I'm a US citizen, people in other countries, what do you think when you read stories like these about the US health care system?

I’d like to know other non-US citizen’s opinions on your health care system are when you read a story like this. I know there are worse places in the world to receive health care, and better. What runs through your heads when you have a medical emergency?

A little background on my question:

My son was having trouble breathing after having a cold for a couple of days and we needed to stop and take the time to see if our insurance would be accepted at the closest emergency room so we didn’t end up with a huge bill (like 2000$-5000$). This was a pretty involved ~10 minute process of logging into our insurance carrier, and unsuccessfully finding the answer there. Then calling the hospital and having them tell us to look it up by scrolling through some links using the local search tool on their website. This gave me some serious pause, what if it was a real emergency, like the kind where you have no time to call and see if the closest hospital takes your insurance.

BlameThePeacock,

The one thing even Americans who have health insurance don’t realize about single payer healthcare systems, is that we don’t worry about it.

We don’t consider it when switching jobs, we don’t think about it when we’re sick, we don’t worry about medical bills… we just go to the doctor/hospital, and worry about getting better or dealing with the work implications of taking time off.

The weight for that piece simply doesn’t rest on our shoulders or minds at all.

You’ve been tricked and brainwashed you into thinking what you have is normal, and it’s disturbing how many of you think it’s a reasonable way to continue.

ReallyActuallyFrankenstein,

I’m American and trust me, in no way does it feel normal even after living with it my whole life. Simply hearing what you describe - not thinking about it - feels so deeply right and reasonable that it reminds me just how much weight of “this is not normal” we carry around.

Lucidlethargy,

You’ve been tricked and brainwashed you into thinking what you have is normal, and it’s disturbing how many of you think it’s a reasonable way to continue.

No, we haven’t… Are you not aware how upset most people are over here about this system?

cdf12345,

This is why I don’t understand why corporations aren’t behind it. It would take an enormous load of my HR dept. It would save them so much.

BlameThePeacock,

Corps actually benefit from workers being worried about leaving. It reduces labour costs.

520,

Retention. You'll find the threat of lack of healthcare to be fairly coercive.

state_electrician,

Yeah, exactly. The most expensive thing about a hospital visit here is the parking.

ebits21,
@ebits21@lemmy.ca avatar

Bingo

PrincessLeiasCat,

That’s so fucking crazy sounding. It also sounds wonderful. My parents almost lost our house due to medical expenses, and yes they had insurance (here’s the best part - my dad was a disabled veteran). So support the troops, yay!

Because of that experience, I’ve developed a lifelong almost PTSD about insurance and medical bills - afraid that it will happen again to me now that I’m an adult. I obsess over it. It’s terrible.

I’m so jealous of those who never have to give it a second thought.

Snekeyes,

1 in 4 bankruptcies are military due to medical cost. We only support troops with thoughts and prayers

Mr_Blott,

That’s so fucking crazy sounding

And there’s the problem

It’s so fucking normal sounding. Your system is the crazy, horrifying human rights abuse 😅

PrincessLeiasCat,

No, you’re absolutely right. I didn’t mean crazy to sound negative - it’s just something I cannot even imagine…to never have to think about this thing that I constantly think about. It’s wild. And I really do wish it could become a reality.

roadkill,
roadkill avatar

Sadly, the brainwashing has been so effective that those who buy it never noticed that those gaslighting people into believing that no government system (eg, single payer) could ever work are the ones (Republicans) doing their best to ensure that government remains as broken as possible.

More people believe that our system is fucked than those who think this kind of system is normal.

We're just faced with so many hurdles, gerrymandering, red states that exist only because of minority representation have more power over larger population areas (districts by size and not population, electoral college) ... The majority of the country is merely surviving and the apathy sets in. I remind people that voting fascists out is the only way things are going to change and often the response is "Well, I tried that once and it didn't work." So they stop showing up to vote. Or they buy into the 'both sides' BS and post lame memes on Facebook and Reddit.

A lot of us really are painfully aware of how fucked it is.

Uranium3006,
Uranium3006 avatar

We need to do way more than just voting to defeat fascism

Trollivier,

I think third world country.

the_ocs,

I think that’s unfair on third world countries

Honytawk,

That would imply not taking a side in WW2.

