⚕️ Sigh. One step forward, two steps back. Good overview in this short blog:
"The typical non-subsidized health plan for this family would consume over 40 percent of their pre-tax income. Most people would have their mortgage application rejected by a bank if their mortgage payment made up this share of their income. "
I just saw LifeFlight pick up and go right over my head and I can just fffn cry because my FIRST THOUGHT was "i hope they have stellar insurance or that is $100K they will NEVER be able to pay back" but I have to adult all day now.
People in other countries: DO NOT let your country enshittificate into this. Care about obe another. Please, because we don't.
American healthcare is so strange, bizarre and troubling. My healthcare has a “rewards program.” Rewards programs are offered by companies who overcharge and then pretend they’re giving you (your own) money back. I don’t want to know how this particular program works. That it exists at all, for my healthcare, is really fucked up. #M4A
reminder that it would be cheaper for the US govt to pay for your medical care than it is for them to pay insurance corporations to deny your medical care
I want to talk about Women's Pain. I've never had "good" periods, not since I was a teenager, but as I aged they got worse and worse. I was basically bedridden three days out of the month, and popping ibuprofen for a while after that too. I even got a prescription for Marijuana, because I knew the ibuprofen wasn't good for my stomach, and I needed something to ease the pain. Despite all of this, I just assumed that this was what it was like for most women.
I've always had a lot of anxiety about doctors, but it had ramped up since childhood. My Mom has been in and out of hospitals her whole life, and has had some pretty traumatic experiences. I watched my Dad die in an ER in front of me. But my best friend died suddenly of a preventable illness, and I decided I had to do better, regular Doctor visits was the top of the list, since I had only been going when I absolutely needed to. I casually mentioned to the doctor increased pain during periods and he (like a very good doctor) ordered an ultrasound just in case. This started months and months of tests and doctor visits, 4 ultrasounds, birth control pills that made me sick, an MRI, two different specialists, one of which let me know that I was a mess inside, but I would need surgery to find out exactly how, basically a nightmare. I was so ready to be done with it that when they said surgery I said Yes, immediately, I was so ready to be done. My surgeon was fantastic, but basically said they wouldn't know what the end result was be until they were in there could be just cyst removal, could be a total hysterectomy. In the end, they had to remove my right fallopian tube, right ovary, and some cysts, they also put in a Mirena IUD. I had endometriosis for years, and didn't realize it.
I tell this story, because in a way, I was lucky, my doctor believed me about my pain, but there are thousands more stories where Women's pain gets ignored by the medical establishment, they tell them they are just stressed and hysterical. The average endometriosis diagnosis takes about 7 years, because of this. Men get better care than women, period, and if you're a woman of color or LGBTQ, watch out, the stats are even worse for you. Men get treatment and pain management far more often and far quicker than women. And to top it all off, women are just told pain is normal and part of life from the time they are small children, your period will hurt, so will sex, pregnancy, menopause. We are expected to live in and accept pain our whole lives. Women don't have a higher pain tolerance than men, we are just expected to grin and bear it in a way Men simply are not.
So, final message, if something feels wrong, don't wait, go to the doctor, don't take no for an answer, if your doctor denies you, get another doctor. You know your body better than any other person, you deserve the best care for it, love yourself!
If you have any other advice for women, and dealing with the medical establishment, or just want to share a story, please feel free!
I'm sorry you went through all this. I'm just sorry. Glad you found someone who listened to you. ❤️
My advice, after an entire life of doctors treating me badly because I am female, don't give up. If you can afford to in this misogynistic, racist, classist country (USA); trust your body, trust your instincts, don't give up trying to find a doctor you can trust.
@ProPublica#CorporateOligarchy#PublicHealth#SinglePayorNow#M4A Glad for ProPublica reporting on this. However, very similar stories/exposés have been happening for years. They show just how badly a profit-motive driven capitalist insurance system perverts and dehumanizes the healthcare system. Makes it even more obvious the #MedicareAdvantage scam to privatize #Medicare is evil. Despite the recurring exposés, the #CorporateOligarchy 's lock on our political system prevents serious change.
My friend who emigrated to Spain posted that he had to go to the Emergency Room today. Instead of it breaking his bank account, the visit only cost him €16.
We are being ripped off in ways we don't even realize by the US health “care” non-system which is designed to maximize corporate profits by bankrupting patients.
We need a new model and should adopt one of the universal health care models that get much better health care outcomes than ours. #universalhealthcare#medicareforall#USpol
British people, I cannot explain adequately what absolute hell the American healthcare system is. You know how people say: "at least in the US, you can get fast treatment. At least in the US, you can choose your doctor. At least in the US, you can get the most innovative treatment"?
Lies. All of it.
The US healthcare system excels at one thing only, and that's bankrupting people.
usa healthcare is run by capitalistic for profit insurance companies, not the government. if you are a money losing insurance customer, the insurance company will make a silly excuse to deny your claim coverage and you're bankrupt or basically dead if can't pay for it. that's usa healthcare look like. money talks in usa healthcare.
Ther's lots of ways to slice the #DemocraticParty coalition, but one important axis are the self-styled adults-in-the-room, who declare themselves realists, and the party's left wing, who are dismissed as idealists who don't understand politics: neither how to win elections nor how to wield power.
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
Yes, your insurer can't discriminate against you for having diabetes, but they can make you pay an extra $2,000 in deductibles every year before covering any of your diabetes care.
Now, maybe business-as-usual would have been even worse. Perhaps not passing the ACA would have left Americans poorer and sicker. But we're not comparing ACA with doing nothing - we're comparing ACA with more muscular, direct programs, like #M4A.
My husband broke his arm and paid over $800 co-pay. This was months ago. But the bills keep coming. Now insurance/hospital want $700 more.
Privatization does not belong in healthcare. It is morally wrong to profit from suffering. The USA is a country where we pay high taxes, but those taxes just give billionaires tax breaks, and buy weapons of mass destruction. Our taxes should pay for healthcare and education, not largess & murder. #M4A
I've built a PoC #mp4 meta tag editor for the #browser in vanilla #javascript that pretends to run in a #crt#terminal. Pretty stupid combo, I know :-) But I had a lot of fun building it!
(It's meant to be used with #m4a#audio files but seems to work with video too and it requires a browser with the File System Access API enabled.)