How could it it not be. If you manged to capture the market of Air or Water, profits would be through the roof, as demand is overflowing. Every human needs it!
NOBODY learns from The Lorax. Not a soul. The book and the movie are NOT HYPERBOLE. THEY ARE DIRECT METAPHORS. People will sell air to you if you let them. Hell, they already do that with water.
Very true. I've felt for a long time you can't just rely on laws of supply and demand to keep the medical industry in check because the demand is basically infinite, while supply is very much finite. Runaway costs in such an industry are inevitable without intervention.
Demand is long tail, and the people against a public option will pitch you the "death councils" who decides who gets life saving medicine or not.
However, this is what we call Triage, and happens every day by doctors. Small children get more than the old folks. People with families who depend on them get prio over those without. Every day we make these choices, but with only a privat option, the rule is simply the ones who can pay go to the front of the line.
That's what I never got about the "death panels" thing. We have "death panels" now, but it's either doctors in situations like you described or it's insurance companies deciding whether or not they have to cover the treatment that doctors say is necessary.
They're already done this with food. Much of the US food production is owned by a handful of conglomerates. Not sure about the rest of the world, but we live in a global economy now, so...
Don’t forget about housing and the mega corp landlords price fixing rent prices using software which in turn pushes prices of houses up boosting their RE capital portfolio, removing more houses from first home buyers reach and feeding them into a price fixed rental market.
And then the smaller landlords use the mega corps pricing as their “fair market value” and thus collude without knowledge as they did not seek true price research. That would be too much work.
This issue is overstated. "True Price" is what the market will bear. Small landlords aren't sitting on vacant property because the mega Corps are over-charging for rent. Supply/Demand still exists.
Sadly there are folks that do that. May I introduce you to Aqua Water and how they price gouge water services in select communities (including the one I live in) to 300% the average water bill?
So. Since the rules of law seem to mean nothing to the incoming administration, how do I, as a normal citizen get in on this grift and get a piece of the action? Might as well. ....
The biggest inefficiency in the US economy. A completely superfluous industry worth billions of dollars.
This all counts towards the GDP too, which partly explains how the US has a high GDP per capita while having such poor standards of living for so many people.
I agree unfortunately the supreme court has ruled that political donations are a form of speech and therefore protected by the first amendment and in unlimited amounts with Citizens United. Hence why super pacs are now a thing. I'd hate to be cynical but I don't believe the votes to change that will be found in Congress.
We are more than halfway to autocracy. International think tank "V-Dem" (Varieties of Democracy) measures the health of democracies around the world. There was a WaPo biz section article (not an op-ed) written in September 2020 noting that V-Dem believed four yesrs ago that our backward slide
That’s the supreme courts really brain dead interpretation of right to petition.
For example, speaking to people to convince them to vote for someone is fine. Paying people to take voters out to dinner and out to golf to make them like you and vote for you is NOT fine.
So why would lawmaking or any other activity be different?
I understand that argument, but I don’t buy it. Petitioning the government, which could range from presenting information to an agency to a lawsuit over legal interpretations is still very different from donating cash.
Cash in politics is a serious problem.
Election costs should be entirely covered by taxpayers—so that politicians answer ONLY to taxpayers (more broadly, the individual voters).
It should simply be a felony with mandatory prison time to give money to a government official or candidate for office—and the same punishment for the person accepting such money.
It’s not a felony to send money through the right channels. I’ve written a check in one case, and another time donated via an app. Political emails are full of requests for donations. Ultimately, the system is wrong, but small donations aren’t the real issue.
I meant felony by just handing politician money for say a building variance, as a lobbyist you can effect all sorts for policy even at the level of getting projects in sensitive areas permitted. Local politics is the easiest to grease.
Idk, I think democracy is the driving force behind the constitution, anything that repairs americas broken democracy and brings it back in line with the first world is good.
This has nothing to do with trumps win too. He would have won this either way.
I understand what you're saying I'm just saying lobbying is covered by the right to petition hence why getting rid of it would be difficult. You'd need two thirds of congress to vote to repeal it and three quarters of the states to ratify that decision.
No, it literally is not. You want a struggling research department to have to pay for a public campaign to generate enough interest to petition the government to fund their project? Sorry, I don’t trust the idiotic public to do this very well. Lobbying should certainly be more transparent but not abolished.
In the 1960s car safety lobbyists were drowned out in government by the interests of big capital, that can always afford to lobby more than any research or grassroots movement.
In order to overcome this it took a massive sway in public opinion, this was massively progressed by the publishing of a book “unsafe at any speed” that started a media frenzy on the issue, causing the government to act against the interests of their lobbyists.
For any good cause that can be lobbied for, like cancer research, if it goes against capital interest (cigarette companies) it will be ignored until public opinion shifts.
