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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? (www.vox.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
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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.

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[–] 34 points 2 years ago* (3 children)

Shaking my head and glad I'm not living in the US.

A country can decide how to treat people, how to shape the future. I get that nothing is perfect and everything is complicated. But I completely don't get why the US doesn't want to tackle some of the problems. Mainly school shootings, healthcare, social security and a democratic system by today's standards. Maybe the latter is the answer why... And watching documentaries about the rural areas, it seems like the USA is mostly a third world country, except for in the cities.

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  • [–] 25 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    The funny thing is that the US actually spends about twice as much on healthcare per capita as other developed countries. The reason that outcomes are so much worse there isn't lack of money.

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  • [–] 22 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    Oh wow, I didn't know that. Google says $13.493 per person in 2022. And in Germany it's a bit more than $7.000...

    Also things like maternal mortality are WAY worse...

    I mean the USA is bigger and maybe things don't translate exactly from a somewhat densely populated central european country to the vast emptiness of rural Wyoming. I guess an hospital is also something that is subject to economy of scale... But even most northern european countries where doctors come in with helicopters, don't exceed the ~$7.000.

    It is really off for the USA:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita

    (If that is correct, you could spend half the money on healthcare and also live 3 years longer, on average...)

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Life expectancy is going down cuz suicide rates are shooting up. Like suburban boys with shopping malls, their classrooms and/or heroin/fent

    Fuuuuck. Nailed it, I'm fucking kiiiiiiiiilling it today. Ziiiing!

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    Hmmh, but that's only the thing on top. Contrary to other countries, life expectancy seems to be actually going down since 2014... But there is already something seriously wrong since ~1980...

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Yeah, it's not a healthcare system. It's a jobs system and wealth transfer scheme. Insurance companies have the government in their pocket and get employer money, government money, and employee money and transfer it to the already outrageously rich, and all that in between cost (salespeople, billing specialists, HR benefits specialists) is somebody's paycheck.

    That's without consideration of actual fraud, which moves money from the government to the rich without even providing services at all, and is easier to hide in such an outrageously complicated and expensive system.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    Our entire nation exists to funnel money to the rich. Whenever someone wonders, "why is x this way in the USA?" The answer is always it puts more money in a rich person's pocket. The healthcare system is the emperor's new clothes. Bask in it, if you can see how great it is.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    It's just THAT expensive. An ambulance is 2-3k minimum. Just for showing up. Going to an ER, talking to reception and then giving up and leaving? That'll be a $1200 bill, to NOT see a doctor.

    I don't even know the line where I would voluntarily to go the hospital, knowing it's sacrificing the next 10-20 years of all my extra income. Would it be when I put my thumb thru a grinding disc on my angle grinder, cutting it clean in two right thru the entire nail?

    Naw, hell no. I would have cut my thumb tip off with a chef's knife and cauterized It if I thought it wouldn't heal on its own, rather than spend an app $15,000 I don't have. Took about 10 weeks to heal.

    I know how to fight off an abscess tooth without antibiotics. It takes about 8 days, of constant stabbing, arching your back pain. Ive broken knuckles just to have a different pain to focus on. No one should know how to do this in 2024. Abscess teeth kill. Kennewick Man, y'know, the Popsicle? That's what killed him. My story isn't unique, America is a third world country with iPhones. Don't visit. I wish the world would boycott every American company until we learn how to have a civil society.

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  • [–] 15 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    We WANT too. Gun control, Medicare for all, and SS all have majority support for reform, across the parties. Broad support. Multiple studies have shown that public opinion has ZERO effect on legislation getting passed. Our oligarchy doesn't give three shits to the wind about actual Americans. I've never met a group of people who, clearly, hate almost everyone they see. At the end of the balance sheet, actions speak louder, and the group most responsible for pain, suffering and loss of quality American years lived are the 1%. Their renumeration of revolutionary inequality is simultaneously equal amounts astonishing and disgusting.

    If I wrote out a synopsis of the economy today and somehow got it back to my WW2/Korea vet grandfather he would've thought the USSR won the cold war.

    His last words to me, i had asked him about WW2, and said I wanted to join the military like him - I liked my grandad better than my parents - and he told me "you don't join the military. I fought so you and your siblings don't have too" and then he made me promise that I'd go to college instead.

    I did as he asked tho looking around now, I feel like no matter what I do, war is gonna find me.

    Which if we're being brutally honest, would be a return to the norm. Historically war touches everyone's life. We're blessed to live under the Pax Americana, but greed has rotted out the essence at its core and when the last leg falls...ever seen that movie Miracle Mile? You should watch it.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago*

    Thanks for the suggestion. Of course Netflix doesn't have this 1988 movie... Let me see if I can pirate it... And thanks for teaching me the term "Pax Americana".

    The USA is somewhat far away from the wars it is or has been engaged with. I think the situation is a bit different than for other countries. That is also a thing I don't quite get about the USA. Back in the cold war enormous sums of money were invested to fight the USSR. And nowadays Putin wants to revive that and the USA really struggles to represent their interests. I mean the USA isn't tied as closely to eastern europe as for example a central european country where I live is. But there are some economic interests at play and the USA also benefits from a stable eastern europe and Russia/China not wreaking havoc in the world. This time it's not even American soldiers who have to die in that battle. And the USA could advertise for their arms industry and make some profit, too. But all of that is overshadowed by national politics and it seems to cripple politics and working towards mid-term and long-term interests.

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