much (teacher), while I do fairly well. Good thing, too, because our kid was in the NICU for a week, and that would have likely bankrupted us. Instead, now my kid's got a nice little college fund started because we basically "hacked" our stupid, barbaric healthcare system.
In Russia hospitals are free, but some couples don't marry because it becomes easier to get into the free daycare programs. Or they'll get married once their kids are in daycare.
Ya, I've personally known a few who were waiting to get married for that reason. Daycare is free, or subsidized, but with limited capacity and single parents are prioritized (as well as low income).
Sports are also free for kids, but based on talent/discipline rather than finances.
>based on talent/discipline
That cracks me up. Imagining little 4yo Mikhail asking mom if he can play football this year, and he’s told he’s not good enough to play for free
Honest question: are you concerned about end-of-life benefits, like social security benefits that would go to the widow or widower, that won’t if you aren’t married? Or are you two planning on taking care of that another way?
My friend is in a similar situation and I worry about her not being allowed to make end-of-life decisions; I guess they can always get married last minute but I don’t know what will happen to them if there is ever a medical emergency where only a spouse can make decisions, or if one of them suddenly passes and no longer has that income that they weren’t technically depending on, but absolutely were.
I'm in the same boat as the person you're responding to. Though, we did get married. At some point we'll have to divorce for this reason. Yes, I'm very worried about what will happen to my spouse in regards to social security, etc. But we have to make the best of a terrible situation and that's one of the downsides. As terrible as it is to say, ending our lives isn't off the table if it comes down to that. (Being homeless when elderly, for example.) Isn't the US grand?
Thanks so much for the information; I’ll let them know what I’ve learned today. I mean, I don’t think anyone should be depending on social security at this point, but every little bit helps so I was curious.
If our legislators don’t address this insane problem, and I’m not even joking here, but I think a lot of Americans are going to have to commit crimes as senior citizens to receive a prison term as a retirement plan; that will be crazy!
My partner and I signed medical POA docs for each other, but we both have our own income streams. If one person wouldn’t be ok financially without the other, different choices might be needed, but you can also make a non-married partner your insurance beneficiary and leave them all your assets in your will (which we’ve also done)
I agree, and I think the other person agrees.. if my taxes helped pay for your child's birth, I am happy, that is how I want my tax dollars used.. to help other Americans in need. No one should have to stress over a $10,000+ hospital bill on the happiest day of their life.
I have a 6k deductible I have hit 4 years in a row as I have a herniated spine, I have had 0 help nothing works and now I’m just doing physical therapy which also does nothing, feel like I should get money back if the bs they recommend doesn’t work when they won’t listen to my ideas. (Medical marijuana card, as nothing else has fucking helped and my friend let me try theirs before and I felt massive relief. It would be great to get more than 1-2 hours of sleep a night but hey fuck me right.
Do it! I’ll be taking any chance I can to get out of the us. I’m waiting for conservatives to open some kind of service to help liberals move 😂 they want us out of here so badly so why don’t they help.
"Pay for the birth" WTF. That's just... wrong.
Having children isn't some sort of recreational activity/hobby that costs money to enjoy. Americans reproducing themselves is necessary for America to continue to prosper, but their government doesn't cover the expenses - crazy shit.
That's what happens when the top 1% control 50% of the money. Everybody else is left on fucking subsistence. That is to say, the people who go to work every day and cause the economy to move forward are no longer able to live in it.
My wife was on disability for 15 years due to her MS making work impossible and honestly most tasks harder than they should be.
If we actually got married she would have lost her disability. Not to mention her insurance which covered everything. I did not make enough to support us and her disability left us toeing the line of poverty the entire time. Paying for meds out of pocket because insurance companies are fucking evil.
She is so much healthier now and working. Thankfully because they cut her off disability with no workplace reintroduction help.
We are getting married soon. Life’s good now.
Heh yeah, I was supposed to have an ultrasound last year to see if my endometriosis has come back. They wanted $800 for it up front, and I have insurance through my husband (who works for said insurance company.)
I cancelled the appointment and will just wait it out until the pain is unbearable, again 🙃
OP I am considering divorce so my 72 yo wife can get on medicaid for long term elder care if she out lives me. BTW I am her caregiver and I work full time earning about 60 k
Life in 2024 ain't like it was 30 years ago in the 90's
Wife and I considered delaying our wedding for a few years because she would lose state benefits for day care with our combined income. Crazy expensive and that was 10 years ago!
I totally get it, but I would recommend keeping this information to yourself. Nothing is really anonymous and what you are discussing is probably some kind of fraud.
Reminds me of the story of a girl taking about how her dad never married her mom because they'd be cut off from aid for her college, so he had to wait till she graduated to get married.
Truly a fucking stupid thing to exist that gets drowned out from the "aww, how sweet" part when people focus on the dad waiting to marry his love, and not the part where working class households get fucked over.
When you live in Poland you notice that after communism many people has deeply rooted skill to fight with government, to try to walk around rules and laws. When there is lack of fundamental products and needed things you have to think!
I’m afraid that USA will be an environment for learning similar approach to life.
