A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
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Our Goals
being honest a lot of those countries lack universal healthcare. And by universal I mean everyone, including migrants without papers.
I mean, this is inaccurate, at least for Germany. Although health insurance is technically mandatory in Germany, there are over 50k citizens that are uninsured, not 0
Interesting. How are they uninsured? If they go to get care are they turned away or have to pay more?
It happens if people don't pay their health insurance for more than 3 months in a row, and yes, they will get turned away by doctors unless they are willing to pay their entire treatment cost out of pocket.
As far as I understand it nost of these people are jobless, not on welfare and can't pay the amount of money the insurence wants them to pay. Oh and also above 25 years old or without parenta as otherwise you could get insurance over them.
I know this is a tough pill for americans to swallow. But lots of countries does not allow trans-athletes to compete in the women's class.
The international organisation for track and field, and also the IOK have already said that transathletes are not allowed to compete with women (for now).
Though I absolutely agree that US politicians are experts at exaggerating and trying to blow the smallest issue out of proportion for headlines.
And it's sad the American people are too uneducated to see through the charade.
I would laugh at the US, if it wasnt for the fact that people's lives are ruined forever on a daily basis.
Not laughing. Crying
We subsidize Israel’s government through military. The money they save helps pay for them to have socialized healthcare.
That needs to be the message.
That should not be the message. Socialized health care is cheaper by far than the premium-on-health model that you're using in the United States.
It's the same argument that Republicans have been using to extract concessions from Canada and Europe: "look at these freeloaders, they won't pay their fair share for defense (read: they don't buy enough American weapons) and they use the money for socialized health care, we ought to teach them a lesson."
The truth is that defense or foreign aid isn't in the same league as health care. You're giving Israel about 7 billion a year, and don't get me wrong - that's a lot and you should stop it. But you're spending 5.3 trillion on health care. Meanwhile, the record-setting defense budget for 2026 is 718 billion - and interestingly the vast majority of that budget is actually socialized health care! It's 441 billion going to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
With socialized health care, you could pay a lot less. And I hope you'd use the money for literally anything other than war.
they get alot more from us than just military aid
loads and loads of tax breaks/special exceptions to make doing business with them more lucrative than anywhere else.
special exceptions that make it incredibly easy for them to tap into the wild west that is US financial markets etc.
Even their culture is an inferior knock-off of ours.
Bro seeing Israel when they're not even in the post lol
Republicans for the most part don't care what anyone else thinks of them. They are full of the certain knowledge that they are the center of the universe and nothing outside that rotting circle matters.
These aren't any republicans, these are the rich ones with not enough imagination to think of anything but other people's sexual preferences.
I can't imagine laughing at this gross genocidal empire.
More like puking.
27 million with no coverage, the rest with extremely poor coverage.
also theres a "limbo" in between medicaid and decent insurance, too much income for eligible medicaid insurance and not enough for decent insurance(enough where you do pay out the behind for emergencies, surgeries and hospitals, the largest cost)
What? Paying a mortgage payment monthly for the privilege of having a $10,000 deductible isn't good enough?
As a Canadian, I do want to point out that it's not enough to be above the united states, considering how their bar is dropping lower and lower.
I am very thankful for our existing healthcare system, and I want to see people protect it against the american inspired groups that are trying to privatize parts of it.
There are also areas where we were originally SUPPOSED to have coverage based on the original plan decades ago (ex. pharmaceuticals, homecare, dental), but those phases never got implemented.
Go into debt?! How so?
We only spend $700+/mo ($8,400 annual) for our family of 4, with $4500 deductibles per person and a family max out of pocket of $15,000... Is that not affordable for everyone?
/s in case it wasn't abundantly clear...
