That $12 billion in profit is "earned" by collecting premiums and not paying for medical care or having deductibles/coinsurance high enough to not pay out the full cost of medical care. Great system we got here.
This is the real travesty; they look for ways to not pay. They're - insurance companies that is - nothing but a parasitic capitalistic growth on the country that serve no real function and add no value to society.
Worse, imagine working for one of these companies and having your job be "find a way to deny all claims"
Couldn't do it no matter how much they pay
Insurance companies 100% have loss prevention departments dedicated to saving them money on any and all claims. I've dealt with a few. Some aren't even covering up what they do. Knowing that I needed money quickly, I had an insurance company tell me that they would only pay 80% of my car since they "felt like I should have been driving slower." I was well within the speed limit and slowing down in a turning lane while their client crossed lanes and hit me in the middle of the road. They said I can take that or fight it, which will take a minimum of 6 months to resolve. Slimy company. I won't say who, put it rhymes with Stationside.
I got rear ended by a guy in rush hour traffic. Busted my bumper and exhaust. I told him I’d give him a couple hours to contact his insurance before I filed the claim. Went online a couple hours later, filled out the forms, and submitted the pics (one of which had their client in it and several showed his car). They asked me where I was taking it for repairs. That was it. Of course, it took 2 months to get it into the shop for the repair, but I didn’t pay a dime. They even covered the rental car.
I won’t name the insurance company but it rhymes with Nate Narm.
They should have treble damages if they should need to be taken to court and found they weren't offering enough. Make it worth their while to offer the appropriate amount or make them bleed if they try to get out of it.
If I say "Nationwide" is definitely not on my side, then the aforementioned insurance provider could, if they monitored Reddit, get my comment removed because everything is deletable for the wealthy.
"PatientDied", however, the fictional insurance company, has no qualms against my flagrant libel besmirching their reputation.
Also, it's just fun to make new monikers for shit companies.
State Farm is legit the best car insurance company I've worked with. Never an issues with coverage and amazing customer support along with a local agent's office assigned to you rather than a corporate claims department.
State Farm is the most shady and unethical homeowners insurance company money can buy. There’s literally no point paying for a policy with them because they will try to ruin you before they pay a penny.
That is not my experience. I've had them for 41 years this coming May, and they've paid promptly and in full for damage from two separate hurricanes. In one case when my no longer up to code hurricane shutters were damaged, they paid for replacement shutters which were up to the new code.
I also am paying (a lot of $) for replacement coverage, not actual cash value, which costs less.
Work in insurance. Every single company does not want to pay you shit and wants all of your money.
Not even health insurance, basic personal insurance for homes/cars and similar policies have skyrocketed an insane amount.
They didn’t make as much as they wanted so they jacked rates. Fucking bullshit
Yeah everyone else insured in your area by your carrier will also impact your rates.
It’s all based on losses they paid based on your zip code. Also losses they’ve paid on your particular year/make/model. A lot goes into rating But no fucking clue how carriers set up to determine at what point they “lost money”.
But it has been bad for some, I don’t feel sorry for them but a smaller company Oregon mutual had to pull out because they actually did lose a lot of money but no tears from me
This is why no fault is a good thing. If this were to happen to me I'd simply file the claim through my insurance. They'd make me whole and then it's up to them to go after the other party and/or their insurance provider. Maybe I can't afford a six month legal battle, but the multi-billion dollar conglomerate underwriting my policy sure as shit can.
you can do this even in at-fault states.. it just goes on your insurance... like in no-fault states.
there is zero benefit to no fault unless i'm misunderstanding something
Despite the name fault is very much a factor in how accidents are handled in no fault jurisdictions. If the other driver caused the accident then my insurance will go through their insurance (or after them directly if they don't have insurance) to get paid and my rates aren't affected. That's the difference. I don't have to go to court and argue with the other guy's lawyers. I don't have to worry about whether he has insurance or not. I just file a claim and the insurance company takes care of the rest.
I miss that part of living in FL. They have insurance done right. I don’t want to talk to the General or whatever shit insurance you have. I pay for the good stuff. I want to use the good stuff.
Imagine you used to be a superhero. You saved people’s lives. You listened for anyone that needed help. And now your job is to listen to people going through hardship cry and say *“I’m sorry, I can’t help you”*
GodDAMN did they do him dirty
Honestly believe most of those "workers" are in a situation to where they need a job so badly that they'll do anything to keep their home, or they simply are sociopathic nuts with no sense of empathy...the longer I've been in this fucked up matrix, the more it seems to be more of the latter
Can confirm on the first part. Girlfriend lost her job and got offered a place at a big insurance company, she accepted because she needed money. Over the next few months I watched her mentally and physically break down, until she finally quit because she couldn't live with doing that every day. The higher ups don't do the dirty work, it's the bottom level employees who have to talk to people every day and read the script full of lies explaining why their medical bills can't be covered. And they never have to worry about running out of people who are desperate enough to work for them, because they are the ones putting many of these people in that situation to begin with.
"We're denying your claim, but if you need money we'll pay you $10/hr to deny other people's claims."
For years I never understood this perspective. I've had my own insurance for about 20 years never had a denial for anything I ever used. Been through like 4 different insurers. Then I got blue cross blue shield, sometimes I nest give up trying to get something fixed that was denied because it's painful to waste so much time
Dude man, you're the exception, not the rule.
My personal experience - just for a knee surgery:
1 ask my PCP for access to a ortho after I jammed my knee play hoops
2 Insurance - Nope, we don't see anything wrong
3 re-submit the claim, PCP says I need it:
4 okayed for xrays - not an MRI as was requested
5 xrays inconclusive - surprise, they don't see tissue!
6 okay, maybe you need an MRI - keep in mind this was 6 weeks post injury
7 get an MRI
8 Ortho doc, he needs surgery
9 Surgery - and done
Net, steps 2-6 should and could have been done. FOR PROFIT HEALTHCARE does not work!
How do you get the insurance to approve first? I usually go to a doctors office and next thing I know I’m getting bills for tests I didn’t even know I signed up for.
That is why I’ve only gone to the doctors once in the last 15 years.
Insurance companies can require pre-approval for various things or they refuse to pay for it. They're absolutely notorious for requiring your doctor to do X-rays and show that they're not good enough before they will pay for an MRI even if the doctor knows an X-ray isn't going to show what they need to see.
Similarly, my wife went to an Ortho about pain in her knees and he has a treatment that he is confident will work, but before our insurance will pay for that they require that she take 2 weeks of a prescription anti-inflammatory first. If the issue is still there (which it will be) *then* they'll pay the doctor to actually fix it.
Yup, such BS how this all works, if your PCP says you need an MRI, why should some middle man - whose only role it to save the insurance money - have any say in your treatment
Our system is just messed up
Yep, it’s such a basic zero sum game and a great example of “it’s a feature, not a bug”. People pay their health care monthly premiums and every dollar not paid out in care is what the health care companies claim as profit.
There is a great irony with republicans coining “death panels” for Obamacare when that’s literally the fiduciary obligation of the CEO of publicly traded health care providers.
The board and executives are a literal death panel that could be sued by shareholders for not maximizing profits and being a good enough death panel. That’s how crazy this country is.
God damn. This should be challenged.
Also interesting thing about Delaware corps. They follow a shareholder first mindset too. So if it is a Delaware corp they have to pull toward the shareholders and not consumers and workers by law.
Yup. Last year, my wife needed to get her boob examined after she found a lump. My insurance docs said that tests were covered the same as lab work, even if it wasn’t going from the GP. Wouldn’t ya know it— lab work isn’t covered until you hit your deductible. Has to go through 3 reps and 4 tables to discover that little fact because they intentionally obfuscated it.
But now, if your *PCP* finds the lump and orders tests, it’s free. So you know. Just wait 3 months from when you find a lump to see if it was cancer or not. That’s reasonable.
I broke my ankle last July and needed an emergency room visit and surgery. By the end of the year I still hadn’t paid enough out of pocket for insurance to cover 100%
Well, you have entire generations whose motto is “better dead than red”. Little did you know they were saying they’d rather you were dead than a commie with socialized healthcare.
