Medical practices and hospitals owned by private equity don’t care about you either. They just want to extract as much money from insurance companies and patients as they can.
I'm a doc in the US and have spent the week supervising an intern (first-year doc) who moved to the US from Pakistan three weeks ago. She is becoming increasingly horrified by the state of the American healthcare system.
Health insurance companies, for some reason, are bad at doing things that actually save them money. They don't want to pay for checkups and preventative care, despite the fact that preventative care is way cheaper than treating the problem that happens when something goes untreated.
not when most Americans will just let big problems go until they are life threatening and then many times second guess actually getting medical help even when in serious condition. I believe most insurance companies bank on you staying quiet until you are dying.
Sick people claim money, healthy people pay money for policies. One of these is better for health insurer profits. The rest of the medical system might need sick people in order to exist but health insurers would prefer that they don’t.
I mean the same could be said of for profit hospitals and many "non" profit hospitals. Unnecessary tests and procedures on people with great insurance so they can run up a bill. Neglecting care for folks who don't have or are underinsured. It's almost like having a healthcare system that isn't measured on patient outcomes is a bad idea...
Even measuring on patient outcomes is risky; it incentivizes turning away risky cases. It's a thorny problem but the US has basically said "what solution can we implement that will make everything much worse?"
Holy shit. Those medical scares he had though. But yeah, this guy's videos are USUSALLY great fun. This one was a smidge stark. Understandable, but stark.
There is a segment of health care without profiteering. As a 90 year old Korean War veteran, I've been getting 100% free medical care at the VA Hospital in Manhattan for the past 30 years or so. My month meds alone for diabetes, blood pressure, kidney health, cholesterol etc would cost at least $1,500 a month. My Primary Care doctor and nurse are excellent and caring. Everyone should have this same free medical care. Your Congress Members all have it too. This country can afford it.
There can’t be racism/sexism/harassment in the work place, we handed a booklet to everyone here stating it isn’t company policy and we won’t tolerate it.
Told HR all the horrible experiences I had during my exit interview. They said, "We'll make sure to put that in the job description so the next person isn't surprised." WHAT?! NO!! Make it better for the next human please...It was a soul sucking place.
As a Briton the amazing thing to me is that so many Americans vote AGAINST universal healthcare. They have been lied to for so long and believe all the propaganda that they choose to keep a system that is so bad. US healthcare might be the best in the world, if you're a billionaire. But the vast majority of people pay a fortune in taxes, premiums, copays and deductables, even have to pay for ambulance rides etc. As a Brit my last trip to A+E (our ER) cost me eighty pence, for a cup of coffee.
There is no party that supports socialized medicine in the US. The democrats used to lie about supporting it but they had complete control of the government and gave us a federal mandate to own health insurance or else you have to pay a fee lol
So small story: i have Eosinophilic esophagitis, meaning my esophagus will shrink in diameter (foood gets stuck) for certain unknown food alergies. I coluld test, but milok, wheat and soja would be off my table forever. Or - what i do - take a tablet twice a day that only one company makes and costs 5$/tablet. I'm german, so i only pay 10€ for 100 tablets. my insurance can not kick me out, they need to pay for this for the rest of my live. Which is basically with just that more then i pay them.
... and having to mop up after specialists that think _every_ ailment has to do with something in their specialization, ... and only call in the generalists when damage already happened?
Current family med doc. We are not. I was finishing my residency during the pandemic and things have just gotten worse. Insurance companies are 99% of the reason I hate my job. I wish I didn't have so much debt so I could consider doing something else. *woo*
Right? I just dropped out of medical school and the climate of insurance and functioning within it was a huge part of that outcome (in addition to a handful of other reasons that sapped my motivation to continue). It's a rough gambit and getting rougher.
I gave up on my dream of medical school because I just didn't want half a million dollars in student loans. And then the more I learn and then the pandemic and all that came with it; it makes me happy I followed my instincts but I still do like Medical science and wish it wasn't the way it is.
For sure, I went to the cheapest school and my dad (widower) helped me out with tuition. Even still it was scary and weird that most of my fellows had parents who were doctors that made 300k plus salaries, and almost none of them were helping their kids with tuition. But on a positive note, all of the ER docs were always super invested in their community, and every family med doc was putting in so much work on community health. There are bright spots, but look at his videos on those two groups..
