The emergency room bill I can’t stop thinking about.
I'd like to know other non-US citizen's opinions on your health care system are when you read a story like this. I know there are worse places in the world to receive health care, and better. What runs through your heads when you have a medical emergency?
A little background on my question:
My son was having trouble breathing after having a cold for a couple of days and we needed to stop and take the time to see if our insurance would be accepted at the closest emergency room so we didn't end up with a huge bill (like 2000$-5000$). This was a pretty involved ~10 minute process of logging into our insurance carrier, and unsuccessfully finding the answer there. Then calling the hospital and having them tell us to look it up by scrolling through some links using the local search tool on their website. This gave me some serious pause, what if it was a real emergency, like the kind where you have no time to call and see if the closest hospital takes your insurance.
The one thing even Americans who have health insurance don't realize about single payer healthcare systems, is that we don't worry about it.
We don't consider it when switching jobs, we don't think about it when we're sick, we don't worry about medical bills.... we just go to the doctor/hospital, and worry about getting better or dealing with the work implications of taking time off.
The weight for that piece simply doesn't rest on our shoulders or minds at all.
You've been tricked and brainwashed you into thinking what you have is normal, and it's disturbing how many of you think it's a reasonable way to continue.
You pay taxes but get no benefit of them . They are used for subdivise automaker ,wallmart ,meat and dairy lobby and killing ciilvilan in other countries . I don't understand why american are OK with that .
That system is shit and a danger to the people and to the unity a nation needs.
In Germany we don't even think about this system when we are ill - we simply go to the doctor whatever it is, and we call an ambulance if it's necessary. Not a single thought.
I mean it's literally one of the good reasons to even have a society. I think whatever the fuck this is, it's more like a good damn competition or something like that. It's insane. Americans are insane for thinking that they are all temporarily inconvenienced millionaires in the making, and seemingly can't understand basic empathy for all those that would be non millionaires. I think money making global corporations are soulless complex machines of torture and warfare that are completely psychopathic entities that will destroy anything or anyone standing between it and profits, and instead of controlling that you keep complaining when those machines end up hurting you. These dark corrupted demonic beings of hatred are also just without any oversight abusing and murdering people in other countries making this a world wide problem. I think your dollar scam has ruined the economy of the entire world by being a particularly self centered grifting scheme that for decades has proven to be out of control and toxic to the entire human race.
It's a so foreign concept for me. Needing to rationalize about going to ER.
I feel sorry. People are dying and people are tricked into believing it's the better alternative. But There is a better way, and it's only denied because of greed.
I stopped having sympathy during the Obama administration. When half of the country will willingly and intentionally fuck themselves over to prove a point, when a political party will reverse course on a life saving piece of legislation because the other side agreed to it, and those same people continue to get elected, it's not worth my emotional energy to give a fuck anymore.
Y'all deserve what you have. It's not good but it's what you want.
In Europe the US healthcare system is seen as a joke and medieval. Same for most social services I'm the US. Like somebody else said I stopped feeling sympathy a while ago.
Shaking my head and glad I'm not living in the US.
A country can decide how to treat people, how to shape the future. I get that nothing is perfect and everything is complicated. But I completely don't get why the US doesn't want to tackle some of the problems. Mainly school shootings, healthcare, social security and a democratic system by today's standards. Maybe the latter is the answer why... And watching documentaries about the rural areas, it seems like the USA is mostly a third world country, except for in the cities.
Honestly, I am so glad my parents didn't move to the USA and moved to the UK instead. Me and my sister had several health issues including asthma, food allergies, broken bones playing sports, and as a result several hospital and doctor visits. Considering my parents were self employed shop keepers, I don't know if we'd be alive, let alone what sort of life we would have had. Then also having to pay for college would've been tricky. Having so few work holidays also completely sucks!
We are now both professionals with great jobs, paying lots of taxes and volunteer a lot to try to give back. Would that be possible in the USA - I honestly have no idea! Would we move to the USA - absolutely no way! We'd both actually earn lots more money in the USA in the same role but factoring in health and happiness, it's not worth it.
When you hear "greatest country on earth" and "the American dream", I think anybody in Western countries really roll their eyes. It's not a utopia here in the UK but nobody claims it to be, and stories like this just prove we are better off here.