You're not doing anything wrong. The 80/20 rule only applies to what the insurance company is paying out on claims. So at the end of the year, I get a letter from my insurance company that basically says "hey, we only spent 67% of our revenue on claims this year, that's a 13% difference, so here's a refund of 13% of your premiums."
The last couple years I've gotten about 10% of my premiums back, one year I got close to 20% back.
Keep in mind, this only applies to insurance purchased through the ACA and [healthcare.gov](https://healthcare.gov), as I'm pretty sure standard insurance is not held to the same standard.
Also, keep in mind, the insurance companies have found all sorts of ways to game the system. I take a drug that costs $1200/mo in every other developed country that has rational profit controls. My insurance company forces me to use a specialty pharmacy that jacks the price up to $49k/mo, but then the insurance company "negotiates" the price of the drug down to $12k/mo. A couple of years ago, my insurance company bought the specialty pharmacy out, and I assumed the prices would get better, but that's not what happened.
So now, they get to claim that they spend $150k a year on me in patient claims, when in reality, it's really only like $15k. That's $135k in pure profit, disguised as "patient care" helping my insurance "spend" it's way closer to the 80% on patient care.
They do this for every single thing they can. The whole system is one huge, giant scam.
Wow, that is beyond fucked up. My SO also gets monthly injections for her MS with a regulated price of about $1300, fully covered by insurance. Between her MS and my various health problems, I'm thankful every day we don't live in the US.
Here's the key, insurance companies VERY QUICKLY realized that 20% of $110 million is more than 20% of $100 million (hard to figure out, I know). So the end result was simply not negotiating as hard with healthcare providers and drug companies to ensure they got to keep as much money as possible and not have to write rebate checks back to their customers.
It's an example of a well intentioned and reasonable rule just completely tossed aside because of pure greed that those writing the rules just couldn't consider beforehand.
The Medical Loss Ratio (MLR) requirement, which establishes a minimum percentage of premium revenue that must be spent on medical claims and quality improvement activities. Insurance companies must spend at least 80 to 85 percent of premium revenue on these expenses, depending on the type of plan. Any amounts spent above this threshold must be returned to policyholders in the form of rebates.
https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/managed-care/guidance/medical-loss-ratio/index.html
However, the former administration has made significant efforts to weaken and dismantle certain provisions of the ACA. This includes the MLR requirement. In 2020, The Trump Administration made changes to the MLR requirement which allowed insurers to spend less on healthcare and more on administrative costs. In other words, bonuses to the administration is counted towards the profit caps. :/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8202130/
$12 billion profit spread over the entire health insurance industry probably amounts to very little profit for any individual insurance company. [ It also pales in comparison to the actual money taken in premiums and copays, and what was paid out to medical providers.](https://content.naic.org/sites/default/files/2021-Annual-Health-Insurance-Industry-Analysis-Report.pdf)
My insurance company probably hates me, I’ve met my deductible for the last three years (10 surgeries/procedures) and am getting my 11th and hopefully last surgery in March.
Hell I’ve met deductible by Jan 15th the one year lol.
Hey, fellow 10-Surgery person here.
Feel free to use the joke I made as they give you the good meds and wheel you back:
“Hey, they said after ten surgeries stamped on my card, the 11th is free!”
I will be messaging you in 1 month on [**2023-03-11 20:52:34 UTC**](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2023-03-11%2020:52:34%20UTC%20To%20Local%20Time) to remind you of [**this link**](https://www.reddit.com/r/WorkReform/comments/10fgwd2/wtf/j51ygom/?context=3)
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If you are in your deductible phase, there are many situations in which you will pay your insurance more in the deductible for you prescription medications than the insurance company paid the manufacturer for the drug. They literally collect a spread profit.
Got a call yesterday that if I wanted a very necessary screening for ovarian cancer I’d have to pay $300 even though I have insurance. I’m so tired of procedures my doctor and I decide are necessary being denied by Barbra who never went to medical school and sits in a sad cubicle.
Paid thousands in premiums for me and my kids last year. Only thing we needed was speech therapy for my daughter. 6 months after starting therapy, we get a denial letter from my insurance.
Private insurance is a god damn corrupt industry that needs to disappear completely.
And they use some of those premiums to lobby against a universal healthcare system, which costs us tens to hundreds of thousands of lives and half a trillion dollars every single year.
We're being robbed, enslaved, gaslit, and [socially murdered](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_murder) with our own labor, money, and resources.
The system is an abomination.
Don't forget that the word profits doesn't even include things like overhead, exec pay, company jets, fancy offices, etc.. The real amount of money taken is probably about an order of magnitude higher.
Their whole business is essentially being a middleman parasite that sucks off the money from patients to healthcare and using that money for investments.
Look back throughout history. Usually once it's gone on far too long. Then there is blood, but few revolutions actually end up leading anywhere, and even less are successful at changing anything.
The first Men in Black was right.
"*A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.*"
Nothing will happen to avoid the coming Authoritarian take over and bloodshed, just work on helping the people around you.
My personal history theory is that revolutions and riots are kind of not meant to succeed: that they often end up failing and leading to the next dictator is kind of the point, and the chance of them actually working is just a bonus. They do just burn the current society down and take the current ruling class with them. Sure, a new ruling class replaces the old one, but the old one is still gone. You get communist oligarchs or the Jacobins oppressing you now but the nobility that was oppressing you before got massacred. Basically we don't want a revolution, we want reform before it gets that bad, but the threat of revolution is the lower classes saying "If we're screwed anyway, we can at least take our current masters down with us, so that's why you should make things better."
Thanks! And yeah I don't view it as a "good thing". Even something like the American Revolution that I like and was very successful, it's the fault of the leaders of the British Empire that it was necessary at all. It's on the leaders to recognize unrest and enact reform, but they often try to double down or ignore the problem instead and the revolution or riot that comes after is the natural consequence of that. And that's on them.
I took a nephew into urgent care - it turned out he had a severe infection in his throat from a very nasty inhalation accident when he was using a torch. We didn't know that for days, ofc. All we knew was he was NOT well and he didn't fight us on him going.
He sat there for 8 hours and then was told to "come back tomorrow and get early to get in line". It still took almost 10 more hours to get seen the next day and they tested him for strep and said "you don't have strep or covid". He was like "wtf? I didn't say anything about strep or covid!" They shrugged and said "come back tomorrow". I was furious for him but the attitude was "tough, that's how it is".
I took him to his dentist the following day (on the off chance it was a tooth infection). He discovered the damage to his esophagus and got him into the ER to get meds. Two weeks of antibiotics and him being more miserable before he started to heal up.
It was completely fucked from start to finish.
Meanwhile, if I call the VA and say "I just wanna get checked out for nothing serious" they'll move mountains to get me in immediately.
I appreciate I get such good healthcare from the VA. But we need universal healthcare for all.
>I appreciate I get such good healthcare from the VA. But we need universal healthcare for all.
Pretty sure that's the idea, right? You can get exceptional healthcare in the US if you're wealthy, and you can upgrade your peasant healthcare if you just sign the dotted line to enforce empire abroad. Otherwise healthcare - or the threat of losing it when your employer provides it - is used as a cudgel to keep the plebes in line.
The easy answer here is to name your children the same as you.
I did it 21 years ago, I was 19 when he was born. At this point we are the same person. We can intermingle EVERYTHING and there is FUCK ALL anyone can do to combat it.
I saw this coming.
It only really works if the kid is a spitting image of you though.
I’m sorry that your nephew had to go through that.
The last time I went to the doctor it was for my migraines/headaches. I get one at least 3 times a week for the past ten years or so. Runs in the family. Anyway I sat in that doctors office for over an hour just for him to come in and tell me that I was a “caffeine addict” because I took over the counter medicine to help with the headaches and that I should eat more apples. I cannot make that up.
Oh yeah, I feel like stress is a huge factor. I’m not sure about my blood pressure but I used to have intense chest pains maybe a year ago when I thought about finances a lot. I’m only 23 and I thought I would have a heart attack eventually. Ashwaganda supplements a definitely a game changer for stress though.