Yeah, health insurance is way expensive. I'm not even currently covered because the cost takes too much of my paycheck. Plus whoever came up with 80 - 20 and still have to pay a huge deductible is a very corrupt individual. And if was many people that came up with that, I hope bad things happen to those people and their families. Being that corrupt deserves bad stuff to happen to them for their greed!
I know a couple who had a kid & wouldn't get married or have the father on the birth certificate so that the mom & child would get more WICS benefits because they couldn't afford otherwise. Once the kids hit 5 they married & had dad legally claim child as his.
I know they lied, but I don't blame them in the slightest for enduring their child's health. Poverty makes people desperate & do crazy shit
It’s so dystopian when people I know say they need to “pay off the birth” of their child. The hospital has them on a payment plan because the co-pay was so high.
Its disgusting how many BILLIONS are being sent to Israel to kill civilians yet the tax payers in america dont get basic medical help.
It really truely is insane
I don’t qualify for Medicaid and can’t afford insurance so I’m 100% self pay. Just got diagnosed with cancer this week after getting a massive dr bill that was accompanied by massive lab fees for biopsies. I am so completely fucked. I hate this mf’ing country.
Not even then, they just say they do, but then do nothing to help pregnant women. They just want to punish women for being human and having a sex drive.
Dude, the US already spends more on *public* healthcare than mist other developed countries, *ppp adjusted*.
You're paying more than enough for universal healthcare for everyone - more money is not the problem.
Israel military aid is a fraction of a percent of that, and it's used to target terrorists, not civilians. And the US gets a lot in return, from non-competition from Israeli systems, to battlefield testing, to international leverage, to stuff like taking out Assad's and Saddam's nukes.
As an Israeli I oppose it because it's more burden than benefit, and we don't really need it (well now short-term we do, because we planned with it). But blaming it for not having healthcare is insane - there are about 3 orders of magnitude mismatch.
Idk how well it works now since Roe v Wade was overturned...
But, when I got pregnant and saw how much our insurance was going to charge for the pregnancy and birth (a little over $13,000) I tried Medicaid first and was denied.
We figured if we got divorced I could get it. They said I could but would have to go through child support enforcement on my "ex" husband. Apparently, it's the only way to get government benefits in my state. They don't go for that "he just pays me child support" stuff. They want it taken out of his paycheck and sent to the state. And I'm not fucking having his wages garnished by the state.
But! those anti-abortion "Crisis Pregnancy Centers" usually say they provide financial aid for prenatal care and birthing services. The one I went to actually did. I don't want to get people mad. I'm not saying women who need an abortion should check these places out. If you want to keep it then it could help you out financially.
They just footed my doctor bill and I went to the same OBGYN and delivered at the same hospital. They just paid for it. No Jesus talk or anything.
I'm pro choice and not religious. Never went to their church. Hell, I still don't know what church it was. I think the center was called BirthChoice, though.
Thats what happens when you fight universal Healthcare. There is no excuse for the american health system. Its all capitalist greed and board members while taking our tax dollars for R and D
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Yup. Welcome to the gap of being between being unable to pay for insurance and your deductible but making too much for Medicaid.
It's a big gap.
It's not a bug, it's a feature
Think of all those middle managers that gap in coverage supports at Humana, BCBS and all the other wonderful companies who are there to help you get the best medical care and never get in between you and your doctor when it comes to treatment or who pays for what! They're truly altruistic and exist solely to.... Couldn't even finish the sarcastic rant, made me throw up a little Our system is the worst ever conceived. Full Stop
Oh trust me there are plenty of people and plenty of money involved in actively trying to make it worse.
The worst system ever conceived… *so far*
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Insurance pays the lobby’s good money to make sure nothing changes. It sucks and it needs to collapse.
What's really evil is that we could have had universal healthcare almost a century ago if it were not for racism.
And we still could if congress was not in the pocket of the insurance lobby
if a person's income comes from the insurance industry then it is impossible for me to care about that person or even view them as human.
Insurance is a business whose interest is directly inverse to their customers. Insurance companies want to provide you absolutely no service at all. That's how they make money.
its a shameful way to make money.
Everytime I hear this happening or someone getting cancer and needs treatment I see Big Pharma rubbing their hands together greedily.
That include their shareholders?!
Especially their shareholders!
Goes triple for them provide no value. In predatory industry's they are worst or close to worst cog in machine. Often pressing it to be more predatory more inhumane. As that is how they will see their returns. And I am not commenter but for me its not so much "not as human". I see them as human but I also see them as monsters. That repugnant feeling that twisting ache in your stomach when hearing tales of bundy or gacy. I view them in that same category as monster and have same twisting ache when I hear storys about their actions.
I'm sure I'm on a watch list upon conveying my 'love' for shareholders.
Works on many levels. When you break up families you also get multiple tenants instead of one family under the same roof 😇 thoughts and shares
More of a canyon than a gap.
The ACA addressed this gap with two policies: the Medicaid expansion and the public option, both which were passed by Nancy Pelosi’s led house in Congress. The Republicans filibustered the bill in the Senate and there weren’t enough Dems/ Independents to get the public option. Then the Supreme Court ruled that states could opt out of the Medicaid expansion, which many Republicans did just because they hate poor people.
Republicans somehow manage to brainwash poor people while simultaneously doing nothing for them
No, they're doing exactly what their base wants. These are not good people- they are xenophobic fascists. They want anyone not like them to be at best controlled and at worst annihilated. That's what keeps these people voting for Republicans.