I had a max out of network out of pocket of $5k and insurance told me after my surgery that it didn't count because they didn't have a contract with where I went. So basically they needed to be in network to count towards out of network? $28k later they said they miscalculated and I owed another $14k I told them I'm living in a different country now so try and get it and they dropped the extra amount
$28k later they said they miscalculated and I owed another $14k
Who did? The insurance or the healthcare provider? Cause why the fuck would the insurance company tell you that you owe them money after they didn't cover the healthcare expenses that you were paying for a plan for them to cover?
So this is a bit of a complicated thing that I admittedly still don't fully understand and I did word it a bit wrong. I paid a bunch of money to the hospital/surgery, insurance reimbursed them, hospital reimbursed me, insurance said woopsies we reimbursed too much, the hospital paid back that amount to insurance, then the hospital asked me for money. I told insurance and the hospital tough fucking titties they better figure it out because they're not getting that money back.
I was originally told I would pay the hospital, then I would hit my out of network out of pocket max, the hospital would be reimbursed the full amount after my max, then the hospital would reimburse me. I got fucked from both sides and eventually their woopsie was my "I have enough money to fight you but nobody wants that because even if you win you have to get it from me across the world" so they folded
Who do you have? I pay that much for just myself in FL marketplace (bronze plan, high deductible)
BCBS through my wife's employer. They're about 1800 employees so maybe have better negotiated benefits
I'm not from the US. Do you know how much of your income tax goes to the health care system?
I live in the Netherlands and we actually have a pretty weird system of private insurance companies, but they're not allowed to make a profit and it's mandatory to have insurance. Anyway, my partner and I together pay about €300 per month, which actually doubled is about what you pay for 4 people (though for kids here it's free).
Copay is not a thing here. The legal minimum deductible is €385 per year. You can raise it to max €885 and then you pay less for insurance every month. I have the max deductible, my partner has the lowest.
$4500 seems like an insane amount! I have never reached that or even gotten close. The government here sets the limit for deductibles and that's always a big political discussion. There's some talks now of removing the deductible altogether, though that would mean raising taxes elsewhere.
How do deductibles even work in the US? I had my appendix removed and here you then never pay anything because it's like a life threatening thing. I think you do pay for things like medicine and the ambulance ride until you reach your deductible, but for things like going to the GP or life saving surgery it's just covered.
And here if you're not working or earn less than certain thresholds it becomes cheaper or free. But isn't that similar in the US, like medicaid or something?
I pay quite a lot of income tax too of course which also partially goes to the health care system. I think it's actually quite expensive here for people who have a reasonable income. If you don't earn anything it's mostly free but you still have plenty of health related costs like the deductible but also stuff that isn't automatically included with insurance like dental care.
Last question: what do you mean by "max out of pocket $15000"? Is that like your combined max deductible for your family?
Income tax will vary because we have a federal tax plus state, plus local municipal/city. We're around 28-30% total taken out when I review my pay information.
Technically, because insurance is based on employer negotiations, it varies greatly with coverages, deductibles, "in-network" doctors or hospitals, etc. We go through my wife's employer as it's better coverage. It's a higher deductible plan because, like you, if you have a high deductible it's less out of pocket per month. If we opted for the better coverage and lower deductibles, it'd be around $1,200/mo.
Several years ago, I had a CT scan done and was "billed" $9500. Insurance "negotiated" that down and it was, at the time, a $2500 deductible. I went back later for a MRI and that was over $11k. Another deductible because it was through another visit at another facility. My individual max out of pocket was achieved at $5k-6k I don't recall, and it took a few years to pay that off (like a loan).
2 years later, my wife had pulmonary embolisms (blood clots) that hospitalized her. That was up to $7k plus medications and monthly follow ups. We amassed over $20k medical bills within a few years, and that's no where near as bad as some people have it.
We're alive, in medical debt among other debt, but healthy again. I guess in the long run we should be happy we're healthy, but again not everyone is so fortunate. What bothers me is almost having to choose if I could "afford" to live or not.
