Because most of us can't afford to get ANY care and our doctors never listen, or when they do listen, they aren't allowed to provide care unless it makes someone a bunch of money. They make this all a game with our literal lives as the pawns.
Or when they do listen all they do is treat symptoms instead of understanding or going after the underlying cause.
Because treating the symptom will get you out of the office quicker so their employer can make more money off of an overworked doctor providing subpar care.
20 minute chat with my doctor, that led to effectively nothing. $430. The system is fucked.
Also because our health is already predisposed to being garbage compared to other countries thanks to our obesity crisis. Of course while that should be treated at the source like the UK is doing by e.g. not allowing junk food companies to advertize directly to kids, the healthcare system has a huge role to play in that too.
Need physical therapy? Get fucked. Can't exercise because of a chronic, unhealed injury? Fucked. Mental health disorder keeping you from being active and eating well? Mega fucked. Eating disorder? Fucked. Quality of life destroyed by treatable obesity complications? Fucked. Can't afford a variety of healthy foods because you're trapped in medical debt? Fucked. Need medical intervention for weight loss? Fucked. Have a GI disorder and need to see a dietitian to plan a diet? Fucked.
Treating it at the source is absolutely crucial, but for people already caught in the whirlpool of obesity, privatized healthcare is categorically failing them.
I have reasonable insurance and the reason people "spend more time living with disease" is that the annual cost of not doing that is a couple of thousand.
The minute I hit a doctor for anything other than a cold, I expect it to cost me $1000, and if it turns out to be serious, I expect to spend out-of-pocket maxes, or $3000-5000.
So basically, the cost of 'going to the doctor' needs to be assumed to be at least $3000.
So uh, I don't go for any actual issues unless I'm prepared to spend that much.
This system is fucking stupid and designed to both discourage you from visiting and when you finally break down and go, to empty your pockets.
...but hey, if you can find cooperative doctors, they'll happily refer you to endless specialists and such so you can at least maximize the thousands of dollars you've spent? (This is still stupid.)
So basically, the cost of ‘going to the doctor’ needs to be assumed to be at least $3000.
And that's after you've already paid multiple thousands of dollars per year in premiums (remember: you pay for the whole premium, including the "employer portion" which would've been extra salary if the employer didn't have to pay it on your behalf).
While I agree, I wouldn't expect my salary to grow to include the health insurance costs; that'd totally end up just being rolled into taxes to pay for the/a universal option and not be money I suddenly got paid.
But yes, it's $3000 after the ~$6000 for the insurance, so let's say the cost of being insured with insurance that covers anything at all in the US is, basically, $10,000 a year.
that'd totally end up just being rolled into taxes
That'd partially get rolled into your taxes. Without the need to extract profit -- and even more importantly, without the ridiculous inefficiency of having all the insurance middlemen -- the taxes needed to provide the same quality of service would be vastly cheaper than what we're paying now.
I'm certainly not an economist, a politician, or in healthcare but I'd be surprised if you could actually build a working healthcare system for less than we spend now even if you took out the profit motive.
You need to rebuild rural hospitals, hire more doctors and nurses, build clinics and staff them in underserved (read: poor) areas, and basically spend an awful lot of time and money to fix the broken mess that the insurance companies have caused.
I mean you COULD just change who pays the people and places that exist now, but that's not really.... fixing anything.
Perhaps it's me, but I'd be fine paying what I'm paying similar amounts for an actually funded and working healthcare system, if it covers everyone. Just need to tap into the AMERICA #1 bullshit somehow, and get the uh, poorly informed, on board and do it. Again not a politician or political strategist so that's someone else's problem, but I won't complain about paying for it.
I'd be surprised if you could actually build a working healthcare system for less than we spend now even if you took out the profit motive.
It's so hard that only every other first-world country has managed it.
The USA suffers from historic levels of metabolic syndrome.
Processed foods, industrial engineered foods, sugar, and high levels of insulin... Are the modern plague
Sadly this disease is spreading
We also don't know how to wash our hands properly.
Nobody does, but I'm from Slovenia (practically Balkans), so how should I know.
Somebody (not on Lemmy) once tried to argue with me that the right to see a doctor is slavery of the doctor. It wasn't a straw man argument as much as a stick lying in a field.
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