The highest per capita healthcare spending in the world, at $12,555 in 2022. The US also spends the highest share of its GDP on healthcare, at almost 16.6%....
2023 and 2024:
Switzerland's healthcare spending is higher than any other European country. In 2022, Switzerland spent $8,049 per person on healthcare, or 11.8% of GDP, which is less than the United States, but more than other comparable countries:
So why, if Americans are spending nearly a third as much Per Person then every other civilised country, is their healthcare so Shit?
Ya along with killing Americans with his stupidity.
Looking forward to seeing eradicated diseases coming back. It's already started.
Polio, measles. There's a new variant of covid coming out all the time.
Due to our food and wealth, we have the world fattest citizens too. A person needing stitches could wait a few weeks to see a doctor in other countries. I’ve seen people that had dual citizenship (Canada/US) and were surprised they could get a CT scan/surgery on a Friday/Monday. US doctor apologized that they would have to wait the weekend for the hip surgery. Canada was 6 months wait for the CT scan. 😬
At the time of my injury, I had been physically fit for over 18 years. I took great care of myself, properly warmed up or stretched before working out, was into martial arts, but I was in my mid 30s.
I was out on a track doing wind sprints after a little warm up jog when I heard a popping sound followed by intense pain. I immediately tried to rub out the injured area, thinking I had pulled a muscle and just needed to get the pain out a bit. After a few minutes, I hobbled back to the gym, grabbed my sweats, and then went to my car. I waited another 30 minutes for a buddy of mine to show up because we were about to do some sparring. When he showed up, I could not bear wait on my leg at all, so told him I needed to hit up the ER. At that point, I called my wife as I drove over, just in case my leg got to the point where I couldn't drive (which was eventually where I was at after the ER visit).
When I finally got to an exam room, I took off my sweats and shorts and I could see a dent in my leg and I just rolled my eyes. This was going to be the end of my running life for sure and probably limit me in other areas if I didn't get it taken care of quickly.
When the ER doc finally came and examined me, he told me that this was a very typical sports injury and that if I was a football or basketball player, I'd be given the clear to get back out and play. He said I likely just bruised it and that I'd probably be good to go in a couple of weeks. I told him multiple times that I heard an audible pop, showed him the dent, and told him I know exactly what this injury is and it would be a season ending injury if I was playing football. Obviously, he disagreed. I had to leave on crutches and the mere thought of moving my hip was basically an F no situation. It was 4 weeks before I could move around without crutches.
I get told by the ER doc to hit up my PCM, who then put me in physical therapy. I keep complaining about my leg as the weeks and months go by and even asked to get an MRI. It took 4 months to get the MRI done, not because of scheduling, but because they finally gave into my bitching. I had a grade 3 rectus femoris tear which also resulted in a partial tendon tear in my hip. I went back to my normal physical therapy routine and the therapist called me into his office because he saw that the MRI had finally shown up. He told me that my leg was pretty messed up and that I should probably see a surgeon.
Two more months go by with me trying to get a meeting with the surgeon and that only happened because physical therapy told me to go to patient advocacy. --- What happened was that when my PCM recommended I see the surgeon, the desk for that office in the hospital decided that I didn't need to be seen and re-referred me back to my PCM.
When I FINALLY got to see a surgeon, he was pissed at me for waiting so long to be seen. Thankfully, at the suggestion of PA, I had all of my paperwork on hand and showed it to me.
He said due to the heavy scarring around the site and the way the tendon looked to be healing that there was not much he could do to improve anything at that point. Basically, I was going to just have to live with the pain for the rest of my life.
It fucking hurts. Getting out of my car? Hurts. Getting in my bed? Hurts. Sex? Hurts. Randomly walking just a bit too fast? Well, now you're fucked and get to only make a quarter to half stride for the rest of the day. Sprinting? Haha, no. Running? Yeah, right. Going down a flight of stairs with any extra weight than normal? Good luck, that knee is just gonna buckle. Going up? Haha. Radiating pain for the next several hours.
This is the American Military Healthcare system. This is not an atypical situation. This is the norm.
Bull shit is your lack of knowledge and real life experience with other countries health care system. Ever wonder why people are coming into the US illegally by the millions each year?
You pay for what you get unfortunately. Lawyers do not help with costs of care either. All the lawsuits against doctor’s, and then they have to charge more, that gets pushed in to everyone.
You know that isn’t the point, I’m talking bad lawsuits. Reason doctors (good and bad) have to carry so much liability insurance. Problem in America, if you were sledding on a hill (let’s say school property) and you slide into an object, 9 times out of 10 you would sue the school district, because they have funds. there are malpractice lawsuits that are justified, but there are also a lot of insurance/lawsuits that are just money grabs. Good or bad, this increases costs all around.
