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What's your "American healthcare" story?

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  • Family had big surgery, had excellent insurance, went to rehab, something went wrong and his bones started coming apart and he reported agonizing pain and popping sounds in his reconstructed bones, and they ignored him and told him it was normal. By the time they realized it was a real issue, his whole anatomy was falling apart and he had to have multiple surgeries all the way across the state to fix it, traveling back and forth while not in great shape, and still isn't okay and probably will not be again. I got in a shouting match with one of the nurses that tried to tell me it was basically his fault.

    Other family member had major abdominal surgery, they sent her home after and only after she collapsed at home and came back did they realize that nothing they'd done the first time had actually addressed what was causing the problem. They did surgery again, this time fixing the actual issue, and then sent her to rehab for a few days and then back home before she could walk again. If I or someone hadn't been around to help her out she probably would have starved to death or something.

    Friend had a fairly minor health condition, had insurance, went to the doctor, insurance refused to pay the claim for basically no reason, wound up with bill collectors chasing her for thousands of dollars after she had paid out-of-pocket to have health insurance. Lawyer said there's not much to do that wouldn't cost more than they wanted to extract from her. Sorry.

    I went to the doctor evading the whole system, just said that I had something wrong with me and wanted it checked by a specialist without waiting six months for a referral and wanted to pay for the visit. They said fine and quoted a price, I said fine. A lab sent me a separate bill for the lab work which the office hadn't told me about, I called the office to ask about it, they said lol good luck.

    There really is no way out, other than not to have health issues.

    • Oh, there's a way out, but we're not allowed to say it. Pray to St. Luigi for guidance...

      • All they'll do is make sure to make even more profits to cover the cost of a bodyguard next time.

        Even if you were right though and it did work, will someone simply move on to the next target? and the next? and the next? Negotiations with such "terrorist" activities (literally: with the design to inspire fear in the minds of the recipient) usually never ends well... b/c even if you mean well, the next person seeing that and following along does not. i.e. where does it end?

        It opens the floodgates to a breakdown of law & order in society. And for the sake of argument let's say that's a good thing: what then? Who is prepared to build back up a new & better one - especially against the onslaught of literal kids making ghost guns and having learned that Might Makes Right, goes around vigilante-justice killing anyone who offended them, e.g. the person who most recently dumped them? (how dare they, don't they know that i'M sUcH a NiCe GuY!?)

        It's short-term thinking at best. Also: I don't see how "healthcare" would result from any of this?

        But you are right: we aren't allowed to say much here, on Discuss.Online. The acronym agencies are watching us right now, and moreover that's just not what this instance is all about - there too, if someone wants to build something "better", like a community where deeper discussions could be had, then someone needs to step up and actually do it. I'd add a link to it in the sidebar fwiw.

      • I don't think shooting executives is actually going to improve the healthcare, though.

        Almost every movement that started randomly assassinating people from among the enemy side in order to reform civil society wound up making things quite a bit worse, in the long run.

        • Yeah, randomly. This isn't random, and needs to go beyond just CEOs. There are entire boards that make these decisions to murder us. Like potato chips, you can't stop with just one. They don't like us murdering them? Then they need to stop murdering us.

          • And then, when the violence turned around on him, with a gang of deputized Proud Boys breaking into his workplace and starting to execute people for being "woke" and ruining the country, he looked around, like "we're all looking for the guy that did this."

            I'm not trying to say this particular CEO didn't deserve it. But also, what the outcome is, is important. Calling for killing as the easy answer is something people do when they're not familiar with killing.

            • People aren't listening. And they're downvoting you so are instead actively anti-listening.

              If people TRULY wanted "discussion" of this matter, that's already possible in communities such as !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !flippanarchy@lemmy.dbzer0.com or so very many others. In fact I made a post in the former community that you may be interested in. It has one comment, that was later removed by its creator.

              I find it odd that the only thing that people want to discuss is the one singular side of this particular issue... almost like they don't really want a "discussion" at all...

              The similarities of the Alt-Left movement to the Alt-Right are positively scaring me right now.

                • When I was a kid, "truth" was easy to find. I taught myself SO MANY different languages even without reading any actual books - the knowledge available on webpages was sufficient (in fairness, those that I learned from real books I have retained much more readily, especially having learned why not simply how things tend to work; also, webpages can provide merely a different form of packaging the identical material).

                  Even now, material such as the Crash Course or Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell YouTube series are still available, and I hear stories such as people in Africa traveling for hundreds of miles to a spot where often there is not even so much as a tarp providing cover from the blazing sun overhead, just 4 poles sticking up from the ground where one could go if/when it becomes available, and the entire class learns from a laptop or tablet screen (possibly with enlarged TV display). If people wanted knowledge, it is there for the taking, or was in the information age (except... it's STILL THERE?!).

                  Now, I am finding it hard to adjust to the disinformation era.

                  Also, some things don't seem to need "learning" to already know - it may be more about stripping away the lies, which again speaks to a willingness to engage. So I get it, but I think it's sad as I watch what will eventually lead to the demise of Lemmy: an unwillingness to grow beyond what is here currently (though projects such as Mbin and PieFed - and perhaps Sublinks? - offer alternative avenues of hope).

                  Well, I actually somehow encouraged myself by typing this? Truth, even when sad, is soothing in a manner that lies will never be.

                  • I think the problem with Lemmy is that there's no consequence for being full of shit.

                    Mastodon goes with your real name, so there's at least a social consequence. But there's not ever any kind of a moment, like there would be in sports or engineering or similar, where your grand ideas meet with reality and you realize you were full of shit and need to go back to the drawing board. It's just based on what everyone feels is a good way to look at things.

                    Of course, that's not exclusive to Lemmy. Lots of American society is in a weird reality-free zone right now.

                    • Yeah, and not just in America but the whole world it seems, if to a lesser degree. The Alt-Right on X, the Alt-Left here, and centrists on Reddit in-between the extremes who believe that everything will magically sort itself out, including things like climate change that very well might not. This was very much done to us though, even as we simultaneously did it to ourselves:-(. Just like Brexit, and so many other scenarios like that, e.g. in the global south.

                      Although years ago when I had a Facebook account - tied to my real name - I acted the same way that I do now (iirc?). I may not be all that representative of the average social media consumer:-P.

                      I like PieFed's idea of making a user have a "reputation" score. Depending on how well it is implemented, that could be really helpful.:-) Or abusive if not.:-(

                      Either way, all we can control is ourselves.

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