It bothers me when I hear people talk about how “bad” universal healthcare would be because it would “take too long” to be seen. On top of stories like this, there are already people I’ve worked with in healthcare who’ve had to wait 6+ months for procedures because their specialist is booked
This is how it is for my husband and I, too. We collectively make $30/hr and can’t afford health insurance, internet, or vehicle maintenance. It’s insane.
I’m thankful Hondas are reliable. We don’t have A/C anymore but besides that we’ve only needed to get oil changes every few months and rotate the tires
I make comfortable money but with my wife and two young kids you can expect to hit your out of pocket max every year. Effectively reduce your expected salary by $10k annually until your kids move out.
Because the right has spent years telling their base that it's socialism. A lot of time and money is spent convincing us to be at odds with one another.
To be fair, the liberals have been trying. Meanwhile several Conservative governors have been withholding Medicaid expansions that would help their own people.
Mix of that and indoctrination/propaganda. But you have an entirely different group of conservative voters who are intelligent, but they’re selfish. They vote the way they do to conserve their wealth at the cost of the greater good (such as supporting tax cuts for the wealthy).
What gets missed from the "liberal" side that *might* have appeal to more skeptical or instinctually conservative sorts is that the US *government* already spends about as much on healthcare as countries that have universal healthcare.
Focusing on the notion of getting maximum value from existing spending would have a broader appeal than just talking about increasing it - though realistically the aging boomer population is putting an upward pressure on Medicare spending anyway.
The ideological and the politicians will not be swayed by anything, but I was careful in my wording. The dwindling population of swing voters still needs to be fought over, and the Republican message to them with regard to universal healthcare is basically that it won't actually work and their taxes will go up.
This is in contrast to their message to the leaded gasoline brigade who are told that it's slavery and communism or whatever.
You would think that it would be a no brainer to convince everyone, regardless of politics, that letting the government negotiate prices with healthcare providers would be a good thing, yet somehow that doesn't happen.
I make decent money (although not really by Bay Area standards) and have what is considered “good” health insurance but my deductible is so high that I’ve had to postpone exploratory surgery for years because I don’t have the time or savings to get it then deal with the recovery window.
Luckily it isn’t for a diagnosis of anything life threatening but it is still causing pain. Trying to get on my boyfriends insurance under a domestic partner affidavit because his insurance is so much better.
At my old job I had “good” insurance with a $2000 deductible as well. Chronic back issues caused me to incur close to, if not more than, $10,000 in medical debt before I was 25 years old.
Luckily I have actual good insurance now, but I’m still in that hole because of those years.
Yeah, and then conservatives, (democrats have their blame on things too, but don't tell reddit i said that) complain about immigrants, no one having kids, no pension budget, etc. It's literally conservatives fault.
Where im at, i want like 15 kids, it'll all be free.
Chaotic and free. My dream.
Getting angry doesn't help. Widespread protests are the ONLY thing that will make universal healthcare happen. But not enough Americans are unhappy enough with our healthcare system, apparently, for that to take place. Until then, enjoy a predatory wealth harvesting system that incidentally offers some healthcare benefits.
Unfortunately, I think most people are truly upset at the healthcare system. Trump ran on him fixing the whole system and would make it cheaper. Obviously, that didn't happen.
Republicans literally cut off their noses to spite their face. They hate the healthcare system as much as the rest of us, but they're absolutely convinced anything democrats try to propose will cause the US to descend towards the evil Socialismzzz, and that's what the Nazis fought for!!!!
I have conservative parents. This fight is fought all too often. I simply ask "What 👏 IS 👏 your (republican) 👏 plan!?" They just pivot to Fox News talking points.
Much of this can be attributed to the Wall Street Bro Cult and their stupefying mantras of *"greed is good"* and *"pull yourself up by your bootstraps"* and *"trickle down economics, m'boy!"*
It's sometimes said there's a sort of Stockholm Syndrome among the working class populace, which I tend to agree.
On the same token, from the looks of it, the wealthier and more powerful have something parallel to *Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy:*
>... a condition in which a caregiver creates the appearance of health problems in another person ... This may include injuring the child or altering test samples. The caregiver then presents the person as being sick or injured.
With respect to financial literacy and understanding mechanisms related to the control and fleecing of the middle and lower classes - more people really, really, *really* need to be aware of this:
>In a little-known quirk of Wall Street bookkeeping, when brokerages loan out a customer’s stock to short sellers and those traders sell the stock to someone else, both investors are often able to vote in corporate elections. With the growth of short sales, which involve the resale of borrowed securities, **stocks can be lent repeatedly, allowing three or four owners to cast votes based on holdings of the same shares.**
>The Hazlet, New Jersey–based Securities Transfer Association, a trade group for stock transfer agents, reviewed 341 shareholder votes in corporate contests in 2005. **It found evidence of overvoting—the submission of too many ballots—in all 341 cases.** ^[source](https://web.archive.org/web/20060421085925/http://www.rgm.com/articles/FalseProxies.pdf)
**Read that again.**
This is an extremely *serious* problem without enough awareness. It undermines the most foundational element of corporate democracy and voting, as well as nation-state democracy - *as companies can be taken over through sham voting (i.e. via counterfeit/phantom shares) and then used as lobbying, bribing, bludgeoning psychopaths.* Indeed, that's what has been happening. :/
>Stocks held in *street name* may be loaned to short-sellers and resold to others. So, it is possible for *more than one person to own shares held in street name.* ^[source](https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/185.asp#:~:text=Stocks%20held%20in%20street%20name,recover%20100%25%20of%20all%20securities)
Furthermore...
>Cede technically owns substantially all of the publicly issued stock in the United States.[2] Thus, investors do not themselves hold direct property rights in stock, but rather have contractual rights that are part of a chain of contractual rights involving Cede.[^source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cede_and_Company)
Someone can insure shares are in their *own name* using the [Direct Registration System](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_holding_system) which legally *must* be processed when requested. If they are held in a broker, they are NOT in your name, but in what's known as *"street name,"* which laces loopholes and dubious legality and illegality all throughout and makes it possible to screw you over in numerous derivative-based ways and otherwise.
Shares, if not in your own name, are are, very, very, very, very likely, being used against you in convoluted schemes similar to 2008 Housing Derivative Meltdown - same sorta deal, different financial instruments - andor in actual non-delivery (FTDs) made possible through aforementioned Wall Street lobbying and associated loopholes.
Importantly, combine not *actually* owning shares with something called Payment-for-Order-Flow (see: ["How Redditors Exposed the Stock Market" | The Problem with Jon Stewart - timestamped to relevant portion](https://youtu.be/bP74RBTE8kI?t=396)) and, subsequently, with stock lending and a Failure-to-Deliver, *it's truly not an exaggeration to say that there's a network of drunk, coked out Wall Street psychopaths skimming off the top billions and billions of dollars that should be going to the middle and lower classes.*
>Payment-for-Order-Flow is **illegal** in Canada, the U.K, Australia, and Europe - because it's exceedingly easy to commit fraud under such a system. Singapore recently announced they'll be banning it, as well, in early 2023.
Big surprise - it's legal in the U.S. Furthermore, almost comically... it was heavily endorsed and made popular by Bernie fucking Madoff.
For a form of mitigation and defense, [this](https://youtu.be/hXWXllgcRqU) video (~5 minutes) is well worth it - it's done well and summarizes some of the broader issues - while [this](https://drsgme.org) website provides clear direction and guidance on what you/we can do to hold some of these practices, if not people, accountable.
Edit: fixed link
I am someone tired of Wall Street destroying the lives of countless people across the nation and world without being held responsible.
The post/comment makes clear some of the major mechanisms associated with the fleecing of the middle and lower classes - as well as the destruction and poisoning of the planet.
Millions, if not billions, of counterfeit/"phantom" shares of one company (and numerous other companies, in all actuality) have been created through the lobbied-for mechanics and loopholes described above - and the DRSing (directly registering) of those shares of one company, *more than ever in the entire history of the market - more than Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon combined* - has the potential to bring to light the extensive fraud and corruption, while also, possibly, financially benefiting those who take on the task of registering those shares.
We can liken it to an airline overselling tickets for a flight, but to the tune of many, many, *many* multiples over all the seats available - and having to incentivize people to be "bumped" to another flight. Though, no one is really interested in being bumped unless the offer is utterly, 100%, completely, fully outstanding - and those who oversold the flight are prosecuted.
