It’s one healthcare, Michael. What could it cost? $2000?
Why does the health insurance industry even exist?
That’s a question Americans are prevented from having because it would offend Ayn Rand or something.
In Australia we have pretty good public health care. IDK what “universal healthcare” is exactly but everyone gets treated for free for most things.
We also have private health insurance. The relationship between the public and private systems is complex but the main difference for most people is wait times.
I know someone with a back injury that causes constant pain, they manage it with prescribed opiates. The problem is it’s not life-threatening so they’re not a priority for triage. They’re about 1 year through a 4 year wait. If they had private insurance they could probably have the surgery in a few months.
Weirdly, they could start a private health insurance policy, serve the 1 year exclusion for pre-existing conditions, and get their back fixed - I don’t know them well enough to ask why they don’t do that. Anyway.
There’s also a problem in my state where the hospital system is getting “clogged up” with people who should be in aged care facilities and so on. If you have a car accident and break your leg, if you don’t have private health insurance an ambulance will take you to the nearest public hospital. In some cases there’s a queue of ambulances parked up outside. An ER doctor will still come and check on you, just to make sure you’re not dying. This wouldn’t be a problem if you had private health insurance and were taken to a private hospital.
That said, there’s no private hospital within 400km of where I live. I have private health insurance but I can of course still go to the public ER. I don’t have anything bad to say about them. They’re great really and I’ve never had to wait an unreasonable amount of time.
That said, the cost is no where near what others are saying it costs in the US. We pay $400 AUD a month for our whole family, but that includes a lot of extra non-hospital stuff like dental and glasses. That works out to about 3% or 4% of an average family income.
Because “value” must be created and extracted, doesn’t matter if that means people can’t afford insulin
The Trump Doesntcare, thoughts and prayers lol
He truly is the smartest American
You take that back!
It’s getting to the point where I’m staying to wonder if i should just pay my own way with healthcare. If i only go to the doctor 2x a year and it’s like $150 per visit, then I’ll be saving a cool $25,000 that i could have wasted on insurance. I just have to make sure i don’t have any emergencies or car accidents that require a trip to the hospital… 🤔
The health insurance plans will just raise their prices by another $2000
I wouldn’t expect anything else from a Trump Policy - everything he does is to feather the nests of his wealthy supporters. I guarantee this trump-care policy was suggested and supported by health insurers.
Trump is a gold spoon fed moron who’s entirely disconnected from reality. That mofo talked about groceries like it’s an afternoon club or some shit. He probably never ever even stepped into a supermarket and bought a fucking loaf of bread and something else himself. It’s why he fucking has no idea how healthcare even works in America, when he had COVID they just pumped shit into him to keep his zombie body alive and he didn’t even twitch even the slightest for how much that would cost. Meanwhile rest of people avoid calling an ambulance because that will cost so much it can bankrupt them. Tell me how that isn’t absolutely fucked.
I live in Slovenia (Europe) and while our healthcare system isn’t perfect either, not once I worried that my medical condition would set me back financially for 5 or 10 years. It just doesn’t cross our minds, like at all ever. You just get in touch with doctors and they sort it out based on severity. If it’s something non critical you might wait few weeks or months if it’s something trivial or cosmetic, but if it’s something urgent they’ll send you to ER immediately and do most complex procedures asap. So it’s not just “you need to wait for months because it’s “free” healthcare”. It is prioritized and it’s perfectly understandable and logical.
The entire argument about universal healthcare taking months to see a doctor is doubly trash because it took me that long to see a doctor in the US anyways. I had to plan my general practitioner visits out 3-4 months in advance and I was on meds that needed represcribed every three months so some months I simply missed it because how long the waits were
Like all arguments in dumb asshole America, we can’t have a real argument where the basic concept of triage exists.
Health insurance premiums are going to cost $28000 from now on.
it’s like when i get a rise in my welfare payments, my (govt housing) rent goes up by just as much. So, like… okay. *sad face*
How does anyone afford anything in the USA? The average health insurance is $26K a year, rent is like $3000 a month, food etc. How the fuck even. I feel bad for the americans who want to effect GOOD change. The ones who want universal healthcare etc. The ones that don’t? Suck shit cunts.
While I was living in Seattle it was: $3.3k/mo for rent, like $500 utilities, about $1k for food (I was feeding me and another person, we ate out maybe once every couple months, I did go a bit fancy with our cooking), various things like gym and other stuff to keep my sanity brought it all up to about $5.5k/mo. My health insurance was through my work and I paid about $1.2k and they paid about $2k but that was all handled before I got my paychecks.
So in Seattle at least the answer is make at least $100k/yr before tax, don’t have kids, don’t have a car, be in reasonably good health, have a job that pays for most your insurance premiums, and never have a medical emergency. Or live in a house with 6 other people and dumpster dive for food. Or just go massively into debt.
How does anyone afford anything in the USA?
A lot don’t get insurance and just hope they don’t die?
Literally, yes.
My supervisor at work has 2 broken teeth and one is cracking, he can’t have food on his right side of his mouth and about once a month has go eat soft foods because the cracked tooth on his left side hurts again.
Another coworker has a knife wound because he managed to slice his arm open with his own folding knife (not suicidal just stupid), and he’s just self-treating even though it looks infected.
I have had bronchitis multiple times in my life when I didn’t have any insurance and even when I was so weak it took all my strength to crawl to the bathroom, going without eating for several days because I can’t make it downstairs to the kitchen, because just the urgent care visit would have sent me into years of debt.