However, we know the people themselves are great and don't deserve this position. We feel sorry for you and wish part of your population would travel and see things for themselves to push for changes back home.
In the UK, we are terrified that we will end up in the same position as our out of touch political elite and ultra wealthy would love to copy this.
I'm from the US, and I moved to Canada for 4 years for work.
As a young adults, my partner and I had revolving medical debt. Not a ton, but enough to make it annoying. A couple thousand here and there. It felt like I was always had a hospital bill that we were trying to pay off.
When we moved to Canada it was weird for us because, just as another person in here stated, you just didn't have to think about going to the doctor. I had major stomach surgery, we had a kid, we got monetary support for our other kid who's on the spectrum to take them to therapy... We got gtube supplies, meds for infections.... Anything we needed was covered. Not once did I think oh man, this is going to wreck us. Well, that's not true, I thought that the first time I took my oldest to the doctor to get an xray because we thought they might have broken a bone, but that was just a thought and it didn't actually cost us a penny.
Every time we went to our PCP, a specialist, or emergency, the only thing we had to pay for was parking and maybe a few bucks for pain meds. But each time we had to get pills it was less than $5 to fill the prescription. One of the kids fell and hit their head? Straight to the doctor. A cold that's been taking too long to go away on its own? To the doctor!
Now we are back in the US, and I just paid off another medical bill because my insurance only covered a small amount of an ECG, because they wanted to check make sure my kids heart was strong enough to put her on medication, and that the meds wouldn't kill her.
The US healthcare system has provided me with lots of entertainment value via John Oliver's Last Week Tonight. I like it for that
For real though, despite being a software engineer who could find a very lucrative job in the US in a heartbeat, there's no way in hell I'll ever even remotely consider it, and the healthcare system is one of the reasons.
I'm a union autoworker, my health insurance is premium-free and covers pretty much whatever in exchange for a 25 dollar copay. We need stronger unions in this country. If you have a job, unionize it. The government has proven to be wholly ineffective at providing for the common good. They will never help you. Help yourself by unionizing your workplace.
Our son had a pseudo-croup attack, when he was about two. We have a number here in my country that you can call and they try to figure out your next steps. Since he was so young they pretty quickly told us to call an ambulance. Two paramedics came fairly quick and ordered an emergency doctor to the scene since they wanted to give him some medication they couldn't give him on their own.
We were a little apologetic because we weren't sure if calling them was warranted. But they were super nice and said we shouldn't worry, it was their job and they'd rather drive to cases like this, were things go well then the other way round.
We gave them our insurance card, they left, and everything was fine.
Never in the whole process have I thought, oh my, I hope this isn't going to cost too much. That is an awful thought. Our medical system here is far from perfect and I fear it's going to get worse but it gives me a piece of mind that I don't have to worry to go broke over it.
And the way families are insured really works well. You work and all your children and your partner (if they don't work) are insured through you. No changes in payment, no questions (apart from: are they earning any money) asked.
I didn't read the article, but I read your story, OP. Your situation sounds shitty. As a Canadian, we take our kid to the doc when we feel it's necessary. We live in a rural community and we don't have a family doctor, so that usually means a trip to the ER, but we consider the cost in time (ie, how many hours will I have I take off work), rather than money.
I think it would be fair to say that we take our kids to the doc too often. I'm not proud of that, but I'll happily pay taxes for other parents to do the same.
Having to think about price when your boy is having difficulty breathing sounds dystopian.
That story is horrific, I can't imagine living like that.
When I have a medical emergency (or even if it's just a possibility) then I go straight to the ER. I might have a small administration cost to pay, but it's easy enough to manage that I don't have to give it a second thought.
My job isn't linked to my healthcare, that sounds like insane leverage.
Honestly, I feel scared because it's actually something that is being exported here.
I feel so sorry for you Americans, but I don't blame you. I don't think this is something you can address by simply voting, the same way we here can't do nothing by voting in order to stop the privatization of everything.
This are scary times.
On 4chan /k/ a while back, an American ND'ed his gun into his hand and asked the board whether he should go to the hospital or not. It boggled my mind that he was having this conversation and I am from a 3rd world nation.
I can't believe governments and companies put such a "price" on people's health. I must say the news about the US Health System is also echoed by all the other US companies I have dealt with in my professional capacity.
