104 points

Americans surely must understand by now that they’re only seen as consumers, statistics, a unit from which money can be extracted. They’re not seen and treated as humans.

Americans who lived abroad, what do you think about this?

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61 points
*

I haven’t lived abroad but I’m a disabled vet and thus get social healthcare…

And it’s fucking horrifying what my countrymen/women don’t get. I get the European experience (less than, let’s be real… I was gunna say more or less but it’s less…) and my comrades in arms (and just my comrades?) don’t because of technicalities? My brethren who choose not to support business get screwed? Fuck that we should all benefit.

To be clear, health should be a human right, housing should be a human right, food should be under health as a human right but let’s be serious it should be a separate human right so everyone has to acknowledge it. (thanks America for needing that to be spelled out…)

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36 points

Somewhere between just 18-25% of veterans get the benefits they’re entitled to, and the VA wants to keep it that way.

It’s fucking disgusting

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22 points

Technically I’m not even getting what I’m entitled to, I just recognize I get more than most of my comrades and until they get it I’m not pushing for myself.

Because you are right. It’s horrifying to go to a Va hospital, because the majority of people there are bitching up a storm because they aren’t getting care they should be entitled to. Wildly uncomfortable experience. And I don’t blame them and they deserve it way more than I do… but technicalities…

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21 points

To be clear, health should be a human right, housing should be a human right, food should be under health as a human right but let’s be serious it should be a separate human right so everyone has to acknowledge it.

You’ve just summed up article 25 of the universal declaration of human rights. The US is a signatory to it - but it’s not legally binding.

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15 points

That’s why they signed it. It’s not binding so what does it matter?

I mean the US has taught me that being an ancom is the right path. I wish they had any support for what they actually preach being a good thing but I’m not into it. And I once signed my life away thinking it was right… mistakes were made man.

(In fairness, I come from a conservative area, so I’m not against people, I just want what’s best for everyone, even if they don’t recognize it as a good thing yet.)

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2 points

To be clear, health should be a human right, housing should be a human right, food should be under health as a human right but let’s be serious it should be a separate human right so everyone has to acknowledge

Around the world 9million is so die every year from starvation (some 25,000 a day, many of them children) another 9 milion or so from air pollution, driving cars and.m burning fossil fuels. 50 kids a week are backed over in cars in the US alone, that’s just backed over. Guns are the #1 killer of children , cars #2 in the US

https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/people-and-poverty/hunger-and-obesity/how-many-people-die-from-hunger-each-year

https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth/air/air-pollution-deaths-per-year

50 US kids killed by Muslim terrorists, spend a trillion and invade, but good 'ol boys in trucks? make the trucks bigger and have at it… but can’t spend a trillion to build good public transport and cycle ways so people.don’t need to kill kids in cars.?

I think it’s not unreasonable to suggest we don’t really give a shit about “human rights”… anywhere in the world.

Professor David Boyd expressed it well when he was tasked by the UN to try and raise awareness about some of this with Governments around the world and as he said, he couldn’t get a single eyebrow raised anywhere in the world

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/07/un-expert-human-rights-climate-crisis-economy

Outgoing special rapporteur David Boyd says ‘there’s something wrong with our brains that we can’t understand how grave this is’

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11 points

America went from chattel slavery to chattel citizenry, we are nothing but a resource to be exploited.

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11 points
*

I’ll never return if America doesn’t get healthcare. I don’t even like visiting because that’s so obvious. I usually don’t go out when I go back and just hang out at my parents. Everything is depressing and I can pretend to not see it in their bubble.

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1 point

The bubble inside America is so crazy.

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6 points

It’s sad. What’s the solution?

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12 points
*

Basically pass something through government channels to wrest the service from the hands of individualized businesses wearing the skins of hospitals and the business complex of health insurance… Like every other nation who has a social system did at some point in the past.

It’s kind of easy to forget but like sanitation, fire service, post, police services, hospitals, secular school systems … Those were all exclusively the domain of for profit businesses once. Just because something currently lines someone’s private pockets doesn’t mean that makes it untouchable. It has all been done before. Just wiping out the third party insurance companies alone and socializing the insurance would probably do wonders.

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8 points

That won’t work for the federal government. The people have no mechanism to put forth legislation (or to recall elected officials, which I see being a huge problem pretty soon).