My sister ignored signs of cancer until her daughter asked her to go to the doctor. It could have been operated on if she had gone earlier. Now it’s chemo and fingers crossed.
This shithole country kicks people when they’re down andat least 1/3 of the population is polishing the boot as the rich are kicking us.
sad, and probably true :/
Enraging and 100% true. About 11% of working age Americans have no health insurance.
Consider also how many people have health insurance but cant afford to use it?
Insurance is such a scam. You pay THOUSANDS every year, then when you want to use it, you have to pay EVEN FUCKING MORE. WHAT THE FUCK HAVE I BEEN PAYING FOR THEN??
Fun fact: On top of all that, you pay more in taxes for health care than any other country, even those where health care is entirely financed by tax money.
But hey, you go from having to pay 20 lifetimes worth of crippling debt to only 5 lifetimes worth of crippling debt, look on the bright side
I’d love to see the venn diagram of people who 1) don’t have health insurance and 2) don’t support universal healthcare
Its definitely not a circle, but the middle portion is big enough to make me lose hope for humanity.
Leopards be feasting
Literally true. I’ve lost two friends this way.
Yes
Honestly the best thing skilled Americans could do is leave. Changing things would be better but honestly simply leaving in droves could already change things for the better ironically enough.
I spent years trying to change things. Protests, donating to younger people more capable of direct action than me, building community, and yes voting too because we have to use all our tools. It became too dangerous for my aging trans ass and I managed to find myself in a position to move to Sweden. I don’t know if I’ll ever stop feeling guilty about it but it’s so much better outside the US. I’m still giving what I can to my community back in the US but at this point it’s more like using scotch tape to fix a stab wound. You better believe though if the US comes for Greenland I’m going to do everything I can to help my new neighbors
And if you can’t leave (or can’t do so reasonably), crashing the birth rates is another way to send a message…while simultaneously insulating you against some of the most egregiously out of control expenses.
Does your country have decent healthcare and need IT Admins?
Credit cards and payday loans until you declare bankruptcy 6 times just like uncle
samtrump.That’s how you know he knows what he’s doing. No one else can go bankrupt 6 times AND be a rapist, and still get elected to the highest level of US government TWICE!
I feel bad for the americans who want to effect GOOD change
The worst part is so many americans are convinced that actually most Americans want half good, half bad policy; free healthcare is too far left, but theres definitely a cohort of voters who wont vote for that, but will vote for means-tested subsidies for health insurance companies, and that running on that policy is smarter than running on policy anyone actually wants.
Sadly, you’re probably right. The thing that gets me is that y’all essentially got universal healthcare, with a middle man. Where do americans think their premiums are going? They aren’t segregating all the funding to each person and spending that only on each person. It’s going to pay for other people’s surgeries and shit. You got universal healthcare, but y’all paying 1000000x as much for it.
A) its not universal because plenty of people don’t have coverage.
B) many of our insurance companies and “healthcare providers” are for profit and traded on the stock market, so our premiums are going to shareholders, with just enough paying for actual treatment to keep all of us from going full Luigi
We dont though, tons of people forgo healthcare because they can’t afford it.
sad but true :/
We’re paying twice as much for it, but getting less and worse care because most of that money is going to death panels and shitbags like David Cordani, Patrick Conway, and Mark Bertolini.
Most of the developed world pays between $3K and $6K per capita. the USA pays $14K per capita last i looked. For worse care, and just as long wait times as universal healthcare, if not longer. Oh, unless you’re dumpy, then you get seen straight away.
Don’t forget all the time we have to waste arguing with insurance companies to get them to cover our wife’s ongoing chemotherapy even though nothing has fucking changed
I’m sorry, I hope your wife pulls through. She got this!
If by “this” you mean an autoimmune disease for which there is no cure, yup!
I’d just give up, buy food with credit, and literally walk off to invade someone’s forest, cannibalize them, use their land to hunt.
After all, they crowded everyone out on purpose.
Who am I kidding, I’m a pussy even now.
60% of the country lives check-to-check, the rest are mostly in debt
To afford everything you just need to be disabled, then you get health care, food support, monthly income, and rent help. If the top 10% paid their taxes then everyone can get these benefits.
nah mate. Could you imagine if elon lost a couple billion? UNTHINKABLE!
“We’ll do socialism, but we’ll do it just a little bit, not enough to matter to any single human being’s actual needs, but at least we broke our ultraconservative ideals for no good reason I guess?”
confused_jackie_chan_meme.jpg
For real, if they just took that budget and applied it as a single payer healthcare system, it would be orders of magnitude more effective.
It’s absolutely crazy to me that you guys have the most expensive healthcare system in the world (per capita) and at the same time one of the worst compared to other sufficently develloped nations.
Just more money being pumped straight into the pockets of the insurance company shareholders.
it’s like putting bandages over the real issues: student loan forgiveness (instead of lowering tuition), homeless shelters (instead of rent control), food stamps (instead of a living wage), now it’s a healthcare subsidy (instead of universal healthcare).
all these things are good, but could be better
Americans pay more per capita for medicare/Medicaid than sane countries do for universal health care. You can literally afford it.
But won’t you think of the poor insurance company ceo’s? How will they afford their next yatch if you cut them out of the system?!?!
they might have to settle for a *gasp* $1B yacht instead of a $2B yacht! OH THE HUMANITY!
Art of the steal
So we had a strange early insurance change at work. HSA plan went from 6k max out of pocket to 16k.