And yes, 15k maximum out of pocket for anything medical for all 4 of us. I don't Recall if we have coinsurance after that, thankfully we've never hit that limit to find out. Coinsurance would be we're responsible for 20%of anything over the 15k. If it were $20k, we'd pay 15k max plus $1k for the 20% over.
Financially we can afford it, yes, for now; but just crazy to think how quickly our finances could change with layoffs, then with that you lose insurance, and quickly lose your house, etc. That's why I would run for office just to get to push for real beneficial change.
as a single person no, but if you earn enough to pay that its feasible. also different insurance have different types of coverage. employee seems superior to individually bought plans(often dont cover much for major stuff like emergencies, or surgeries)
Technically, Ireland doesn't have free healthcare either, but it's government subsidised and most people still have free healthcare for most cases.
I see more of the world watching in horror than I see laughing.
Plenty are laughing and cheering at all the suffering because we "deserve it"
You see it plenty in comments here on lemmy.
I think about a third of the US does not actively deserve it. The rest is either actively fucking with lives in other countries or accept it as either inevitable or as "cost of doing business", with no intention to change anything. Did you know there is a national census about the percentage of people in the US who can get rekt in my view and the view of many others? It's called "presidential elections".
I am sorry to hear you think everybody abroad enjoys your suffering, but I think you are getting the wrong impression from lemmy (which does not represent the average people). I admit that it's often hard to feel sympathetic towards someone who voted for what's coming to them, because believing in karma feels good. But I do also feel pity for all the people that are struggling economically or are getting deported without fault.
If you meet normal (=not from lemmy) people abroad you will find that most will want a very hardline stance against the US as a country, wishing to punish the US administration even more for all the wars and hostile behavior, while also be very welcoming to any US person that want to escape that hell.
I wish you the best in changing the system there, but unfortunately I fear there's at least 2 more years (likely more) of things becoming worse and worse ahead of us.
PS: upvoted because I think you are not alone in your feeling, and it's something worth discussing.
because we “deserve it”
As an American myself ... yes, we (collectively) deserve it. A lot of the people suffering from this are exactly the same people who voted against fixing it in every fucking election.
Political reform is tough, no doubt but it can be done and has been elsewhere. Also no better time than the present while the worst problems are so clearly visible.
And how many millions more Americans effectively have no access due to poverty and high copays?
about 15+million and many more or underinsured. dental care is another problem too(only recently like in the last 7ish years they started covering for basic dental surgeries and partialy for major work(like root canals) and only for select dentists that actually accept medical, most dont.
Even if you have health and dental insurance, actually getting coverage can be a nightmare in some scenarios.
Tooth infection spreading into the jaw? Health insurance says it's a dental issue, denied. Dental insurance says it's a medical issue, denied. Both of them refuse to talk directly to each other -- they will only communicate with you, asking you to pass messages to the other one, which the other one will ignore. Every time you try to contact either one, you need to be prepared to spend at least two hours on the phone, most of it waiting on hold.
How is it in North Korea? Like seriously. I start to believe even they have a better health care system
I believe there’s a documentary out there from years back; journalists got an invite in and snuck cameras. The hospitals used old beer bottles for IV.
Edit: was it this? https://youtu.be/eLCdsXRiouE
Edit 2: https://youtu.be/GLdqtwWOD9E @2:30
So still better than the US, that’s what I am saying.
Jokes aside, if the beer bottles work, why not. Can be sterilized easily. And still better than no IV.
You’re probably right that beer bottles can work. But the fact that they have to use beer bottles probably indicates that they can’t afford the necessary materials to ensure these things are properly sterilized in the first place. Because, if they could, they’d probably be using sterilized bags.
I agree it’s still better than no IV, though. You gotta do what you gotta do.
That’s the wild part. The people help each other even though they get starved by the government. Almost similar to the US, with the exception that a MAGA would rather die than get treatment of a Biden supporter.
There's only one shithole on this list
Can confirm.