• chiruyuki@ani.social
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    2 days ago

    It still baffles me how some Americans will fight against universal healthcare, like ??? Do you WANT to be put in debt cuz you had an easily-treatable illness??? I don’t get it, honestly

    • BCsven@lemmy.ca
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      20 hours ago

      I have had arguments on social media with Americans. They are A) deluded, believing that paying a monthly premium and still having a deductible, that can be denied, is awesome because its tge best plan avaipable. B) are I got mine types, who have stated they got private insurance because they don’t want to pay for other peoples health care (they clearly don’t understand how insurance works) C) don’t want their taxes to go up one smidge, even though putting every american into a universal system would save so much money and would barely be blip in their taxes.

    • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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      1 day ago

      They are under the impression that what’ll happen is that their paycheck will go down by the cost of universal healthcare per person because the costs are taken out via taxes. Then they hear that some people will get it who don’t pay taxes and they get indignant that they’re paying and someone else is getting. Then they think about the difficulties they have with our current system, and picture putting something like the DMV in front of it, since that’s what a lot of people have as their biggest reference for what the government does.

      That’s all because someone has a vested interest in making sure they understand it wrong, and no one is going to make a lot of money off universal healthcare so there isn’t the same degree of motivation to teach people a more accurate understanding.
      “Against” has billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs, and “for” has “human decency”, “efficiency” and “why are we doing this to ourselves”.

      People hear that your paycheck gets a bit bigger, you go to the doctor when you feel sick, bills are mainly to keep you from going to the doctor for free aspirin and are lower than your copay, and you just … don’t deal with the billing anymore and think that sounds unrealistic. Entirely missing that other countries have done it, that the government already has a medical billing system, and dealing with paperwork is something the government does even better than “moving stuff from one place to another”.

      • chiruyuki@ani.social
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        1 day ago

        And then there’s other countries whose doctors still receive high wages… America just has a very selfish society in general, I’ve noticed. And, that paycheck argument they make is stupid, because if they have to pay off the debt then their wages will be a lot lower anyways?? Especially for more expensive operations (like transplants).

        I honestly don’t have a lot to add, all of you replying to my comment have explained it perfectly. America’s run by idiots, for idiots www

        • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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          24 hours ago

          I’d push back against idiots. It’s a little more complicated. It’s meticulously cultivated ignorance amongst many people, since that’s useful. People with money can help people with power maintain power if they help them make more money. So people with power have an incentive to keep people ignorant about things that threaten the bottom line (often. Some have principles and some see the electorate as a better way to maintain power. Obviously nuance exists)

          So it’s not that the people who don’t support universal healthcare are always unintelligent, or that the leadership is. You’re not stupid for not understanding something you’ve never experienced, and only been told falsehoods about. It’s why intelligent people sometimes end up against it, and can jump through pretty significant mental hoops to justify that position: every experience says the belief is correct, and it agrees with what they were taught.

          There’s a special experience that Americans sometimes get where they’ll travel to another country and get sick or injured. Depending on the country, they might be apologetically informed that because they don’t pay into the system they’ll need to pay full price for the procedure, only to be presented with a bill significantly lower than the fully insured price in the US. Or they just don’t get a bill, depending on the country. I’ve had this happen to two coworkers. One was given a bill for about $200 for a night in the hospital, antivirals, and several units of fluids and electrolytes. The person who presented the bill was adament that there should be a way to bring this down to something more reasonable. In the US that might be a $1000 bill with insurance.
          Another had their kid break their arm on vacation, and when they tried to figure out how to pay the doctor just looked confused and asked why he thought they would charge to help a child in medical need. Said it made him realize how backwards our system has made everything, even though he already wanted universal healthcare. Seeing a system that actually put patient care first just felt weird.

    • turtlesareneat@discuss.online
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      1 day ago

      My mom had a spinal fusion in the 90s which she got in debt for.

      About 15 years ago my lung spontaneously collapsed. Several surgeries later, the bill was $315,000. I was on Obamacare because of the mandate, thank god. I paid $19.

      My mom found out and told me I “deserved to go bankrupt” because people like her had struggled for so long with their medical bills.

      I don’t speak to her anymore

      • chiruyuki@ani.social
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        1 day ago

        I rlly don’t get ppl like ur mum… shouldn’t she be angry about being forced to pay extortionate amounts of money in the first place ??? Not at the poor person who got lucky ??? Jesus

    • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
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      1 day ago

      Obviously, transsexuals are a bigger concern. They are educated from birth the US has a superior healthcare system (by every measure, it does not). They are told that a lifetime of debt means they are good Americans .Also, most voters just assume one day they will be billionaires and never get sick.

    • Vanilla_PuddinFudge@infosec.pub
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      1 day ago

      Americans are willing to give up everything they own if it means some hypothetical strawman isn’t “mooching” off of their propaganda headcanon.

      Success is suffering and hard work and if everyone isn’t suffering then life isn’t fair. Fuck this entire viewpoint, but it’s one of the main American traits ruining socialist ideals.