Profits before people and sales before outcomes.
When I need medical care, I go to the doctor, it is not a question about if I can afford it, I just go.
Back in 2019 I got sick like hell with mycoplasma, I was out of work for a month and a half, and even stayed two nights in hospital.
I never worried about my job, just focused on getting better.
At the end you do still have to pay here in Sweden, but in total, several doctors vists, two nights in hospital, antibiotics, food in hopsital and the medicine from the pharmacy cost me about the equivalent of 150USD.
So while not 100% free to me, I did not even once think about the cost.
Why does your government not want a healthy work force? Healthy workers are more productive. Even with the right wing focus of your entire government, having healthy workers just feels like a no brainer.
I'm Australian, I hate the way our government treats our healthcare system and continues to make decisions in favour of companies and to the detriment of the Australian people, but holy hell is our system better than in the US.
Each time I read an article like this I'm glad to live here. This is never a decision we would need to make, we wouldn't even question going to the ER in a case like this.
Been in both the healthcare systems of the US and several European healthcare systems for many years.
I honestly don't know why Americans accept their healthcare system. It's insane. Everyone's worried about healthcare all the time. People pay excessively out of pocket for almost no coverage. And God forbid you get sick. Not only will you have to deal with the illness, you're also staring down a possible bankruptcy.
Edit: In Europe, you just go to the emergency room or the doc or the hospital. No need to look up anything. In most places you have a small healthcare ID card that you show when you check in. Many systems don't have any co-pays or deductibles. You just go and done. Some systems have a small co-pay for hospital stays or other services. In Germany, the co-pay for a hospital stay is €10 per day with a max of €280 per calendar year. In Denmark, there are no co-pays or deductibles for any healthcare service except dental. In Germany, most dental services are included without co-pays.
If you're an EU citizen and you need medical care in a different EU country than where you reside, you have a special EU health card that gives you the right to the same healthcare services as a citizen of the country where you are seeking treatment.
I do like that in my country, if there's an emergency, you don't need to think about it. You just get help without fear of being financially crippled for life.
I feel bad for Americans that you can't easily get medical help, even in emergencies.
I'm getting the impression that a lot of foreigners think the American public generally supports the current healthcare system. We don't.
Complaining about our healthcare is practically a National pass time. We all want something better, but it's also one more problem in a burning pile of problems, which we have few tools to fix.
Some good news, is that we're making some small progress on that front. We're finally begging to rebuild our unions, which were dismantled decades ago, and the American public is becoming more politically engaged. Hopefully, these trends continuing a positive direction, and are resilient to being torn down again.
Man, I live in shit country where opposition is killed every february and ruling party of oligarchs have been destroying my country's healthcare system for last 20 years, but I'm glad commies built it tough.
that your country is the actual shit hole. The worst part is when people who do work, and have insurance get denied care or endebted because something is "out of range" or whatever the fuck it is you yankees call it.
I live in LATAM, and healthcare is good. I had ... "worker contribution" (mutualista) tier healthcare and private medical. Mutualista worked adequately, got my needs met, but the centers were a bit spaced out, ironically due to market competition. Similar problem with the private medical insurance, but it comes with lots of fancy bells and whistles (telemedicine, medical history app, wide variety of specialists to resolve issues etc).
I pay about $100 (monthly) and it covers everything. I never have to think about going to hospital, except "Let me see if I can avoid it by doing a quick video call"
There's also universal healthcare that covers everyone not in mutualistas or private medicine. It's not as well regarded, but at least it's there. If you are making tax contributions, you're on mutualista tier healthcare anyway. I don't think anyone hesitates to call ambulances or react properly in the case of a medical emergency.
What use is having 8 different burger chains when you get squashed by a train and you yell at people to not call an ambulance so you don't go bankrupt?
American here, we have amassed more wealth than Rome at its peak, yet a disgusting number of our citizens live in third world conditions. Another disgusting amount of people live in relative comfort, but also in impossible debt that threatens them daily. They will be homeless soon, and they know it.
Our wealth inequality is worse than France before the Revolution, and it increases constantly. The wealthy don’t care. They just want more. They’ll burn the entire fucking planet to ash if it makes them a little more profit.