The American healthcare system is a moral obscenity. It is unfettered capitalism at its greediest and most inhumane. And big money is keeping our leaders from doing anything to change it. We must be the force that demands that healthcare in America be universal and available to everyone.
I mean, it can't be said enough apparently... and yet we are still here paying for corrupt business practices that exacerbate what is already a healthcare crisis in the US
Insurance companies love how the gun companies scare Americans into thinking the government will take their guns. Insurance companies love how churches scare Americans into thinking lgbtq are going after their kids. Insurance companies love how those same churches scare Americans into thinking killing a collection of cells the size of a pinky fingernail is somehow murder. Anyone seeing a pattern here?
Insurance companies support the politicians who push these morality red herrings that don't affect broader society at all. It gets people upset and scared so they vote against their best economic interests like affordable insurance. They did the racist dog whistle with Obama's Muslim-esque name, birth cert lies, so the GOP voters who were so against Obamacare also liked the Affordable Care Act. It was weakened and insurance company's profited. Don't tell me they weren't behind that.
What are our options? If I had the money, I wouldn't be here. Voting isn't changing a damn thing. And nearly half the country doesn't want any of their paycheck going towards paying for anyone else's healthcare, despite the fact that is exactly how insurance works, except with a middle man to take a cut.
There is no alternative. You can't opt out of this system, it's literally against the law. It's just a daily reality that almost all of us are one bad car accident or trip and fall away from complete bankruptcy and losing everything. When people are diagnosed with cancer, they have to seriously consider whether they should seek treatment and maybe live, or die so their families will not be financially devastated. There is no coping, so most people try not to think about it as much as possible.
Suicide poverty crime censorship and many other negative things are all skyrocketing as we get fleeced and propagandized as hard as any other nation. Meanwhile freedom of the press, health, and education are plummeting. Our government just upped their police budget for washington DC by 5x the amount the year prior but nobody seems to consider why they want 5x the protection
We dream of guillotines. Seriously, it speaks to the distracted nature of the American public that health insurance executives haven't all been rendered for dog food.
Profit and really anything a human needs to get their basic survival needs met. Capitalism is an inherently exploitative system and the "freer" the market, the more dangerous and difficult it is to survive.
That’s not entirely true. Healthy people cost less than sick ones, and dead ones don’t pay premiums. Their (or I should say “our” because I’m a low-level nobody at one of the big ones) incentives are to encourage people to become, and then remain, healthy for as long as possible.
Also: it’s true that the company dgaf about you, but most of the employees do. When I was in a position to do so, I busted my ass trying to get claims paid instead of denied.
Bombings might be a good incentive. Too bad this country is full of pussies, myself included, too afraid to make the first move against the oligarchs building a utopia for themselves on top of our corpses.
As a landlord I see this from people who rent from me and came from other places. When the business model is 'give me money, this money will be used to upkeep the place you live in and the rest is mine' obviously without some sort of rules (because lolmorals) people will go 'but I can keep ALL the money and not do upkeep'. Not very different here. Keep the money instead of giving it back to pay for health related things.
yeah well that's the beauty of the free market, if you don't like it you can just roll up your sleeves and start your own multi billion dollar insurance organization with no interference from established capital or their government cronies. quit complaining
seriously with the gift of the free and fair market anyone can start a health insurance company and put those other ones out of business, all they have to do is have billions of dollars of wealth to start with and a political party in their pocket! ez
Yep. It's actually really simple in economics principles....healthcare is demand inelastic - people need it when they need it. It's probably THE closest thing we'll ever have to a true perfectly demand inelastic good. This doesn't translate to one individual healthcare supplier charging more..it translates to everyone in the entire supply chain charging more. To do that, they find profit in every transaction. Every point in the chain introduces inefficiency and chances for profiteering.
Insurance is one of the absolute WORST offenders because it provides ZERO added value. Their entire position could be erased by simply creating a single-payer system. One rate is paid and that's it. It works for most of, if not all of the developed world. The US just has had lobbyists with their fingers on the dial since Nixon, ensuring the entire system is set up for artificial scarcity and ample chances for profiting off of literally every person that ever exists.
The free market is as a garden. When it is well tended, your flowers are well spread and water is distributed well with your weeds plucked regularly, it will be a beautiful thriving environment. But when you start introducing trees that are much larger and suck the resources away from everything else, the garden dies in service of the tree, until all that’s left is the tree; and it will destroy the garden in its quest for growth until it uproots itself and dies taking your house with it.
