As a millennial that went bankrupt and lost their house because of medical bills I have to ask. First time?
Don’t ya see? It wasn’t a problem until it affected them personally. “Something, something avocado toast.”
Pre-ACA it was even worse. Watch Michael Moore’s documentary “Sicko”.
I’m going to go to the doctor for the first time in 20 years in 2025. Am frightened.
For all the shit everybody gives Boomers, I’m pretty sure the majority of them are also poor and working class. There’s just a lot more wealth at the top, or the “top” is bigger.
I think it’s more about the stereotypical Boomer attitude than their wealth. The whole “I worked hard at the gas station and saved up and bought my house in 1974 for $20,000, so I don’t see why all of you younger people are having such a hard time” thing.
Like I said, stereotypical, but it transcends economic status.
Even many poor, working class people of that age own their homes after all.
Even many poor, working class people of that age own their homes after all.
It’s not JUST that houses were cheaper. It’s also that they’ve had the >= 30 years of working to pay off their mortgage.
It’s culture war to distract us from the class war.
Maybe if they didn’t elect all the representatives against single payer healthcare they wouldn’t have to worry about it.
I don’t have good line of sight into what happens outside of the US, but are cancer treatments unlimited for those in single payer systems? Even if the person requires treatment for years? Just wondering how it works (forgive my ignorance)!
Yes, but the treatments don’t cost as much to the government/taxpayer, since medications aren’t inflated to the moon since insurance is supposed to pay.
It depends on the country, but healthcare is much cheaper and simpler everywhere else in the developed world than in the US. We live in a corporate dystopia.
Sort of.
I live in New Zealand, so this is hyper specific to how our healthcare system is set up, other countries will have radically different systems.
The way it works in NZ is that all hospital visits are free, and all medicine dispensed within the hospital are free. Visits to your GP are free if you are under 16, over 65 or pregnant. Medicines prescribed by your GP have a price cap ($100NZ/year/person iirc), as long as they are on the “Pharmac” list.
The 2 main caveats to this:
- Hospitals don’t have infinite capacity. If you need non-acute treatment (ie, you aren’t going to suffer serious harm by not getting treated immediately), you could easily be waiting a year to see a specialist
- Pharmac. The way the government ensures that drug prices stay affordable is by giving a government agency a big chunk of cash, and telling them to use it to buy the drugs that are going to have the best “bang for the buck”, and use the bulk purchase negotiating power to get as good a price as possible - hospitals pretty much exclusively prescribe Pharmac drugs because they don’t have the budget to buy anything else. This means that in general, if you’ve got something common, the drugs you’ll need will probably be on the Pharmac list and you’ll not have to pay anything, but if it’s rare, or you want a newer more expensive treatment, or you just get unlucky and need a drug that Pharmac doesn’t cover you can be in a really hard spot.
Private medical insurance does exist, and is pretty much there to let you “skip the queue” - there are private hospitals not funded by the government that employ their own specialists (who typically also work in the public system) - or to fund drugs that Pharmac won’t. Is fairly common in mid-end white collar jobs (especially finance and tech) to have private insurance paid for by your employer, but is pretty much just there for “what if I get an exotic cancer” or “what if I fuck up my knee and don’t want to have to wait a few months for surgery”. My wife needed her gall bladder removed a couple of years ago, and we just used the public hospital even though we do have insurance that might have paid for private - the public system is excellent for 95% of things.
If you need non-acute treatment (ie, you aren’t going to suffer serious harm by not getting treated immediately), you could easily be waiting a year to see a specialist
This is also true in the U.S. entirely for-profit healthcare system. I had to wait over 9 months just to get an appointment with a new neurologist when my previous one retired.
It’s also something that a lot of Republicans claim is a problem in countries with socialized medicine but not in the U.S., which always gets a derisive laugh from me.
Thanks for this! Starting to get my head around it 😃
Yeah, I get that from the US perspective the idea of there not really being a hard price tag on everything is a bit odd - the US system is bonkers and confusing from the outside as well (and it kinda feels like that’s by design).
Another example as to how this works in practice; my daughter was born a couple of years ago
- As soon as we found out my wife was pregnant picked a midwife from the list of available ones in our area (we talked to 3, picked the one we liked the best)
- We saw her once a month for the first 2 trimesters, then weekly from then
- We got ultrasound scans every 8 weeks to keep tabs on development
- Due to some minor complications we saw an OB/GYN at the hospital a couple of times
- My wife needed to be induced, and there were some more complications during delivery so our total hospital stay was 9 days
- She had an epidural, and needed a pair of specialists to help deliver the baby
- We kept seeing our midwife fortnightly for 3 months after birth
- We saw the OB/GYN again after that to check in on the complications and make sure everything was ok
Our out of pocket expenses were
- The ultrasounds, because we chose to go to a clinic near where we lived
- Parking
- The insurance excess for when someone put a dent in my car door in the carpark
- Food delivery for me for the time we were in hospital; I could have got very cheap meals from the canteen, but didn’t really fancy any of it
Grand total was less than $500 NZD (not counting the insurance excess), and we could have avoided the majority of those costs if we wanted to.
Not saying the system is perfect; it’s functionally impossible to get mental health support publicly, dental care isn’t publicly funded if you are over 18, it seems like nurses and junior doctors have to constantly fight to get pay rises that keep up with inflation, and the system as a whole has been chronically underfunded for decades - but we don’t have people choosing between death or bankruptcy, and we have higher life expectancy so shrug
The piss poor US healthcare system is the number cause of personal bankruptcy. I do not know of any prominent US politicians that wants to extinguish the massive dumpster fire. If you voted for Putin’s Sock Puppet, the GOP and Project 2025, I have zero sympathy for your asses. Your fucking grocery prices somewhat valid, but none of you MAGAt fuckers mentioned the rising cost of healthcare which outpaces everything in the USA.
Not if they do the funniest thing.
Capitalism working wonderfully
As intended. Have to suck these people dry before they die. Would be a shame if they had inheritance money to give back to their family.
It’s almost impossible to retire.
Say 1.5 million in retirement savings earning 5% making $75,000 year.
According to AARP the average cost of cancer treatment is $150k, so some is less, some is more. Hope you get the “less” side, but if not…
There goes all your income. Unless you start withdrawing the principal. If you do, and survive, now your income is reduced.
$1.5 million, looking at the American financial landscape, is not a number most Americans are going to have when they reach retirement age.
Why? Fucking idiots.
All they gotta do is simply not pay and ignore the debt collectors. They’re Boomers, which means that they already own a house and paid off their car. What do they need a good credit score for? They already won at life.
Seriously, just ignore medical debt. I do it all the time. Hospitals can’t deny treatment if you don’t pay.
Are you sure that includes oncology? I thought it was just emergency rooms.
Correct
