American healthcare rant.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

So after reading this story (http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/million-dollar-baby-canadians-handed-1m-bill-after-woman-gives-birth-in-u-s-1.2107020), I have to once again rant about American healthcare.

The healthcare system here in my home country is a disgrace. An absolute travesty. A morally and ethically bankrupt racket that has swindled and abused the American people for far, FAR too long. It is simply nauseating that we Americans are willing to just put up with this type of abuse. The American populace has been so thoroughly brainwashed by its bourgeois overlords into thinking that having a universal single-payer healthcare system will be the death of us all.

Any why? Because we've been convinced that having a 'choice' in insurance providers is 'freedom'. Even though every goddamn private insurance company in the U.S. is an extortion racket on par with the worst organized crime. Oh sure, I'm going bankrupt and me and my family are starving because I have a per-existing condition, but at least I'm free to die!!:mad:

People are literally dying on the streets because they can't afford the most basic of healthcare. And we're too goddamn chickenshit to do anything about it!

I'm not even talking in terms of socialism or the class struggle here. This is just an offense against simple human decency. Forcing the populace to put their ability to live with good health in the hands of a for-profit corporation should be on par with slavery. Our healthcare system is rightly disparaged around the world. It is embarrassing.

[RedWorker]

It's 100,000 people that die every year in the U.S.A. from lack of healthcare. Not a joke nor exaggerated; the scientific studies literally found this number.

[White_Sun]

It's mind boggling. All of it really.

From the apologists of the current system to how "Obamacare" has become a flaccid shell of what people had hope for. I mean in whose interests is it really to not have a healthy workforce be you capitalist, socialist, PETA, whomever? Only "developed" nation to fail to provide at least a GP visit.

A little personal story:

I once had a tick bite. Went to the hospital, since it was logged in there pretty deep they cut it out patched it up. I had no insurance and the bill a month later came to 700 dollars. 200 add on because at the time I was having the tick removed the doctor was missing a lecture by a visiting physician....

Where do you begin?

[Red Star Rising]

It's ridiculous. I try to get people to listen to reason but they just say "I DON'T WANT TO BE DEPENDENT ON THE STATE AND NO AMERICAN DOES!!1!1" Apparently a welfare state is literally a fate worse than death.

[Sinister Intents]

I don't have health insurance and don't qualify for it apparently. I could really use psychological help and get a few things taken care of. I could also use dental care. I hate all of this for profit bullshit and I'm so disillusioned from everything lately and feel so numb and broken.

The last doctor isaw was a dermatologist and he treatee me like I was so less that him.

[White_Sun]

Adding to all this, you would figure there would be real organized dissent about the lack of healthcare. When I'm in the US no one in my family can actually afford to go to the doctor, my dad goes to a Russian Afghan war veteran who practices dentistry with no license (he is a dentist but decided not to hassle with all the qualification procedures).

The dissent doesn't have to even be "red" in nature, just voiced dissatisfaction. Even more bizarre are blue collar folks that support the Republican party not for social reasons (damn immigrants ect.) but for fiscal reasons, like they have anything to gain from the ultra wealthy gaining more tax cuts...

In the UK it seems people cannot shut up about the NHS, which is a good thing. They actually care about universal healthcare and keeping it efficient.

Makes you want to be a full blown nihilist

[Mr. Piccolo]

Many people in the U.S. do hate the healthcare system but they have been told lies or exaggerations about the nature of universal healthcare systems in other countries. It is hard to combat the propaganda found in outlets like Fox News. You have to do some research and be able to judge between different sources as to what to believe. Many people have neither the time nor inclination to do that.

[Red Commissar]

The problem in the US was that there wasn't a very coherent argument made in favor of healthcare reform. What we got most recently was a Democratic Party spearheaded effort that could not defend its proposal and let the Republicans establish the talking points. They abandoned the government option as compromise and that didn't do shit as far as getting more support, and ultimately we are left with the current system. Since this was essentially a means to better regulate and expand individual involvement in the insurance market, it was more of the same (and what Republicans advocated for in the 90s anyways), it disillusioned a lot of people. It was not going to do diddly for the major issues of coverage, combine that with the economic situation and other disillusionment with Democrats and you have a situation where people'd seek alternatives the Republicans propose.

As much as we would wish it to be otherwise, the US public by and large associates left with liberal (and socialism as very liberal), and thus with the Democratic Party's fortunes. Failures of the Democrats drag everything else with them through the mud that are seen related to them, even when they really aren't related to us whatsoever. So even a more robust option of universal healthcare opposed to whatever the ACA was supposed to do is seen as the same thing.

There is the also the misconceptions of healthcare abroad, especially with the waits and how people from those countries come to the States for care, but they often leave out that no one in those countries seriously considers emulating the US's method of healthcare delivery, a largely market-based one. What we are missing is the stories like the OP which show the opposite result of citizens visiting the US and having to go through the mess of the system here.

It's times like these I really don't know how reformists really think the state can bring forth these reforms. Maybe they were successful in the 50s and 60s with it in other countries but even what ever achievements they can point to are slowly being dismantled. In that light I really don't see how the US would be able to bring about a fundamental change from within the system in this day and age.