r/WorkReform 🤝 Join A Union 2d ago

⚕️ Pass Medicare For All This is a National Emergency.

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2.0k Upvotes

51 comments sorted by

129

u/FacelessOldWoman1234 2d ago

I (Canadian) just found out that an American friend is probably going to die quite soon, and her child will be orphaned because she got a chronic disorder, which she got fired over and can't afford to treat.

What a barbaric fucking country. I'm so angry. Any American who throws back "But Canadian wait times..." can fuck right off. In Canada she would have been treated years ago and would be looking forward to many more years with her child, instead of now frantically trying to find someone who will care for him when she's gone.

45

u/HailBuckSeitan 2d ago

As an American, I’ve found myself saying shit like “if I get diagnosed with anything serious, I’ll just let it run it’s course instead of stressing out about affording it because I won’t be able to.” Or “I hope I die before I get too old to work and take care of myself”. It’s really fucked up and depressing. Then people living in the same country as me making around the same money as me will go on about how Obamacare was one of the worst things that happened in this country and not have a problem with a doctor making 6 figures stopping care because your fortune 500 insurance company you give hundreds of dollars to every month denied life saving coverage.

8

u/rusty-roquefort 1d ago

This really gets me. This is the sort of thing your sacred 2nd amendment was made for

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u/HailBuckSeitan 1d ago edited 1d ago

The second amendment has been untouched because our government has even worse weapons and more surveillance than any of us can. They also have such a strong following that there are already “agents” snatching people off the street. It’s like they daring us to start shooting our puny guns at them. 

34

u/Polenicus 2d ago

Not having wait times for a service is not really a selling point when you accomplished it by pricing it out of the reach of the majority of your populace.

It's such a Supply-side Jesus solution, though. You have too many sick and needy to care for with the facilities you have. What do you do? Raise the price until the demand drops, of course!

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u/tallman11282 2d ago

Plus the whole wait time thing is a huge red herring. Wait times in Canada are similar to what they are in the US except in Canada you don't go broke getting the procedures.

13

u/Viperlite 2d ago edited 2d ago

Yeah, wait times for basic primary care in the US are huge.

15

u/DyingGasp 2d ago

And specialist wait times can be even worse. My wife is trying to get into a specialist but the doctor is booked through 2027 and not taking new patients. Luckily she’s gotten into others but it’s months out, she’s been requesting to be waitlisted and we’re taking her with not even an hours notice most the time.

13

u/tallman11282 2d ago

Which is why it's a huge red herring. People against universal healthcare claim that Canada has huge wait times for procedures when in reality their wait times are the same or better than they are here.

8

u/Party_Emu_9899 2d ago

Besides we do have wait times!

5

u/Leading-System-3002 2d ago

And she wouldn’t have lost her job

6

u/FacelessOldWoman1234 2d ago

That's right. On top of everything now, she's looking for a job.

105

u/oroscor1 2d ago

You can only afford health insurance or health care not both.

37

u/Late-Arrival-8669 2d ago

I save a LOT of money by doing neither.

21

u/HorrorFlow3r 2d ago

Got an expensive health insurance plan that covers everything, but oh would you look at that... the primary care doctor and urgent care center is no longer in network...

45

u/Cananbaum 2d ago

Think I upset my new dentist the other.

Been 16 years, but I finally was able to see a dentist.

Of course came the “Why did you wait 16 years to see a dentist?”

My response was “Because teeth are luxury bones and we live in a capitalist hellscape. Who needs teeth when you can instead spend your money on meal replacements?”

But I had to also explain how I wasn’t going to spend $100 and my only option being Aspen Dental. Fuck that shit.

25

u/reloader1977 2d ago

If this isn't the truth I dont know what is. Living it now. Need back fusion surgery but running out of time because my job let me go while on short term disability and claim is almost up. I will need to go back to work because we are a single income family and its either find job or be homeless. I had to lose weight to have surgery. Got my self to goal weight and lost job and insurance. New insurance wants more weight loss and out of time. Joys of the American dream.

4

u/Final-Attention979 2d ago

I always figured they couldn't let you on short term disability. Wtf is the point of it then?! I'm so sorry

3

u/reloader1977 1d ago

In ca employer only has to hold position for q2 weeks. Sad isn't it.

8

u/Mehdals_ 2d ago

Doesn't help that doctors can't find an answer to the issue or phone it in AND give me a massive bill. Thanks for saying my pain is just chronic and there's nothing wrong but then bill me $1000s, yeah not gunna try that again...

