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That story is horrific, I can't imagine living like that.
When I have a medical emergency (or even if it's just a possibility) then I go straight to the ER. I might have a small administration cost to pay, but it's easy enough to manage that I don't have to give it a second thought.
My job isn't linked to my healthcare, that sounds like insane leverage.
Why does your government not want a healthy work force? Healthy workers are more productive. Even with the right wing focus of your entire government, having healthy workers just feels like a no brainer.
I can't believe governments and companies put such a "price" on people's health. I must say the news about the US Health System is also echoed by all the other US companies I have dealt with in my professional capacity. Profits before people and sales before outcomes.
I/We avoid using them when we can...
When I need medical care, I go to the doctor, it is not a question about if I can afford it, I just go.
Back in 2019 I got sick like hell with mycoplasma, I was out of work for a month and a half, and even stayed two nights in hospital.
I never worried about my job, just focused on getting better.
At the end you do still have to pay here in Sweden, but in total, several doctors vists, two nights in hospital, antibiotics, food in hopsital and the medicine from the pharmacy cost me about the equivalent of 150USD.
So while not 100% free to me, I did not even once think about the cost.
Sounds like a joke.
Here: you hurt you go hospital. You wait to get fix
Shaking my head and glad I'm not living in the US.
A country can decide how to treat people, how to shape the future. I get that nothing is perfect and everything is complicated. But I completely don't get why the US doesn't want to tackle some of the problems. Mainly school shootings, healthcare, social security and a democratic system by today's standards. Maybe the latter is the answer why... And watching documentaries about the rural areas, it seems like the USA is mostly a third world country, except for in the cities.
We WANT too. Gun control, Medicare for all, and SS all have majority support for reform, across the parties. Broad support. Multiple studies have shown that public opinion has ZERO effect on legislation getting passed. Our oligarchy doesn't give three shits to the wind about actual Americans. I've never met a group of people who, clearly, hate almost everyone they see. At the end of the balance sheet, actions speak louder, and the group most responsible for pain, suffering and loss of quality American years lived are the 1%. Their renumeration of revolutionary inequality is simultaneously equal amounts astonishing and disgusting.
If I wrote out a synopsis of the economy today and somehow got it back to my WW2/Korea vet grandfather he would've thought the USSR won the cold war.
His last words to me, i had asked him about WW2, and said I wanted to join the military like him - I liked my grandad better than my parents - and he told me "you don't join the military. I fought so you and your siblings don't have too" and then he made me promise that I'd go to college instead.
I did as he asked tho looking around now, I feel like no matter what I do, war is gonna find me.
Which if we're being brutally honest, would be a return to the norm. Historically war touches everyone's life. We're blessed to live under the Pax Americana, but greed has rotted out the essence at its core and when the last leg falls...ever seen that movie Miracle Mile? You should watch it.
The funny thing is that the US actually spends about twice as much on healthcare per capita as other developed countries. The reason that outcomes are so much worse there isn't lack of money.
Oh wow, I didn't know that. Google says $13.493 per person in 2022. And in Germany it's a bit more than $7.000...
Also things like maternal mortality are WAY worse...
I mean the USA is bigger and maybe things don't translate exactly from a somewhat densely populated central european country to the vast emptiness of rural Wyoming. I guess an hospital is also something that is subject to economy of scale... But even most northern european countries where doctors come in with helicopters, don't exceed the ~$7.000.
It is really off for the USA:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita
(If that is correct, you could spend half the money on healthcare and also live 3 years longer, on average...)
I literally use the horror-stories about the US health care system to counter the bullcrap peddled by the white supremacist, pro-neocolonialism and pro-privatisation crowd here in South Africa.
Of course, it's a pretty moot point, really - our entire political establishment seems dead-set on dismantling and sabotaging what little remains of our tattered public infrastructure anyway to facilitate their corrupt dealings with foreign creditors. They only seem to differ on whether to do it slow or fast.
I live in a western European country. A few anecdotes to illustrate what Americans don't get about healthcare:
I was involved in a serious accident and the passenger in my car was taken to hospital in an ambulance and had to have scans, etc. It ended up costing 1000 Euros.
One of my teeth needed to be replaced by a dental implant. I had it removed, a bone graft was necessary, then a few months later they drilled a metal pin into the jaw bone, then they placed a crown on it. The pin was Swiss made, the dentist did a 3d scan of the inside of my mouth for the crown. I had a few return visits. It ended up costing me 3000 Euros total, but I specifically spread the appointments around the new year: november - january. This was a big deal for me, as I was unemployed and needed to dip into my already small savings.