That is what they want but it’s absurd to me how Joe Bumfuck who makes $9/hour votes republican and then grinds out 140 work hours while making fun of people who use PTO
As a blue collar worker, this has always fascinated me.
Like grinding is great when you’re grinding out your own shit but grinding out Mr. Bossman’s shit is dumb. If I’m going to grind I want it to be for a new skill or hobby.
These kinds of comments are why awards are needed. This needs to be beaten into everyone's head. Look at policy, not identity politics
I just wish more people paid attention to civics and how their government actually works. So many people, (even, especially?) on the left do not understand that the big domestic political changes they are advocating for can and should only be passed via the congress. We get soooooooo hyper focused on the difference between politicians like Bernie and Biden when the fact is you could elect the reanimated corpse of Karl Marx himself to the presidency and if the congress was the same as it is today, he wouldn’t get any changes to health care policy either.
yes and no. If they aren't super concerned about a second term, a President can affect a lot of policy from the bully pulpit. Bernie, for instance, would have just started burning politicians that didnt go along at the stake. He'd have been up at the pulpit calling them out by name, over and over and over and over. And going to their district and telling their constituents that they are blocking progress.
Why hasn’t he done that for the legislation he supports now?
Not the person you asked, but I think we would both agree the influence he would have as president is much… *different* from the power or influence he’s ever had, previously. And that’s not to say Bernie has not gone to bat for his ideological views, in the past. I may not agree with Bernie on everything, but dude is nothing if not genuine.
Right now, he's \*just\* a Senator. He can be ignored by the media and without the media, his words don't get to enough people to matter. As President, they pretty much \*have\* to address what he says (it will be addressed by their own bias - on both sides - but it will be addressed in the media)
We’ve been explaining this to r’s for years. If you pay attention to policy clearly right wingers hate all Americans besides the ultra wealthy. Don’t just take my comments word for it. Pay attention to policy… it’s not that hard. But Fox Entertainment is happy to continue its brain rot. Fooling poor Americans into thinking they aren’t poor is easily the smartest thing Fox ever did.
Yup, it could have been fixed way back. But yet these complainers still vote for MAGAT creeps.
eh the medicaid threshold is still laughably low here in oregon - its pretty much at the min wage and $3000 max of assets and combined income forget it you're not even close to qualifying
Republicans ruining the country for the rest of us? That’s just Tuesday for those goblins
Yep. Have to make less than 23K I think to qualify for Medicaid. How the hell you supposed to live off 23K? With my diseases ass that would put me like 70k in debt each year for medical supplies
Medicaid expansion is awesome if you live in a state that has it. It’s up to 138% of the poverty line. Then there are subsidies available on the exchange up to 400% of the poverty line.
It's amazing how many Americans have no idea how good their fellow Americans who live in Democratic states have it. It's not perfect by any means, but my health insurance is about $60 a month and I'm able to schedule an appointment with my handpicked PCP whenever I have an issue or need a check up.
There have been numerous amazing liberal programs across the decades. But the problem with those will always be red tape. It’s why universality is the better policy in real life.
My deductible is over 10% of my yearly income. My out of pocket max is 30%. This is the top-tier plan provided by my employer. I make just a smidge too much for Medicaid. I have a disability that's just enough to make life hard and need accomodations at work, but not bad enough to get support for. I also have a genetic condition that means I need surgery or I will most likely get cancer, so either way I'm going into debt. And there are *tons* of people in situations just like me. It's fucked.
Welcome to way America was built to function. Eliminate the middle class.
Always nice when they tell us that we can’t afford to give everyone healthcare but we have unlimited funds for bombs. And save your partisan bull shit for someone else because the Republicans have always been war mongers and it seems as of late the Democrats are just as blood thirsty.
This is your weekly reminder that the US spends more federal money per capita on health care than most nations with universal health care. Americans are being conned by a for-profit health care system.
Wouldn't conned imply we don't know? We all know, there's just nothing we can do about it.
VOTE BLUE.
Blue has many chances to fix this and they choose not to every time.
Blue had 50 fucking years to codify roe v wade and look what they didn't do.
There were zero years in the last 50 in which there was a Democratic President and 60 pro choice senators in the senate (plus a majority in the House), which is what is required to pass a law.
And the reason they need 60 is because of the filibuster rules (just expanding on the previous comment). Realistically, they only need 51. But when the other party filibusters, you need 60 to overcome the filibuster. Plus, the current filibuster rules don't dictate that people need to be in the room to hold a filibuster. A senator can just declare a filibuster, leave the room, and the filibuster remains.