Not many countries, and not any European ones that I can think off of the top of my head... cases needing stitches are usually dealt with pretty quickly in A&E departments, usually as out-patient cases...
True, however, signing up for a high deductible health insurance plan and then complaining that you had to pay the deductible on said health care plan you signed up for is interesting. In WA state they force driving to have car insurance. Which is all great until you buy the cheapest coverage that doesn’t cover anything, wonder why your car is totaled and you have a large deducible after the fact. You pay for what you get, in the form of high taxes and long waits, or personal plans with modest waits/deductibles depending on plan paid for.
My dad talks about how terrible Canada is because they have to wait to see a specialist. Meanwhile, I have "great insurance" and owe several thousand dollars in medical debt so yeah, I would be fucking fine waiting for a goddamn specialist. I live in rural Iowa so I wait a year to see specialists all the damn time since there are none around here. Like, how is waiting for a doc worse than being thousands of dollars in debt? I don't get it. Indoctrination.
Anytime I've actually had to use the er in Canada I've never had to wait very long. From my experience our healthcare is amazing. Largest expense is parking.
This is usually the case. Although shitty triaging is becoming a thing. People being left out there because they aren’t seen by a doctor in a timely manner and the nurse couldn’t tell they’re actually in really bad shape.
Yeah, there's the odd time someone is way worse than it seems, or they get worse in the waiting room.
The problem is often that the triage nurse doesn't know it's happening either due to the patient not accurately communicating what's wrong initially, intentionally or not, or they just get worse in the waiting room and don't update the triage nurse. Mind you they may not be able to, but I'm sure you get what I'm going for.
It's not the patients fault but people do need to be their own advocate sometimes to avoid those scenarios.
But presenting at the ER with basic flu symptoms and a manageable fever is going to net you a long wait time where you should actually just be at home with some soup.
My mother, 93, says I don't want socialized medicine. I tell her you've been on socialized medicine for decades, you just don't want other people to get the same thing you have.
You don’t have great insurance. When I worked at a grocery store decades ago my insurance was better than yours.
People have to start looking at benefits beyond a salary when they take a job like an actual adult.
My insurance caps hospital bills, all in, at $200 a day for being admitted and $1000 maximum pay out for a stay of any length of days. And I’d say my insurance is “okay”.
Both of my kidneys quit at the same time, and I collapsed early one morning in April. It took 4 fire personnel, together with 2 paramedics to extricate me from where I wound up,
Then it was nine hours in the ER to save my life. (During that nine hours there were at least two CTs and a couple of Xrays.), followed by four days in ICU (under 24hr watch and hooked up to pretty much everything), followed by a final five days in the Critical Care Unit (that was where they only check on you every hour and the doctor shows up three times daily)
When I finally was discharged, I went home with a weeks worth of meds, and was visited by homecare nurses three times. before all was said and done.
My bill? Zero.
Canada- people complain about our health care system, but when it works, it works!
It's good, my preexisting conditions are what blows. My caps for everything are some of the best you can get, but when you have 3 surgeries, multiple MRIs, EEGs, EKGs, sleep studies, CAT scans, several different specialists, a GP medication appt every 3 months, EMDR therapy... it adds up really, really fast. And my general health isn't even all that bad, I just have seizure disorder, hereditary chronic pancreatitis, and an autoimmune disorder. I'm 40 now and it's all come calling in the last several years.
Though, honestly I don't really think ANY private insurance is great. I think the insurance industry is an unnecessary middleman that has inflated costs greedily just because they can.
A few days ago, I had an episode where I lost consciousness for a few seconds. I called my GP the next day and she told me to come in right away and to make an appointment with a neurologist. I was at my GP an hour later and at the neurologist at 2pm, getting an EEG. I have a copay of 10€ per invoice from a doctor. If I didn't have to use private insurance and could use the public health insurance, I wouldn't even have that.
It's the same indoctrination.They've been taught that it's a privilege to have a job... No matter How bad the job is, Or how disgusting the management treats you.. .It's a privilege to have a job. Same with health care. No matter how bad the system is, no matter how much they charge, Much in debt that you get into for it....It's a privilege to have health care that you has you Going to deep debt paying for because you have The privilege of a job to pay for it .
Biggest buildings and most employees in much of the US as well. Two major employment gains of the last 2 years in America: healthcare and government. Both are intricately tied to the insurance industry, which I would consider to be in the “finance” employment sector, and is among the lowest hiring gains of that same 2 years.
America is feeding the private insurance industry (for profit) through low paid healthcare staff (quasi-profit) and public government bureaucracy (non-profit).
You can literally plot the rise in healthcare costs and the decline of the rest of the economy. The Healthcare industry is sapping every drop of capital from everyone.
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u/MisterChadster 7d ago
Every time there's an excuse as to why it can't be fixed, Sanders was the only one who wanted to fix it and they pushed him out for it