And Americans pay their utility bills with credit cards. And their grocery bills with credit cards. Their wages go to rent and booze/smoke to get by. Look at the mental health numbers in America and factor in the people worried about getting fired if they admit they’re struggling and ask for help. Factor in the ones who don’t have health insurance and can’t even ask for the help they need.
It’s a fucking nightmare here. And it’s getting worse every day. Trump is going to win for a reason.
I think I hope the right wing political parties where I live don't manage to dismantle what little functioning public healthcare we do still have.
A friend of mine recently moved to the USA from NZ and was saying the healthcare is generally better if you're employed and get decent insurance. And while that's true for non emergency stuff at least in an emergency you don't need to stress about whether the ambulance takes you to an in network hospital in NZ.
I live in a western European country. A few anecdotes to illustrate what Americans don't get about healthcare:
I was involved in a serious accident and the passenger in my car was taken to hospital in an ambulance and had to have scans, etc. It ended up costing 1000 Euros.
One of my teeth needed to be replaced by a dental implant. I had it removed, a bone graft was necessary, then a few months later they drilled a metal pin into the jaw bone, then they placed a crown on it. The pin was Swiss made, the dentist did a 3d scan of the inside of my mouth for the crown. I had a few return visits. It ended up costing me 3000 Euros total, but I specifically spread the appointments around the new year: november - january. This was a big deal for me, as I was unemployed and needed to dip into my already small savings.
I had a headache, so I bought myself some paracetamol(tylenol?) at the drug store. 50 for 2 euros.
Sounds ok, right?
Here's the thing that Americans don't get. These are all fully private prices.
The first incident, I received a bill because it would have to be paid by the other party's insurance. 1000 Euros was the fully private cost without government intervention. The accident had happened just across the border in another country.
The second anecdote, this was also the fully private cost. Dental implants are not covered by healthcare. I have supplemental private dental insurance (20 Euros per month), which has a maximum deductable of 2000 Euros per year. Spreading it out meant I ended up spending only a few hundred euros, after I received money from my insurance a few weeks later.
The US system isn't just absurdly expensive for people who aren't insured, it's absurdly expensive compared to fully private healthcare in plenty of developed countries.
Hell, have a look at how much it costs to get plastic surgery in the US. A boob job is likely to cost you less than a visit to the ER, despite the latter being a far more involved and expensive operation.
It seems obvious to me that a lot of price gouging and anti-competitive behaviour is going on in US healthcare, and simply regulating (not privatising) properly would already make things far more affordable. How else can you explain healthcare costs per capita being up to three times as high as comparably developed countries, but outcomes often being worse? Healthcare shouldn't have to cost this much. The healthcare industry can make a reasonable profit while charging far more reasonable prices.
TLDR: you're getting ripped off, but you have no choice in the matter, because what are you going to do if it's an emergency? You can't just leave the country.
I remember an other US post of a guy who had done everything he was supposed to. Had insurance, had savings, had a well paid job.
Nonetheless, his whole family was in financial ruins when his wife got cancer. They had to move from the house and everything!
The fact that you don't think a $2-5k bil is a lot, just proves that this system does not work, especially because some people would not even be able to pay that back for years!
To me, this is hopeless. I'd much rather pay half of my salary in taxes and be sure that if something happens, it will be the only thing that happens and that I'll be taken good care of (and even my family will be offered help to cope). And in topnof that I get free education, 5 weeks free with pay, over 20 weeks paid maternity leave and pension. To me that sounds like a much better deal. The fact that others get the same by paying less does IMO not make it a worse deal.
We moved from America to see Asia years ago. We were just talking last week about how racist we still catch ourselves being. We have a sick relative at home who we talked about moving here. They'd be close to us so we could help. And healthcare here is cheap/free often and pretty good.
But there's part of me that just thinks American = superior. No matter how long I live here I'm not sure it will ever go away. It's been psychopathically programmed into me. "Yeah it's expensive, but at least you're getting a good doctor". (I've had awful and great doctors in both countries) It's infuriating to realize.
I was offered by my employer to move to the USA with the husband and children to set up a local team for a few years and then return to Europe. Didn’t have questions about the pay, housing, nope. I had questions about healthcare. I usually end up once a year in the ER for myself, last stint was a miscarriage over Christmas with 6 ER meetings but I have a shit ankle and break various bones on the yearly because I don’t pay attention to where I walk. Add children: usual sickness plus all the stupid shit they do and end up in the ER for. Asked is the insurance had a zero deductible or something similar to what we have. Long story short, I didn’t want to leave our healthcare system and we stayed in Europe as all they offered wasn’t up to par with what we got.
