It’s almost like … universal healthcare would make our economy stronger and the insurance companies are the leaches…
Some people don’t want universal health care because they don’t want their taxes going towards other people’s health care. What they seem to fail to understand is that the exact same thing happens with private health insurance, and some of the money goes towards the insurance company’s profits. Universal health care would make things cheaper.
No, they don’t want people who don’t “contribute” to benefit off THEIR money!
What if… GASP, an ILLEGAL would benefit off their money??? Because you know, those illegals are just on all the gov files and they can strode into places and say “giv me moneyz” and we can’t do anything about it!
It’s purely down to not wanting to help others below them. Irony is not part of their vocabulary.
Oh damn,
time for a trip to the US Treasury!
I’m an illegal as soon as I overstay my visa, right?
Apparently no one is 100% sure whether bloodsucking worms were named after doctors that used them, or doctors were named after the blood sucking worms that they commonly prescribed.
“Leech” being an old timey name for a medical doctor, possibly predating the term “doctor” which just came from “teacher” like “doctrine” or something.
That’s an easy 6 billion profit! Just pick them up in an ambulance and have them overnight for an upset stomach ulcer.
Americans: … OH YEAH! … now lets count how many Aircraft Carriers each country has!! … U! … S! … A! … U! … S! … A! … U! … S! … A! … pulls a muscle from over exerting themselves, has to go to the hospital and pay for treatment
They want to have the freedom to be able to pay for treatment
It’s a free country … as long as you can afford it
… and also …
“That’s why they call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.” - George Carlin
the US healthcare racket
land of the free
*terms and conditions may apply
So, no one in those countries became homeless and bankrupt because of an illness and lost their job? I am asking genuinely because I wouldn’t know.
Danish healthcare is covered but good luck getting any treatment
In Japan if you work full time for a larger employer, you pay into “shakai hoken” (societal insurance) this pays you like a third of your salary if you get injured and have to refrain from work for awhile. (This is at least partially paid for by your company because you can only legally be fired in Japan if the company proves beyond a reasonable doubt you were either belligerent or the company couldn’t survive without you)
This is hyperbole. Healthcare cost might be covered, but there are a lot more expenses with being sick. Social support and housing support in the UK is laughable. Good luck if you cant work because of disability. The hospital will keep you alive…and then discharge you to the street.
Still better than America though.
Does UK have any social security disability or retirement other than what is relied upon by an employer? Just wondering.
Yeah there are a bunch of benefits you can claim from the government: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/benefits-check/
Healthcare is also not tied to any job or anything.
Seems about equal to Social security disability but, SS is worse because they don’t really tailor your payments to your housing expenses and needs. If they did, the government might even save money. I know people around me that just use most of their check for weed. If it was guaranteed to only cover your bills with a smaller spending allowance and they asked for monthly bank records to prove you were using government money wisely, there would be less freeloaders and more reserve for those who retire and have paid into it. More people who proved they could work, or who abused the system would be called out and forced to work, and those with true disabilities could stay on it.
I know people around me that just use most of their check for weed.
not really any of your business. if they are able to arrange where they have spending money good for them.
i don’t even support SS but this thinking is paternalistic since you don’t know their personal financial situation. but the judgement is heavy
My point was that they can work, some of them have under the table jobs to begin with and they are abusing the system. Ss will occasionally audit and ask for random bank statements anyway. Not my business but it is the government’s if the money comes from them (technically we who work and pay into it anyway). They don’t give the money to pay for weed they give it to support you-- barely.
True … even here in Canada social systems are not as good as they could be … but imagine trying to access shitty social services AND PAYING FOR MEDICAL SERVICES… or worse being in over your head because of medical debt!
Met a homeless guy once who had had his jaw broken over some change. Even he was able to go to the hospital to get fixed up. It didn’t solve his myriad other problems but at least even he could get that taken care of.
Any system which would have turned him away should be burned to the ground and the people who built said system should have the flesh flayed from their bones, slowly.
… or … just take away all their money, wealth, connections, opportunities and not allow anyone to help them … then throw them on the street in Detroit and break their jaw.
I could be convinced of that. I still want flay a couple of them, though. People like Elon just need to be fucking erased, honestly.
But how is access to medical and mental health treatment and options for it? Is there a ton of variety?