It's a nice way of looking at it, but "the free market", hence the quotations, has always been a myth. There are only planned economies, it just depends on who you plan them for. Ours is planned for the wealthy, the private owners of vast capital and production. Monopolies aren't broken up. Subsidies go to the giants that don't need them. Laws outright favor them. If there were no market regulations, your analogy would make sense, but they've always been there, currently to benefit the few.
I hate the evil fucking corporations as much as you do but this stupid comment keeps coming up and would not change anything. You're not going to kill anyone. Even if you did, the corporations would just replace the people you killed and move on. Change must come from government
Only if right afterwards we take over the government and create an economic system that operates on metrics related to quality of life and technological advancement rather than GDP, k?
This solution only works if the results outweigh the cons... Who are you going to convince to put their freedom, their life, and/or the well being of their families on the line to make it happen?
I was thinking more like corruption, score settling, killing for political and monetary gain etc. but sure, you can put that all under the umbrella term 'a better world for humans' 🤡
Hah, I was being intentionally ignorant of your intention for the humorous response. To clarify for you though, I wasn't suggesting that we should implement it in such a way that the people in power would have control of it. It would be by the people for the people. You know. Not lawful because the law isn't just. Actual, real justice.
socialism is a mode of production where workers own and control production themselves, as opposed to capitalism where labor is done by people who are paid wages after their surplus labor value is extracted
Honestly, that question always amuses me because the modern healthcare insurance system in Europe was created in order to disrupt socialist movements and prevent them from gaining ever more power. By letting them achieve some of their more minor goals, support for the rest of them, including a complete remodeling of society, is much diminished. That was the intent behind the first national public healthcare system, 1883 in Germany, and this line of thinking repeated itself as the Cold War began.
Uh... Profit driven insurance is organized crime, and democratic socialism would provide free safety nets intended to help the populace rather than profit from them? What an odd question.
eh, the comparison is interesting. Everyone pools their money together and disburses it to those in need. The difference is whose in charge of that money
The big difference is who has to add how much money to the pool. In a private insurance, your premiums depend on the estimated costs you will make the company later, so every customer is their own business case for the company and if they aren't... bad luck. In socialized healthcare, youre premiums depend (usually) on your income, so everyone can afford it and no one will be turned away, when they need help, b/c you don't have to be a profitable business case for anyone. It's real pooling.
Nah. The comparison makes no sense. Private and government finance are entirely different. If it were a little commune that doesn't produce, but but does use, dollars, it would be apt. But governments with sovereign currency don't pull from a pool, it produces money every time it spends. The taxes don't actually find it, nor do they provision the government in any other way, unless the government in question forces arbitrary spending rules on itself. We're not on the gold standard any more.
Noahbalboa82
Thanks, Dr. Ryan Reynolds!
ocstomias
Medical practices and hospitals owned by private equity don’t care about you either. They just want to extract as much money from insurance companies and patients as they can.
mthedoor
I'm a doc in the US and have spent the week supervising an intern (first-year doc) who moved to the US from Pakistan three weeks ago. She is becoming increasingly horrified by the state of the American healthcare system.
dirque
You need to document everything she says! This is a story of a slow slide into horror from what was supposed to be an ideal of helping people.
FeloniousMonk13
The fact that healthcare has been turned into a profit- making enterprise is morally repugnant.
Fishkeeper
Health insurance companies, for some reason, are bad at doing things that actually save them money. They don't want to pay for checkups and preventative care, despite the fact that preventative care is way cheaper than treating the problem that happens when something goes untreated.
damnshame24
not when most Americans will just let big problems go until they are life threatening and then many times second guess actually getting medical help even when in serious condition. I believe most insurance companies bank on you staying quiet until you are dying.
MoonMoon89
PoopSammich
BrownestofCoats
LazerHawkAttack
Government Free health care ftw! Even Russia has free health care
FlyingGiantElk
Not 100% true. They also want you to be sick enough to need treatment, but neither healthy nor sick enough to discontinue their services.
