The piss poor US healthcare system is the number cause of personal bankruptcy. I do not know of any prominent US politicians that wants to extinguish the massive dumpster fire. If you voted for Putin’s Sock Puppet, the GOP and Project 2025, I have zero sympathy for your asses. Your fucking grocery prices somewhat valid, but none of you MAGAt fuckers mentioned the rising cost of healthcare which outpaces everything in the USA.
This is just another culture war to distract everyone from the class war.
Even though I’d pointed out the same about another article, I was triggered by this one and you brought me back around. Thanks!
Why should illness block your retirement? Healthcare is a human right.
Having trouble feeling super compassionate. An abundance of luck and good market circumstances combined with a once in a lifetime fluke led to my ownership of a house. I have no illusions that I’ll ever actually be able to really retire.
My friends aren’t as lucky. Their rent is more than double my mortgage. They’re going to be working till death for sure.
It’s okay though, we’ve gotta do something to support those quarterly profits, right?
Oh Canada, our smart boomers are coming for your healthcare
For all the shit everybody gives Boomers, I’m pretty sure the majority of them are also poor and working class. There’s just a lot more wealth at the top, or the “top” is bigger.
It’s culture war to distract us from the class war.
ding, ding, ding! This!
I think it’s more about the stereotypical Boomer attitude than their wealth. The whole “I worked hard at the gas station and saved up and bought my house in 1974 for $20,000, so I don’t see why all of you younger people are having such a hard time” thing.
Like I said, stereotypical, but it transcends economic status.
Even many poor, working class people of that age own their homes after all.
Even many poor, working class people of that age own their homes after all.
It’s not JUST that houses were cheaper. It’s also that they’ve had the >= 30 years of working to pay off their mortgage.
The other half of it is, the older generations tend heavily towards being Republicans. So even if they aren’t rich, they’re still voting for this.
Everyone is one stroke or TBI away from being a MAGAt
As a millennial that went bankrupt and lost their house because of medical bills I have to ask. First time?
I’m going to go to the doctor for the first time in 20 years in 2025. Am frightened.
Don’t ya see? It wasn’t a problem until it affected them personally. “Something, something avocado toast.”
Fair point, but don’t forget that the culture war is here to distract us from the class war.
Pre-ACA it was even worse. Watch Michael Moore’s documentary “Sicko”.
It’s still wild to me that much of the country won the barest of minimum healthcare standards (compared to other modern nations) just because one Republican had the smallest bit of morality and broke the tie with a ‘yes’ vote, putting the ACA into effect and earning Obama and McCain eternal hatred for their troubles. We are truly lost…
Oh Republicans like the ACA but they sure do hate Obamacare.
Even with insurance, medical payments were hundreds of thousands of dollars each month.
Jesus. My father died of lymphoma after fighting it for 8 years or so, and he was miserable for a lot of that time. Luckily (if you can call it that), he was a military veteran and the VA took care of the treatment, but even with the treatment, his quality of life wasn’t good. If I get cancer, I’d rather just kill myself before it reaches that point than bankrupt my family. It’s pretty fucked that that’s something we have to think about.
he was a military veteran and the VA took care of the treatment
Project 2025 is putting an end to that.
Ahh but that’s why they sell you life insurance, so you won’t kill yourself and the family can use the payout to pay off your medical debt. Maybe. Ain’t capitalism grand?
There’s usually a clause for that kind of death and it only doesn’t pay out for like 2 years usually. I’d get a lawyer to look to be sure
Many life insurance policies simply do not pay out in the case of suicide.
In the sense that insurance companies often do anything they can to weasel out of a payment, I agree with you completely.
Many have provisions for that cause of death not qualifying that expire after two years, and sometimes they have a provision to pay a reduced amount or a clause where if you change the policy the two years resets.
I have a sibling that works in a relevant area of law to this, so I haven’t researched it extensively I just take them at their word because they have worked on cases where this is relevant (people who are terminal ending their own lives medically).
Hypothetically speaking, what if you’re killed by a cop?
I think there are some that have clauses about dying during the commission of a crime.
No need for hypotheticals. There have been several documented cases of insurance denying payouts to victims of “suicide-by-cop”:
https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/life-insurance-rejected-in-suicide-by-cop/
Not if they do the funniest thing.
turn into a pickle?