When my dad was diagnosed with late stage prostate cancer they assembled a team for him, got him all the tests and scans and began treatment essentially immediately. Uncle with leukaemia was basically the same experience. He had a bone marrow transplant in addition to all the regular chemo stuff. Total bill came to $0 but they do gouge you for parking. Need a joint replacement? You’re gonna have to wait, but for life and death you get the treatment you need pretty quick
You have to wait in the US too, but we pretend our times are better.
No, it’s an exaggaration. According to StreetSmart Australia 14% of people became homeless due to becoming unemployed suddenly
With that said we do have MUCH better social welfare programs here in Australia than the US, though there is always more that could be done
Lol there are definitely treatments that are very expensive and not covered by some insurances. This is not a “statistic”, just opinion. USA has it way worse of course. But I remember my dad having to lend money from friends because some of my mom’s cancer treatments were not covered.
Edit: Also wtf why is this in shitpost
where would you put it?
Any of the dozens political communities
They get removed there because mods don’t like class solidarity they want people to be doing political circle jerks.
Well yes,… but no, you can face significant financial burdens if someone in your family needs living assistance, such as a parent, and the state steps in to cover the costs. The law allows the state to require adult children to contribute to these expenses to a certain degree, but only after all assets of the elder or disabled person have been exhausted (“bankrupting” said person so to speak).
While this is not the same as bankrupting an entire family for life, it can indeed become a heavy financial strain if the parents were not adequately insured or financially prepared for such situations. The obligatio, however, is subject to strict thresholds and limits, such as exemptions for children earning below €100,000 annually, ensuring hardship is avoided.
The lesson is vote blue, and the USA has failed every single test for over 12 years.
If that’s the lesson then when were we supposed to learn it? I am old enough to remember very well the last time Democrats tried to do something about healthcare. They gave up on single payer before the debate even started. Was that when I was supposed to learn to vote for them harder or was it one of the times they fucked over the only person with actual plans to implement universal healthcare?
Yes, Democrats are clearly better than the fascists masquerading as conservatives, but that doesn’t mean they’re fighting the good fight. They don’t even try to force a vote on most things people actually care about. They just throw up their hands and complain that doing things is hard. Then everyone sits around blaming voters for not loving these ineffectual dipshits enough. Fuck that, they suck it’s been that way for a lot more than 12 years.
When Democrats had 60 votes one DNC Senator, Joe Liebermen, stopped singlepayer from passing.
Joe died in 2013 at the ripe old age of 82.
Every single Republican voted No on singlepayer. They also voted No on the Medicaid Expansion and Protections for pre-existing conditions. Republicans continue to tell us repeatedly that they want to gut Medicaid and that Medicare for the elderly is also on the chopping block, but they haven’t been able to get 60 votes, yet.
So the answer to your question of when is: Every Goddamn Year. If you want Single Payer then just elect 60 Dems to the senate, OR just 10 to 13 anybody else who is willing to vote for Single Payer, and if one of them still betrays us then elect a few more. We have privatized healthcare because voters are voting for politicians who want privatized healthcare, simple as.
The amount of misinformation about this guy…
Joe Lieberman had been an independent for years when he voted against single payer, and he died in 2024, after 11 years of retirement.
Ah mb lol
Well regardless he left office in 2013 and he’s dead now, thankfully.
You’re good, I meant it literally about disinformation, so I don’t doubt you read it somewhere that seemed credible.
I’m from Connecticut, and we’re all still mad about it, so it always sticks out to me when someone thinks he was a democrat at the time (he did generally caucus with democrats, but was very pro-business. He was not elected again.
Thank you
Even with the issues it has (and there are a LOT of issues— too much to name here), i would still take the canadian healthcare system over the US’. My mom’s medication costs thousands of dollars, and it’s all covered. We wouldn’t be able to afford it otherwise and she’d likely be dead if it weren’t for the coverage.
I know it would be covenient to accept this meme as true, but it very much isn’t.
Just like insurance companies in the US don’t cover everything you need, sometimes even lifesaving treatment, the same (though less extreme) happens in nearly all public health systems.
Neither this meme nor your own lived experiences are good representations of what the average American struggles with in the healthcare system. Speaking as someone who lost a house and almost everything I owned due to medical issues in my family.