IvorJBiggun
Sick people claim money, healthy people pay money for policies. One of these is better for health insurer profits. The rest of the medical system might need sick people in order to exist but health insurers would prefer that they don’t.
bippityboppitybuttsex
The Real Death Panels (tm)
deadtedw
The numbers in this video are 3 years old, so they're obviously more now. The last comment is the best. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kll-yYQwmuM
walaishy
Got a job. Job had healthcare. Didn't need healthcare because I get it from the VA. I had to pay for the privilege of not having healthcare.
SneezeFarts
I mean the same could be said of for profit hospitals and many "non" profit hospitals. Unnecessary tests and procedures on people with great insurance so they can run up a bill. Neglecting care for folks who don't have or are underinsured. It's almost like having a healthcare system that isn't measured on patient outcomes is a bad idea...
DefinitelyNotMadeOfBees
Even measuring on patient outcomes is risky; it incentivizes turning away risky cases. It's a thorny problem but the US has basically said "what solution can we implement that will make everything much worse?"
TheOneThatGotBanned
thrael
this is not my doctor..
NeverDunNuffin
Is this your beautiful wife?
vbh70s
Dr Glaucomflecken https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Glaucomflecken
TheHolyFatman
His channel is hilarious, too.
FishieStardust
And he has a wonderful YouTube channel https://youtube.com/@DGlaucomflecken
10Upvotes
TheFakeCraigFerguson
Holy shit. Those medical scares he had though. But yeah, this guy's videos are USUSALLY great fun. This one was a smidge stark. Understandable, but stark.
PolitiCat
I would describe having testicular cancer twice and a sudden cardiac arrest a bit more than medical "scares"
BaconAlmighty
I hope he's an eye doctor
so1oeclipse
He’s a seeologist
stygiansojourn
He be
BanadecCamberbootch
He is indeed an ophthalmologist.
JonnasGalgri
Dont lie, thats budget Ryan Reynods-lite
JoeHarkins
There is a segment of health care without profiteering. As a 90 year old Korean War veteran, I've been getting 100% free medical care at the VA Hospital in Manhattan for the past 30 years or so. My month meds alone for diabetes, blood pressure, kidney health, cholesterol etc would cost at least $1,500 a month. My Primary Care doctor and nurse are excellent and caring. Everyone should have this same free medical care. Your Congress Members all have it too. This country can afford it.
BanadecCamberbootch
DR. G IS THE BEST
BaconAlmighty
No shit.. Next thing you'll tell me is that HR isn't really there for me but to protect teh company?
Minitokiwarsid
Should somebody tell @BaconAlmighty?
thatiswhyyoushoulddoityourself
There can’t be racism/sexism/harassment in the work place, we handed a booklet to everyone here stating it isn’t company policy and we won’t tolerate it.
Gayforbae
"They can't stab you, that's illegal!"
BluLuna
Told HR all the horrible experiences I had during my exit interview. They said, "We'll make sure to put that in the job description so the next person isn't surprised." WHAT?! NO!! Make it better for the next human please...It was a soul sucking place.
cybermage256
I don't bother with exit interviews. Last time told them nobody listened when I was talking about it as an employee, now it's not my problem anymore.
HelloThere1812
They won't even do that and you know it.
vcgetdown
Yeah, it was basically them thinking that's what to say to placate the imgurian. Can't stand hr
CarlBassett
As a Briton the amazing thing to me is that so many Americans vote AGAINST universal healthcare. They have been lied to for so long and believe all the propaganda that they choose to keep a system that is so bad. US healthcare might be the best in the world, if you're a billionaire. But the vast majority of people pay a fortune in taxes, premiums, copays and deductables, even have to pay for ambulance rides etc. As a Brit my last trip to A+E (our ER) cost me eighty pence, for a cup of coffee.
vcgetdown
There is no party that supports socialized medicine in the US. The democrats used to lie about supporting it but they had complete control of the government and gave us a federal mandate to own health insurance or else you have to pay a fee lol
Freestila
So small story: i have Eosinophilic esophagitis, meaning my esophagus will shrink in diameter (foood gets stuck) for certain unknown food alergies. I coluld test, but milok, wheat and soja would be off my table forever. Or - what i do - take a tablet twice a day that only one company makes and costs 5$/tablet. I'm german, so i only pay 10€ for 100 tablets. my insurance can not kick me out, they need to pay for this for the rest of my live. Which is basically with just that more then i pay them.
klean9
Retired internist here. This one of several reasons why I am a retired internist here.
klubai4
... and having to mop up after specialists that think _every_ ailment has to do with something in their specialization, ... and only call in the generalists when damage already happened?
klean9
huhsaywhatnow
This is a guy who became a doc for the right reason and is burning out. I hope he's ok
Mytherandis
Current family med doc. We are not. I was finishing my residency during the pandemic and things have just gotten worse. Insurance companies are 99% of the reason I hate my job. I wish I didn't have so much debt so I could consider doing something else. *woo*
Cushionhead
Right? I just dropped out of medical school and the climate of insurance and functioning within it was a huge part of that outcome (in addition to a handful of other reasons that sapped my motivation to continue). It's a rough gambit and getting rougher.