I had a headache, so I bought myself some paracetamol(tylenol?) at the drug store. 50 for 2 euros.
Sounds ok, right?
Here's the thing that Americans don't get. These are all fully private prices.
The first incident, I received a bill because it would have to be paid by the other party's insurance. 1000 Euros was the fully private cost without government intervention. The accident had happened just across the border in another country.
The second anecdote, this was also the fully private cost. Dental implants are not covered by healthcare. I have supplemental private dental insurance (20 Euros per month), which has a maximum deductable of 2000 Euros per year. Spreading it out meant I ended up spending only a few hundred euros, after I received money from my insurance a few weeks later.
The US system isn't just absurdly expensive for people who aren't insured, it's absurdly expensive compared to fully private healthcare in plenty of developed countries.
Hell, have a look at how much it costs to get plastic surgery in the US. A boob job is likely to cost you less than a visit to the ER, despite the latter being a far more involved and expensive operation.
It seems obvious to me that a lot of price gouging and anti-competitive behaviour is going on in US healthcare, and simply regulating (not privatising) properly would already make things far more affordable. How else can you explain healthcare costs per capita being up to three times as high as comparably developed countries, but outcomes often being worse? Healthcare shouldn't have to cost this much. The healthcare industry can make a reasonable profit while charging far more reasonable prices.
TLDR: you're getting ripped off, but you have no choice in the matter, because what are you going to do if it's an emergency? You can't just leave the country.
Scary. That's what I think of the US healthcare.
The other side of the spectrum is that in the US, anything goes. If you got the money any and all treatment is possible.
Overhere that's not the case. Some medicine and/or treatments are deemed way to expensive or unproven and are unavailable.
Honestly, I feel scared because it's actually something that is being exported here.
I feel so sorry for you Americans, but I don't blame you. I don't think this is something you can address by simply voting, the same way we here can't do nothing by voting in order to stop the privatization of everything. This are scary times.
Sadly I feel like it's always the same thing when hearing about america's problems: people will make a great fuss about it, lots of tweets, TV interviews and such, but nothing will came out of it. Repeat every x months. That's what I have observed about the gun handling situation, the 6 January insurrection, the opioid crisis, the rise in poverty, housing crisis, and the healthcare system. Seems like the whole world is staring at the US like WTF is happening, and america is just like "yeah, I'll be angry today and do something about it tomorrow" Anyway, just my 2 cents, send thoughts and prayers
I grew up in the US healthcare system and have paid it multiple tens of thousands of dollars. I spent around a decade also working in Healthcare IT. I now live in a country with a much more sane system (Japan). Not perfect, but not the shitshow that is the greedy US system.
It's a so foreign concept for me. Needing to rationalize about going to ER. I feel sorry. People are dying and people are tricked into believing it's the better alternative. But There is a better way, and it's only denied because of greed.
The institutionalization runs deep.
The first time I moved out of the US I lived in a socialized medicine country & I just never went to the doctor. My then girlfriend casually went because she wasnt feeling well (a cold), then would go to the pharmacy for a birth control shot (no prescription needed), and finally when I had a fever and a doc came to the house at 2am (we just had to pay the taxi). I had a lengthy stay in the hospital, and a month of rehab, my employer's nurse would stop by the house and give me an injection on his way home. And our son was born in a hospital with private rooms- all i had to pay for was my meals and overnight stay (there was a bed for me), plus the room had a mini bar...no shit.
We moved back to the US to raise the kids and then out again i to another socialized medicine country and I STILL HESITATE to go to the doctors.
The only way I'd live in the States is if I was making so much money that a 20k medical bill meant nothing to me.
You pay taxes but get no benefit of them . They are used for subdivise automaker ,wallmart ,meat and dairy lobby and killing ciilvilan in other countries . I don't understand why american are OK with that .
I pray there comes a time when the people decide what their taxes are spent on. Could be done using a simple form, with a dozen or so broad categories to choose from, submitted with your tax return.
I bet the results would shock the shit out of the politicians.
I’m sure they laugh at us, then feel a bit of pity, because most of us aren’t terrible people, but most of us can’t afford good healthcare because we vote for corrupt politicians in 2-party system of basically the same options, except one loves Russia and uses abortions to seduce the religious
Nobody with a little bit of compassion laughs at stories like this. People read this with a bit of incredulity and a lot of compassion. We might make fun of Americans at times, but there's no humour here.
I’d argue most people on earth don’t have much compassion outside of their own circle.