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1 point

Continue to support policies (thus Politicians (i.e. Democrats)) that want to give everyone access to healthcare, regardless of economic status. This would mean never voting for Republicans as they are opposed to this.

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5 points

How has it been 60 years of the same shit and you guys don’t pick up on it? What’s going on over there?

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1 point

I’m not sure, but it won’t be televised.

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-4 points

You change. Stop asking and start doing?

Isn’t your whole thing “by the people, for the people”? The people are an overweight zombie staring into a TV slurping an empty soda. Seeing this from the outside is absolutely crazy. You guys are so, so, SO passive.

You’re becoming poorer and poorer, your world is quite literally burning and drying up, quality of life has bottomed in a way no one even a generation ago would even imagine.

And what do you do? I mean…

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8 points

You’ve offered no real actual actions though. Change… What? To what? Your world is also quite literally burning and drying up. You could share your clearly superior wisdom instead of just dunking on Americans, which is frankly low hanging fruit anyway.

So what do you do?

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3 points

So horrible.

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3 points

As an American who lived abroad I agree completely

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3 points

But enough of us are okay with that as long as those damn immigrants, black, and poor people are treated that way it’s fine.

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85 points

We’re not lacking in “system”, that’s part of what we’re overpaying so much for. It’s the “care” part that’s lacking.

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25 points

Oh we have really good care, if you can pay for it.

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16 points

And none of us can afford the really good care, we go broke trying to afford the over worked, beaten down healthcare staff doing the best they can with what little they have.

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5 points

Remember during the pandemic they were literally wearing trash bags to take care of people?

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3 points
*

“For [the 6 measured conditions], the health outcomes of White US citizens living in the 1% and 5% richest counties are better than those of average US citizens but are not consistently better than those of average residents in many other developed countries, suggesting that in the US, even if everyone achieved the health outcomes of White US citizens living in the 1% and 5% richest counties, health indicators would still lag behind those in many other countries.”

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2774561

Overall the US spends way more per capita on its healthcare than any other country (both in absolute terms and as a percent of GDP), and yet has the worst healthcare outcomes of any developed nation.

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2021/aug/mirror-mirror-2021-reflecting-poorly

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2023/jan/us-health-care-global-perspective-2022

https://ourworldindata.org/us-life-expectancy-low

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6 points

POSIWID. Purpose of a system is what it does.

I’m this case, extract as much money as possible from the population.

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72 points

Sparing loved ones of financial hardship is one of the noblest reasons to die. What a fucked up sentence.

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15 points

The horror is in the fact that the system forces these kinds of choices on people. Any system that forces people to consider suicide to avoid bankrupting their loved ones due to medical cost is barbaric.

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69 points

Friend of mine became extremely sick. Doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong, but his life became pain and insomnia. After many torturous years, he was tired of being bedridden and miserable. He couldn’t end it; his wife would lose her health insurance through his employer. So he walked off into the woods.

He’s been legally missing for a few years now. He made sure to bring his ID with him, in case he is found one day.

That’s the American healthcare system.

Why do we still live here: if we could leave, we would. We’ve been trying.

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24 points

I have no idea how this keeps her insured. In most of America, after 1 year of medical leave your job can be terminated.

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16 points

I truly believe the parent comment is straight up lying lmao, no job is going to keep you employed for more than a few days without an explanation, and insurance benefits end the month the employer terminates you.

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2 points

Man, I wish I was lying. I’d still have my friend.

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4 points

I don’t remember if it was her insurance or his, or what those details are. She and I have spoken of him, but not of the insurance information. Keeping things vague makes it less internet-friendly, but the story stands, and it sucks.

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2 points

Yeah, if it was my friend’s wife, I wouldn’t be digging into those details either. Even if she’s completely in lala land about the reasoning, whatever it takes to deal with that pain. Not my place to challenge that.

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22 points

Ma’am, we looked at the bones and he passed away within a month. We’re afraid you’ll have to pay for that hip replacement in full, and, here, we kept your cancer boob, well need repayment for chopping it off…and the wisdom tooth.

Mommy, when I grow up, I want to be the guy who figures out when people died to cancel their families insurance postumably!

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59 points

The US healthcare system is a hostage situation.

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