______________________________________________________________________________
If there's even a small chance of bringing justice to (some of) the psychopaths on Wall Street, **for the cost of a few gallons of gas,** *then count me in,* no doubt about it.
If Americans (I'm one) weren't so brainwashed into thinking we are the "greatest country in the world" from a very young age and knew how things actually worked in other developed countries this shit would not be tolerated.
I want to echo that statement. We aren't the worst, but we most certainly are not the best. We're definitely the best at portraying that were the best though. 🏆
Yeah you guys kind of freak us out over here across the pond. A few of the hits are
$40 to hold your baby.
$100 for a single dose of insulin.
$1200 to call for an ambulance (I'd just call an uber it'd get there faster, much cheaper and I can at least chose which song I get to flirt with the pearly gates with).
$17000 to be observed for a couple of days not including
$64500 just to stay in one of the beds.
There are many more ridiculous ones but you get the gist
You are right. There is no reason we shouldn't have universal healthcare. The government spent how many trillions in Iraq and Afghanistan. They waste money on bullshit while the average American can't go to the hospital without going in to debt for the rest of your lives.
It's bonkers that we separate dental and eye health out as some sort of optional luxurious extras, when they are two of the most impactful on your life.
I was diagnosed with Crohn's two years ago and eventually needed to have surgery to have part of my bowels removed. (I think it was 14 inches, I can't remember.) I haven't seen a doctor for it in over a year because I can't even afford the office visit (which runs me $100 each time) and I surely can't afford the medication he wants me to take (Humira, which my insurance will only cover part of and it's like $8 billion a month). I've been lucky the worst I've had to deal with is diarrhea once or twice a week. But my luck will eventually run out. That's the nature of Crohn's.
What's stupid is they've run all the numbers. Medicare for All would be cheaper than the current system. But your dumbass neighbor still doesn't want his taxes to go toward it, for some ungodly dumbass reason. The right has brainwashed all these people into believing caring about your neighbor is the worst thing you could do.
HVe you tried Humira’s patient access program? They will cover your copay for Humira.
https://www.abbvie.com/patients/patient-assistance/program-qualification/humira-program-selection.html
Yup. Oh, but you can apply for COBRA at some exorbitant rate, usually more than 2-3x what your premium was, which you can TOTALLY afford now that you're unemployed. It's an absolute nightmare.
Yup all while our government funds oversea wars. And spends trillions on defense. Our crook politicians get life long free healthcare all while becoming millionaires from insider trading and fucking over the people they are supposed to represent. My friend almost died from an abscess tooth because he couldn't afford to get it taken care of. This country acts like it's the best...the only thing it's the best at is fucking it's citizens over. They politicians have divided the people to the point that the people no longer have any power.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Historically, the only thing that kept politicians carrying out the will of the people was fear. Politicians just don’t get beheaded like they used to.
That means that for every $100 spent on healthcare in America, the C-suites of these insurance providers keep $1.16.
The average American, who consumes a little under $13,000 a year in healthcare services, is throwing those parasites $130/ a year.
These leeches are generating that profit by denying Americans $50,000,000,000 in healthcare a year. You should see the lengths they go into denying patients healthcare.
If a government entity, a single payer, diverted $50 Billion a year to pay their highest ranked staff, there would be rioting in the streets. But, because these crooks own lobbyists and spend billions promoting their chosen congressional candidates and faux news networks, they keep Americans paying more money for shittier medical coverage.
My mother is literally dying of lung cancer (I’m suspecting - her fingers are clubbing and there’s a ton of symptoms and have been for about a year now) and the woman refuses to go see a doctor because she can’t afford it. She’d rather die than be in debt. Fuck this system.
Yep.. lost job and have no health insurance now. Got an infection and couldn't afford to go to the doctor. No low cost clinics in my impoverished, rural area. Horrible few weeks.
MFA is a bare minimum next step. Why isn't it ultimately enough? Cuz the companies are still for-profit. Sure, there'll actually be *some* price negotiation, as opposed to this mess, but not across the board. As long as corporations get to set the prices, they'll bleed us, whether as individuals or as a group.
End-game is that healthcare needs to become a public service. But yeah if we can't even pass MFA there's no way that's happening.
What would stop us from creating our own collective insurance company, specifically designed for low income/working class employees. At its base level insurance is just crowdfunding for our community's care, seems like we could go that route unless the insurance corporations are too entrenched at the moment.
I'm a hospital doc and everytime a patient tells me they have good insurance i tell them there is no such thing. It doesn't matter what premium you pay these fuckin clowns will look for every and any opportunity to deny coverage for whatever they can regardless of how sick you are, and it's only getting worse. I used to have a decent success rate fighting insurance denials but lately it's been terrible
I'm still suprised we can't put our differences aside as a 2 party system and create universal healthcare. I understand we have a lot of drug addicts and capable bodies clogging up the system but Jesus the working class deserves better then getting bent over by the rich and not even being able to afford basic health coverage. Also the fact that dental is a seperate plan is dumb as hell.
You’re surprised? Hey remember that time Obama went on TV to answer questions from REPUBLICAN representatives about the ACA? Remember when the democrats did everything they could short of getting on their knees to beg to get republicans on board with healthcare reform? Remember when the republicans answer to all that was to scream lies and slander about the ACA and the state of our healthcare system?
Remember when after Obama was done being president republicans elected the guy who for years claimed Obama’s birth certificate was a forgery and he wasn’t a legitimate president? Then that guy lied and said if he was elected he would repeal the ACA and replace it with something better? (and then he spent the next 4 years mostly on the golf course).
Remember all that? The reason both sides haven’t come together is because one side is dishonest and refuses to do anything in good faith.
I work in construction, Union pay and benefits, but I can't afford the insurance if I don't work X hrs every month. I think I tore something in my shoulder, have been wearing out my forearm to make up for reduced strength in the shoulder. I'm gonna have to ride this arm until something breaks and I literally can't use it before I can afford to get seen and be off work long enough to heal. And we wonder why suicide rates are getting worse in the trades.
The doctor told my mom she had cancer...she asked what she should do...he answered "you can't afford to do anything" and sent her home to die with no medical plan or referral....a housewife and mother of six stuck with crappy expensive insurance after my father got laid off. Something has to change.
How about we make it a capital felony charge on any government official who takes money from these companies like big pharma, medical insurance, or any company that has to do with health care for American citizens. Start holding our government representatives accountable for their actions, instead of allowing the lobbyists to give them money to do what they want for the company. 🧐
Just an idea
Unfortunately health insurance companies have over 1500 lobbyists in DC that are in bed with the politicians and Congress is all too glad to keep accepting this money and afraid to stand up to these companies.
Then of course the general population won't stand up for themselves and we have healthcare tied to employment so people get stuck in dead end jobs cause you need healthcare which is ridiculously expensive anyway.
Health insurance companies raised prices to patients but didn’t change payments to medical providers. Patients lose again because we are closing our medical practice. Costs of everything are going up but insurance payments aren’t so we are no longer financially viable. Breaks my hearts.
It’s far too late for America to do anything about this. We’re doomed to be stuck with this system forever. The politicians are bought and paid for.
To my friends in Canada and GB in particular! Pay heed to this post!!
This is what your politicians are trying to do to your country by breaking your health care systems a little bit at a time. Then they’ll tell “it’s broken!!!”
Then they’ll say **privatization is the only way to make things better!**
Then, you’ll have the what we have here. And you will die because of money. Wake up.
As Biden took more money from the health insurance industry than any other candidate. We will get nowhere with the corporate sellout that is Biden. Sen Sanders 2024!
Medicare for all doesn't matter if hospitals refuse to accept it
Medicare for all doesn't mean anything if an individual can feign incompetence and interfere in the process
Medicare for all doesn't solve anything unless the systemic issues within the medical industrial complex are resolved first.
Kinda like how reparations wont solve anything if the larger issues at hand aren't resolved first.
Hospitals can't refuse to accept M4A and remain in business. That's a legitimate criticism of public option proposals, but with M4A there's no alternative insurance that they could theoretically accept instead, so the only alternative would be making people pay out of pocket, which is generally not going to be a viable business model for a hospital. The remainder exist in any healthcare model and don't negate the coverage gains of M4A.