I don’t think there is a public health system when you are just expected to fork over half a million for an operation. Those insane healthcare prices are uniquely US phenomenon
There are public health systems that just won’t offer that operation. Or you’ll have a 1.5 year waiting list. So in the end, unless you’re rich and pay for private insurance, it comes out as the same.
there’s still waiting lists in the US.
People in Australia do experience medical bankruptcy. It’s incredibly rare now. But it’s true. But it used to be so much worse before we had a public health system. And health outcomes were worse as well. And it cost more.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-18/bob-hawke-what-did-australia-have-before-medicare/11124180
An article just yesterday about the same happening in Switzerland
Not it’s not about that at all. This is about someone not getting disability checks, not healthcare, two very different things.
It’s about bankrupcy due to a medical condition.
Yes, resulting from lack of treatment and delay in paying disability benefits.
You are full of shit.
No, they got sick, now they have a long lasting condition and can’t work because of it. They did get treatment but can’t be cured (as of today long-covid is still a mystery). They didn’t lose all their money because of the medical bills, they’re losing their money because they can’t work anymore and the state is not giving them “benefits” (horrible word in this case). One is an issue with healthcare, one is an issue with social welfare, again, not the same thing.
Yeah, that happens sometimes. But in this case the price of an operation will be drastically cheaper.
I had this situation in Germany, there was a minor operation I needed to have which was not life threatening so the one that insurance covered had a waiting period, so I decided to go pay out of pocket and it was around 800 euro. The cheapest price I could find in US for it started at 11000 dollars.For sure. But now imagine your disabled and on disability income, where you get payed 1k a month and are living in poverty.
If you’re disabled and on disability income, it will absolutely not cost you 800 euro. You will be put in front of the queue for the free one. That’s why I, able bodied working person with slightly above median income, had to wait. And I think it’s as fair of a system that is possible under the circumstances.
That’s not how it works in my country. Great that that’s how your country works. The vast majority of those with universal healthcare don’t work like that.
I used to work for a disability advocacy organisation so I can assure you that.
Which country are you talking about?
For every case of a disabled persion on benefits having to wait 1.5 years for a non-urgent operation because they can’t afford private healthcare, there are a million of cases of people who get a common problem like Diabetes or Cardio-Vascular problems and get treated for free (down to getting the medicine for free, which for a person below the poverty line will be true even for the worst countries) rather than suddenly being faced with an extra monthly bill for medicine (which would be a massive hit for those poor people you cosplay as caring about for the sake of argument) or a massive bill for urgent surgery.
Oh, and even if you pay out of pocket for medicine, it’s way cheaper in those countries than the US, as governments have used their leverage to limit what Pharmaceutial companies can charge, unlike in the US.
The healthcare risks for the average individual in countries with Universal Healthcare aren’t even in the same universe as in the US.
You’re vastly underestimating the number of disabled and poor people and you’re vastly overestimating the number of things that are covered.
I get your proud of your country or your system or whatever, but please don’t minimise the experience of already marginalised groups.
Mate, as I’ve said it’s not one but TWO countries I lived in with Universal Healthcare, and you can’t be a Nationalist (as you’re trying to imply) for TWO countries.
If you’re comparing like to like - i.e. the average poor disabled person in both a country with Universal Healthcare and the US - you’re going to get some cases of those having insufficient treatment in countries with UHC (especially in those were neoliberal governments have been defunding their UHC systems to try and privatise Healthcare even against popular will, like the UK), whilst the vast majority of those people will be fucked in the US (unless they’re Veterans).
I’ve lived in several countries and it’s just an enormous peace of mind living in a country were you know that if you’re involved in an accident and end up getting costly treatement in an emergency ward, you’re not going to be ruined.
I think you’re seeing the problems relative to a specific baseline and you think that there are massive problems there (which I’m sure there are) but the thing with the US system is that the baseline itself is way worse and all those problem you see would also be problems there but much worse (or maybe not, as those people would die a lot faster, at which point no problem would be visible) and on top of that in the US there are way more people with even worse problems when it comes to Healthcare than the “poor disabled person” in a country with UHC.
Having lived in two countries with universal healthcare, that meme is absolutelly true and you’re the one bullshitting.
