Exactly…all of what you posted.
I am tired of these bullshit excuses and whining and crying as to why every other developed nation’s universal healthcare is shite compared to the 'Murica’s capitalisitic shit-show.
10 Likes
Anecdotal evidence from an industry shill is not very believable.
22 Likes
Just a reminder that this isn’t Quora. Opinion and advice are just that. If someone posts info you disagree with without supporting evidence, I recommend you treat it with the same weight as you would anyone offering an opinion or information without backup. However, we do not require people provide credentials and information to post here.
Caveat reader.
8 Likes
I don’t think anyone is questioning whether the wealthy can afford US health care. In fact, that’s really the heart of the problem: the wealthy can afford it, the majority can’t. Hell, if you’re rich you may not even have a health insurance plan, you can just pay the bills out of pocket. I have health insurance, and I still get hit with bills that hold me back financially. For a lot of people worse off than me the idea that they’ll get substandard care is an empty threat, since they currently get no health care.
19 Likes
As someone who leans right I don’t have an issue with the idea of a universal /single payer insurance. I think the left / Democrats does a poor job of framing it in a way that would appeal to Conservatives. My main question is how are your going to deal with insurance companies? I realize private insurance will still be a thing, but how does say Bernie plan on eliminating the need for +50% of a currently $600 billion dollar market? In my opinion this is where the ACA failed to make needed progress (not that it didn’t do good, but it could have been better.)
I think the majority of Americans, on all sides, realize that most politicians are in it for the money / power. And no politician is an island.
BS excuses and fact-free opinions are all that Libertarians and industry shills have left on this issue. Here, for example, we someone who makes his living from the for-profit health insurance making completely unsubstantiated and borderline slanderous scare-story extraordinary claims about all socialised health care systems.
15 Likes
Do a joyful dance around their empty buildings when they’re gone?
[ETA] Me, when insurance cos are no longer running the show…
25 Likes
The US health insurance companies are actually in the business of denying payments more than treating health issues. We had to actually hire a lawyer and threaten to sue our own insurance company to get them to pay for coverage our policy showed. In effect, they had our money for months without paying us interest or a penalty.
30 Likes
People who do not understand this need to. They deny as much as they possible can and put as much of the spending on the individual as possible (high premiums/deductibles). And then we you need the coverage, they do everything to find a way to deny your claim. Then you spend MONTHS, and in your case, you spend money getting a lawyer, to get them to hold up their end. It’s an insane system that only benefits those who run the insurance companies. Doctors spend more time and effort dealing this insurance cos, so do patients. The sooner this evil system is done with the better.
35 Likes
No one from Philadelphia flies to Pittsburgh for medical treatment- or NY or Boston. Having lived in Philadelphia, NY and Boston- thanks for the chuckles.
14 Likes
I’m coming up to ten years at my current company - a small-ish tech company that provides the best health insurance it can as we compete with large multinationals for employees. But, it’s pretty much impossible to purchase god health insurance for less than 100 people spread across about ten states.
In ten years I can’t think of anything my “insurance” has actually paid for apart from ACA mandated things like annual checkup and flu shots. And even then there’s always the blood tests for the physical (not covered) or physical “accidentally” coded as normal office visit and charged at $200.
I’ve literally had more tangible benefit from my $20 Walgreens prescription plan than my expensive health insurance.
19 Likes
Let me respond as one who works within the US health care system, a supervising physician, if you will.
It is true that the US has the best care for sick people who can afford it in the world. And yes, people travel to Pittsburgh for transplants, because it is the best in the world if you can afford it.
The US has one of, if not the worst healthcare in the developed world if you consider dollars spent vs outcome. You have seen the Gofundme pages for folks trying to figure out how to pay for a child’s cancer treatments, or injuries from accidents? You have seen statistics for personal bankruptcies caused by medical expenses? You are basically telling people who cannot afford the money grubbing monster that US healthcare has become to go die quietly so as not to bother those of us wealthy enough to not worry about such things.
If I sound angry it is because I am. Have you ever had to explain to a parent that this treatment is the best shot your child has at a normal life, but it is so outrageously expensive that we have to look at second tier options? How about trying to figure out how expired is too expired for a life saving medicine when the parents cannot afford to get a new prescription? This is my life. Every-fucking-day. Would M4A be perfect? Ain’t no such thing. The system we have now is not viable unless you are rich.
I am pretty well off and quite well insured. I am also a cancer survivor, and my follow up visits, every 3 months or so, still cost me >$1k, after insurance, every time. Yeah, I can afford that. Most can’t. But that is ok with you? Not with me. M4A needs to come soon. This system will collapse under its own stupidity otherwise.
39 Likes
Just realized that if the US gets universal healthcare, what will there still be for Canadians to still feel superior to Americans about? Slightly fewer gun deaths? Slightly less racist? That’s not enough.
We can’t let this happen! Our national identity is at risk!
7 Likes
Our benefits have gotten worse over time. It’s a system that does nothing to help people and we need to end it.
18 Likes
ironic that Libertarians hate the idea of universal coverage and cling to what we have…yet universal coverage would provide the freedom and free will of choice they so covet.
16 Likes
From my viewpoint here in Brazil, Americans seem gaslighted by their abusers into thinking that the abuse is actually for their own good.
You spend a lot in taxes to be swindled out of your rights like you are, under the illusion that this is freedom, when it’s anything BUT.
You aren’t free if your life can be ruined by a small accident crossing the street to get to work, what you are is disposable.
31 Likes
And that is so obvious from the outside, yet the frogs sit content in the pot. Sigh. Rrrrribbiit.
13 Likes
- Other countries can pay for socialized medicine because they don’t pay for as many nuclear weapons as we do.
- Socialized single-payer medicine improves lifespans, outcomes and halts the spread of disease.
- Private Insurance is a scheme, a scam and a grift; there is no place for profit in healthcare, and if everyone working in claims-denial and customer-service runaround at every private insurer in America were to be fired, good. They can find other work, or spend more time at home denying coverage to their friends and family.
- Finally, WHY SHOULD YOUR EMPLOYER PAY FOR YOUR HEALTHCARE? Your employer at best tolerates you and, at worst, hates you. If the Gov’t took care of healthcare, just imagine the flourishing flower of entrepreneurship as wage-slaves who kept jobs they hate because they needed healthcare can now have the support they need to go out and start a small business since they’re no longer worried about where ER visits will come from.
America has Socialized Medicine; when you show up at an ER, the taxpayer pays for it. All we’d be doing is funding it for everyone, and a little further up the chain so taxes go to properly-priced prevention for many, not over-priced emergency services for a few.
6 Likes
The link between insurance and employment is a historical oddity dating to WWII, when the wage freeze made offering health insurance a way for employers to compete for employees. It has since become a chain to limit employee mobility as well as a cash cow for the insurance companies who make their beans on taking in as much as possible in premiums while paying out as little as possible in benefits. Hence my feeling that profit motive has no place in health care.
22 Likes