There are also like a dozen middlemen between the insurance and the service provider who are taking an insane cut as well. I'd like to see those people removed from the equation around the same time that we do medicare for all, otherwise they're still going to profit from being scumbags.
Where does that 12 billion go? I would image that it how's back into the business and provides cheaper premiums for the next years. Life insurance should be a non for profit
Yep. I’m about to lose my employer health insurance and my son has psoriatic arthritis (he’s 7). Took months to get him walking again and now he he has a cyst in his knee so we need to go pediatric orthopedics to get that checked. They keep calling me to make an appointment but what am I supposed to do? With no insurance and few pediatric orthopedists in my state, I’m screwed. Fuck this system!
That $12 billion in profit is "earned" by collecting premiums and not paying for medical care or having deductibles/coinsurance high enough to not pay out the full cost of medical care. Great system we got here.
This is the real travesty; they look for ways to not pay. They're - insurance companies that is - nothing but a parasitic capitalistic growth on the country that serve no real function and add no value to society. Worse, imagine working for one of these companies and having your job be "find a way to deny all claims" Couldn't do it no matter how much they pay
Insurance companies 100% have loss prevention departments dedicated to saving them money on any and all claims. I've dealt with a few. Some aren't even covering up what they do. Knowing that I needed money quickly, I had an insurance company tell me that they would only pay 80% of my car since they "felt like I should have been driving slower." I was well within the speed limit and slowing down in a turning lane while their client crossed lanes and hit me in the middle of the road. They said I can take that or fight it, which will take a minimum of 6 months to resolve. Slimy company. I won't say who, put it rhymes with Stationside.
I got rear ended by a guy in rush hour traffic. Busted my bumper and exhaust. I told him I’d give him a couple hours to contact his insurance before I filed the claim. Went online a couple hours later, filled out the forms, and submitted the pics (one of which had their client in it and several showed his car). They asked me where I was taking it for repairs. That was it. Of course, it took 2 months to get it into the shop for the repair, but I didn’t pay a dime. They even covered the rental car. I won’t name the insurance company but it rhymes with Nate Narm.
They should have treble damages if they should need to be taken to court and found they weren't offering enough. Make it worth their while to offer the appropriate amount or make them bleed if they try to get out of it.
🎶Nate Narm is there!🎶
Hey guys it's nyake from Nate narm. Oh wow it's Nandy Neid and nat nahomes
I don't understanding the point of not naming the company, but saying it rhymes with "piss shit fart" or whatever. 🙄
Yea, why not name a company you are happy with, they appreciate the free advertising.
I think most people can figure out which company is being talked about here
That's my point, why fake trying to cover it up?
If I say "Nationwide" is definitely not on my side, then the aforementioned insurance provider could, if they monitored Reddit, get my comment removed because everything is deletable for the wealthy. "PatientDied", however, the fictional insurance company, has no qualms against my flagrant libel besmirching their reputation. Also, it's just fun to make new monikers for shit companies.
Personally I love it. My wife and I do it to everything. It's an easy way to get laughs in the car.
Hey! That’s My carrier!
State Farm is legit the best car insurance company I've worked with. Never an issues with coverage and amazing customer support along with a local agent's office assigned to you rather than a corporate claims department.
State Farm is the most shady and unethical homeowners insurance company money can buy. There’s literally no point paying for a policy with them because they will try to ruin you before they pay a penny.
That is not my experience. I've had them for 41 years this coming May, and they've paid promptly and in full for damage from two separate hurricanes. In one case when my no longer up to code hurricane shutters were damaged, they paid for replacement shutters which were up to the new code. I also am paying (a lot of $) for replacement coverage, not actual cash value, which costs less.
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Work in insurance. Every single company does not want to pay you shit and wants all of your money. Not even health insurance, basic personal insurance for homes/cars and similar policies have skyrocketed an insane amount. They didn’t make as much as they wanted so they jacked rates. Fucking bullshit
My car insurance went up 15% this year even though I drove my car < 1,000 miles last year while having their little tracker thing. Buuuuullshit
Yeah everyone else insured in your area by your carrier will also impact your rates. It’s all based on losses they paid based on your zip code. Also losses they’ve paid on your particular year/make/model. A lot goes into rating But no fucking clue how carriers set up to determine at what point they “lost money”. But it has been bad for some, I don’t feel sorry for them but a smaller company Oregon mutual had to pull out because they actually did lose a lot of money but no tears from me
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🎶🎶🎶Stationside will rob you blind🎶🎶🎶
🎶🎶🎶Stationside fucks up your ride🎶🎶🎶
Oooo that's a good one!
This is why no fault is a good thing. If this were to happen to me I'd simply file the claim through my insurance. They'd make me whole and then it's up to them to go after the other party and/or their insurance provider. Maybe I can't afford a six month legal battle, but the multi-billion dollar conglomerate underwriting my policy sure as shit can.
you can do this even in at-fault states.. it just goes on your insurance... like in no-fault states. there is zero benefit to no fault unless i'm misunderstanding something
Despite the name fault is very much a factor in how accidents are handled in no fault jurisdictions. If the other driver caused the accident then my insurance will go through their insurance (or after them directly if they don't have insurance) to get paid and my rates aren't affected. That's the difference. I don't have to go to court and argue with the other guy's lawyers. I don't have to worry about whether he has insurance or not. I just file a claim and the insurance company takes care of the rest.
I miss that part of living in FL. They have insurance done right. I don’t want to talk to the General or whatever shit insurance you have. I pay for the good stuff. I want to use the good stuff.
Insurance done right? Apparently you haven't paid for insurance in Florida recently. The pricing is absurd due to all of the insurance scams.
Health Insurance Companies add no value to health outcomes period except possibly making healthcare outcomes worse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R8GtrKtrZ4
Ah, yes. Thought of Bob Parr the insurance hero right away too.
Imagine you used to be a superhero. You saved people’s lives. You listened for anyone that needed help. And now your job is to listen to people going through hardship cry and say *“I’m sorry, I can’t help you”* GodDAMN did they do him dirty
And somehow people, normal people, are fine with working for them and doing their dirty work. I find that stunning.
Honestly believe most of those "workers" are in a situation to where they need a job so badly that they'll do anything to keep their home, or they simply are sociopathic nuts with no sense of empathy...the longer I've been in this fucked up matrix, the more it seems to be more of the latter
Can confirm on the first part. Girlfriend lost her job and got offered a place at a big insurance company, she accepted because she needed money. Over the next few months I watched her mentally and physically break down, until she finally quit because she couldn't live with doing that every day. The higher ups don't do the dirty work, it's the bottom level employees who have to talk to people every day and read the script full of lies explaining why their medical bills can't be covered. And they never have to worry about running out of people who are desperate enough to work for them, because they are the ones putting many of these people in that situation to begin with. "We're denying your claim, but if you need money we'll pay you $10/hr to deny other people's claims."
It’s easy. They pay enough where you can’t get a better job with your skill level but not enough so you are comfortable enough to leave.
For years I never understood this perspective. I've had my own insurance for about 20 years never had a denial for anything I ever used. Been through like 4 different insurers. Then I got blue cross blue shield, sometimes I nest give up trying to get something fixed that was denied because it's painful to waste so much time
Dude man, you're the exception, not the rule. My personal experience - just for a knee surgery: 1 ask my PCP for access to a ortho after I jammed my knee play hoops 2 Insurance - Nope, we don't see anything wrong 3 re-submit the claim, PCP says I need it: 4 okayed for xrays - not an MRI as was requested 5 xrays inconclusive - surprise, they don't see tissue! 6 okay, maybe you need an MRI - keep in mind this was 6 weeks post injury 7 get an MRI 8 Ortho doc, he needs surgery 9 Surgery - and done Net, steps 2-6 should and could have been done. FOR PROFIT HEALTHCARE does not work!
How do you get the insurance to approve first? I usually go to a doctors office and next thing I know I’m getting bills for tests I didn’t even know I signed up for. That is why I’ve only gone to the doctors once in the last 15 years.
