- cross-posted to:
- politicalmemes@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- politicalmemes@lemmy.world
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And insurance companies add nothing to healthcare. They contribute nothing. They streamline nothing. And THEY are the ones who make your health care decisions for you, NOT your doctor.
Got a back problem that could be easily fixed by surgury? Well screw that, insurance isn’t paying for that. But they’ll be happy to put you on painkillers for the rest of your life so you’ll be stuck in a parasitic relationship where you have pay them forever to afford your pain meds.
They only exist to transfer wealth from sick, financially vulnerable people to the billionaire class.
And it’s also bad science and bad philosophy.
Insurance works on probabilities. They pick the most likely outcome based on old population studies (not current ones - so they lag behind epidemics). This means that if you have a pet alligator, and it bit off your toe, insurance would disbelieve you and would say the accident was most likely from a vehicle or tool, and then wouldn’t treat you for salmonella or other concerns from an alligator bite because that’s unlikely to occur in the general population. Even though that’s literally what happened here.
So the way they practice medicine is stupid and bad. It should also be illegal, because to practice medicine you’re by law suppose to have a doctor patient relationship. I’ve never met the doctors at my insurance company. So how can they prescribe (including deny) treatment for me?
Further, I have privacy concerns with insurance companies as well. I don’t want them to have all my medical information. I don’t want them to code my information in a way that benefits their insurance system but isn’t accurate to my actual diagnosis.
I want to go into a doctor and actually be treated by that fucking doctor.
Remember when they said socialized healthcare stops you from seeing the doctor you want? Well our current system, in all its justice, let’s me see the doctor I want, pay her, and then I can’t get the treatments she recommends because they aren’t approved by an anonymous third doctor at my insurance I didnt choose and never met. Lol. Fml.
I don’t want them to code my information in a way that benefits their insurance system but isn’t accurate to my actual diagnosis.
My fiancee has been dealing with this for like 2 years. She got a relatively simple bloodwork panel done, and the NP who ordered it fucked up the code/paperwork for it by labeling it as something more expensive than it actually was, which resulted in the insurance not covering it, which resulted in a $1k bill for what should have been a $20 test.
The bill was sent to collections, and they were told that the bill was erroneous because the NP fucked up the paperwork. They’re still calling 2 years later. They don’t seem to get the hint that my fiancee is disabled, has no wages, and no way to pay it*, and therefore they ain’t getting shit.
* Fortunately it is within my means to pay for it for her, but she has no wages for them to garnish, they can’t mess with her credit score over it, and so they have no pathway to do any harm for failure to pay. So fuck em.
I have random genetic diagnoses on my chart because my doctor lied to my insurance to get a test approved. I can’t rat her out because I did really need the test but yeah it’s a nightmare
And insurance companies add nothing to healthcare. They contribute nothing.
They give me a pile of paperwork and an illusion of choice. What more could I ask for?
I’m currently fighting a bill because insurance doesn’t like who gave the diagnosis. The diagnosis isn’t wrong, it’s actively being treated, they just think the wrong doctor gave it. Dealing with insurance is a huge pain in the ass for no reason except to enrich the insurance companies. They add no value to society.
This is exactly why Obamacare is absolute trash. It forces you to buy into a failed system or pay monthly penalties. For a healthy individual, it’s cheaper to pay put of pocket when necessary, than monthly dues in addition to your “deductable”.
I showed this to my mom, and her reply was “but that socialism!” And promptly hung up on me.
Some people are so stupid and stubborn that they would rather be bilked by conmen than to actually get the care they need, affordably.
That’s kind of bullshit we’re dealing with.
Don’t try to explain public roads, bridges, dams, water & sewerage, police, fire brigades or the military to her… she might just have an aneurysm.
Insurance IS socialism. By definition. The only difference is who holds the money from the group to pay out claims. In one, it’s the government which has an incentive to keep costs low across the board. The other it is a private company trying to make as much profit as possible.
The bullshit part is how many people think socialism is wrong or evil. It’s just an approach where the people work together to provide a service where the focus is the service itself rather than anyone getting rich from the service.
Why is socialism something bad for her?
It’s not. She just thinks it is because she’s been told it’s a dirty word.
Really USA, how does anyone pretend this is OK?
Really USA, how does anyone pretend this is OK?
We pretend a LOT of things are OK.
- School shootings comes to mind.
- laws around what women can do with their own bodies.
- Sacrifice of the environment for industry, all in the name of “jobs”.
- Starvation.
- Politicians and presidents doing obviously illegal stuff and citizens unable to do anything about it.
- American military killing with abandon all over the world.
- Police brutality and systematic violations of our rights, with little to no accountability.
- Our standards for clean food being less than everyone elses.
