• penquin
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    4 months ago

    Shit is fucking bonkers. Richest country in the history of mankind makes its people pay to live and get educated. Fuck. Only developed country that does it. I’m convinced that our government hates our guts and wants us all dead.

    • zephorah
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      4 months ago

      Nope. They want us just alive enough to increase “the domestic supply of infants” to fully stock both their workforce and the military.

      • RedditWanderer@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Keeping you alive “long enough”. Your productive years of making children aren’t the years where you need the most healthcare. It’s designed to get young people to overpay and old people to overpay and still die

    • RustyShackleford@literature.cafe
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      4 months ago

      I’ve been waiting for more people to realize this. The rich will always make the mistake of underestimating the poor.

      By expanding the groups range, you increase their numbers dramatically, eventually they’ll realize they can eat you alive.

      And all their bunkers become fancy soup cans, and there’s always a can opener.

      • penquin
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        4 months ago

        That’s cultists doing cultist shit. They know full well what they’re voting for is bad for the country.

    • neuracnu@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      4 months ago

      There was a joke in the old Duck Tales cartoon about this.

      One of Scrooge McDuck’s nephews was chastising his uncle for being needlessly frugal. “Why won’t you pay for this? You’re the richest duck in the world!”

      Scrooge replied “And how do you think I got to be the richest?”

      Oligarchs convincing We the People to vote for representatives who maintain systems of indifference and cruelty is how we got so damn rich to begin with.

      • penquin
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        4 months ago

        That military budget is literally fucking us sideways. I’d be ok with it if it were used for the good of this world, it’s literally used to kill brown people and children.

        • xenoclast@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          For control of resources. Murder to “protect American interests”. They do say why they do it. What is America really interested in? Wealth consolidation for the ultra wealthy.

      • penquin
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        4 months ago

        I’m from a shitty country in the middle East, and we had free healthcare. My brother tells me they still have it and it’s gotten even better now.

  • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
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    4 months ago

    I’m 51. I still list my pediatrician who I am fairly certain died thirty years ago. They don’t check.

    • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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      4 months ago

      Well the point is to communicate with your primary things like vaccination records so if you don’t have one you can literally just say that.

    • sparkle
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      4 months ago

      Unfortunately most people don’t make enough to live in (urban) Massachussets :) if they did, us outsiders would colonize the fuck out of it immediately… with absolutely no remorse too.

      Now, you might say to get my own state healthcare: however, counterpoint, I live in Georgia and we’ll probably not get there until collapse from the climate apocalypse has already started. Won’t stop me from trying…

  • rand_alpha19@moist.catsweat.com
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    4 months ago

    This happens in Canada too, you just extra fucked in the US because you also have to pay up when you go to a shitty walk-in.

    I wish there was an easier way for foreign doctors, nurses, and medical staff to upskill, retrain, or otherwise have their credentials recognized so that they can continue in the medical field.

    I’ve spoken to so many people (and their acquaintances) who can’t afford the money or time it would take to start over to become credentialed in engineering, law, and medicine. Agreements like the Sydney Accord help, but they don’t fix the problem.

    • usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca
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      4 months ago

      Why not improve working conditions so we aren’t losing doctors who have trained here? They’re already trained in our system

      • xenoclast@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Mostly because they’re deliberately being made to leave the system so that it can be replaced by an worse American like system. For the reich to profit from.

      • rand_alpha19@moist.catsweat.com
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        4 months ago

        We can do both, but Canada and the US get a lot of talented immigrants that end up working in low-wage jobs that aren’t taking full advantage of their existing skills. The system is so strained that we need a multi-pronged approach to fill in the gaps.

        I’d love for residency programs to be overhauled to allow for changes to the matching system and for working hours to be reduced, if possible. I think demanding 80-hour work weeks from the least paid and least experienced doctors is a recipe for mistakes and burnout.

        • skyspydude1@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Not only that, but the way that visa sponsorship and the citizenship process can absolutely fuck you over is absolutely horrifying.

          I have a family friend who immigrated for an engineering role at a consulting firm. The job was going really well, and he wanted to stay in the US, so he was getting ready to start the citizenship process once he hit the 5 year mark. About 6 months before the 5 year mark, the company let him go, and he had to scramble within the 60 day grace period to find a new employer who was willing to keep sponsoring his visa, or else he’d have to leave the US.

  • rickdg@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    You know you’re in a first world country when the GDP to life expectancy curve goes brrr. Except in the US where capitalism is a death cult. Why increase lifespans when profits can always go higher? Something something trickle down.

  • ShareMySims@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    If it makes you feel any better (well aware it will not), I’ve not had a consistent NHS GP for a good 15-20 years, and it’s for the same reason - fewer doctors cost less money, and private for profit companies running our healthcare (in many cases, the very same people, since many of the companies buying up the NHS are American insurers) only care about one thing, and it isn’t healthcare.

    • BaldManGoomba@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Uhh. I haven’t visted a doctor for a check up since I was 18. Which was 14 years ago. I have only used healthcare when I crushed my hand at work. In which my company paid for. I have never gone to a walk in, I have never gotten a prescription despite getting bronchitis and pneumonia every year. Haven’t gotten to the doctor for the 3 times I had food poison or the flu. It is costly, it takes time, I work night and sleep during day, and I still pay health insurance(50$ a week and 50$ a month for dental) in which I have to pay to visit doctors and pay until I hit a deductible

  • vfye@toast.ooo
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    4 months ago

    I don’t understand this meme. If you have an hmo you’re supposed to have a primary care doctor/physician. If you have ppo then sure, it would make no sense to have a primary care since its not required to see a specialist. But if you have insurance and your not well off then it a pcp isnt an issue or you have an hmo.

    • RedditWanderer@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      “but since in the US you have to have insurance”.

      Ohhhh i didnt know it was mandatory! That must mean everyone in the US can afford insurance. We did it patrick.

      • vfye@toast.ooo
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        4 months ago

        When the aca was passed, insurance was mandatory. Sorry i forgot that the gop tax bill in 2017 repealed the individual mandate penalty. Some states still do have a penalty for being uninsured.

        • Fester
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          4 months ago

          The penalty wasn’t close to making it mandatory. It was still cheaper for people to pay $900 out of their tax refund than to buy “affordable” $300-600/month insurance with a $2-8K deductible. Lots of people opted for the penalty.

    • Mog_fanatic@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I can’t speak for others but for me I don’t have a general practitioner because I will never go to any doctor if I don’t have to. I just simply can’t afford it or am absolutely terrified to find out how much the time bomb of a mystery the medical bill will be. I’ve never even looked because I already know I can’t afford to see a doctor for pretty much anything. It sucks