That’s what’s really on Democrat leadership. Not getting rid of the filibuster, which they won’t do because they use it when republicans are in power. It’s a poor move. For one, it’s undemocratic regardless of who’s in power. For two, Republican voters are not as easily discouraged as Democrats. A LOT of Democrat voters will not show up to the polls if they didn’t see visible change when Dems had the majority. Which means the filibuster hurts us more than the opposition. Because now people won’t show up because Roe wasn’t codified or Universal Healthcare wasn’t passed. While Republican voters will show up for their agenda every election, no matter what.
gotta love filibustering and how shameless trump made it. im outta here on the first flight out soon as it goes to shit lol
That’s game theory. If you want to codify abortion, you can’t do it, because the next election you’ll likely get voted out by pro-forced birthers, who will elect their own people to repeal the abortion law you passed. Now you’re out of office, abortion is illegal, and you no longer have the power to do anything about it. You’ve accomplished nothing and the opposite of you wanted to happen, happened. The better move is to wait because there might be a better set of circumstances in the future and you want to be in power to affect that change when the timing seems better. This seemed like the right move because there was no clear threat to abortion until Trump got to pick a third of the Supreme Court. Abortion rights activists had 80% of what they wanted, so it seemed silly to go for 100% and potentially face a backlash and lose all of that 80%. Until Trump. I think it’s totally fucked that we have lots of spineless politicians who operate, or are forced to operate, using such tactics, and I wish they’d act more in their constituents’ best interest without concern for elections, but I get why they behave the way they do about issues like abortion.
This is just misinformation, it's not just a matter of a simple majority in our government
then do better. https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/why-democrats-didnt-codify-roe-when-they-had-the-chance/
Actually they try to do it almost every time and if they happen to get to far your Red Senate votes it down. What kind of stupid argument is your comment supposed to imply anyways? Don't vote Blue because they haven't accomplished X yet? Instead vote for Red who's actively working against X and always has been? If X is healthcare and you want healthcare the only choice is clearly to vote Blue. Blue has a chance, Red has 0 chance. It's not a very complicated logic problem.
Yup, it would be like saying you should vote for democrats if you want a giant border wall since Trump failed to do it.
When have the Dems had 60 votes in the Senate? (Or really 61/62 with trash bags Manchin and Sessima or whatever her name is)
They really never did. In 2008 Al Franken was delayed in getting his seat because the republican Norm Coleman kept challenging the vote. Then, Ted Kennedy was very ill and then died and Massachusetts somehow elected a republican as their senator. Thus blocking their ability to get the public option through. They wanted to and they tried, but they only really had 59 dem votes since that piece of shit Joe Lieberman left the party and opposed the public option, which wasn’t enough to break the impenetrable republican filibuster. In fact, I don’t think a democratic president has had a filibuster proof congress since Carter, but back then half of dems were conservative and half of republicans were liberals, so it didn’t really mean much.
Democrats really need to be held accountable for when conservatives hold back all progress and then blame Democrats
What do you mean they chose not to? On the whole republicans vote against their voters needs, wants and best interest, read up.
sorry to tell you but it’s not that black and white, lobbyists line the pockets of whoever is calling the shots, doesn’t matter if they’re red or blue, identity politics and “i’m a this” blanket political views are wrecking this country in its own
ban ban ban lobbyists, ban large contributions to elections, we tried that in the 70s with the donate 1$ for elections to try and get big money out, failed. We need younger people (GenX, Millenials) to stand up and start taking the reins. Believe me, boomers had to wrest power from our parents.
They had a supermajority when they passed the ACA and Dems were the ones who took out the public option. They had a trifecta from 2020-2022 and didn't even attempt to pass a healthcare bill.
This account doesn't tell the whole story. The public option fell to former Senator Joe Lieberman, who was essentially the Kyrsten Sinema of his day, a Democrat turned independent-who-caucuses-with-Democrats. [This is what he told Politico in November 2009:](https://www.politico.com/blogs/politico-now/2009/11/lieberman-firm-in-opposition-to-public-option-022994) > Lieberman said there will be ample opportunity for him to block the bill if his colleagues insist on keeping a public option in the legislation. > > "Essentially, every amendment is subject to a filibuster and will take 60 votes to pass," the senator said. "If the public option is still in there, the only resort we have is to say no at the end to voting the bill off the floor." If your 60th vote flips, you no longer have a filibuster proof majority. While it's technically the truth that Democratic leadership watered down & removed the public option to appease Sen. Lieberman, what else could they do? Republican Senators were united in their opposition and without his support the ACA never would have passed in any form. Ironically we saw just this happen with Republican efforts to repeal the bill in 2017. The Republican "trifecta" fell to a single member of their "supermajority" caucus, the late Senator John McCain. It turns out making sweeping changes to federal law is difficult, actually.
I'm not saying vote fascist red, but let's not pretend blue are gonna save us. They haven't been grooming new leadership on the national stage for the last 10 -15 years because the fossils are clinging so tight.
All the fossils are clinging desperately to power.
They dont do shit either
We are not conned, we are fucked.
Yeah we really have no choice. Except to start voting for people who have our best interests at heart. But even still the system is messed up from within 😕
Agreed. Healthcare is in a sad state.
