Just so tired of almost every time a doctor submits stuff to insurance, we have to be the ones to make multiple phone calls to both the doctor’s office and insurance to iron everything out, figure out what the issue is (it’s always a different issue), and basically be the go-between for the office and insurance. What am I paying $500+/month for?! It’s like paying for the privilege of having an exhausting part-time job.
And yes, I understand that insurance wants to weasel out of paying anything, but this isn’t even shadiness, just straight up incompetence and lack of communication/following procedures. The amount of emotional energy we have to spend untangling this stuff leaves us drained.
Hmmh. I recently learned about that. Seems to be roughly 1980 (Reagan era?) when things started going really sideways and nowadays it’s just bad beyond words…
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_the_United_States
That graph is depressing and familiar. It’s insane how we think we’re “the greatest country” in the face of cold embarrassing facts.
That was the graph that opened my eyes a bit back in another discussion. I knew that people were dying in the States because they can’t afford insulin/medication/treatment. But I somehow thought they were at least paying less for healthcare and just poor and society didn’t care about people in need. But it’s way worse. They are paying twice as much for healthcare AND dying 2 years earlier. AND ruined financially if anything happens.
And all of that is a scheme to rip off everyone. Sadly a quite successful scheme for decades already. I mean I’m really amazed by the extent. And I wonder if it were possible to adopt the European style, give healthcare to everyone plus every citizen an additional $5.000 for free each year. I don’t really see that happening though. Every government in the past decades, no matter their color, has contributed to keep that graph going in this direction.
Edit: And I’d like to see that diagram for a few other countries. Not just against Europe, Japan, Australia, Israel and Korea.
A significant portion of our population is brainwashed into the idea that everything should be privatized for-profit. Even people who are profoundly harmed by this. They have been indoctrinated to despise and be revolted by socialized-anything.
I’ve seen that graph before. One of the ways I interpret it is that as one ages we contribute less (money) to the system, mainly in taxes, SS, Medicare taxes. When we become old and retire we become a burden on the system that we’ve contributed for decades. The “system “ whoever that may be no longer cares about our health and longevity because they already have their money and the lower our life expectancy the less they have to pay out. Collect for decades only to pay out for a few years and we die up to a decade earlier than other countries on average.