Poll of the Day > The most scary aspect of the virus in the USA is our health system in US

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Think of all the people who cant afford to take off, like wait staff at restaurants or other minimum wage jobs. Or who can take off but cant afford the healthcare, yeah the testing itself is free from the CDC, bit that's not the trip to the doctor visit, the possible hospital stay or anything.

I know a few people that will NEVER go to the hospital if they may have it because they will never be able to afford the week(s) in the ICU.

That's the true scary thing.

I bet if electron year was next year, bernie or another UHC advocate would win in a landslide. As it stands now, the election is too soon for this virus to have an effect I think.

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Oh, it's worse than that. Some places have policies where if you can't find coverage for your shift, you are not permitted to take the sick day even if you are vomiting. Some of those locations? Cater specifically to the elderly/children. And yes, I am speaking from first-hand experience.

I shit you not. A LOT of people could die from this simply because we treat our workers like trash and don't have universal health care.

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I agree and the thing that boggles my mind is those of us fortunate enough to have insurance, are paying out the nose for something that doesn't do what it should do and that is offer peace of mind in case an illness strike. If you become ill and need to spend time in a hospital, that alone can be scary because the average cost for a hospital stay is rough $3600 per day and that alone even with insurance can bankrupt most people due to the out of pocket costs which we shouldn't have because we pay monthly premiums.

The whole healthcare system needs overhauling.

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A universal health system is obviously best equipped to crack down on disease outbreaks. This shouldn't even be considered up for debate.

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When I was in the ICU for a DAY my out of pocket with insurance was 1780.

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Gaawa_chan posted...

A universal health system is obviously best equipped to crack down on disease outbreaks. This shouldn't even be considered up for debate.

Republicans consider that socialism and would immediately reject it, even if their supporters were dying from the disease.

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I rather die than deal with US medical bills.

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Maybe this is the kick in the balls the healthcare system needs for it to be revamped.

Who am I kidding, we're screwed.

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papercup posted...

Maybe this is the kick in the balls the healthcare system needs for it to be revamped.

Who am I kidding, we're screwed.

If it gets bad enough then a 1st world country might recolonise you and bring you back up to speed.
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Don't worry, if there's ever a government quarantine ... you'll have to pay to lock yourself up

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They charged our insurance over 10k a day that my wife was in ICU and she was there for 3 weeks. Between that and the surgeries, our 1 million cap on health insurance (that we had been paying for 20 or so years of work) was gone in 3-4 months. After 3 our "insurance" informed us Linda would have to move to a difference cheaper hospital in San Leandro. It was seriously bad, way under staffed etc.

Eventually we reached the cap and they ditched us all together. So yeah, even if you have health insurance your not safe at all.

Meanwhile once you lose it, you can (if you don't have too many assets) get state health insurance in CA, except it had a donut hole for perscriptions (first 2k? I think they pay 80 and you pay 20%, then the next 15k or so you pay 80 and they pay 20%...and then after that you get on emergency which covers all but 5% or so).

Not sure if that is still the case in CA, but because my wife was insulin resistant, we were forking out well over 10k a year just on perscriptions on that plan.

Anyway the system is broken in so many ways, on top of everything else, there just isn't enough hospitals or beds in the hospitals, that is what ended up killing my wife, she couldn't get in for dialysis, and eventually we had to transfer her to another state so she could (Because too many people were filling up the ones here with the flu at the time, even a satalite center was full). Took to long for her to get it and she developed an infection in her heart which killed her.

So yeah, even if you have insurance, you could still easily die because our health care in this country is jacked.

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wolfy42 posted...

Not sure if that is still the case in CA, but because my wife was insulin resistant, we were forking out well over 10k a year just on perscriptions on that plan.

That's rather BS. In Canada there are people complaining that $1200 a year is too high for insulin

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A few weeks back one of the bosses at my job came to work with a 102 degree fever. He was made to go home, but I legitimately don't understand how he was even able to drive in the condition he was in.

Part of it was money, and the other part of it is basically every job that isn't unionized runs in a state of being constantly understaffed so he was concerned if we would be ok without him there.

Gaawa_chan posted...

Oh, it's worse than that. Some places have policies where if you can't find coverage for your shift, you are not permitted to take the sick day even if you are vomiting.

Ive actually worked in a couple restaurants where dumbass owners/managers had this mentality

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Mead posted...

Ive actually worked in a couple restaurants where dumbass owners/managers had this mentality

Correct solution would be to vomit on a customer and tell them why you couldn't leave

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Lokarin posted...

Correct solution would be to vomit on a customer and tell them why you couldn't leave

And promptly get sued? Oh wait, common sense legally works differently in the US.

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Nichtcrawler X posted...

And promptly get sued? Oh wait, common sense legally works differently in the US.

You mean it works at all in the US?

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TyVulpine posted...

You mean it works at all in the US?

Benefit of the doubt and all that.

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Yeah I've been dealing with our healthcare system for months now and years earlier in my life. It's bad in almost every way you could even intentionally make it bad. The cost is bad, the entire system is designed around the cost and not the effectiveness of treatment, the doctors are bad, the insurance is a horrible scam you can't really live without, the system is highly highly over specialized so if you a problem effecting 2+ systems, it's SO hard to actually get treated (you'll just get bounced back and forth, the doctors will never actually talk it out with each other), the medicines are priced in ways that violate human decency, the system wants you to come in only when you need to, but they don't want you to look anything up, they expect you to be proactive about getting treated no matter how incapacitated you are until you are basically in a coma, ambulance rides cost a lot of money, the entire system is full of unknown expenses so even if you ask, you'll never know how much you'll be charged until after the fact, certain medical related fields like nutrition have their own certification that varies wildly from the normal medical licensing board so it's hard to know who you need in those cases, it's impossible to talk to a doctor without going in in person, medical portals are usually ignored by the doctors, etc.

It's like, I don't even know what I could do to intentionally make the system more broken. It truly baffles my mind how people haven't rioted over how broken it is. MILLIONS of people in America die every year because of it's failings.

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Lokarin posted...

That's rather BS. In Canada there are people complaining that $1200 a year is too high for insulin

Those are usually the same people who take the tiny riding carts at Wal-Mart despite not being disabled.

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YoukaiSlayer posted...

It's like, I don't even know what I could do to intentionally make the system more broken. It truly baffles my mind how people haven't rioted over how broken it is. MILLIONS of people in America die every year because of it's failings.

but if we try to fix it, that is communism

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YoukaiSlayer posted...

It's like, I don't even know what I could do to intentionally make the system more broken. It truly baffles my mind how people haven't rioted over how broken it is. MILLIONS of people in America die every year because of it's failings.

In order to fix healthcare, you have to fix the entire political and economic systems, including making all forms of medical research non-profit and demolishing the pharmaceutical and healthcare insurance industries. While all that must happen, most Americans are too trusting of the status quo to do the right thing, since it will be difficult.

This also includes ending our reliance on fossil fuels and choosing to rely on renewable sources.
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You don't actually HAVE to fix that much. If one the subhuman pieces of filth that own these pharmaceutical mega corperations just decided "hey, how about I save more lives than anyone else in human history instead of trying to drown myself in money", the system would be massively improved, but somehow the difference between "more money than I could ever spend" and "WAY more money than I could ever spend" is worth millions of lives.

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Stop trying to do communism

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