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Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

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Re: Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

#311

Post by AstralStorm »

CalRobert wrote: post #163
praptak wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dunno about UK. Settling in Poland is not that hard, although no piece of cake either. I believe you can get a job with the associated temporary residence permit, extend this as many times as necessary to meet the uninterrupted legal stay requirements, then apply for the permanent residence. Getting citizenship is probably a bit harder but not impossible - about a thousand people get it in Poland each year by the dec…

"Get a job with the associated temporary residence permit" I'm not familiar with Poland specifically but this is generally the insurmountable barrier for most folks. Remember not everyone is a dev! "Sick person who works at Best Buy and drives for Lyft on the side" is going to have a really hard time with that step. Generally speaking, employers need to make a reasonable enough case that they couldn't get an EU perso…

There are other arguments, such as if you have a family in Europe (even semi-distant) getting residency in that country is much easier, even if the job you have landed is possible to do by a citizen. They presume you want to return permanently.

But if you have nobody around here... Well...

Re: Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

#312

Post by foldr »

EdSharkey wrote: post #309
foldr wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Health care is always "rationed". In the US it's rationed by ability to pay. This is far worse both ethically and practically than any means of rationing it via a cost/benefit calculation. As far as I know, no presidential candidate is proposing to stop people from buying private medical insurance, so your worries seem entirely unfounded in fact. Even in the UK, you can get private medical insurance if you want to.

There is a lot of abstraction in your statements culminating in an attempt to paint me as unethical. I wish we could just talk like friends who happen to disagree on policy. I don't believe a functional health care market where providers must compete on price and quality is as static as the system we have now. The "rationing" you describe that we have today is because we don't have a functional market or insurance sy…

>I wish we could just talk like friends who happen to disagree on policy.

I think it's a terrible mistake to treat this as a wonky policy issue rather than an urgent ethical issue. That conception of things is part of the reason that it's been so hard to reform the system.

> I don't believe a functional health care market where providers must compete on price and quality is as static as the system we have now. The "rationing" you describe that we have today is because we don't have a functional market or insurance system.

I've read through this a couple of times but can't really make any sense of it. As long as people have to pay for their own treatment, people with more money will be able to get better treatment. That's a form of rationing, and it wouldn't go away if the "market" were to get more "efficient".

>Rewatch the debates and listen to the policy statements and their implications, I don't think you're correct.

If one of the candidates is proposing to ban private health insurance, it should be easy for you to reference a statement to this effect.

Re: Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

#313

Post by close04 »

fuzz4lyfe wrote: post #239
disordinary wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much paid vacation do you get? Sick days? How much maternity leave does your wife get? What sort of employment protection do you have? The difference isn't as clear cut as it seems on the surface.

Four weeks. No sick days part of the four weeks. None but I can afford to support her while she is home with our daughter for as long as they need. None besides about 5 job offers in my inbox per day.

On one hand you ask for exact names of people who have gone through unfortunate health or medical bills related moments but on the other hand you compare esoteric "identical jobs" with no consistency or transparency. One in London which barely pays for an apartment in a tenement building, public transport, and nothing else. The other is in "rural US", pays double, you can afford a house, 2 cars, and to support your whole family by yourself, and a whole list of other benefits (some unusual for the US).

Are they really the same job? Are the 2 salaries/conditions representative of the job or you just got lucky? Are they actually identical (what happens if you're sick for 6 months?)? Are the salaries that you could find published on the internet representative for London? What's "rural" US? Are you working from home for a big company or do you have to be on site? If you have to work in your town/suburb what other career opportunities are available for you and your family there compared to London? You may be happy with your salary now but if there's no room to grow, or you have no choice if you lose you job/company goes bust, then it's not quite ideal.

I understand you may not want to provide details about your personal life but as it stands you have anecdotal evidence that may or may not be based on flawed data (cherry picked examples or low quality information), while everyone else supported their claims with actual links.

Just in case: I'm not British, nor do I live there.

Re: Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

#314

Post by AstralStorm »

netsharc wrote: post #132
boromisp wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A possible explanation for what you've experienced can be found in the just-world hypothesis [0], or in the belief that we live in a meritocracy. It is simply a foundational part of many people's worldview and nothing sort of experiencing similar traumas will make them reconsider. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

A good explanation on meritocracy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTDGdKaMDhQ TL;DW: if you believe the crap that hard work will make you successful (discounting luck), than you'd have to believe the opposite is true: that poor people are lazy.

Only if you discount luck completely.

There are degrees of bad luck otherwise that nobody can surmount. As a simple example, do you consider a person bedridden due to a sickness lazy?

Re: Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

#315

Post by close04 »

fuzz4lyfe wrote: post #287
SolaceQuantum wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The people who produce them benefit from the result." Can you cite specific studies, their specific researchers, and their specific funding grants? "Also the burden would not even be that people die from lack of healthcare in the US, it would be that more people die from lack of healthcare in the US than people die from healthcare rationing in the UK" This is not what you claimed. Please clarify the contradiction be…

Readers will see my point, I don't need to get into the weeds with you like this over minor details.

At least one reader certainly doesn't. You're asking everybody for evidence that could stand up even in court while you respond with anecdotal data and personal experience based on biased, incomplete, or generic data.