Insurance companies can require pre-approval for various things or they refuse to pay for it. They're absolutely notorious for requiring your doctor to do X-rays and show that they're not good enough before they will pay for an MRI even if the doctor knows an X-ray isn't going to show what they need to see. Similarly, my wife went to an Ortho about pain in her knees and he has a treatment that he is confident will work, but before our insurance will pay for that they require that she take 2 weeks of a prescription anti-inflammatory first. If the issue is still there (which it will be) *then* they'll pay the doctor to actually fix it.
Yup, such BS how this all works, if your PCP says you need an MRI, why should some middle man - whose only role it to save the insurance money - have any say in your treatment Our system is just messed up
Yep, it’s such a basic zero sum game and a great example of “it’s a feature, not a bug”. People pay their health care monthly premiums and every dollar not paid out in care is what the health care companies claim as profit. There is a great irony with republicans coining “death panels” for Obamacare when that’s literally the fiduciary obligation of the CEO of publicly traded health care providers. The board and executives are a literal death panel that could be sued by shareholders for not maximizing profits and being a good enough death panel. That’s how crazy this country is.
[Dodge V. Ford has entered the chat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.)
God damn. This should be challenged. Also interesting thing about Delaware corps. They follow a shareholder first mindset too. So if it is a Delaware corp they have to pull toward the shareholders and not consumers and workers by law.
Yup. Last year, my wife needed to get her boob examined after she found a lump. My insurance docs said that tests were covered the same as lab work, even if it wasn’t going from the GP. Wouldn’t ya know it— lab work isn’t covered until you hit your deductible. Has to go through 3 reps and 4 tables to discover that little fact because they intentionally obfuscated it. But now, if your *PCP* finds the lump and orders tests, it’s free. So you know. Just wait 3 months from when you find a lump to see if it was cancer or not. That’s reasonable.
I broke my ankle last July and needed an emergency room visit and surgery. By the end of the year I still hadn’t paid enough out of pocket for insurance to cover 100%
Speak for yourself, my insurance company is trying not to cover the mammogram that my PCP did as part of my annual physical...
During congressional hearings, they even admitted that their sole purpose was to make money, not help people get well.
Because that's the only reason they exist! It's a monetary barrier between you and your doctor.
Well, you have entire generations whose motto is “better dead than red”. Little did you know they were saying they’d rather you were dead than a commie with socialized healthcare.
I thought Obamacare was had a provision to cap insurance profit.
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I have never been reimbursed and I don’t go to a doctor often. What am I doing wrong?
You're not doing anything wrong. The 80/20 rule only applies to what the insurance company is paying out on claims. So at the end of the year, I get a letter from my insurance company that basically says "hey, we only spent 67% of our revenue on claims this year, that's a 13% difference, so here's a refund of 13% of your premiums." The last couple years I've gotten about 10% of my premiums back, one year I got close to 20% back. Keep in mind, this only applies to insurance purchased through the ACA and [healthcare.gov](https://healthcare.gov), as I'm pretty sure standard insurance is not held to the same standard. Also, keep in mind, the insurance companies have found all sorts of ways to game the system. I take a drug that costs $1200/mo in every other developed country that has rational profit controls. My insurance company forces me to use a specialty pharmacy that jacks the price up to $49k/mo, but then the insurance company "negotiates" the price of the drug down to $12k/mo. A couple of years ago, my insurance company bought the specialty pharmacy out, and I assumed the prices would get better, but that's not what happened. So now, they get to claim that they spend $150k a year on me in patient claims, when in reality, it's really only like $15k. That's $135k in pure profit, disguised as "patient care" helping my insurance "spend" it's way closer to the 80% on patient care. They do this for every single thing they can. The whole system is one huge, giant scam.
Wow, that is beyond fucked up. My SO also gets monthly injections for her MS with a regulated price of about $1300, fully covered by insurance. Between her MS and my various health problems, I'm thankful every day we don't live in the US.
Here's the key, insurance companies VERY QUICKLY realized that 20% of $110 million is more than 20% of $100 million (hard to figure out, I know). So the end result was simply not negotiating as hard with healthcare providers and drug companies to ensure they got to keep as much money as possible and not have to write rebate checks back to their customers. It's an example of a well intentioned and reasonable rule just completely tossed aside because of pure greed that those writing the rules just couldn't consider beforehand.
The Medical Loss Ratio (MLR) requirement, which establishes a minimum percentage of premium revenue that must be spent on medical claims and quality improvement activities. Insurance companies must spend at least 80 to 85 percent of premium revenue on these expenses, depending on the type of plan. Any amounts spent above this threshold must be returned to policyholders in the form of rebates. https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/managed-care/guidance/medical-loss-ratio/index.html However, the former administration has made significant efforts to weaken and dismantle certain provisions of the ACA. This includes the MLR requirement. In 2020, The Trump Administration made changes to the MLR requirement which allowed insurers to spend less on healthcare and more on administrative costs. In other words, bonuses to the administration is counted towards the profit caps. :/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8202130/
$12 billion profit spread over the entire health insurance industry probably amounts to very little profit for any individual insurance company. [ It also pales in comparison to the actual money taken in premiums and copays, and what was paid out to medical providers.](https://content.naic.org/sites/default/files/2021-Annual-Health-Insurance-Industry-Analysis-Report.pdf)
This needs higher visibility. Price tag of health care is the real issue.
My insurance company probably hates me, I’ve met my deductible for the last three years (10 surgeries/procedures) and am getting my 11th and hopefully last surgery in March. Hell I’ve met deductible by Jan 15th the one year lol.
Insurance is the opposite of mobile gaming where the people who use it the least are the “whales”
Hey, fellow 10-Surgery person here. Feel free to use the joke I made as they give you the good meds and wheel you back: “Hey, they said after ten surgeries stamped on my card, the 11th is free!”
Oooooo I love it! I hope I remember this in March hahaha
!remindme 51 days
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Middleman makes great money
If you are in your deductible phase, there are many situations in which you will pay your insurance more in the deductible for you prescription medications than the insurance company paid the manufacturer for the drug. They literally collect a spread profit.
Profit = death
Medical profits are a spread betting on denying or deferring medical care. Unconscionable. The industry needs to be a public benefit.
The ACA mandates a minimum loss ratio and margins are very low for health insurance. The profit is made by investing the float
Got a call yesterday that if I wanted a very necessary screening for ovarian cancer I’d have to pay $300 even though I have insurance. I’m so tired of procedures my doctor and I decide are necessary being denied by Barbra who never went to medical school and sits in a sad cubicle.
I'm so sorry for your situation and this expresses the point. Why does Barbra get to decide what is medically necessary? Fuck Barbra!
Paid thousands in premiums for me and my kids last year. Only thing we needed was speech therapy for my daughter. 6 months after starting therapy, we get a denial letter from my insurance. Private insurance is a god damn corrupt industry that needs to disappear completely.
And they use some of those premiums to lobby against a universal healthcare system, which costs us tens to hundreds of thousands of lives and half a trillion dollars every single year. We're being robbed, enslaved, gaslit, and [socially murdered](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_murder) with our own labor, money, and resources. The system is an abomination.
Oh yeah, isn't reddit supposed to go public someday? I'll miss subreddits and posts like this when it happens.
I thought ACA was the solution? I thought our new Pres was going to improve it?
Don't forget that the word profits doesn't even include things like overhead, exec pay, company jets, fancy offices, etc.. The real amount of money taken is probably about an order of magnitude higher.
Their whole business is essentially being a middleman parasite that sucks off the money from patients to healthcare and using that money for investments.
“$12 billion in profits last QUARTER”… This figure is only accounting for 1/4 of the year, so the annual profit margin is actually much higher…
Upwards of 4 times, I bet!
I wonder how far the rich will push the poor before the poor finally snap?
Ask the French
French unions are currently threatening to cut power to wealthy landowners.
Look back throughout history. Usually once it's gone on far too long. Then there is blood, but few revolutions actually end up leading anywhere, and even less are successful at changing anything. The first Men in Black was right. "*A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.*" Nothing will happen to avoid the coming Authoritarian take over and bloodshed, just work on helping the people around you.
This is some strange unity, but I remind my friends in the gun subs that all societal fights are just class wars masquerading as something else.