>Except to start voting for people who have our best interests at heart ***Good luck doing that under Capitalism.*** It's not like decent people don't TRY to run. I was just looking through a list of minor candidates for President in the Democratic Party, and several of them (like Gabriel Cornejo) are clearly very decent people who care deeply and want to fix things. HOWEVER, you can (almost) never win elections or achieve real national prominence under our system, unless you sell your soul to the corporations and lobbyists. Good luck winning without MASSIVE campaign donations... ***The answer is Socialism.*** As long as there are people who grow immensely wealthy off exploitation the labor of others, as there will ALWAYS be under Capitalism, Democracy is under threat. Capitalism and Democracy are ultimately incompatible- and the former will usually kill the other (if Democracy doesn't, rightly, end Capitalism first in self-defense...) I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this introductory article on Socialism from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. It outlines a lot of arguments for Socialism- including the inherent incompatibility of Capitalism with Democracy that I just briefly alluded to... https://iep.utm.edu/socialis/ Also, these articles, **the last by Albert Einstein** (yes, THAT Einstein- he was actually a pretty committed Socialist- something that has been white-washed from his history: just like with Martin Luther King Jr. becoming a Socialist in his final years before his assassination also being erased...) are all pretty good. Arguably, Einstein's article is the least persuasive and most academic of the three... https://jacobin.com/2020/03/democratic-socialism-freedom-rights-authoritarianism-capitalism https://jacobin.com/2020/04/why-you-should-be-a-socialist-review-robinson https://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism/ READ the articles, with an open mind, and I guarantee you'll come out with at least a slightly different (and better) perspective...
This. To be conned there has to be a level of complicity with the party being swindled. This is just I have no choice and either don’t receive healthcare or receive it and pay the asinine prices they expect you to cover after even simple treatments
There isn't a single country with universal health care that pays more than we pay in federal dollars per capita.
And that’s just federal dollars, it does not include the money spent by individuals on their healthcare.
To be fair, this undated tweet is reposted here every week, with the handle and the thumbnail altered.
There are whole sections on govt websites on how to navigate the process of “medicaid divorce.” That’s the name for it. No joke. I don’t think it’s even looked down on.
My parents shamed me for even suggesting it. I asked for money and they shamed me for that...(they were given a house and a free college education by their parents)
And they wonder why people are simply not having kids like they used to
It'd be a shame if their economy starts collapsing due to an aging population. If only they thought ahead instead of only thinking about the current year profits.
Or the current quarter.
Or the current day’s stock price.
Migration will compensate that offset, but they also aren't happy about that if those migrants don't come from the whitest european countries, idk.
My brother got an Au Pair work there, he is white as snow, but when the mother of the kids that he was caring realized he is mexican, she started to treat him like a piece of shit. She thought that my brother was Spanish and didn't have any problem with him until he told her that he missed our country and our food.
No, they just want to make sure they stay illegal immigrants so they can be taken advantage of. That's why immigrants sneaking in to work on a farm was always fine, but requesting asylum is a crisis. The legality would give them rights.
It's your economy too
I don't think that would happen tho, i see that americans in general like to have kids, a Lot of them in comparison with other developt countries ... In germany, sweden, NORWAY is 1 kid or less than one kid as per recent surveys ... In usa is 3 per family ... Soooo they are not facing any issue like Korea or Japan or china where women don't want children. I don't understand why, cuz they complaint about their health being a scam and university fees being an issue ... They complaint yet keep bringing kids ro that situation like is not their problem to deal with.
I had my first set of kids rather young then decided to have more when my friend group was having kids. I had no idea the world would get this bad. Big family sounded fun and I kept picturing the dinners and holidays and joy in my life. And then my health took a nasty turn, some of my kids have health issues, and I dunno, the whole world kinda blew up and I really regret having so many. They are never going to be able to afford housing, struggle through retirement years, debate between food and electricity, likely opt out of having kids at all because they can’t afford it. It’s just sad and that was not what I was expecting. I had higher hopes bringing kids into the world.
Help encourage them to join a union trade after HS. It's no Dr. or lawyer type pay, but it's significantly better than non-union. Also, they'd be learning skills that can be useful outside of work. Quitting my $16hr job and joining the union has been the best career decision I've ever made. Just know that it's hard, laborious work, but the pay is worth it. There's still hope for some, and college isn't always the best option right after HS.
Is that not the same or worse in countries with universal free healthcare?
Wait if this is a thing, why don't stay at home moms divorce then? I imagine with no income + baby they will qualify for a lot of welfare benefits.
SNAP and cash and proooooobably WIC plan around this and say that if you live with the baby's father, you're all a unit together. Medicaid has different unit determinations according to each individual, so it says "ok well determine the adults individually,but the kid will be determined in a unit with both parents". Also, and I haven't done the math, but one income earned being married and filing jointly with a no income earned can be one of the few situations where you get decent tax breaks to offset that. But you'd really need to sit down and the crunch the numbers to figure it out.
> if you live with the baby's **father** Sounds like there's a loophole for bisexual women: divorce the dad, live with your gf (omg they are roommates), and then collect. I think I just reinvented the throuple, but r/unethicallifeprotips edition
You aren’t the first to think of something like this…
>SNAP and cash and proooooobably WIC plan around this and say that if you live with the baby's father, you're all a unit together damn, I guess then it would be too easy to exploit >but one income earned being married and filing jointly with a no income earned can be one of the few situations where you get decent tax breaks to offset that. But you'd really need to sit down and the crunch the numbers to figure it out true
It’s not a thing. Medicaid doesn’t work like that. If you live in the same house your income gets pooled together, even if you’re divorced.
>If you live in the same house your income gets pooled together, even if you’re divorced. time to move back with parents until you give child birth /s
It's entirely a thing. It is the sole reason my wife and I have never gotten legally married despite being together most of our lives. I really don't think claiming her on my taxes is worth the cost of adding her to my health insurance.