If only there were some system in the world that could prevent this type of monetary sadness.
Slavery!
You’ll never worry about money again!
Maybe if they didn’t elect all the representatives against single payer healthcare they wouldn’t have to worry about it.
Agreed. Next step: Get those punk muther fuckers out of there.
By ballot or bullet! Amaright 😉
Capitalism working wonderfully
As intended. Have to suck these people dry before they die. Would be a shame if they had inheritance money to give back to their family.
Unfortunately the bankruptcy rate for cancer survivors after 2 years jumps to around half.
…in America.
My retired neighbor moved a few months ago crying about this.
Said their property tax is too expensive and they cant afford living in this area with their med expenses.
Let me guess, voted R since the 1980s
Even if they didn’t, they aided and abetted friends that did
Good
I don’t have good line of sight into what happens outside of the US, but are cancer treatments unlimited for those in single payer systems? Even if the person requires treatment for years? Just wondering how it works (forgive my ignorance)!
In Norway we pay for doctor’s visits and prescriptions up to $280 per year. After which it’s covered by the state. Some medications aren’t covered if the state has deemed them unnecessary or if it’s not their preferred treatment (so like they will cover oral contraception or IUDs but not nuvaring) but their decisions are based entirely on research papers and not profit. Also if you need a medication that isn’t covered you can apply to get it covered. If it doesn’t get covered, the price usually isn’t too terrible. My SO takes a medication that isn’t covered and it’s around $45 for about 10 days worth (we were warned about how expensive it was). Dentistry isn’t covered for adults so flights to Gdansk are very popular.
Yes, but the treatments don’t cost as much to the government/taxpayer, since medications aren’t inflated to the moon since insurance is supposed to pay.
Yea, that’s kinda the point.
No worries about medical debt.
Mostly. Sometimes you can still get screwed by things that aren’t covered like prosthetics.
In Australia with the NDIS prosthetics etc are covered. So are other items related to disability. Eg shower chairs, home modifications, crutches, consumables eg special soap etc.
Sometimes you can still get screwed by things that aren’t covered like prosthetics.
Well prosthetics usually have bullshit coverage requirements, if any coverage, with the US system as well.
In Australia with the NDIS prosthetics etc are covered. So are other items related to disability. Eg shower chairs, home modifications, crutches, consumables eg special soap etc.
It depends on the country, but healthcare is much cheaper and simpler everywhere else in the developed world than in the US. We live in a corporate dystopia.
Sort of.
I live in New Zealand, so this is hyper specific to how our healthcare system is set up, other countries will have radically different systems.
The way it works in NZ is that all hospital visits are free, and all medicine dispensed within the hospital are free. Visits to your GP are free if you are under 16, over 65 or pregnant. Medicines prescribed by your GP have a price cap ($100NZ/year/person iirc), as long as they are on the “Pharmac” list.
The 2 main caveats to this:
- Hospitals don’t have infinite capacity. If you need non-acute treatment (ie, you aren’t going to suffer serious harm by not getting treated immediately), you could easily be waiting a year to see a specialist
- Pharmac. The way the government ensures that drug prices stay affordable is by giving a government agency a big chunk of cash, and telling them to use it to buy the drugs that are going to have the best “bang for the buck”, and use the bulk purchase negotiating power to get as good a price as possible - hospitals pretty much exclusively prescribe Pharmac drugs because they don’t have the budget to buy anything else. This means that in general, if you’ve got something common, the drugs you’ll need will probably be on the Pharmac list and you’ll not have to pay anything, but if it’s rare, or you want a newer more expensive treatment, or you just get unlucky and need a drug that Pharmac doesn’t cover you can be in a really hard spot.
Private medical insurance does exist, and is pretty much there to let you “skip the queue” - there are private hospitals not funded by the government that employ their own specialists (who typically also work in the public system) - or to fund drugs that Pharmac won’t. Is fairly common in mid-end white collar jobs (especially finance and tech) to have private insurance paid for by your employer, but is pretty much just there for “what if I get an exotic cancer” or “what if I fuck up my knee and don’t want to have to wait a few months for surgery”. My wife needed her gall bladder removed a couple of years ago, and we just used the public hospital even though we do have insurance that might have paid for private - the public system is excellent for 95% of things.