The most “extreme” it can get in such systems is that they won’t pay for very expensive treatments (i.e. the kind of stuff that costs a million dollars per shot) if a person can keep going with cheaper ones even if they’re not as good.
Even then, sometimes they will if it’s actually worth it (as in: for something that’s a cure, not for something that just keeps the patiet going and is only 10% better than the next best option whilst costing 1000x more).
That’s “your quality of life won’t be as good if you have a chronic disease that makes your life miserable and the best treatment in the market is insanelly expensive because they’ll only pay for a not as expensive one”, not “death panels”.
People in those countries absolutelly aren’t going bankrupt due to being denied life-saving treatment and having to pay for it from their own pocket.
As for any complains you might have heard from people in countries with universal healthcare, them complaining about it is like people in Scandinavia complaining about public services: relative to what they have there are bad parts, which is something altogether different than it being bad relative to the World and when it comes the healthcare the US is 3rd World when it comes to results delivered relative to the amount spent in it.
Sorry then.
I guess me living my entire life in a system with universal healthcare, being denied treatments that could have prevented me going deaf and needing a feeding tube is all in my imagination.
The treatments for these werent extreme. It was a fairly simple drug therapy that costs around 5’000 Euro per year and is sold in my country.
It just isn’t on the list of drugs covered by public health insurance. As I’m surviving on 12k per year disability benefits, I could not afford the treatment.
But just because it never impacted you you assume my experience doesn’t exist, because you have the privilege that the system never didn’t work for you, so you assume it works for everyone.
I’m talking about Universal Health Care systems (for clarity: totally free healthcare for residents in that country), not Public Health Insurance systems.
Europe is unfortunatelly also riddled with the latter system and having lived in countries with one kind and countries with the other, they’re quite different and the system with Insurance is invariably worse in terms of denials of coverage as well as cost (also because nowadays they all have laws that force every resident to have health insurance, which as result is more costlier than before those laws - as I saw first hand when I lived in a country with such a system when such a law came into effect), whilst UHC tends to have longer waiting lists (think 1 or 2 years of wait for some cirurgical procedures).
Absolutelly, some of the absurdities of the US system are also present in the so-called “Mixed” Systems (i.e. the ones with healtcare insurance but more regulated and with a public option for some) and if you look at the kinds of governments in those countries for the last 3 decades, you’ll notice they’ve been invariably neoliberal mainstream parties (setting up such systems is part of the broader tendency in Europe to privatise just about everything that has been going on since the 80s and was copied from the US).
IMHO, except for the long waiting times, the problems with Healthcare systems in part of Europe are the result of them having been transformed to become more like the US system in the last 3 decades.
Exatcly they dont know shit. While american healthcare system is clearly fucked there are many problems in european healthcare ( very country dependent tho ) ranging from lack of qualified doctors and long waiting times to very expensive treatments not covered in eu for some reason ( the one ive seen the most being uber expensive often experimental treatment where you usualy have to go to america ).
From what I’ve seen, treatments not being covered are only the case were those treatments are very expensive and there are other effective treatments (though less effective) which are much cheaper.
There’s also often a delay between a new and very expensive experimental treatment coming out and it becoming covered because it won’t be covered if it doesn’t demonstrate that it’s advantages over the other available treatments are sufficient to justify the additional cost.
Mind you, I’m talking about Public Healthcare Systems, not the so-called Mixed Systems that have mandatory Health Insurance (usually highly regulated and with a Public Insurance option for the less well off) - Mixed Systems have some of the same problems as the US System at least in my experience living in countries with one and with the other kind of system.
I have read the UK NHI doesn’t work very well exactly for the reasons mentioned above.
The UK NHI doesn’t work well because the neoliberal parties in successive governments (both the Tories and New Labour) have been defunding it so that they can - like Thatcher did with the railways - once its quality has fallen due to lack of funds claim that it’s bad because of Public management whilst it would be much better if it was Private because the Private Sector is much more competent, and privatise it.
Just like the US has fatcats that are perfectly happy to mass murder people for personal profit, so does the UK (and the British Political System is almost as bad as the American, so it’s definitelly sold to the highest bidder) and plenty of those jhave wet dreams of the country having 13% of its GDP flowing through a Private Healthcare sector like the US were they can make billions of pounds doing exactly the same as the fatcats do in US Healthcare.