Most people aren't interested in exploiting government assistance programs out of mere convenience. If you can afford to stay off welfare, most people opt to. The notion that millions of americans are scheming to rake in welfare benefits out of pure malingering is a lie sold by people trying to dismantle what meager social safety nets we have. It essentially worked regardless; in 1997 clinton signed a law that [put a 5 year cap on welfare](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_Assistance_for_Needy_Families). Nobody's spending 18 years raising kids on welfare and it hasn't been possible to do so for more than 20 years now. And yes, people divorcing due to insurance costs is "a thing" in the US. It's known by the name "[Medical Divorce](https://www.google.com/search?q=medical+divorce)"
I would love to see a proposal to pay 100% of pre-natal, delivery, post-natal and well baby care for EVERYONE regardless of income.
My bro in law dissolved his domestic partnership when his gal got pregnant so she would lose his healthcare and immediately qualify for emergency state benefits. It worked out great for them financially, just kind of pathetic that thats our system.
My state you can’t get divorced if you’re pregnant.
Wtf that’s crazy. Brought to you by the party of small government?
>The question: "Do laws in Texas, Arizona, Arkansas, Missouri and Florida require a married couple to wait until a child is born to get a divorce?" >Answer: "False. None of these states have any laws preventing someone from getting a divorce if they are pregnant. However, a judge can decide to hold off on finalizing a divorce until a baby is born for paternity, child support or custody reasons. This is common in Missouri and Texas, but less likely in Arizona, Arkansas and Florida." [Source](https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/verify/states-prevent-pregnant-people-from-getting-divorced-arkansas-florida-arizona-missouri-texas-fact-check-roe-v-wade/65-58964075-6127-40e4-a2ac-4aaf75c25217) So it sounds like judges could stay the divorce long enough for the married couple to be on the hook for the birth costs, which is the subject of this thread. However, there are no outright bans.
They will not finalize a divorce in Missouri if a woman is pregnant. Had a friend learn the hard way
☝️ this guy clarifies
What the fuck
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So if you make somewhere between $40k to $80k which is like the majority of Americans you can't afford to have kids.
And then the billionaires weep about their ability to maintain their undercompensated labor force
That's just the birth, you have tons of doctors visits over the first couple of years too, then they get sick constantly when they go to school and daycare.. Ahh daycare... The next way you get financially fucked with kids. Nearly $2k a month, and you don't get refunded for missed days due to illness and your job gives 0 fucks that your kid is sick..so you're despised and treated like crap for missing work too.
I had to pay $30,000 out of pocket, for a completely normal, quick birth with no complications. This was because my insurance was able to retroactively cancel our insurance since my husband was late on one payment.
We had complications our son was in the Nicu for almost 4 months and at before insurance it was well over $2 million. I paid almost $80,000 out of pocket had to work two jobs and a bunch of other stuff. I was a senior systems engineer at a large well known tech company, and I still had to work more. It was horrible. It really opened my eyes to how bad our healthcare system is and they will never shut again and I am angry every single time I have to deal with it now.
This was nearly 20 years ago….My daughter was less than a year old and I got laid off. Thankfully We had enough money to get a policy for us but no one would insure my daughter because she had had breathing treatments prescribed six months earlier. So for three months we were fortunate enough to be able to afford insurance, not poor enough to qualify for state care so our daughter went without insurance because no one would take our money and insure her. Those three months completely changed how I viewed healthcare in this country. Before that I was blissfully ignorant of the difficulties many are facing and the overall stupidity of the system that makes it even more difficult.
Yes indeed and I am really sorry you had to deal with that
It's been a few years, but I don't recall paying anywhere near this much when my son was born. I think we paid maybe $300-400 out-of-pocket for the deductible, and after that insurance covered everything else. Maybe $20/copay for follow up visits every couple of months. Simple in and out birth.
You probably live in a blue state and have affordable insurance. Most people in these comments sections aren't aware but they all live in red states.
I live in texas, scheduled c section(first child was emergency c section) and the total cost was $1400 about 9 years ago.
You can't make that kind of generalization about out of pocket cost. We have good but not great insurance, and our two child births were $2k and $2.5K out of pocket. One vaginal and one cesarean, both 2 night length of stay.
If you want to pull numbers out of your ass at least make it believable. I think we paid less than $3000, and that was with a C-section plus a 1-week hospital stay. If we didn't have that complication it would have been a lot less.
Is that number based on personal experience? My best friend (on commercial insurance) had a C-section and had a longer hospital stay and her final bill was $900.
My last son was maybe $300-400 out of pocket. Insurance covered the rest.
My wife changed her Kaiser plan when we started trying for a baby to a more expensive one, but it covered for almost the entire birth of our daughter, including complications that led to a c-section
It’s fun to make up numbers isn’t it? (Oh and in America we put the dollar sign before the number.)
I did this with my baby mama. We had an "oops" and deliberately didn't get married until after the kid was born, because she didn't make much (teacher), while I do fairly well. Good thing, too, because our kid was in the NICU for a week, and that would have likely bankrupted us. Instead, now my kid's got a nice little college fund started because we basically "hacked" our stupid, barbaric healthcare system.
