Mildly Interesting

Are you rich? Then yes. If you're not rich, then you need to suffer and struggle for needing to use valuable resources that could be used on people more deserving; like the wealthy.

In most countries you can, yes.

Oh ya, you can get care. And then you fight with insurance about whether or not that was the right doctor to use or if it was really necessary in the first place. But insurance won't talk to the hospital and the hospital won't talk to insurance so you have to talk to each of them in turn while waiting on hold every time. It's a wonderful system.

"We" have been heavily propagandized into this. As a nation we're a masterclass in being brainwashed against our own interests

The US isn't a country.

It's a business dressed up as a country.

(More like 50 countries dressed up as a business dressed up as a country, but then even that gets more complicated)

It's pure lobbying.

That CEO's company made $22 billion in profit or something. Put just $1 billion of that in lobbying and you got a whole army of people manipulating the results in favor of the current status quo, and you'll have your $21 billion instead of $0.

I can’t imagine why USA hasn’t introduced something similar yet, but prefer all that bureaucracy that only makes the whole process way more expensive. Just to make sure some unemployed poor guy doesn’t get free treatment!!

(concepts stolen from a very insightful reddit post from years ago) Nearly all modern conservative positions can be explained with two idea.

• Society is zero-sum. For someone to gain something, someone else must lose something.
• Class is defined and there should be no mobility for lower classes to ascend to higher classes in society.

So apply this to healthcare:

Most arguing against medical-treatment-for-all view it as zero-sum. So for most its not just because they don't want some unemployed poor guy getting free treatment, but rather, "if the unemployed poor guy gets free treatment, then treatment won't be available at some point in the future when I need it". This is silly of course.

For others arguing against medical-treatment-for-all, the suffering is the point. The unemployed poor guy should suffer because that is his station in life. A life of comfort is reserved for those of higher classes. They believe, alleviating his suffering would go against the class he's in and should in. This is, of course, also silly.

Right, but what do you do when someone who works less, or isn't as talented or smart, as you gets the same or better healthcare!?

It's money. It's specifically a video of a white man with an expensive suit dancing in a rain of hundred dollar bills while the chorus to Money Money Money plays.

Politicians know the system is broke but they benefit from the money and have government sponsored top tier healthcare.

Wait until you find out that we actually get money deducted from our paychecks, a good some of money under "Medicare", that we don't get. We just pay for it on top of our monthly premiums for the insurance.

It was always meaningless. It never had any legal repercussions if it was broken, just like ethics agreements politicians get to waiver.

What doctor has time to do that? I'm in Canada and I can never trust my doctor to have any conversation with anyone, at any time longer than five minutes at a time for anything.

The best tactic I've found if you want to get anything done for yourself or someone close to you is for you to do the legwork and make calls, contacts and literally hound people to do their job. If no one is there to push things along, no one is going to magically appear to help you ... that is a fantasy that seldom and rarely happens, even in our publicly funded system.

You or someone who is capable should advocate for you every step of the way, otherwise you will just get lost and forgotten in the system ... whether you are in the US or Canada.

I've had doctors lead me to make certain statements so they can more readily justify a given treatment that they know I need.

It's a bit of a wink-and-a-nod situation.

It's even worse if you're part of an HMO, because the doctors are beholden to the business side, unlike independent doctors who don't have a management overhead telling them how many times a year they can prescribe a treatment, becuase they're doing it more frequently than other doctors in the system.

This demonstrates the major issue with socialized care, because it's also managed this way. I've been in both HMO and PPO systems - overall they both cost about the same despite HMOs acting like they cover more day-to-day stuff. It's just with PPO (independent doctors), I get care that's more tailored to me and my wishes, I don't get pushback from corporate, because there's no corporate involved. I may have to discuss with my doctor how to present things so my insurance won't push back, but at least the insurance company doesn't directly control my doctor's salary, bonus, etc.

All this crap started in the 80's as business management orgs started taking over healthcare organizations and consolidating them, and turning them into profit centers.

Agree I feel fortunate to have found a doctor(and their PA, and their staff) who feels like my own personal swat team to get my treatments. I am not wealthy and don't have gold plated coverage, I just found a winner.

It's so much paperwork and phone tag.

It’s basically the same tactic, convince them that you’re too much of a pain in the ass to deal with and they should just give you what you want to get you to go away. Only it’s for accessing your own fucking healthcare that you pay them money for and not, you know, avoiding paying child support or truck payments.

Absolutely, the only difference from sovcits is that the bogeyman we believe in is real - it's the insurance companies and billionaires.

We're inching closer every day. Someday the pressure is going to exceed the limit and it will explode.