- Religious supremacy being tolerated, even encouraged. (Fuck your moments of silence, fuck your thoughts and prayers, fuck your pledges of allegience too while we’re at it)
- controlled media.
- Book banning.
- the “war” on drugs when other methods would have been much more effective.
- whistleblower protections dismantled.
- violence against protesters, and the existence of “protest zones” which disallows protests entirely in most areas.
- continual threats of violence and domestic terrorism by the political right, never with any accountability.
- oppression of anyone who says they are anti-fascist (antifa).
- a political system complteely captured by bribery and foreign interests, with ~1% correlation to what citizens want. There is no representation in “representitive democracy” here. Its all a big joke. We’re barely even a “republic” anymore.
And its not all republicans doing it-- although much more them than the dems-- although the dems are sliding really far rightward pretty quickly and its hard to see how it ever will be allowed to go back left.
Its not OK and we need to nationalize healthcare now. But much of that above graph is also associated with the obesity epedemic and the nutritional collapse (or caloric inflation) of the western diet. Government definitely has a role in that, but its much trickier than obliterating the medical insurance industry (which of course is also tricky).
Quick Google suggests healthcare costs for obese people are <50% higher than non-obese and the US has 15-30% more obesity than these countries. So maybe 15% at most of the 100% higher cost per capita of healthcare is obesity related. The killer for me for that hypothesis is that within the set of countries with normal healthcare costs, there’s huge variation in obesity (10% in France to 30%in ireland) with limited variation in cost.
Maybe the life expectancy side does have more to do with obesity?
Freedom isn’t free 😤😤😤
Think of the knock off effects of universal health care beyond paying less.
you would not be tied to a shitty job anymore - your ability to quit and move to another company becomes easier
You could quit your job and start your own company since now you don’t have to worry about medical bankruptcy
Or maybe you live a minimal enough of a life that you could quit your job that you have only because of the health insurance and go do something that is fulfilling to you?
A huge reason that I took the job I have now is because they let me start my health insurance plan asap. It was supposed to be after 3 months but I just asked nice and they didn’t hesitate to agree even without my whole spcheil. I have a wife and a son, at the time my wife was still going through some post pregnancy health issues and my son was going through some stuff that required regular visits. I turned down some cushy jobs solely because they wanted me to wait 3-6 months to be insured, which I get from a business perspective, but what the actual fuck? It took me a while to switch jobs for that reason alone. I guess it’s a good indicator of a company that has common sense/common decency.
I’ve had jobs where you have to wait for 401k but Healthcare has always been covered on day 1.
Last several I’ve jobs had it kick in on the first business day of the next month, and end on the first business day of the month after leaving, so i think it was more of a “this is how our provider has us add and remove people” thing.
Wait is that normal? The last 3 jobs I’ve had had a waiting period of at least a month.
Has been been for me.
We would be able to track bad products that give us cancer more easily, could sue companies in a class action easier. As it is, you cant sue for cancer you never had diagnosed because you couldnt afford to go in. And also with lead contamination and other heavy metals, and a million other toxins.
US healthcare is extortion
When I was in grad school, I went to a conference in Portugal. One of the other American grad students slipped on a paving stone and bust his leg. It wasn’t that bad, but he was freaking out because he had no idea how European insurance worked and he was afraid he’d be in serious debt. Everyone at the hospital thought that was hilarious. Why would getting hurt put you in debt? They patched him up for no charge. In theory he could have gone to some office and made a modest payment, but nobody was going to actually make him do that.
It’s got to end soon, or we’re well screwed.
My insurance payment + my jobs contribution (can’t say whether or not they lie on the form about their share) is over a thousand per month. And I still have co-pays and shit that isn’t covered. I’ve had a couple of X-rays and and a sling this year. I’m probably out another $2k on top of my insurance. It would be much cheaper for me to pay out of pocket and save the difference for a rainy day.
Fuck the entire insurance industry.
I live in Sweden, had a surgery for a back problem. From first consultation to surgery 5 weeks. Total cost: $50, that includes surgery, prescribed meds, food while admitted.
The US Healthcare system is meant to police disability, because we live in a giant work camp. That’s its whole function.
This could probably be paid in full by lowering military budget by a tiny fraction.
We would save about 45% of what we pay now. We could increase the military budget. Universal healthcare literally pays for itself.
In most of the world it was decide that being healthy was a human right
Only in America has it been declared a luxury.
If you can’t afford it, you shouldn’t have it
Fuckingcapitalists
It’s also a way to make sure people don’t leave crappy jobs or, even worse, start their own businesses that might compete against the already established ones.
It’s just another industry. It’s only to make money for the people at the top.
Not having to formulate all those packages with their arcane coverage percentages, exclusions and deductibles would eliminate a lot of cost, not to mention all the marketing the companies do to make their plans sound better than the others.