SuperfluousMeh
I gave up on my dream of medical school because I just didn't want half a million dollars in student loans. And then the more I learn and then the pandemic and all that came with it; it makes me happy I followed my instincts but I still do like Medical science and wish it wasn't the way it is.
Cushionhead
For sure, I went to the cheapest school and my dad (widower) helped me out with tuition. Even still it was scary and weird that most of my fellows had parents who were doctors that made 300k plus salaries, and almost none of them were helping their kids with tuition. But on a positive note, all of the ER docs were always super invested in their community, and every family med doc was putting in so much work on community health. There are bright spots, but look at his videos on those two groups..
sajgj
The American healthcare system is a moral obscenity. It is unfettered capitalism at its greediest and most inhumane. And big money is keeping our leaders from doing anything to change it. We must be the force that demands that healthcare in America be universal and available to everyone.
vcgetdown
Thanks for actually calling out the problem of money in politics and not pretending voting will do anything
ummjakefromstatefarm
Great, so now what do i do with this information?
UndeadJanitor
Don’t get sick. And if you get sick pretend you’re not sick. Pray for a swift death
DefinitelyNotMadeOfBees
Leave, if you can. If not...idk, call your representatives? It feels kinda hopeless.
ummjakefromstatefarm
About my thoughts too
DarkfireDragon
How do you leave? Isn't it illegal not to have health insurance anymore?
DefinitelyNotMadeOfBees
I meant leave the country. Go...almost anywhere else.
Illiasa
I mean, it can't be said enough apparently... and yet we are still here paying for corrupt business practices that exacerbate what is already a healthcare crisis in the US
MadamPuddifoot
I cannot EXPLAIN to you how many people don't... DO NOT understand that it's the insurance companies' faults.
likeumreal
Insurance companies love how the gun companies scare Americans into thinking the government will take their guns. Insurance companies love how churches scare Americans into thinking lgbtq are going after their kids. Insurance companies love how those same churches scare Americans into thinking killing a collection of cells the size of a pinky fingernail is somehow murder. Anyone seeing a pattern here?
kerms
I like the sentiment but everything you said here is completely flawed. How is insurance benefiting from any of these things?
likeumreal
Insurance companies support the politicians who push these morality red herrings that don't affect broader society at all. It gets people upset and scared so they vote against their best economic interests like affordable insurance. They did the racist dog whistle with Obama's Muslim-esque name, birth cert lies, so the GOP voters who were so against Obamacare also liked the Affordable Care Act. It was weakened and insurance company's profited. Don't tell me they weren't behind that.
PurpleishFluffDragon
America's health care system is just straight up terrifying how do you guys cope with this ?
EscalatorCongestion
Thankfully the wealthy politicians are fine...
FryBreadSkillet
We just have to. And then we die if we don’t have the money.
whyforetho
By not going to the doctor
LefthandedLink
Substance abuse mostly. So in short, we don't.
JackieTreehornProductions
by dying as quickly as possible
IvorJBiggun
Gofundme and black humour
cjandstuff
What are our options? If I had the money, I wouldn't be here. Voting isn't changing a damn thing. And nearly half the country doesn't want any of their paycheck going towards paying for anyone else's healthcare, despite the fact that is exactly how insurance works, except with a middle man to take a cut.
DefinitelyNotMadeOfBees
Not well. We're all very depressed, but we can't get treatment for it due to...you know, everything.
shinagami091
Because it’s either that or die.