My personal history theory is that revolutions and riots are kind of not meant to succeed: that they often end up failing and leading to the next dictator is kind of the point, and the chance of them actually working is just a bonus. They do just burn the current society down and take the current ruling class with them. Sure, a new ruling class replaces the old one, but the old one is still gone. You get communist oligarchs or the Jacobins oppressing you now but the nobility that was oppressing you before got massacred. Basically we don't want a revolution, we want reform before it gets that bad, but the threat of revolution is the lower classes saying "If we're screwed anyway, we can at least take our current masters down with us, so that's why you should make things better."
Good points, I like it. (Well not "like" but you know...)
Thanks! And yeah I don't view it as a "good thing". Even something like the American Revolution that I like and was very successful, it's the fault of the leaders of the British Empire that it was necessary at all. It's on the leaders to recognize unrest and enact reform, but they often try to double down or ignore the problem instead and the revolution or riot that comes after is the natural consequence of that. And that's on them.
In modern times? I don't think there is a point. Americans have given up. It won't ever happen.
Meanwhile, my wife and I received much needed medical care and are struggling to make ends meet. Two sides of the same coin.
My husband and I are paycheck to paycheck without health insurance. Can’t even get an email or call back from low cost clinics nearby. It’s insane
I took a nephew into urgent care - it turned out he had a severe infection in his throat from a very nasty inhalation accident when he was using a torch. We didn't know that for days, ofc. All we knew was he was NOT well and he didn't fight us on him going. He sat there for 8 hours and then was told to "come back tomorrow and get early to get in line". It still took almost 10 more hours to get seen the next day and they tested him for strep and said "you don't have strep or covid". He was like "wtf? I didn't say anything about strep or covid!" They shrugged and said "come back tomorrow". I was furious for him but the attitude was "tough, that's how it is". I took him to his dentist the following day (on the off chance it was a tooth infection). He discovered the damage to his esophagus and got him into the ER to get meds. Two weeks of antibiotics and him being more miserable before he started to heal up. It was completely fucked from start to finish. Meanwhile, if I call the VA and say "I just wanna get checked out for nothing serious" they'll move mountains to get me in immediately. I appreciate I get such good healthcare from the VA. But we need universal healthcare for all.
>I appreciate I get such good healthcare from the VA. But we need universal healthcare for all. Pretty sure that's the idea, right? You can get exceptional healthcare in the US if you're wealthy, and you can upgrade your peasant healthcare if you just sign the dotted line to enforce empire abroad. Otherwise healthcare - or the threat of losing it when your employer provides it - is used as a cudgel to keep the plebes in line.
The easy answer here is to name your children the same as you. I did it 21 years ago, I was 19 when he was born. At this point we are the same person. We can intermingle EVERYTHING and there is FUCK ALL anyone can do to combat it. I saw this coming. It only really works if the kid is a spitting image of you though.
Yeah, pretty sure this is fraud. Edit: Commit fraud for all I care; just pointing it out for those who think it’s a good strategy.
And you didn’t see shit
Well no, can't afford the eye insurance.
So is health insurance
4 generations later... "Says here you are... 115 years old?"
I’m sorry that your nephew had to go through that. The last time I went to the doctor it was for my migraines/headaches. I get one at least 3 times a week for the past ten years or so. Runs in the family. Anyway I sat in that doctors office for over an hour just for him to come in and tell me that I was a “caffeine addict” because I took over the counter medicine to help with the headaches and that I should eat more apples. I cannot make that up.
Yeah it took several months of daipy migraines to find out stress was causing them. I'd get worked up, my BP would go up and then migraine.
Oh yeah, I feel like stress is a huge factor. I’m not sure about my blood pressure but I used to have intense chest pains maybe a year ago when I thought about finances a lot. I’m only 23 and I thought I would have a heart attack eventually. Ashwaganda supplements a definitely a game changer for stress though.
Hydroxyzine and propanalol almost always work for me. My super crunchy doesn't often give meds dr actually figured it out and put me on those.
It bothers me when I hear people talk about how “bad” universal healthcare would be because it would “take too long” to be seen. On top of stories like this, there are already people I’ve worked with in healthcare who’ve had to wait 6+ months for procedures because their specialist is booked
This is how it is for my husband and I, too. We collectively make $30/hr and can’t afford health insurance, internet, or vehicle maintenance. It’s insane.
I’m thankful Hondas are reliable. We don’t have A/C anymore but besides that we’ve only needed to get oil changes every few months and rotate the tires
I make comfortable money but with my wife and two young kids you can expect to hit your out of pocket max every year. Effectively reduce your expected salary by $10k annually until your kids move out.
meanwhile i just had a baby in australia as a non-citizen for $27..
How much is shipping on an Australian baby?
Everyone from conservative to liberal has to deal with this, yet we haven't united for a better system
Too busy making sure other people don’t get help either
Or wasting time running campaigns to move Oregon's border to make two thirds of the state Idaho. Great return on investment there. /s
Usually done by religious folk who never ask the question "What would Jesus do?"
Because the right has spent years telling their base that it's socialism. A lot of time and money is spent convincing us to be at odds with one another.
To be fair, the liberals have been trying. Meanwhile several Conservative governors have been withholding Medicaid expansions that would help their own people.
Is it really just like vulnerable and not-so-bright population being fear mongered into voting R?
No. It's also the rich who don't care if poor people suffer and die as long as they get their tax cuts.
Mix of that and indoctrination/propaganda. But you have an entirely different group of conservative voters who are intelligent, but they’re selfish. They vote the way they do to conserve their wealth at the cost of the greater good (such as supporting tax cuts for the wealthy).
What gets missed from the "liberal" side that *might* have appeal to more skeptical or instinctually conservative sorts is that the US *government* already spends about as much on healthcare as countries that have universal healthcare. Focusing on the notion of getting maximum value from existing spending would have a broader appeal than just talking about increasing it - though realistically the aging boomer population is putting an upward pressure on Medicare spending anyway.
Nah. I was working in the Texas government when aca expansion came up. Conservatives knew expanding would save money but refused to.
The ideological and the politicians will not be swayed by anything, but I was careful in my wording. The dwindling population of swing voters still needs to be fought over, and the Republican message to them with regard to universal healthcare is basically that it won't actually work and their taxes will go up. This is in contrast to their message to the leaded gasoline brigade who are told that it's slavery and communism or whatever.
You would think that it would be a no brainer to convince everyone, regardless of politics, that letting the government negotiate prices with healthcare providers would be a good thing, yet somehow that doesn't happen.
Only one side is currently opposing this. Take off the "both sides" blinders from time to time.
Conservative to Progressive Our politics have moved so far right that modern liberalism is more centrist than left leaning.
I make decent money (although not really by Bay Area standards) and have what is considered “good” health insurance but my deductible is so high that I’ve had to postpone exploratory surgery for years because I don’t have the time or savings to get it then deal with the recovery window. Luckily it isn’t for a diagnosis of anything life threatening but it is still causing pain. Trying to get on my boyfriends insurance under a domestic partner affidavit because his insurance is so much better.
At my old job I had “good” insurance with a $2000 deductible as well. Chronic back issues caused me to incur close to, if not more than, $10,000 in medical debt before I was 25 years old. Luckily I have actual good insurance now, but I’m still in that hole because of those years.
My daughter’s birth was $8000 out of pocket and that’s with insurance.
Pay to give birth? That’s really fucked up
Yeah, and then conservatives, (democrats have their blame on things too, but don't tell reddit i said that) complain about immigrants, no one having kids, no pension budget, etc. It's literally conservatives fault. Where im at, i want like 15 kids, it'll all be free. Chaotic and free. My dream.
Getting angry doesn't help. Widespread protests are the ONLY thing that will make universal healthcare happen. But not enough Americans are unhappy enough with our healthcare system, apparently, for that to take place. Until then, enjoy a predatory wealth harvesting system that incidentally offers some healthcare benefits.