No, the US is a developing nation. Still has plenty of ways to go in order to stomp out corruption and the oligarchy running it, and also lower the divide between rich and poor. Only then will they be able to look after their own people the way a real developed nation would.

But as long as people in the US need a gun in order to feel safe walking around, it will stay a shithole.

uis,

I think people in the US use a gun in wrong way.

SuperTulle,

Orphan Crushing Machine

z00s,

Guns are a right, but you can be jailed for getting an abortion. The US is turning into a third world country.

Strobelt,

Actually most third world countries don’t have guns as rights. And their laws on abortion vary wildly.

So the US would be worse than third world.

BeatTakeshi,
@BeatTakeshi@lemmy.world avatar

New achievement unlocked: fourth world

Zink,

Biggest number! U-S-A! U-S-A!

someguy3,

Canada here: Unbelievable. It’s so foreign to me to pay for medical care.

And I always post this:

Frame Canada

Wendell Potter spent decades scaring Americans. About Canada. He worked for the health insurance industry, and he knew that if Americans understood Canadian-style health care, they might… like it. So he helped deploy an industry playbook for protecting the health insurance agency.

www.npr.org/2020/10/19/925354134/frame-canada

SwingingKoala,
@SwingingKoala@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Yeah, no, I don’t think about you.

Flumpkin,

what do you think when you read stories like these

Honestly they are so fucking sad I try to avoid reading them. Another example is this one: She Was Denied an Abortion After Roe Fell. This Is a Year in Her Family’s Life.

The monsters have been trying to do the same things in Europe though, UK has underfunded the NHS and healthcare in Germany is in deliberate decline too.

PoliticallyIncorrect, (edited )
@PoliticallyIncorrect@lemmy.world avatar

Definitely, people health it’s a big business, big pharma sell a remedy they don’t sell the cure. There isn’t a better business than big pharma and privatized health care.

RememberTheApollo_,

Texas. She probably votes for people telling her she needs to vote against affordable anything, much less single payer health care.

monobot,

First thought is that you need to do that research aa soon as you move to the new house, change your insurance or job.

Second is obvious, strange county you have over there. But I guess most of the people are satisfied with that, as with paying for school.

wavebeam,
@wavebeam@lemmy.world avatar

i don’t think it’s reasonable to say “most of the people are happy with that”. Most people in the US are definitely NOT happy with how the medical industry or insurance works. But i do think it’s fair to say that most people don’t understand that voting for the guy that says they will prevent higher taxes is also working to keep the insurance system in place OR they would rather have lower taxes than better insurance (and are too dumb to realize that would be a net gain) OR they don’t vote at all.

PeckerBrown,

When you don’t have viable choices, that is most certainly NOT ‘being satisfied with that’.

Tinks,

The problem here is that hospitals do not remain under the same management consistently. Apparently I am responsible for knowing when each of the local hospitals changes administrations (because capitalism and they get bought out) and stops or begins accepting my insurance. When I first moved into my house the closest hospital did NOT accept my insurance, last I checked they do, but that was a few years ago, so who knows now. The hospital closest to me has changed names 3 times in the last 15 years.

It’s ridiculous that in an emergency that “when was the last time we checked to make sure that hospital takes our insurance” is even a question.

ferralcat,

We moved from America to see Asia years ago. We were just talking last week about how racist we still catch ourselves being. We have a sick relative at home who we talked about moving here. They’d be close to us so we could help. And healthcare here is cheap/free often and pretty good.

But there’s part of me that just thinks American = superior. No matter how long I live here I’m not sure it will ever go away. It’s been psychopathically programmed into me. “Yeah it’s expensive, but at least you’re getting a good doctor”. (I’ve had awful and great doctors in both countries) It’s infuriating to realize.

Baggie,

Good on you for realising though. I mean from an outsiders perspective America tends to push the exceptionalism narrative pretty hard, live there long enough and it’ll get into you sooner or later.

TheFriar,

You were conditioned, you’re not being racist. It would be racist if, say, you lived in the US and had an Asian doctor and demanded a white one.