Source: I lived in Britain for over a decade.
By the way, you “read that the UK NHI doesn’t work very well” is exactly because the UK media is overwhelmingly owned by tax avoiding billionaires who are part of the above mentioned fatcats who see themselves as profiting massivelly from Britain having a Healthcare System like the US. It’s not by chance that the level of trust of Britons in their Press is one of the lowest in Europe.
The exact same kind of tactics were deployed by Tatcher back when she wanted to privatise the Railways with the result that satisfaction with the Railway system in the UK is now even lower than when there was a public operator even after Thatcher defunded it to claim “Public is Bad, Private is Good” to amass enough public support to privatise it.
I’m not sure I’m other places but there’s a physician shortage in the US, Canada, but there looks to be a shortage in Europe as well…
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9799366/ https://www.euronews.com/health/2024/09/12/doctor-shortages-low-pay-and-overtime-europes-hospitals-are-under-the-weather
People in those countries absolutelly aren’t going bankrupt due to being denied life-saving treatment and having to pay for it from their own pocket.
The meme has an “or” in it though. About 20% of Canadian bankruptcy is due to health and illness. Here in Canada the maximum disability in ~1500cad a month, which might pay your rent if you live in a really really cheap area. Part of the reason it’s bad like that is because it is so often compared to America, and often greatly exaggerated like in this meme.
Americans: It’s all that gosh-darn SOCIALISM that’s causing this mess! Because socialism is when all the rich fat cats at the top keep all the earnings for themselves. Fucking dirtbag woke socialists!
And no lessons were learned that day.
Even Mangione has proved undoubtedly that he doesn’t entirely understand the very issue that radicalized him.
What information has come out that makes you say the last paragraph? I’m not doubting it’s validity in the slightest (I don’t think this guy is exactly an infallible source of wisdom), just haven’t seen a lot directly from him that would flesh his views out that much.
He was pretty pro-Musk and pro-Peter Thiel and certainly wasn’t a paragon of leftist thought. While being decently educated and well traveled, he seemed to have a lot of faith in technolibertarian ideals.
I’d say that’s clear from his Twitter and Reddit histories. It doesn’t mean he’s a frothing-at-the-mouth MAGA nut, but it also doesn’t mean he’s a dyed-in-the-wool leftist who understands the issues.
Further, like most people, he only became radicalized when a serious injury impacted his own life. It didn’t make him question the whole system of capitalism, just healthcare.
And all that’s fine and not meant to be an indictment one way or another about the guy, but more it’s meant to point out that like most Americans, he’s seemingly a little confused about larger issues. Which also makes sense since he’s only 26, learning about it all takes time.
Finally, I’m still not 100% convinced a bunch of this is just contrived police bullshit to pin it on a patsy, and that’s why his motives seem confused. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s just lacking education and confused, like most Americans.
he seemed to have a lot of faith in technolibertarian ideals.
he did not site musk in the supposed “manifesto”.
he did site some other people, not sure who. i think that would more indicative on his position.
i have hard time believing any of this but this he is alt right narrative is secondary to his act of revolt. it aint like he can do the entire capitalist in one job. he picked his target and simple, direct message.
I think he’s just kinda an ordinary person who grew up privileged. He has fairly standard techbro style libertarian beliefs, but he also has criticisms of some of the influencers he watches, and didn’t seem to like Peterson very much. He also seems to be an environmentalist, and I think he seemed to have become more anti-corporation based on the manifesto released (obviously assuming he did it).
Him being a privileged but ordinary guy who still got radicalized reflects a lot more strongly on the plight of everyone who isn’t one of the owner class. It doesn’t matter that he was relatively wealthy, he still wasn’t one of them.
Haha that’s not true. Canada is two tiered. You fucking full well know that not everything here is covered.
OK, i need to chime in here, there is illness related work loss here in Canada. Also, you can go bankrupt from dental work if you cannot afford dental insurance or your job doesn’t offer it (which most jobs that are not union/higher corp don’t). You can literally die from poor dental hygiene, and even if you brush your teeth every day and floss, that doesn’t mean your scott free from visiting the dentist.
In it’s first three months, Canada’s new Dental care plan has 75% of dentists signed up and 2.3m people.