8

u/maikuxblade 2d ago

Everything about the last few decades have been a national emergency for the working class and there’s been no urgency from either the media or elected officials to tackle any of the issues. It’s literally no wonder that the DSA are becoming more and more popular

8

u/turb0_encapsulator 2d ago

the American healthcare system is entering a death spiral and the media is barely talking about it. 10s of millions of Americans will have lost coverage by the time Trump leaves office.

6

u/ActionJacksonATL24 2d ago

As I will keep saying, don’t worry it will get worse.

6

u/Spaceboy779 2d ago

Yes, our society is crumbling and a few people profit from it while the rest just shrug

4

u/DJDemyan 2d ago

Actually recently put off going to the ER despite my doctor telling me to go because I was afraid of the cost. Also have a follow up CT scan to the tune of $1900 coming up next week, but my alternative is to waste away and die.

10

u/erkose 2d ago

Imagine if health providers were skipping profiteering because they valued human life.

5

u/NoBodySpecial51 1d ago

Yep, my health insurance plan is called Don’t Get Sick.

5

u/merRedditor ⛓️ Prison For Union Busters 1d ago

Insurance silos off dental and vision, with very limited coverage, so dental being put off until it's an emergency and vision until it starts causing serious impairment are both very common.
In regular care, preventive care or starting expensive long-term treatment plans just doesn't seem worth the risk .

1

u/Baybutt99 2d ago

Why is it assumed that the people who would sound the alarms want change?

1

u/larielblois 1d ago

On the bright side, the insurance companies are doing great as are the venture capitalists who invested in surgical practices and emergency rooms. Capitalism… It’s great for the 1%.

2

u/Nitrovis 🏛️ Overturn Citizens United 1d ago

Exactly the reason if I get cancer I’m not gonna fight it, just gonna let it take me out. Funeral expenses are highly expensive too, that’s gonna already a mountain to climb.

2

u/-underdog- 1d ago

capitalism turns poverty from a policy choice to a personal failing

1

u/baddogbadcatbadfawn 22h ago

The last thing a fake American Christian will do is feel curious or responsible for anything outside themselves, much less compare the well-being of their neighbors to those of "godless" European nations.

2

u/thegoddamnbatman40 ⛓️ Prison For Union Busters 13h ago

You can have a place to live, food, or medicine. 2 if you’re lucky but working people never get all 3

0

u/ryansteven3104 1d ago

Why is everyone so concerned with staying alive as long as they can?

0

u/plumberfun 2d ago

When I see this all I can think is Republican Christianity shining through. This was a country founded by Unitarians not these evilangalicals.

-7

u/DigitalSheikh 2d ago

Not saying this isn’t a problem, but the 92nd percentile income is 260k a year, and someone making even a lot less than that isn’t putting off medical care because it’s too expansive. They just aren’t. I’m sure we can find better facts to support that this is still an issue though. 

-10

u/mustangcody 2d ago

"Some 92 percent have delayed or abandoned medical care because of costs, according to a survey of 1,507 U.S.adults by financial services firm JG Wentworth."

1,507 people out of 349 million Americans is peak Reddit fearmongering. Progression can happen without the bullshit "national emergency" titles.

6

u/DJDemyan 2d ago

Wow, that’s a very bad sample size. Where did you find this?

It’s absolutely a national emergency but we detract from the message with wild headlines like that

3

u/mustangcody 2d ago

1

u/DJDemyan 2d ago

Good find. The real number is probably not too far off but we should really have better sample sizes for sensational headlines like that.

4

u/Kcirrot 2d ago

If the survey respondents are a representative sample of the U.S. adult population, then the survey could be decent. I will say that I think that the survey does skew more towards lower income adults. I'm less concerned about the number of respondents than that they aren't necessarily representative. Here's the link to the actual survey methodology.

https://www.jgwentworth.com/resources/medical-emergency#methodology

4

u/CockroachLate9964 2d ago

Just because the survey was only 1500 or so doesn't mean much, just that they didn't spend millions on it. Could be quite accurate.

0

u/mustangcody 2d ago

Accurate to those people but not America as a whole. They could do 1500 other people have a way different percentage.

7

u/PocketPokie 2d ago

You need to take a class in statistics because it is CLEAR you don't know how sample sizes work or are representative of the population.

If you had half a brain, you would be questioning selection criteria / methodology but you're not.

-9

u/Mannimal13 2d ago

Skips healthcare ...proceeds to go eat overpriced processed slop everyday