Capum15
By dying, mostly.
ameranthe
There is no alternative. You can't opt out of this system, it's literally against the law. It's just a daily reality that almost all of us are one bad car accident or trip and fall away from complete bankruptcy and losing everything. When people are diagnosed with cancer, they have to seriously consider whether they should seek treatment and maybe live, or die so their families will not be financially devastated. There is no coping, so most people try not to think about it as much as possible.
vcgetdown
Suicide poverty crime censorship and many other negative things are all skyrocketing as we get fleeced and propagandized as hard as any other nation. Meanwhile freedom of the press, health, and education are plummeting. Our government just upped their police budget for washington DC by 5x the amount the year prior but nobody seems to consider why they want 5x the protection
BDBottom
We dream of guillotines. Seriously, it speaks to the distracted nature of the American public that health insurance executives haven't all been rendered for dog food.
HelloThere1812
If you're making this dream a reality, sign me up! You can test the guillotine on me to make sure it works.
Mytherandis
we don't very well, but it's not like we have any other choice.
RandomFlotsam
Profit and healthcare are intrinsically incompatible.
brainmydamage
I think their investors and highly paid executives would disagree. 😉 /s
Ironferrox
As is profit and housing
SavageDrums
Profit and any sort of insurance. The profit motive makes everything worse
Ironferrox
Honestly health insurance shoulnt even be a thing as taxes paid for by citizens should pay for their health care and well being.
SavageDrums
I'm Canadian. I fully agree.
whitegirlcanteven
Profit and really anything a human needs to get their basic survival needs met. Capitalism is an inherently exploitative system and the "freer" the market, the more dangerous and difficult it is to survive.
GenStrike
as is profit and food security
Tumescentpie
Socialism is the only path forward. Too many morons love capitalism though.
RandomFlotsam
Capitalism was a good transitional system. But we need to move beyond it
[deleted]
[deleted]
SavageDrums
Non-profit insurance is. For profit is decidedly not.
InariusTheRisen
Could you please explain how insurance is socialis? I don't quite understand.
tirohtar
Congrats, this is the dumbest take I've read today! Private insurance is pretty much the opposite of socialism.
Tumescentpie
Insurance is pretty much the opposite
mutingisforcowardsandsycophants
There is no incentive for them to operate any other way. That is "the free market" at work.
transference
That’s not entirely true. Healthy people cost less than sick ones, and dead ones don’t pay premiums. Their (or I should say “our” because I’m a low-level nobody at one of the big ones) incentives are to encourage people to become, and then remain, healthy for as long as possible.
transference
Also: it’s true that the company dgaf about you, but most of the employees do. When I was in a position to do so, I busted my ass trying to get claims paid instead of denied.
burpwind
Ethics?
homicidalkoala
Bombings might be a good incentive. Too bad this country is full of pussies, myself included, too afraid to make the first move against the oligarchs building a utopia for themselves on top of our corpses.
CedricDur
As a landlord I see this from people who rent from me and came from other places. When the business model is 'give me money, this money will be used to upkeep the place you live in and the rest is mine' obviously without some sort of rules (because lolmorals) people will go 'but I can keep ALL the money and not do upkeep'. Not very different here. Keep the money instead of giving it back to pay for health related things.
NaughtButOne
yeah well that's the beauty of the free market, if you don't like it you can just roll up your sleeves and start your own multi billion dollar insurance organization with no interference from established capital or their government cronies. quit complaining
doctorShim
seriously with the gift of the free and fair market anyone can start a health insurance company and put those other ones out of business, all they have to do is have billions of dollars of wealth to start with and a political party in their pocket! ez
Khanamana324
The incentive is something that would get me a warning for breaking TOS.
MasterMookie
Sounds like an unregulated market is dangerous. Who would have thought?
TylerDurden85
Yep. It's actually really simple in economics principles....healthcare is demand inelastic - people need it when they need it. It's probably THE closest thing we'll ever have to a true perfectly demand inelastic good. This doesn't translate to one individual healthcare supplier charging more..it translates to everyone in the entire supply chain charging more. To do that, they find profit in every transaction. Every point in the chain introduces inefficiency and chances for profiteering.
TylerDurden85
Insurance is one of the absolute WORST offenders because it provides ZERO added value. Their entire position could be erased by simply creating a single-payer system. One rate is paid and that's it. It works for most of, if not all of the developed world. The US just has had lobbyists with their fingers on the dial since Nixon, ensuring the entire system is set up for artificial scarcity and ample chances for profiting off of literally every person that ever exists.