I used to be horrified and outraged. Now I just think it's hilarious. No problem, cause you got the 2nd amendment, right? You can get all the health care you need by just holding up a hospital. Haha.
I have learned that whenever something doesn't make sense about the US, it is racism. When segregation was declared unconstitutional, the southern states vowed "massive resistance". The baddies can also riot and mobilize civil society. They privatized what they could to thwart the overreach of the tyrannical government. People are naturally selfless, in that they are willing to suffer to hurt the right people. I fear this insanity is also spreading in Europe, as people are becoming aware of immigration. People do not vote in their own interest if it might benefit "the other", but they do vote against it if it might hurt "the other".
Of course, rational self-interest is also a factor. The US spends ~17% of its GDP on health care, compared to ~13% in Germany on second place. This is despite the fact that it has a younger population and does not cover everyone. So, yeah, those evil corporations again. But, maybe not just "them". That's also a lot of white collar jobs and you can see in AI threads how people feel when those are threatened.
People in the U.S. who say that it's fine if poor people don't have insurance because they can just go to the emergency room.
Not just because of stories like this, but because you can't go to the ER for chemotherapy.
Meanwhile, I have supposedly good insurance and have well over $10,000 in medical debt. I'm going to the Mayo Clinic in March, so that's going to soar.
The emotional reaction I get to these stories is hard to put into words. It's a mix of deep sadness and incandescent rage. I just can't imagine being in that position and not wanting to firebomb a politician's house.
My little girl had a very high fever the other night and we were really worried about her, so we called the nurse on call hotline who advised us to wait and go to the urgent care centre in the morning unless she got suddenly worse overnight, then to head to emergency. It was all stressful enough just worrying about how sick she was. I can't imagine how much worse it would be having to worry about paying for any of those services on top of that.
I literally use the horror-stories about the US health care system to counter the bullcrap peddled by the white supremacist, pro-neocolonialism and pro-privatisation crowd here in South Africa.
Of course, it's a pretty moot point, really - our entire political establishment seems dead-set on dismantling and sabotaging what little remains of our tattered public infrastructure anyway to facilitate their corrupt dealings with foreign creditors. They only seem to differ on whether to do it slow or fast.
I can just explain the mindset, and then you can draw your conclusions: When people get sick, they evaluate whether it is bad/concerning enough as to be worth the hassle of making time to go to the doctor. If during work hours, in most office work spaces, you simply say "I'm going to the doctor. I'm back in a couple of hours", and you go.
Now the situation is getting increasingly worse every year, because the public health system is underfunded, and every year more so, so that private alternatives look much better... So that rich people and/or private health interests, can use their wealth to "argue" (paid propaganda, e.g funding political opposition) that the public healthcare is not adequate, and should be further defunded... Doctors literally chose between sticking to morals/principles or having non-insane working hours and a higher pay. So, we're headed in the same direction, for sure. The US just serves as the example of: take that path to its conclusion, and that's how fucked up it can get. Hopefully, when our public health service simply collapses within the next 10 years, we manage to draw the correct conclusions as to why that happened, and not double down on the same stupidity (just look at UK for inspiration). I'm sure think tanks are aware of this, and can suggest how to sow the seeds for a political zeitgeist where we go full retard.
But, people still selfishly vote for their own interests, or dumb enough to be convinced regardless. Humans sucks. Fingers crossed.
The most frustrating part of getting older and wiser, is clearly understanding the correct solutions and approaches. Perhaps not the answer to everything, but at least identifying what makes the problems worse. Then, observing that those in charge have private interests at heart, and that the new generation is too malleable to know any better.
One thing that's different out that there is no such thing as not being able to pay for health insurance. You are required by law to be insured. This also means the government mostly covers it for you if you can't.
You may have to pay out of pocket for the first few hundred euros when something happens, but insurance covers the rest. There's no way a person's life savings would disappear overnight because of a medical issue. I'd rather die than pay what I sacrificed 30+ years to save up for.