"I live and work in rural US and suddenly I can afford a lot more than I could if I had one of those jobs I found after an internet search for London" does not pass the bar you expect other people's evidence to. Not by a long shot.

Re: Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

#316

Post by AstralStorm »

hestipod wrote: post #301
jamisteven wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You left out many important details in this story: 1. Did you have health insurance? If not, why? 2. What was your job previously? 3. Who signed the paper relinquishing the hospital of all responsibility of botching the surgery?

Important details to someone looking to twist things to blame me for the outcome. But I will answer even though I know your questions aren't meant with any good intent AND they display victim blaming from the outset. But I have a small hope you can learn empathy. Frankly responses like this, which are the bulk I have experienced IRL...are why I am so depressed and have no hope...and reinforce my view of the empathy p…

In EU you have a right to amend an unconscionable contract. People use it all the time to not sign stupid clauses in bank.

Additionally, a hospital here cannot disclaim health damage (and other damages) due to poorly performed procedure. The thing is, sometimes even well performed procedures are not enough.

Finally, since critical health care is insured by state and therefore stupid charges like in the US rarely happen, but you might get kicked out slightly early and get poorer bed and care without extras. Acceptable still.

People in the US just really do not want to believe luck is a factor. Victim is always blamed one way or another.

Even if any of the 3 above was not met, the follow up question of "why" often reveals "I couldn't afford anything better" or "I was not given advice". Someone who is ignorant is not too be blamed, people are ignorant of all things before they actually happen to them.

Re: Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

#317

Post by cglace »

fatbird wrote: post #289
cglace wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To go a step further we probably should license dish washers. To make sure they know the risks of spreading food borne disease.

Look up Typhoid Mary [0]. We don't licence dish washers because running a restaurant requires adhering to a large body of commercial food safety law that requires the restaurant owner/operator to maintain standards of hygiene. If freelance dish washing were a thing, we probably would licence them. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallon

Having been a microbiologist in a past life I'm very familiar with Typhoid Mary.

I do however think you are attacking a straw man.

"Under Board of Cosmetology regulations, an individual “must complete not less than 300 hours of instruction on the theory and practice of shampooing” at an approved school. That instruction includes how to answer the phone, order products, information about the composition of shampoos, and on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s rules governing hair salons."

Would you approve of dishwashers needing 300 hours of training on ordering soap, answering phones, waiting tables, and washing hands?

Re: Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

#318

Post by hestipod »

CalRobert wrote: post #117
hestipod wrote: post #33

I was disabled by bad surgery and lost my career. No system that ostensibly should have helped, did. Denied. Denied. Denied. YEARS of adversarial, not default helpful, meetings and challenges and interviews. I saw people worse than me refused help. I saw real time as people who knew me for years or life, who respected me and my career choice helping others, decided I was a lazy mooch who wasn't trying hard enough, wa…

"get out of you don't like it" Nobody saying this has actually researched it. Too many people in the states are under the impression you can just up and move to a European country, no problem. One friendly-but-clueless acquaintance got flown back from Heathrow for asking the immigration officer about where to find jobs when she landed. If you don't/can't: * work in tech or medicine * go to university in Europe in a h…

I've found most things people say to defend/ignore/deny this issue and their views on it to be entirely unbased in factual knowledge. As you said it's hard to immigrate when healthy and having good options. Once you are down its harder and more costly to do everything, and it doesn't stop getting worse. I was half immigrated to another country when the path was derailed by coming up against these things. I have no claims to citizenship based on family or any other option either, or I'd have been gone decades ago. Once you fall from grace in the USA you are stuck. Can't afford to be poor and broken here.

Re: Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

#319

Post by fuzz4lyfe »

close04 wrote: post #315
fuzz4lyfe wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Readers will see my point, I don't need to get into the weeds with you like this over minor details.

At least one reader certainly doesn't. You're asking everybody for evidence that could stand up even in court while you respond with anecdotal data and personal experience based on biased, incomplete, or generic data. "I live and work in rural US and suddenly I can afford a lot more than I could if I had one of those jobs I found after an internet search for London" does not pass the bar you expect other people's evi…

"People are dying due to lack of healthcare!"

"Who?"

"This guy tweeted about it"

"I'm going to need more than that"

"Here is a study where they claim it happens in aggregate"

"Who died specifically and what were the circumstances of that death"

"PEOPLE ARE DYING"

pretty much how this debate goes every single time

Re: Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

#320

Post by hestipod »

boromisp wrote: post #71
hestipod wrote: post #33

I was disabled by bad surgery and lost my career. No system that ostensibly should have helped, did. Denied. Denied. Denied. YEARS of adversarial, not default helpful, meetings and challenges and interviews. I saw people worse than me refused help. I saw real time as people who knew me for years or life, who respected me and my career choice helping others, decided I was a lazy mooch who wasn't trying hard enough, wa…

A possible explanation for what you've experienced can be found in the just-world hypothesis [0], or in the belief that we live in a meritocracy. It is simply a foundational part of many people's worldview and nothing sort of experiencing similar traumas will make them reconsider. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

This is absolutely the case and no matter how many times I have tried to explain it to the people here they will not accept it. As you said...they have to suffer it to believe it...and that is too late for me. You either have empathy or you do not. If the only way you can feel it is to suffer yourself and then care since it affects you, then you will go through life denying others.
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