ImHereToExplainTheJoke
The free market is as a garden. When it is well tended, your flowers are well spread and water is distributed well with your weeds plucked regularly, it will be a beautiful thriving environment. But when you start introducing trees that are much larger and suck the resources away from everything else, the garden dies in service of the tree, until all that’s left is the tree; and it will destroy the garden in its quest for growth until it uproots itself and dies taking your house with it.
ravnicrasol
So like every other damnable political utopia, "The Free Market" doesn't work the instant it makes contact with reality.
mutingisforcowardsandsycophants
It's a nice way of looking at it, but "the free market", hence the quotations, has always been a myth. There are only planned economies, it just depends on who you plan them for. Ours is planned for the wealthy, the private owners of vast capital and production. Monopolies aren't broken up. Subsidies go to the giants that don't need them. Laws outright favor them. If there were no market regulations, your analogy would make sense, but they've always been there, currently to benefit the few.
Psionickitten
The solution is guillotines. We need to bring those back for these exploitative, greedy, evil fucks.
PourMeAPuppersPlease
I hate the evil fucking corporations as much as you do but this stupid comment keeps coming up and would not change anything. You're not going to kill anyone. Even if you did, the corporations would just replace the people you killed and move on. Change must come from government
mutingisforcowardsandsycophants
Only if right afterwards we take over the government and create an economic system that operates on metrics related to quality of life and technological advancement rather than GDP, k?
Psionickitten
Oh, absolutely. We need to unite.
Maviyakuku
Let's get all the heads to one side.
ArchMagos
Izlingar
This solution only works if the results outweigh the cons... Who are you going to convince to put their freedom, their life, and/or the well being of their families on the line to make it happen?
Psionickitten
I said what we need to do. I didn't take responsibility for doing it. Who know, maybe one day I might be pushed to that point... But not yet.
ninjarabbit
Ironically, insurance companies would approve of guillotines once a particulate body is deemed unprofitable
villany42
The person holding the guillotine handle is subject to incentives too, unfortunately
Psionickitten
A better world for humans in general is an incentive! Yes! You're getting it!
villany42
I was thinking more like corruption, score settling, killing for political and monetary gain etc. but sure, you can put that all under the umbrella term 'a better world for humans' 🤡
Psionickitten
Hah, I was being intentionally ignorant of your intention for the humorous response. To clarify for you though, I wasn't suggesting that we should implement it in such a way that the people in power would have control of it. It would be by the people for the people. You know. Not lawful because the law isn't just. Actual, real justice.
jt42
How is insurance not Socialism?
ChaoticGoodTransGirl
socialism is a mode of production where workers own and control production themselves, as opposed to capitalism where labor is done by people who are paid wages after their surplus labor value is extracted
TgCCL
Honestly, that question always amuses me because the modern healthcare insurance system in Europe was created in order to disrupt socialist movements and prevent them from gaining ever more power. By letting them achieve some of their more minor goals, support for the rest of them, including a complete remodeling of society, is much diminished. That was the intent behind the first national public healthcare system, 1883 in Germany, and this line of thinking repeated itself as the Cold War began.
bonodono1350
Too bad the US didn’t follow suite. We just had witch hunts and “In God We Trust” added to money…
mutingisforcowardsandsycophants
Uh... Profit driven insurance is organized crime, and democratic socialism would provide free safety nets intended to help the populace rather than profit from them? What an odd question.
ChakLee
eh, the comparison is interesting. Everyone pools their money together and disburses it to those in need. The difference is whose in charge of that money
ElroydIsGone
The big difference is who has to add how much money to the pool. In a private insurance, your premiums depend on the estimated costs you will make the company later, so every customer is their own business case for the company and if they aren't... bad luck. In socialized healthcare, youre premiums depend (usually) on your income, so everyone can afford it and no one will be turned away, when they need help, b/c you don't have to be a profitable business case for anyone. It's real pooling.
jt42
Is government involvement required? Couldn't this be done with a non-profit organization?
mutingisforcowardsandsycophants
Nah. The comparison makes no sense. Private and government finance are entirely different. If it were a little commune that doesn't produce, but but does use, dollars, it would be apt. But governments with sovereign currency don't pull from a pool, it produces money every time it spends. The taxes don't actually find it, nor do they provision the government in any other way, unless the government in question forces arbitrary spending rules on itself. We're not on the gold standard any more.
ChakLee
the implementation details don't make the comparison nonsense. Just generalize money to goods and services rendered