The system is working. It's designed to enrich the wealthy and extract that wealth from the poor.
The entire medical industrial complex is not going to give up their wealth willingly.
Plus most doctors are born into money already. They don't ever associate with ordinary people in the lower 80% of households.
I work for rich people once in a while and they don't understand why I can't wait 1 month to get paid. There is a total disconnect, they can't even imagine how I live, and I'm not the poorest of the poor anymore.
I work construction, and I have to be super mindful of injury, because that'd basically be it for me.
A lot of folks who otherwise would have become doctors have pursued other careers because the money just isn’t there anymore.
My wife is deaf. She gets given batteries for her free hearing aid plus an assessment from the audiology department once a year.
My daughter was born 5 weeks premature. She was in the ante natal care unit for three weeks.
My daughter also had open heart surgery when she was 9 years old. Full medical team at a world-famous teaching hospital, 2 days in the paediatric cardiology intensive care (nurse to patient ratio 1:1, 24/7) and 2 days in the post-op ward (ratio 2:1).
None of this has ever cost us anything.
America needs to fix its health "service". While you're at it, fix your gun laws too (children practising hiding from gunmen in schools? Really??). And your legal system. And women's rights. And police corruption. Once you get those sorted, the rest of the civilised world has a long list of other suggestions.
fix your gun laws too (children practising hiding from gunmen in schools? Really??). And your legal system. And women's rights. And police corruption.
I'd say they are all symptoms of the same problem, economic insecurity and misaligned incentives. People like to blame communism and praise capitalism for the results of the cold war, but I see the US making the same mistake that lost the USSR the cold war, but inflexibility and misaligned incentives. The US in the 20th century went from almost unregulated capitalism to a regulated market economy. IMO, it was that ability to change that brought the US ahead, not some magic of capitalism or brokenness of communism. Now we are stubbornly stuck on the ideology that could very well could have led to the collapse of the US in the 1930s.
Take the freight rail strike fiasco and recent train wrecks. Capitalism creates an incentive for the companies to reduce costs as much as possible. The rail unions are practically useless due to a terrible federal law. What we need is a more pragmatic government and population that will allow them to be and pass legislation that deals with it. One reasonable approach is to deregulate the unions a bit to ensure a quality workforce. Another is regulations that micromanage operations. Maybe fine companies in key industries for both preventable environmental disasters and failure operate under the threat of forced liquidation if they can't get their act together. Another is professionalizing rail workers so no worker will risk personal liability or loss of licensure for cutting corners. Something else?
At the scales we are talking about, there is so much complexity that it is almost impossible to predict the outcome of a policy, so I am a big advocate for flexibility.
Or.... We could eliminate conservatives (including neo-liberals) from positions of power. That would also solve these "complex issues".
Politicians sucking corporate teats and taking legal bribes are the problem, and no one does that better than conservatives.
Summation of conversations I've had with a doctor about the healthcare system.
Doctor: "The system needs fixing."
Me: "Agreed, we need to socialize the healthcare system."
Doctor:"Not like that, I still wanna be rich!"
How many times have you had that conversation?
Methinks zero.
I have had something like it with my doctors. Talking about how bad the healthcare system is and not seeing a single payer as a good option without providing any other good option. My doctors are conservatives though that think lowering taxes is going to help them. They don't seem to get in the current system they pay the highest taxes because they don't increase them for anyone doing better for them (bussiness owners of a certain size or larger)
I live in Texas, where even the doctors are right wing nutjobs. Also, I'm paraphrasing for comedic effect.
You think the doctor has some say in how much medical care costs? This has nothing to do with the doctors. This entirely about the health insurance companies.
The AMA is officially opposed to single payer healthcare. Maybe it wouldn't make a huge difference, but I think it could change a few minds if the body who represents all doctors in the US didn't have the stance that we all just need more and better insurance.
This is from the American Medical Association. A body composed of some 270 thousand medical professionals.
Find out how the ACA should be improved, and why improving the ACA is preferable to pursuing Medicare-for-All:
://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/patient-support-advocacy/ama-vision-health-care-reform
You should associate with better people who happen to be doctors.
These aren't social interactions. Gotta go to the specialist doctor that's accepting new patients, and takes our insurance.
Every medical professional I've ever talked to has the opposite opinion.
American insurance is such a scam, how can they even call it insurance if it costs more then it's realistically worth
People will argue against universal healthcare because they don't want to pay into a pool of money that gets distributed among people who use the healthcare services, and they don't like the idea of paying for someone else's care.
So instead they support a system where everyone pays into health insurance, which by definition is folks paying into a pool of money that gets distributed among the people who use the services the insurance provider provides. They're still paying for other people's healthcare, but for some reason they don't see that. It's the same as paying car insurance if you're never in an accident.
