Patricia AasI knew American healthcare was abysmal, but I was still shocked when I learned a few years ago that Americans pay for ambulance rides and giving birth.
I know I should’ve realized.
It just wasn’t in my realm of possibilities.
I went to school in the US from 95-97 and while I was there I volunteered at an “AIDS hospice”. And the premise seemed to be that it was a place where folks went to die.
Now remember I was a kid and Norwegian and clueless.
Years later someone said that I was lying when I told them this. Because why would someone be dying of AIDS in 96? There had been drugs for years by then.
So as an adult I realized that the people I had been caring for when I was a teenager were probably people who were dying of a treatable disease because they didn’t have healthcare.
Anders Stenberg@Patricia I honestly thought it didn't become properly "controllable" until quite a lot later. According to Wikipedia there was a breakpoint at that time though, with some new treatment coming in 1995 and "Within two years, death rates due to AIDS will have plummeted in the developed world."
Don't doubt it though.