Also:

it’s been psychopathically programmed into me

This really made me laugh. It’s hard to describe what I’m imagining, but, remember in the first matrix where they “download” information via needle in the back of the head? And you know how a video game character looks when the game is glitching? Like, one character is just freaking out, all of their animations happening at once? Kinda like two cartoon characters fighting in a cloud of smoke and limbs and heads just flying out random places? Well, I imagined a mixture of those two (three?) things. And dammit if I didn’t get a hearty chuckle out of it.

yeah,

I saw a tiktok recently with an american explaining that people just don’t finish the course of antibiotics so they have an emergency stash. FACEPALM.

neomachino,

Back in the day I had a friend who ran essentially a fish dispensary and had a good connection on quality fish antibiotics. I would stock up on a bunch of stuff whenever they were making an order.

My numbers are surely off but I was paying something like $5 for ~500 amoxacillan, where at a rite aid or CVS you’d be paying, what $50 for 14 pills. The same ingredients, the same markings, the same thing. Just a lot cheaper for fish.

fne8w2ah,

Isn’t that how antibiotic resistance develops?

Coreidan,

Not really. Antibiotic resistance is mostly a thing due to how over prescribed it is, not from an extreme minority of idiots not finishing their dose

yeah,

exactly. :(

Adalast,

It is that pesky 99.9% effectiveness. That 0.1% that survived did so because they had some minor resistance. Rinse and repeat a few hundred thousand times and you have forced evolution. It doesn’t even take that long to happen in a population with the over-prescription rate we have had here. Something about the people in charge being undereducated religious ideologs who see expertise as a threat or fraud because experts make mistakes and learn from them.

whoisearth,
@whoisearth@lemmy.ca avatar

You think this is fucked. My son is type 1 diabetic here (Canada). In America people routinely ration insulin because of the cost

For those not in the know, a diabetic needs insulin constantly to survive. Failure to meet this requirement introduces a laundry list of complications that all end in death.

Despite this, they play Russian roulette with their lives not because they want to but because their government does not care about them.

It’s infuriating.

Also, worth noting that if you’re in the know, red Cross has deployed in America multiple times in recent memory. Something that used to be for “3rd world” countries deployed in the richest country in the world.

America is a failed state. People continue argue over the semantics of that definition but I will continue to argue it’s justified.

CurlyWurlies4All,
@CurlyWurlies4All@slrpnk.net avatar

The emotional reaction I get to these stories is hard to put into words. It’s a mix of deep sadness and incandescent rage. I just can’t imagine being in that position and not wanting to firebomb a politician’s house.

My little girl had a very high fever the other night and we were really worried about her, so we called the nurse on call hotline who advised us to wait and go to the urgent care centre in the morning unless she got suddenly worse overnight, then to head to emergency. It was all stressful enough just worrying about how sick she was. I can’t imagine how much worse it would be having to worry about paying for any of those services on top of that.

clemdemort, (edited )
@clemdemort@lemmy.world avatar

It’s dystopian as can be, the health care system in my country was one of the best in the world but has taken a major hit recently because of stupid ass politicians. Still it’s miles better than in the US and if I’m ill I just go to a doctor I don’t think twice about it.

uis,

Man, I live in shit country where opposition is killed every february and ruling party of oligarchs have been destroying my country’s healthcare system for last 20 years, but I’m glad commies built it tough.

I’ve heard you even pay for ambulance.

maniclucky,

You do. And not a small amount, like an Uber. Hundreds of dollars, regardless of how far it goes. I’m sure there are markups for care received, but I’ve not been in one to know.

uis,

*out of pocket

Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In,

Why doesn’t uber (or equivalent) do ambulances?

maniclucky,

Liability and drivers don’t want to clean up blood to start.

Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In,

For a higher fair, some may be happy to do so.

maniclucky,

I’m pretty sure the amount you’d have to increase it to break even with the new insurance you’d need and all the cleaning would rather defeat the purpose.

Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In,

That’s probably why uber ambulance doesn’t exist.

uis,

They don’t have doctors. Ambulance is not a glorified taxi.

Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In,

An ambulance is a very specific type of taxi.

Yes, you need an EMT and some equipment so the cost is higher than a taxi, but not the $500+ a ride currently charged.

uis,

How about 0 charged?

Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In,

At that price some (particularly old) people use ambulances as a medical taxi service.

How about a fully refunded deposit on A&E admittance?

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