If you need non-acute treatment (ie, you aren’t going to suffer serious harm by not getting treated immediately), you could easily be waiting a year to see a specialist
This is also true in the U.S. entirely for-profit healthcare system. I had to wait over 9 months just to get an appointment with a new neurologist when my previous one retired.
It’s also something that a lot of Republicans claim is a problem in countries with socialized medicine but not in the U.S., which always gets a derisive laugh from me.
This is a great explainer but I do want to let you know I chuckled at “mid-end”.
Thanks for this! Starting to get my head around it 😃
Yeah, I get that from the US perspective the idea of there not really being a hard price tag on everything is a bit odd - the US system is bonkers and confusing from the outside as well (and it kinda feels like that’s by design).
Another example as to how this works in practice; my daughter was born a couple of years ago
- As soon as we found out my wife was pregnant picked a midwife from the list of available ones in our area (we talked to 3, picked the one we liked the best)
- We saw her once a month for the first 2 trimesters, then weekly from then
- We got ultrasound scans every 8 weeks to keep tabs on development
- Due to some minor complications we saw an OB/GYN at the hospital a couple of times
- My wife needed to be induced, and there were some more complications during delivery so our total hospital stay was 9 days
- She had an epidural, and needed a pair of specialists to help deliver the baby
- We kept seeing our midwife fortnightly for 3 months after birth
- We saw the OB/GYN again after that to check in on the complications and make sure everything was ok
Our out of pocket expenses were
- The ultrasounds, because we chose to go to a clinic near where we lived
- Parking
- The insurance excess for when someone put a dent in my car door in the carpark
- Food delivery for me for the time we were in hospital; I could have got very cheap meals from the canteen, but didn’t really fancy any of it
Grand total was less than $500 NZD (not counting the insurance excess), and we could have avoided the majority of those costs if we wanted to.
Not saying the system is perfect; it’s functionally impossible to get mental health support publicly, dental care isn’t publicly funded if you are over 18, it seems like nurses and junior doctors have to constantly fight to get pay rises that keep up with inflation, and the system as a whole has been chronically underfunded for decades - but we don’t have people choosing between death or bankruptcy, and we have higher life expectancy so shrug
Unlimited? What do you mean? That is a weird question with several possible interpretations.
For years? Yes. Of course.
I mean, it isn’t cancer, but I have a family member that will need IVIG infusions every 2 weeks for the rest of their life (25+ years). Here they are ~$10k each one. I know it is like 1/3 of the price outside the US, but would something costly like that be covered without limitations?
(I’m just curious how things tactically work out)
Edit: I realize that my perspective is a very US consumer one. We feel entitled to whatever we can pay for (and when it’s free, like a buffet, it can be a lot). It is a pretty big mind shift to move from whatever you want to pay for even if it isnt practical to what you need. Anyhoo, this got me thinking and adjusting my expectations. 😃
Just a quick check for Australia- https://medicalcostsfinder.health.gov.au/services/Q14245/oh?specialty=020401
Costs $88 to the Gov, $0 to patients.
In the US it costs $100 an oz to manufacturer (just to get it into the bottle). It is crazy that having the gov manufacture it can reduce costs so much. Probably a poster child for single payer.
No idea about that specific illness, but in general: yes it would be covered in the German system.
In general if a doctor decided you need a certain, scientifically and widely accepted treatment for a certain illness to not die or bring you back to health, it will be covered by your insurance. But it will be the cheapest version, so no extras.
And now comes the but: the insurances don’t really like to pay that much over a longer time, so often chronically ill persons have to jump through loops to get the help and financing they need.
For example chronically ill people need to prove via doctors note again and again that, yes, they are indeed still chronically ill and did not get healed by a miracle in the last year. It’s argued that they do this to combat fraud, but honestly, I would much rather pay a bit more in my invoices and know that those who need it are not put under unnecessary stress.
From a quick Google search, IVIG infusions are a treatment used in the NHS, so yes if a consultant started you on that treatment you would have it for life if necessary and it would cost you nothing.