Most of the time we don't think about it, because anything medical often comes with its own stress, so just thinking about that is front of mind.
It's only after the dust settles and we're all back home and safe that we might say something like "whew glad that's over! Can you imagine if we had to worry about money on top of that?"
Truly once you're used to single payer, the American alternative seems like lunacy. I cannot imagine the stress of combining some if life's biggest medical decisions with financial considerations
I'm not sure. I get the impression that the American culture contains the promise that you will succeed if you try, so perhaps people think that if they can't afford private healthcare insurance or pay their medical bills then it's their own fault.
Coming from the UK I would be completely outraged if I had to pay and I think most other people here would be too.
I don't think you can have both private healthcare and a stable state in an unequal economy because if enough of your minions & customers and get sick or die you lose the big leather armchair.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYCRwcz2aV8 is really crazy, that americans seem to think, that you need to be able to get out of everything by yourself. In the line of: If something bad happens to you and you are not able to get out by yourself, then it is your own fault and nobody should help you. Though this is already often talked about.
Another scary thing is how little you like your government (being it of the State or federal). It seems Americans don't want the government to do much, not seeing at as a tool to handle modern problems. Back when I was at Reddit I read a thread about why americans opposed state run free healthcare for all. One user wrote something like "Don't see, why we should solve the price issue by letting the state (so taypayer) pay". The user just ignored the immense power, that a government of a big and wealthy nation has. It can easily press pharma companies to set prices low enough, without stiffling research and innovation. But that would be against freedom, I guess? Really difficult to understand.
The monsters have been trying to do the same things in Europe though, UK has underfunded the NHS and healthcare in Germany is in deliberate decline too.
If you are sufficiently wealthy in the US, you can afford what we have as routine in Europe, which is healthcare. In the US, there are many who cannot afford insurance, and even with insurance, the policy is unlikely to cover your needs, especially for anything other than acute care.
Well, in my country you have the option to pay for medcare or use a private plan. However you have full access to public, free and universal healthcare which you don't have to pay anything for it.
We don't have to convince anyone here. If you need attention, you'll get attention. For free.
I think that USA healthcare is a joke. A bad taste joke.
Sadly I feel like it's always the same thing when hearing about america's problems: people will make a great fuss about it, lots of tweets, TV interviews and such, but nothing will came out of it. Repeat every x months.
That's what I have observed about the gun handling situation, the 6 January insurrection, the opioid crisis, the rise in poverty, housing crisis, and the healthcare system. Seems like the whole world is staring at the US like WTF is happening, and america is just like "yeah, I'll be angry today and do something about it tomorrow"
Anyway, just my 2 cents, send thoughts and prayers
I grew up in the US healthcare system and have paid it multiple tens of thousands of dollars. I spent around a decade also working in Healthcare IT. I now live in a country with a much more sane system (Japan). Not perfect, but not the shitshow that is the greedy US system.
Everytime, I read a horror story about US healthcare, I am like can't be the norm, it should be a made up clickbait article based on an exception
Please US friends, tell me you have a decent coverage.
Moreover, everytime I read about before insurance prices it doesn't compute. How can an US doctor charge like 10 times the prices on our side of the pond ?
@catch22
If we want to go on vacation, it is strongly recommended to check the insurance not only in the USA but also when traveling to Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand or Cyprus.
According to an article in a consumer magazine, it is strongly recommended to negotiate if you have to pay bills yourself. In most cases, the costs can be massively reduced. There are also said to be specialized companies that take over negotiations, some of which are also used by insurance companies.
When i hear these stories i think im so grateful to not be born in such a horrible country. A country that can not look after its own isnt a country i want to be in
Honestly? The real feeling I get from this is being scared for the future. I do know that there are powerful forces seeing a business opportunity in that status quo that can be exported. And you can see the impetus towards eroding the safety nets here following marching orders from the far right, anarchocapitalist mothership all throughout the world. In some of the countries I've lived in there is already a push towards this model, just moderated by the existence of some sort of universal health care. Sure, even the bare minimum of public service care takes a TON of the edge off. Those ER bills are what some of my friends in those places paid for, say, having major surgery or good care while having a baby... but it's a slippery slope.
