111–120 of 202 posts
At some point I hope Americans realize the extent to which they are being taken advantage of by the politicians they elect, and the companies that lobby them.
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/09/19/americans-di...
Don't let yourself get caught up in these details. The problem is the unreformed healthcare system; these are just more symptoms of it. It's like the old, failing server at work - people say the problem is the power supply, the outdated driver, etc. - it's not; the problem is we haven't installed a new server. We all can see the US healthcare system is awful. If you aren't doing anything about it, the problem is you.…
> If you aren't doing anything about it, the problem is you. What do you expect me to do about it? I live in a reliably blue area and it's Republicans who are blocking things like a single-payer system. So what exactly are you suggesting? Uproot my life and go move to a swing state so I can vote Democrat there? Because short of that, I don't know what. And the country is so culturally divided, it's not like there are…
I could spell it out concretely, but the problem is the approach, the attitude, that talking like helpless victims is somehow ok. It's completely irresponsible - an abdication of our responsibilities to ourselves, our communities, our country, and future and past generations. Change that, and you won't need me to tell you what to do, you'll be busting at the seams with ideas and drive.
Imagine where we'd be if past generations adopted this helplessness. Imagine Washington, Jefferson, and the rest, facing the British empire. Imagine FDR, Churchill, MLK, and so many more. That's who we need to live up to. I've never heard them talk like Americans today.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One can blame politicians and corporations all they like, but the simple fact is that >50% of the country (and significantly more than that when accounting for skewed political representation) does not want the system to change, because to them any alternative is "socialism".
... US government-run "socialism". Because we all know how well they run all the other programs, especially if you've dealt with healthcare they already run (military and VA). I'd imagine people would be clamoring for socialized medicine if they fixed the VA to be a shining example.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not based in the US, so my servers are paid a wage directly by the restaurant.
That makes sense, but the ah ah ah this isn't the US card comes unexpected on an analogy developed specifically alongside a US based topic.
This seems like a good thread to mention the book "Never Pay The First Bill" by journalist Marshall Allen. I've worked in healthcare for 20+ years. I've been on the collecting side of many bills, it's a good book for patients. Contrary to popular belief most hospital systems are not evil profit seeking corpratons but just trying to keep the lights on, it's still a business though and as a patient you have the right a…
> most hospital systems are not evil profit seeking corpratons but just trying to keep the lights on Why are they struggling so much more now than 10 or 20 years ago (when health care costs were already soaring)? I read about a non-profit childrens hospital in some large US city that paid its CEO $7 million.
At any given time I have a few hundred dollars of unpaid medical bills because they are so inconsistent. Some don't show up for months. Some show up right away. Some are tracked in the providers' proprietary apps. Some are sent by mail. Some, I don't learn about until they're in collections. Did I miss an email/notification/mail? No idea and no way to tell. Incredibly frustrating situation.
Right now they want to have their cake and eat it, too. “We can’t tell you how much it will cost ahead of time because it would be too difficult”. But also “ we can randomly bill you at some point from now until the end of time until we decide that your debt is paid.”
Don't let yourself get caught up in these details. The problem is the unreformed healthcare system; these are just more symptoms of it. It's like the old, failing server at work - people say the problem is the power supply, the outdated driver, etc. - it's not; the problem is we haven't installed a new server. We all can see the US healthcare system is awful. If you aren't doing anything about it, the problem is you.…
> generations of Americans and other democracies have managed to get things done. That's how we got here in the first place. Generations of Americans doing it the American way.
That has included me, in the past. It is stupid easy to accidentally have a debt to a hospital. For families, sensible privacy rules at clinics can mean that it is very hard to choke point bills to a single person. To the point that I asked every time if I owed money when I did checkups to be told that we did not. Only to later find that my family did, in fact, have a bill due. For a while. Recently I'm getting it wi…
That has included me, in the past. It is stupid easy to accidentally have a debt to a hospital. For families, sensible privacy rules at clinics can mean that it is very hard to choke point bills to a single person. To the point that I asked every time if I owed money when I did checkups to be told that we did not. Only to later find that my family did, in fact, have a bill due. For a while. Recently I'm getting it wi…
I spent the better part of 5 years resolving it; I got them a check from my previous health insurer at year 1 when I got the notice, but since they had already sent it to collections - and I had denied the debt they never removed it from my file; then they changed billing 3rd party providers. So i spent 4 years calling once a year -- until I called an administrator for 2 weeks straight until she got fed up and fixed it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Profit margins are like 4% on health insurance. Insurance companies introduce a lot of cost and waste, but there's no evidence to me these mass denials are anything but the market not bearing real insurance that covers things reasonably under current regulatory conditions. Could it be the consumer is too poor to pay for a bloated system that covers what it does, plus the mass denials? The whole system is fucked and t…
> Profit margins are like 4% on health insurance. If I tell you my cost of a bottle of water is $96,000 and sell it to you for $100,000 in the middle of the desert, my profit margin is only 4%.