As part of a phased rollout, the government began accepting claims for dental coverage for seniors in May and expanded eligibility to children under the age of 18 and Canadians with a valid Disability Tax Credit certificate in June.
Remaining eligible Canadians are scheduled to gain access in 2025.
yes, the reason i didn’t mention that, is because that’s very dependent on the next government. it will be around till the next election coming very soon. current polls have the conservative government getting a majority and its expected they will cut programs like this.
I don’t know about the other countries, but In France there definitely still are problems, check this recent story https://www.lanouvellerepublique.fr/a-la-une/on-lui-refuse-l-acces-aux-urgences-elle-accouche-sur-le-parking-de-l-hopital
A pregnant women was refused entrance to a private hospital she was forced to give birth on the parking lot in front of the entrance.
Sure the USA have an awful system but it doesn’t mean it’s perfect everywhere else. There are people that are bankrupt because of medical treatment here too. And we also have corrupt CEOs making it worse
Every country needs a Luigi.
A pregnant women was refused entrance to a private hospital she was forced to give birth on the parking lot in front of the entrance.
Much different situation than in the US. They didn’t go bankrupt. The private hospital just wanted to send them the the maternity room down the road. Was it a mistake by the hospital? Yes. But it wasn’t because of insurance and the mother didn’t got bankrupt.
Yes of course, it was just a recent example to show that other countries aren’t perfect. I agree with the general message of the post, the us have a very fucked up system that is way worse than in Europe.
You can look at my other comment for more detail about why I felt the need to react.
I don’t speak French. Why didn’t she go to the public one? Why was she forced to give birth on the parking? Why not call an ambulance?
Unpopular opinion incoming: I can understand if they didn’t allow her in in a PRIVATE one if she was not covered.
She was too far gone to be able to go to the nearest public one.
It’s actually a huge scandal in France, we have laws preventing this, and the hospital is pretending that it was a mistake from an individual employee to refuse her.
So it’s literally something that’s not legally supposed to happen, unlike in the US.
USA have an awful system but it doesn’t mean it’s perfect everywhere else
I don’t think that’s the message in this post either, so… The message is, it’s just far, far worse with the system they have, due to all healthcare being privatized.
At least that is my understanding. 🤷♂️
Yes of course,
I replied to this post because it is one of many making bold claims about healthcare in other countries than the US, most of the times claims about European countries healthcare made by US users are false and/or misleading.
Sure the US has a very bad system, I see it and recognize how bad it is, but it’s a tad annoying to see stuff like that, that falsely say we have “0” bankruptcy or that “everything” is covered by public healthcare, that our life expectancy is that much higher, etc… Most claims are unsourced and blatantly false or largely inflated for shock value.
In France for example we have many issues with our public healthcare, not everything is covered (dental isn’t for example), we aren’t covered for the full amount unless we pay for private coverage on top (called “mutuelle”) which often are linked to your employer, we have to pay up front and then get reimbursed later, geographically there are areas with very few hospitals, the poorer often can’t afford to be sick because we aren’t always automatically paid for sick days at work, there’s a shortage of medical fields’ workers, and our current political leaders have been making it worse for decades…
All that to say that from the perspective of a “European” citizen, these posts about the US system compared with ours feels like propaganda that “we should be happy with what we have” even though we really shouldn’t, using false information.
Very good points. I haven’t seen many other posts regarding this, so I just saw it in this isolated context.
But still, even with the flaws in our European systems, most of them are far superior to the US. The insane amounts you get charged for a simple accident can be hilarious. It’s like, breaking a leg costs the same as buying a car. It shouldn’t be that way. :-( Especially when the accident is caused by someone else.
But, you’re not wrong. 👍 No system is perfect, definitely. Our healthcare system in my country is silently on the verge of collapse because the wages are so low. So employees are quitting left and right, because the stress and workload is not worth the pay. Yet there is a requirement to offer healthcare, so they hire fill-in workers that cost waaaaaay more, so the cost still goes up either way for the employers, yet the net number of workers is also fewer than before. So they are paying more money for less workers, instead of just paying proper salaries for the ones that are actually employed.
It’s ridiculous. They’d rather spend 2x money than pay x money, for the principle. Just a big 🖕 to the workforce.
