Sarah Hemming
A L KatzAmerica doesn't have a health CARE system. We have a health INSURANCE system. That ain't the same thing.
When anyone walks in the door, our first question isn't "How can we fix you?", it's "How're you gonna pay for this?"
That's barbaric.
CAman@Alan I call it a “wealth care” system because it functions to care for the wealth of insurance companies’ stockholders. And, yes, it is utterly barbaric.
@CAman Hear, hear! Profit incentive & health CARE don't belong in the same world. A publicly traded hospital or health insurance company have a fiduciary responsibility to the corp's stockholders, not patients. Patients are all cash out. Every dollar spent on actual care is a dollar less profit.
FrankieJ
Sad Tomato
Traci Law@Alan Truth. Or the panic that sets in after an emergency and it's about the cost even with insurance. Years ago I had to go to the hospital in Scotland for food poisoning. Once I was human again I stressed about not having insurance as a tourist. It cost nothing. Not even the ambulance. That's how it should be.
@tracilaw And it gets worse! In America, we have to worry "Do I have *enough* insurance?"
@Alan And we have to know as much, if not more, about insurance than the doctors or even the insurance companies.
@tracilaw And they've calculated us - calculated what about us would cost them the most money - and made that impossible to get (or hopelessly expensive). It's the exact opposite of how health care should be thought of and paid for.
Agnieszka@tracilaw @Alan healthcare is not free in Europe. It is usually well build system of cooperation between state (public funding - taxes) and private insurance. But it is human centered. Accutally at the moment (what we hear) NHS in the UK is in a pretty bad shape lately. Americans have it really tough and the costs of medical procedures are beyond ridiculous.
@RealityGlimpses @Alan It's part of the taxes out of your pay, correct? A much better system. It's a nightmare here and yeah, I've heard NHS is heading down our road quickly.
Jupiter LIV@tracilaw @RealityGlimpses @Alan The NHS has been strangled by 12 years of irresponsible Tory misrule.If it were properly funded, which it could be if the Tories weren't so keen to let the filthy rich off the hook, it would still be just fine.
🇨🇦 TRH 🇨🇦
Randahl Fink@tracilaw @Alan I live in Denmark where healthcare is payed for via world record high income taxes.
I love this system for our feeling of security. However, the flipside is, politicians have less incentive to prioritise what is important, and because of this, we now have way too few nurses and doctors, because politicians did not feel inclined to have competitive salaries at the hospitals, when that money could instead be used on more prestigious projects.
I love this system for our feeling of security. However, the flipside is, politicians have less incentive to prioritise what is important, and because of this, we now have way too few nurses and doctors, because politicians did not feel inclined to have competitive salaries at the hospitals, when that money could instead be used on more prestigious projects.
T. Greywolf
Nancy Green@Alan it is barbaric. Healthy people are productive people.
PeggyJoan ☮️💙🌈🐶@Alan
I receive SS and Medicare. However, my supplement insurance is almost $400 per month. How in the world do some people manage? Unconscionable.
I receive SS and Medicare. However, my supplement insurance is almost $400 per month. How in the world do some people manage? Unconscionable.
✊🏾WiseGuyEddie
Karen Strickholm
Patty Bluebird 🦩@Alan I had to file bankruptcy after my husband died. I was overwhelmed with medical bills.
I had a stroke a year ago and will be making payments to the hospital for YEARS.
God forbid anything else happens to me...and with my medical history, it's only a matter of time before something else could happen.
Can't win.
I had a stroke a year ago and will be making payments to the hospital for YEARS.
God forbid anything else happens to me...and with my medical history, it's only a matter of time before something else could happen.
Can't win.
IrRESISTible@Alan
You are correct.
You are correct.
Prof West Wing Chicken Shack
Flakmagnet@Alan I would go further: the USA has a health insurance INDUSTRY. In the UK we’ve had a National Health SERVICE for 70 years, which offends the prejudices of our government’s sponsors, many of whom are from the US health insurance industry.
Take a wild guess what they’re doing to our country‘s biggest remaining asset…
hedwyg@Alan Indeed. It's complicated by the barbaric way we train doctors and the capitalist way they are expected (by insurance companies) to work.
What if we set aside the whole paradigm of "medicine" as "fixing problems"? What if, instead, medical professionals were expert consultants we established a long-term relationship?
PhoenixSerenity@Alan TRUTH! About 18 yrs ago, my ex at the time was on a trip in San Diego. His Dad had a heart attack. If he didn't have Blue Cross coverage, he'd have been put into waiting room with lots of ppl with no health insurance & needing serious medical services. For profit healthcare harms & kills too many innocent people. Poor people shouldn't be begging for medical help. It's messed up to think that's OK.
James Trickle uP@Alan America, the land of gun care and health control
Bc Clarity Carlton-Martin@Alan Money builds from sick people's bones and tissues. (pun intended)
@Alan this is absolutely true. It is wrong that health insurance companies decide treatments, length of care, meds, etc.
WallOffTrump@Alan 🇨🇦 Security in health care also makes us less edgy and defensive, less likely to feel we need to kill each other or overturn our government to be safe in a bunker somewhere.
volkrisBut this misunderstands what insurance is.