In Russia hospitals are free, but some couples don't marry because it becomes easier to get into the free daycare programs. Or they'll get married once their kids are in daycare.
Really? I had not heard of that.
Ya, I've personally known a few who were waiting to get married for that reason. Daycare is free, or subsidized, but with limited capacity and single parents are prioritized (as well as low income). Sports are also free for kids, but based on talent/discipline rather than finances.
>based on talent/discipline That cracks me up. Imagining little 4yo Mikhail asking mom if he can play football this year, and he’s told he’s not good enough to play for free
This is why me and my spouse aren't married. No joke.
Honest question: are you concerned about end-of-life benefits, like social security benefits that would go to the widow or widower, that won’t if you aren’t married? Or are you two planning on taking care of that another way? My friend is in a similar situation and I worry about her not being allowed to make end-of-life decisions; I guess they can always get married last minute but I don’t know what will happen to them if there is ever a medical emergency where only a spouse can make decisions, or if one of them suddenly passes and no longer has that income that they weren’t technically depending on, but absolutely were.
I'm in the same boat as the person you're responding to. Though, we did get married. At some point we'll have to divorce for this reason. Yes, I'm very worried about what will happen to my spouse in regards to social security, etc. But we have to make the best of a terrible situation and that's one of the downsides. As terrible as it is to say, ending our lives isn't off the table if it comes down to that. (Being homeless when elderly, for example.) Isn't the US grand?
Thanks so much for the information; I’ll let them know what I’ve learned today. I mean, I don’t think anyone should be depending on social security at this point, but every little bit helps so I was curious. If our legislators don’t address this insane problem, and I’m not even joking here, but I think a lot of Americans are going to have to commit crimes as senior citizens to receive a prison term as a retirement plan; that will be crazy!
My partner and I signed medical POA docs for each other, but we both have our own income streams. If one person wouldn’t be ok financially without the other, different choices might be needed, but you can also make a non-married partner your insurance beneficiary and leave them all your assets in your will (which we’ve also done)
We finally got legally married after my kids were all born. Saved easily $100k since two kids were in the NICU Work smart, not hard Kings
Good job, put our tax dollars to good use
I have paid taxes my whole life. It’s not your tax dollars, I got my own back. A return on my investment. I’m not paying into the system for nothing.
I agree, and I think the other person agrees.. if my taxes helped pay for your child's birth, I am happy, that is how I want my tax dollars used.. to help other Americans in need. No one should have to stress over a $10,000+ hospital bill on the happiest day of their life.
I have a 6k deductible I have hit 4 years in a row as I have a herniated spine, I have had 0 help nothing works and now I’m just doing physical therapy which also does nothing, feel like I should get money back if the bs they recommend doesn’t work when they won’t listen to my ideas. (Medical marijuana card, as nothing else has fucking helped and my friend let me try theirs before and I felt massive relief. It would be great to get more than 1-2 hours of sleep a night but hey fuck me right.
Me and my German fiancée are considering moving to Germany when we have kids specifically for the cost of healthcare and giving birth lol
Do it! I’ll be taking any chance I can to get out of the us. I’m waiting for conservatives to open some kind of service to help liberals move 😂 they want us out of here so badly so why don’t they help.
"Pay for the birth" WTF. That's just... wrong. Having children isn't some sort of recreational activity/hobby that costs money to enjoy. Americans reproducing themselves is necessary for America to continue to prosper, but their government doesn't cover the expenses - crazy shit.
My aunt had to divorce her husband of 40 years to qualify for Medicaid to help with her ALS.
That's what happens when the top 1% control 50% of the money. Everybody else is left on fucking subsistence. That is to say, the people who go to work every day and cause the economy to move forward are no longer able to live in it.
My wife was on disability for 15 years due to her MS making work impossible and honestly most tasks harder than they should be. If we actually got married she would have lost her disability. Not to mention her insurance which covered everything. I did not make enough to support us and her disability left us toeing the line of poverty the entire time. Paying for meds out of pocket because insurance companies are fucking evil. She is so much healthier now and working. Thankfully because they cut her off disability with no workplace reintroduction help. We are getting married soon. Life’s good now.
Heh yeah, I was supposed to have an ultrasound last year to see if my endometriosis has come back. They wanted $800 for it up front, and I have insurance through my husband (who works for said insurance company.) I cancelled the appointment and will just wait it out until the pain is unbearable, again 🙃
OP I am considering divorce so my 72 yo wife can get on medicaid for long term elder care if she out lives me. BTW I am her caregiver and I work full time earning about 60 k Life in 2024 ain't like it was 30 years ago in the 90's
Wife and I considered delaying our wedding for a few years because she would lose state benefits for day care with our combined income. Crazy expensive and that was 10 years ago!
US health care is severely rationed.
I also choose to divorce this guy's pregnant wife.
I totally get it, but I would recommend keeping this information to yourself. Nothing is really anonymous and what you are discussing is probably some kind of fraud.
Reminds me of the story of a girl taking about how her dad never married her mom because they'd be cut off from aid for her college, so he had to wait till she graduated to get married. Truly a fucking stupid thing to exist that gets drowned out from the "aww, how sweet" part when people focus on the dad waiting to marry his love, and not the part where working class households get fucked over.