My wife needed her gall bladder out last year the most expensive part of the whole week-long ordeal was paying for parking at the hospital. She has private medical insurance through her work, but needing to deal with the paperwork and all that from the hospital wasn't worth the effort.
The fact that people have to choose between bankruptcy or dying of preventable illness is kinda like school shootings: the fact that you tolerate this at all - let alone having a major party campaign on "these things are actually good and you should be happy about them" - is pretty much proof that all of you are completely insane.
Two main benefits/"public goods" from having your lives in a societal arrangement:
Having an educated population allows overall advancements that wouldn't be possible where education standards are low. If the protestant dogma of "work hard and you'll get salvation" was still prevalent in all groups we'd still be chiseling stones as that is real manly work. Intellectuality is still mostly frowned upon in the US. The whole purpose is to work less and enjoy living as the benefit of having basic needs solved for. Access to free education has plenty of positive externalities that we aren't even able to quantify. Would the US still be engrossed in its culture wars or other wars?
Having a healthy population allows a sense of group and care for a country. Belonging to a country should mean that your fellow countrymen have your back in time of need. Father time comes for us all. How unpatriotic it is that people proudly wave their flags whilst letting their own fellow countrymen die from preventable causes or having to face choices such as living longer and getting bankrupt or let sickness fester until perishing. Not having free healthcare from an outside perspective is as unpatriotic as you could get.
The US seems a prime example of too much emphasis on GDP and limited focus on quality of life. I'd rather be homeless in Cuba than in the US albeit all wealth and quality of life indicators are better in the US.
I’m sure they laugh at us, then feel a bit of pity, because most of us aren’t terrible people, but most of us can’t afford good healthcare because we vote for corrupt politicians in 2-party system of basically the same options, except one loves Russia and uses abortions to seduce the religious
In Australia, it's not too uncommon to hear people have conversations about how fucked the US system is. That's partly a symptom of how intertwined my life is with the topic of medicine and healthcare systems though, I'm sure most people have far fewer discussions about those topics than I do.
Having said that, I have certainly said "Thank God I'm not in the US" and received emphatic agreement in conversations.
I've also had a doctor say "well at least you're not in the US" to me during an appointment, after I expressed some displeasure at how much something was going to cost me - because i wasn't considered a valid demographic for that specific drug to receive the subsidy.
Socialised medicine doesn't mean free medicine, sadly. And our system has been run down by the ruling class attempting to emulate the US version's money-churning machine.
Honestly I just feel really sorry for you. What's even the point in living in the world's wealthiest country if it treats so many of you like shit at your most vulnerable.
What runs through your heads when you have a medical emergency?
whatever first aid I was taught that's relevant to do immediately e.g stop the bleeding
do we need to wait for an ambulance for this or shall we just drive straight to Accident and Emergency
go go go
That's about it followed by some of the usual "oh please let this person be okay". Emergencies are horrific. I can't even imagine having to factor being bankrupted into it.
I'm in New Zealand so the doctor costs money and prescriptions in some places cost $5 each. So there is still a lot of weighing up that the poor do around that kind of care. But as soon as a hospital is involved everything is free. None of that stuff is a factor any more.
Canada here: Unbelievable. It's so foreign to me to pay for medical care.
And I always post this:
Frame Canada
Wendell Potter spent decades scaring Americans. About Canada. He worked for the health insurance industry, and he knew that if Americans understood Canadian-style health care, they might.... like it. So he helped deploy an industry playbook for protecting the health insurance agency.
It's dystopian as can be, the health care system in my country was one of the best in the world but has taken a major hit recently because of stupid ass politicians. Still it's miles better than in the US and if I'm ill I just go to a doctor I don't think twice about it.
Definitely, people health it's a big business, big pharma sell a remedy they don't sell the cure. There isn't a better business than big pharma and privatized health care.
Some experience of the UK system, I've called for an ambulance twice in the UK recently for what I consider (and any reasonable person would) to be an emergency. Both times I was told it would be about 4 hours wait and could I get someone to drive me to the hospital. My partner has been phoning her GP to try and get an appointment for over two weeks and keeps getting told to phone back 'in a few days' because they have nothing available for over a month, including phone consultation. I've experienced dangerous ineptitude from multiple NHS doctors. I've also seen corruption in that if you know someone who works in the right department you can jump queues. So I've learned from experience to go private if I actually need medical aid.