And this latter system allows insurance companies to simply not provide coverage for certain care, meaning that you pay into a shared pool of money that no one can use to get that care provided.
Even if you're wealthy; and you can afford the best insurance, how is this better? You might think you'll have shorter hospital times, but the hospitals are still running on thinner margins for profits, so its not like the Doctors are waiting around for you to show up. If there's less patients, they hire less staff.
You're still constantly running the risk of having some healthcare problem that isn't covered, just by the nature of letting the provider stipulate what they do or don't cover.
It is beyond fucked up. I have type 1 diabetes and even with EXCELLENT insurance I am still paying thousands a year out of pocket to cover my insulin, insulin pump, and CGM supplies, as well as doctor's visits, lab work, and other necessary diagnostics testing. And these are just the diabetes things I have to do to stay alive. There's also the regular people medical stuff that I still need. It's absolutely crazy that some people have to forgo basic medical care, even when they have insurance, because of cost.
Also something, the number of people delaying care due to costs is still increasing YoY.
Some forego treatment altogether. Even myself have decided that if I am ever diagnosed with advanced stage disease to just die rather roll the dice and be sacked with seven to eight digits of debt on a, “maybe you’ll still be alive and even then you’ll just be a shell of the person you were before.”
If we’re going to keep the medical system the US has, then I honestly really want assisted suicide as well. Not this palliative, let’s keep you drugged up while you decay bullshit. No, I want in the US the ability to see the choice of $1,000,000+ maybe you’ll live versus $250 we put you in a box and suck out all the oxygen and replace it with nitrogen.
I’m not saying everyone is going to pick the death box, but after two major healthcare things in my life that I’ve gotten through, I sure as shit am not going through a third. Be that via an approved or unapproved manner. There’s just no way this system is going to put me through that again.
It's working just as intended for the people at the top and their supporters. There would only be a problem if this wasn't the case. The disparity in wealth must grow, not shrink.
It is working.
Joe Biden took almost nine million in Big Pharma money. Every member of Congress has probably taken a large sum of money from them too, and they can loan their campaigns money at 20% interest and legally pocket those lobbyist contributions.
That is why diabetics in this country are stuck paying a mortgage payment to inhabit their own bodies. It's by design, and you will never change it voting for the two ruling parties.
I wish it were something we could change, but on this issue, we're basically powerless.
The United States is comically corrupt. I don't know how you think you have power over anything.
Conservatism is a plague of corporatism, deception and death. Conservatives (including neo-liberals like Biden) are the reason we don't have a legitimate healthcare system. Killing us benefits them.
While I agree corporatism begets conservatism, conservatism has been an issue for much longer than corporations have even existed for.
I watched a video explaining why the American Healthcare system is the way that it is. Pretty interesting. https://youtu.be/C6Rk9WtO554
The final bill from my appendectomy (no complications, wasn't even in the hospital for 24 hours total) in March was $169k USD.
With "good" insurance, I still paid $7k out of pocket.
My wife had an appendectomy with 3 nights in the hospital. We paid 30€ and my insurance paid ~2600€. What the hell is wrong with the US?
If the insurance paid 162k$ (plus your 7) this comes out of the insured peoples pockets.> Text> Text
Tell me why I have a 700 copay for a mri when there's a bone fragment loose? How is my 2k/month insurance not covering this... That's not counting the 1k+ ER fees... What the fuck is my insurance paying for?
What the fuck is my insurance paying for?
Grift
I've worked for doctors in the past, can confirm they're just as corrupt as every for-profit industry. The doctors I worked for took gifts from pharmaceutical companies, overprescribed medication, and overbooked patients, while paying their administrative staff minimum wage
it works, we aren't the "users." The billionaire who leech off of us are. We're just a resource for them to exploit
What's also sad is that most GPs, interns and generally younger doctors in all fields are underpaid and malpractice insurance costs them a fortune. Healthcare is prohibitively expensive for the patient and most of that money doesn't even end up with the doctors that actually provide healthcare but instead bleeds out to a whole mess of parasites within the system.
It's not a bug, it's a feature.
These rubber stamp "doctors" at the insurance agencies need to lose thier medical license, oh is my doctor who ordered the scan just wrong?
This is unbelievably fucked up. Everytime I see posts about the healthcare system in the US, it feels like I am reading prompts from a dystopic fiction.
Sure I get all that, but think of the PROFIT!
Bunch of communists up in here have no sympathy for the poor insurance company owner who's just working an honest job so he can finally afford his 16th yacht. Do we really expect such hard working owners to have to sit in the same yacht from one week to the next? Have some sympathy!
:P
Can we all team up and move to Belgium or something? Sick of this shit
Come to Brazil, we have free healthcare (even for foreigners). Careful not to get scammed, though
The doctor can wave any/all that insurance doesn't cover. And/Or offer a payment plan.
