You needlessly put a hyphen in “heath-care” but failed to do so in the other headline, when it was absolutely needed for “built-in”
“Yes, our system is bad, but can you imagine how much worse everybody else’s system must be?”
American exceptionalism at its finest.
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Towards the end, he was rather critical of the Tobacco Lords, stuff that probably applies to the ultra-rich today.
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… shocking infant and maternal mortality rates, and incidences of death from treatable illness, the private insurance-based system is already caught in a death spiral.
Death spiral.
So I visited a friend’s congregation yesterday to stand-in with their music group. It was nice to see the gang. First time in over a year. (This is in the U.S.)
Reading this article I can’t help but notice how it sums up the news of their community’s past 48 hours. A friend’s friend, a diabetic man who had just gone into the hospital with an infection, is now dead of a heart attack. Another friend’s family was totally paralyzed with grief, yesterday being the day following the birth of their second child - who is now dead.
Profit-driven healthcare
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Also BTW:
Tetrabenazine is not some brand-new high-tech wonderdrug.
It was developed for clinical use in the 1950’s; the patent has long expired. There is absolutely no justification for the $25,000 US price tag.
Even the $338 paid by the Oz government is a bit of a ripoff by the drug companies; they can get away with price gouging because it’s an infrequently used drug. The production cost would be trivial.
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That chart has two dependent variables, one on each axis 
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Seriously, profit-motive in medicine is immoral and, frankly, this atheist would call it capital E EVIL.
It leads to things like charging $85,000 in the US for a course of Solvaldi. You know, so you don’t FUCKING DIE from Hep C.
There was a whole radiolab episode on it. When the CEO of the drug maker was asked point blank it literally came down to: “How much do you think your life is worth”?
That’s wrong. That’s so wrong. And it makes me sick when little old ladies at the pharmacy sigh and say “well they have to make money somehow” as they’re charged for their arthritis meds.
You know, those drug makers make plenty of money everywhere else in the developed world. Your government has thrown you under the bus and the republicans have tricked you into thinking it’s your own fault you’re covered in tire tracks.
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Well, there’s lots of justifications. Just none of them are particularly valid. They pretty much all boil down to “because people will pay anything if they think it’ll save their life”. So in other words: “because people let us exploit them.”
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Expensive services really. My per visit to doctor may be low but my per month cost for national health is really high. As for changing jobs that still means paperwork to re-enroll or if you lose a job you are still on the hook for the full monthly payment.
The system is full of hidden costs in some cases which have created a whole market for cancer treatment insurance for example. Or how dentists get a flat per visit fee so a simple filling takes three visits. It also incentivized them to push root canal which requires 2 months of weekly visits.
Not to mention how there’s no after hours or weekend care except emergency rooms at bigger hospitals. Or no central ambulance routing so people die while drivers call around to find a hospital that’s open, has open beds or is willing to treat that case.
In short socialized health care is not magic pixie dust.
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That sounds exactly like the US, except it comes out of taxes and still costs a lot less on average for exceedingly better outcomes overall. As if it were a much better system than “hah, you’re poor. I guess you die.”
Also note:
Just because Japan’s isn’t “the absolute best evar” doesn’t mean the US has to copy it. There is such a thing as learning from other people’s mistakes. Maybe the dumbass country where you live could be a warning to use something better, like the Scandihoovian systems.
In short, socialized healthcare delivers better outcomes for much cheaper than what the USA has in every single country worth comparing to the USA.
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I have this recurrent fantasy of finding Rush Limbaugh adrift in a lifeboat, inches from death, and having a frank discussion about just how much my saving him is worth, based on simple supply and demand.
My firm offer is 95% of everything he has, and 75% of all future income. I think that’s perfectly fair.
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As a libertarian, I am 100 percent in favor of allowing American consumers and hospitals to buy drugs from overseas at a discount.
I don’t think the FDA/patent system monopoly has ever been a particularly libertarian idea.
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I’m currently living in Costa Rica, which has a good public health system and an excellent private system (which is probably as expensive as the US’s). Costa Rica is not a rich country, nor do the people here eat particularly healthily, but the life expectancy here is still slightly higher than that of the US and people spend wayyyyy less on health care.
As a personal anecdote, since we’ve been here, we’ve mostly used the private system since we are non-residents and don’t pay into the health care through our taxes. But once we stopped by a public clinic for my son’s pneumonia. It was basic, but clean and the doctors and nurses were helpful and well-trained.
After getting his checkup and medicines, we were expecting to pay for the services. But, there was literally no way that they could accept payment at the clinic. We felt guilty about this, but were grateful for the service.
Under this system people here from other countries that are too poor to pay for health care can still receive it, and people are generally OK with that.
It sounds like Costa Rica has solved a problem that the US hasn’t been able to. Things are far from perfect here, but at least it works and everyone can get the care they need.
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As a Canadian, “Socialized” medicine is one of those topics where the descriptions provided by the far right become borderline offensive. When I hear them describe the dystopian healthcare hellscape that a single-payer system would create, I get a twinge of “wait is that what you think my country looks like how dare you”. I admit our system isn’t perfect and it’s an irrational response (a rational response would be to ignore them). But it still stings a bit.
Gun control is another similar topic. When I hear gun rights advocates make claims like “if someone breaks in to my house, my gun is closer than any police officer”, I think “do you think that people in other developed nations are constantly being murdered in their homes due to a lack of access to guns?”. Another irrational twitch of anger.
Unless they’re right and the only thing that has saved me from being murdered thus far is that someone else got to my would-be murderer before they could get to me, or they died waiting in line to have a splinter removed.
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Perfect. The only thing missing is his taking “pain pills” he ordered from India (paying with Bitcoin, natch) in order to thwart the evil bureaucrats at the FDA with their silly insistence on “standards” and “testing”, only to find out the pills are 90% chalk dust and 10% acai berries.
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So, drugs in Germany, Canada, Italy, Japan, Poland, Brazil, Finland, Luxembourg are all unsafe? Golly, I had no idea. Guess they need a big helping of that sweet, sweet regulatory capture that has served the USA so very well.
Maybe it’s just the side-effects of that tainted Advil I took this morning but I agree with you, giant fuzzy bear-person.
Literally
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