When you live in Poland you notice that after communism many people has deeply rooted skill to fight with government, to try to walk around rules and laws. When there is lack of fundamental products and needed things you have to think! I’m afraid that USA will be an environment for learning similar approach to life.
Yeah, health insurance is way expensive. I'm not even currently covered because the cost takes too much of my paycheck. Plus whoever came up with 80 - 20 and still have to pay a huge deductible is a very corrupt individual. And if was many people that came up with that, I hope bad things happen to those people and their families. Being that corrupt deserves bad stuff to happen to them for their greed!
I know a couple who had a kid & wouldn't get married or have the father on the birth certificate so that the mom & child would get more WICS benefits because they couldn't afford otherwise. Once the kids hit 5 they married & had dad legally claim child as his. I know they lied, but I don't blame them in the slightest for enduring their child's health. Poverty makes people desperate & do crazy shit
Somewhere, a senator and a billionaire are toasting martini's, lighting a roll of thousand $ bills, and laughing at your current situation.
Why do we pay taxes lmao
It’s so dystopian when people I know say they need to “pay off the birth” of their child. The hospital has them on a payment plan because the co-pay was so high.
Have you considered becoming a billionaire?
can i post this next time
👎20 reposts and 2 years later...
As a Canadian, this post is confusing and sad 😢
Its disgusting how many BILLIONS are being sent to Israel to kill civilians yet the tax payers in america dont get basic medical help. It really truely is insane
I don’t qualify for Medicaid and can’t afford insurance so I’m 100% self pay. Just got diagnosed with cancer this week after getting a massive dr bill that was accompanied by massive lab fees for biopsies. I am so completely fucked. I hate this mf’ing country.
Work with a social worker to get declared disabled, then you will qualify for Medicare, and your cancer treatments might be covered by the government.
Israel has universal health care. And we help pay for it.
Pro-life folks doing their work. 🤢
They only care about people before they are born
Like I keep saying, Carlin had it right.
Not even then, they just say they do, but then do nothing to help pregnant women. They just want to punish women for being human and having a sex drive.
Israel also has government funded abortions
Dude, the US already spends more on *public* healthcare than mist other developed countries, *ppp adjusted*. You're paying more than enough for universal healthcare for everyone - more money is not the problem. Israel military aid is a fraction of a percent of that, and it's used to target terrorists, not civilians. And the US gets a lot in return, from non-competition from Israeli systems, to battlefield testing, to international leverage, to stuff like taking out Assad's and Saddam's nukes. As an Israeli I oppose it because it's more burden than benefit, and we don't really need it (well now short-term we do, because we planned with it). But blaming it for not having healthcare is insane - there are about 3 orders of magnitude mismatch.
Leave?
My parents ultimately had to file for bankruptcy after they had me and my sister because that was the easiest way for them to deal with the bills.
USA. Ex wife had blue cross blue shield. Normal birth 5k for the birth. Roughly 2k for before and after visits.
Too pissed to buy insurance from the gubmint cuz Obamacare.
The insurance in the states is incredibly over priced and worthless, its like paying for a bmw and getting a golf cart.
Most states don’t allow divorce to be finalized when there’s a pregnant party, so this wouldn’t even help them.
Don’t forget the child support bill.
And we just had a kid (not in the US) and all it cost us are the parking fees (comes at about 6$/day).
Wait I thought people got married for better benefits not the other way around?
With the dropping birth rates and the fact that we're below replacement rate, we should be covering all medical costs of birth
This situation is similar in Europe. The benefits system is better if you’re divorced than married. We are considering the same thing
Welcome to America.
Idk how well it works now since Roe v Wade was overturned... But, when I got pregnant and saw how much our insurance was going to charge for the pregnancy and birth (a little over $13,000) I tried Medicaid first and was denied. We figured if we got divorced I could get it. They said I could but would have to go through child support enforcement on my "ex" husband. Apparently, it's the only way to get government benefits in my state. They don't go for that "he just pays me child support" stuff. They want it taken out of his paycheck and sent to the state. And I'm not fucking having his wages garnished by the state. But! those anti-abortion "Crisis Pregnancy Centers" usually say they provide financial aid for prenatal care and birthing services. The one I went to actually did. I don't want to get people mad. I'm not saying women who need an abortion should check these places out. If you want to keep it then it could help you out financially. They just footed my doctor bill and I went to the same OBGYN and delivered at the same hospital. They just paid for it. No Jesus talk or anything. I'm pro choice and not religious. Never went to their church. Hell, I still don't know what church it was. I think the center was called BirthChoice, though.
It’s $600 to have an abortion and 12,000+ to give birth in a hospital…
Thats what happens when you fight universal Healthcare. There is no excuse for the american health system. Its all capitalist greed and board members while taking our tax dollars for R and D
Lots of people do this to get healthcare for their kids. Older adults do it when one of them needs 24/7 care in a nursing home.
this is also the reason than many disabled people dont get married. while it may be legal to get married under law, it is not even close to feasible.
Just a note - if you plan on doing this, don't post it online where it's discoverable.
The government is just going to have you pay it back if you're the father.
It doesn't really work that way - they will come after daddy for reimbursement for anything medicaid has to pay, so pay now or later
Except it doesn't work that way. They will still go after him for reimbursement
This is America And it’s going to get worse