Insurance is absolutely not about paying for healthcare. It is not a payment plan, or a savings plan. That’s something different.
Insurance is fundamentally about managing risk, not payment. You’re not buying healthcare when you buy insurance; you’re buying temporary access to other peoples’ money because you’re afraid you might not have enough.
I really wish we had better financial education so that people better understood how this stuff worked.
Then we’d be able to make so much more progress in things like improving access to healthcare for all.
So long as people are mislead into thinking buying insurance buys healthcare, insurance companies win and our money is wasted.
Shield Maiden@Alan Not to mention "oh, you'll need this test and that test" (for the extra money they know they can make off of you).
RoseFromNJ/Philly@Alan Seriously! It’s not right! And nothing will be done about it until Democrats are back in full power!!
ratman@Alan The real tragedy is that after we fix you, we don’t ask “how can we prevent this from happening again” but just say “$we you again $oon!” #physicians4medicare4all #physiciansforsocialresponsibility
Richard Grant@Alan I can report on one exception, which is instructive and maybe a tad ironic: some 9 million military veterans receive health care through the Veterans Health Administration, a pure government-run and taxpayer-funded entity that describes itself thusly: "America’s largest integrated health care system, providing care at 1,298 health care facilities, including 171 medical centers and 1,113 outpatient sites of care of varying complexity..."
And it works! Thus, I'm alive to tell you about it.
@richardgrant My dad was a veteran and the VA was an important part of his health CARE. The stone cold fact is: govt provided health CARE is good.
VHaschYup. I was supposed to have surgery next month. Can't afford it. Ah well.
Doug Baker - Elbows Up! 🇨🇦@Alan We don’t get everything right here in Canada, but one of our better things is health care. Constant arguments over it, but on balance I’d rather be here than there.
@SonofaGeorge No one in Canada will ever lose their house cos they got cancer.
Dan Berky "דן" ℞ MS 🇺🇲 🇩🇪 🇮🇱@Alan Barbaric, cruel, and something that the people in ANY OTHER developed country would ever put up with. When will Americans start to hold their government and its rulers accountable? Because I can assure you that they will NEVER do the right thing out of their own accord.
Danetteb2@Alan Yes! so much this!
GATEKEEPER
RadicalWoman111@Alan
Yes. That's capitalism, and capitalism is barbarism.
We won't make progress until we get capitalists out of government.
We don't have a democracy; we have a corpocracy.
We need to elect Progressives up and down the ballot in every election in order to move forward to a social democracy, real government for the people.
Voron
Christopher Neitzert
Margaret Moonshadow@Alan Omg so true. First day of cancer treatment, ushered to the gorgeous hospital's downstairs business office where I was told what to pay. That was before I got a little more wise and crafty. But pay I did. It was so demoralizing and scary, even more than having a port put in and becoming so flooded with chemicals.
@Alan Now I have no money and can't afford recurrence. I didn't pay all my bills first time around either so I may not be able to step into that same river twice.
Cool Xenu
CartyBostonOK now do education.
Sam224466@Alan Americans are a bunch of k.nobs
Unprecedented 2023@Alan Capitalism.
ScouseGit@Alan No, the first question is “what items can we bill you for?” — collection agencies can worry about whether you can pay or not. 😕
Kerr9000@Alan I live in the UK and we have a Health care system which has given so much but parts of our government are constantly trying to kill it. I am epileptic and I have had so many fits and stays in hospital when young, if it wasn't for the amazing work of the NHS I would not be around now..... The NHS also provided help when I had PTSD due to being held hostage in a robbery..... no one should have to pay to get help with something like that.
@Kerr9000 You have the same people in your govt as we have in ours - people who actually hate government and want it to fail miserably.
thomas yager-madden@Alan And US “health insurance” isn’t even *insurance* in the usual sense of people pooling risk in order to share the costs of unlikely catastrophe. Everyone needs to visit the doctor; it isn’t a risk, it’s a certainty. What we get for our premiums is *rationed access to health care* while the insurance companies invest our money in financial markets for their profit, like any other hedge fund managers
§ Jason 🥄But at least we get to choose our own insurance company and if we don’t like it we can easily switch to another company at any time, right?
And we pay so much less for better health outcomes, right?
That’s why Republicans tell us that National Health is a bad idea because it’s anti-competitive thus poorer quality, right?
RIGHT!?!
AAA365@Alan Exactly what my Irish Mother experienced as a child in rural Ireland in the 1950’s that she conveyed so passionately as she addressed a line of angry people slagging off the NHS in accident and emergency during the pandemic, they had tears of shame.
Eric LawtonWe still call our healthcare payment system the Ontario Health Care *Insurance* system, though everyone calls it OHIP.
Everyone qualifies. "Premiums" paid out of taxes.
Change jobs, not working? Same coverage.
Far cheaper because no profits, vastly simpler administration.
My wife got free treatment in the UK for a minor hospital visit because "it would be more trouble than it's worth, to do all the paperwork to bill you and handle the payment"
Everyone else in the world is astonished that the US doesn't do it.