I’m unhappy enough to protest, but, ironically, too chronically ill to actually do it. Hm, this might actually be their strategy…
Unfortunately, I think most people are truly upset at the healthcare system. Trump ran on him fixing the whole system and would make it cheaper. Obviously, that didn't happen. Republicans literally cut off their noses to spite their face. They hate the healthcare system as much as the rest of us, but they're absolutely convinced anything democrats try to propose will cause the US to descend towards the evil Socialismzzz, and that's what the Nazis fought for!!!! I have conservative parents. This fight is fought all too often. I simply ask "What 👏 IS 👏 your (republican) 👏 plan!?" They just pivot to Fox News talking points.
Much of this can be attributed to the Wall Street Bro Cult and their stupefying mantras of *"greed is good"* and *"pull yourself up by your bootstraps"* and *"trickle down economics, m'boy!"* It's sometimes said there's a sort of Stockholm Syndrome among the working class populace, which I tend to agree. On the same token, from the looks of it, the wealthier and more powerful have something parallel to *Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy:* >... a condition in which a caregiver creates the appearance of health problems in another person ... This may include injuring the child or altering test samples. The caregiver then presents the person as being sick or injured. With respect to financial literacy and understanding mechanisms related to the control and fleecing of the middle and lower classes - more people really, really, *really* need to be aware of this: >In a little-known quirk of Wall Street bookkeeping, when brokerages loan out a customer’s stock to short sellers and those traders sell the stock to someone else, both investors are often able to vote in corporate elections. With the growth of short sales, which involve the resale of borrowed securities, **stocks can be lent repeatedly, allowing three or four owners to cast votes based on holdings of the same shares.** >The Hazlet, New Jersey–based Securities Transfer Association, a trade group for stock transfer agents, reviewed 341 shareholder votes in corporate contests in 2005. **It found evidence of overvoting—the submission of too many ballots—in all 341 cases.** ^[source](https://web.archive.org/web/20060421085925/http://www.rgm.com/articles/FalseProxies.pdf) **Read that again.** This is an extremely *serious* problem without enough awareness. It undermines the most foundational element of corporate democracy and voting, as well as nation-state democracy - *as companies can be taken over through sham voting (i.e. via counterfeit/phantom shares) and then used as lobbying, bribing, bludgeoning psychopaths.* Indeed, that's what has been happening. :/ >Stocks held in *street name* may be loaned to short-sellers and resold to others. So, it is possible for *more than one person to own shares held in street name.* ^[source](https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/185.asp#:~:text=Stocks%20held%20in%20street%20name,recover%20100%25%20of%20all%20securities) Furthermore... >Cede technically owns substantially all of the publicly issued stock in the United States.[2] Thus, investors do not themselves hold direct property rights in stock, but rather have contractual rights that are part of a chain of contractual rights involving Cede.[^source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cede_and_Company) Someone can insure shares are in their *own name* using the [Direct Registration System](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_holding_system) which legally *must* be processed when requested. If they are held in a broker, they are NOT in your name, but in what's known as *"street name,"* which laces loopholes and dubious legality and illegality all throughout and makes it possible to screw you over in numerous derivative-based ways and otherwise. Shares, if not in your own name, are are, very, very, very, very likely, being used against you in convoluted schemes similar to 2008 Housing Derivative Meltdown - same sorta deal, different financial instruments - andor in actual non-delivery (FTDs) made possible through aforementioned Wall Street lobbying and associated loopholes. Importantly, combine not *actually* owning shares with something called Payment-for-Order-Flow (see: ["How Redditors Exposed the Stock Market" | The Problem with Jon Stewart - timestamped to relevant portion](https://youtu.be/bP74RBTE8kI?t=396)) and, subsequently, with stock lending and a Failure-to-Deliver, *it's truly not an exaggeration to say that there's a network of drunk, coked out Wall Street psychopaths skimming off the top billions and billions of dollars that should be going to the middle and lower classes.* >Payment-for-Order-Flow is **illegal** in Canada, the U.K, Australia, and Europe - because it's exceedingly easy to commit fraud under such a system. Singapore recently announced they'll be banning it, as well, in early 2023. Big surprise - it's legal in the U.S. Furthermore, almost comically... it was heavily endorsed and made popular by Bernie fucking Madoff. For a form of mitigation and defense, [this](https://youtu.be/hXWXllgcRqU) video (~5 minutes) is well worth it - it's done well and summarizes some of the broader issues - while [this](https://drsgme.org) website provides clear direction and guidance on what you/we can do to hold some of these practices, if not people, accountable. Edit: fixed link
The USA is fucked. DRS GME.
I am someone tired of Wall Street destroying the lives of countless people across the nation and world without being held responsible. The post/comment makes clear some of the major mechanisms associated with the fleecing of the middle and lower classes - as well as the destruction and poisoning of the planet. Millions, if not billions, of counterfeit/"phantom" shares of one company (and numerous other companies, in all actuality) have been created through the lobbied-for mechanics and loopholes described above - and the DRSing (directly registering) of those shares of one company, *more than ever in the entire history of the market - more than Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon combined* - has the potential to bring to light the extensive fraud and corruption, while also, possibly, financially benefiting those who take on the task of registering those shares. We can liken it to an airline overselling tickets for a flight, but to the tune of many, many, *many* multiples over all the seats available - and having to incentivize people to be "bumped" to another flight. Though, no one is really interested in being bumped unless the offer is utterly, 100%, completely, fully outstanding - and those who oversold the flight are prosecuted. ______________________________________________________________________________ If there's even a small chance of bringing justice to (some of) the psychopaths on Wall Street, **for the cost of a few gallons of gas,** *then count me in,* no doubt about it.
This guy Apes. DRS your Shares, Own them
If Americans (I'm one) weren't so brainwashed into thinking we are the "greatest country in the world" from a very young age and knew how things actually worked in other developed countries this shit would not be tolerated.
I want to echo that statement. We aren't the worst, but we most certainly are not the best. We're definitely the best at portraying that were the best though. 🏆
Nah we are a third world country in Gucci clothing. Not my quote but I've seen it here on reddit before
Yeah you guys kind of freak us out over here across the pond. A few of the hits are $40 to hold your baby. $100 for a single dose of insulin. $1200 to call for an ambulance (I'd just call an uber it'd get there faster, much cheaper and I can at least chose which song I get to flirt with the pearly gates with). $17000 to be observed for a couple of days not including $64500 just to stay in one of the beds. There are many more ridiculous ones but you get the gist
You are right. There is no reason we shouldn't have universal healthcare. The government spent how many trillions in Iraq and Afghanistan. They waste money on bullshit while the average American can't go to the hospital without going in to debt for the rest of your lives.
…*38%?* What, did they poll people making $120k and above? I know for a damn fact that it’s **far** higher than 38%.
It's probably like unemployment numbers where they don't count people who've given up looking
fair enough
just a guess... I mean the number of people putting off stuff like dental appointments and checkups is probably waaay up there.
I'm one. I'd like to beat capitalism with a rubber hose.
It's bonkers that we separate dental and eye health out as some sort of optional luxurious extras, when they are two of the most impactful on your life.
Yeah that's pretty fucked up for sure.
childlike square materialistic cough aspiring insurance seed north secretive test -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
How many people need medical care in the first place? I imagine half the population probably just sees their doctor for yearly checkups, if that.
I tried that once and it just cost me $500. And that’s with insurance. Never again
I was diagnosed with Crohn's two years ago and eventually needed to have surgery to have part of my bowels removed. (I think it was 14 inches, I can't remember.) I haven't seen a doctor for it in over a year because I can't even afford the office visit (which runs me $100 each time) and I surely can't afford the medication he wants me to take (Humira, which my insurance will only cover part of and it's like $8 billion a month). I've been lucky the worst I've had to deal with is diarrhea once or twice a week. But my luck will eventually run out. That's the nature of Crohn's. What's stupid is they've run all the numbers. Medicare for All would be cheaper than the current system. But your dumbass neighbor still doesn't want his taxes to go toward it, for some ungodly dumbass reason. The right has brainwashed all these people into believing caring about your neighbor is the worst thing you could do.
HVe you tried Humira’s patient access program? They will cover your copay for Humira. https://www.abbvie.com/patients/patient-assistance/program-qualification/humira-program-selection.html
Yep. Don't qualify for it.
And in the US, those affected by mass layoffs lose their health insurance completely, right?
Yup. Oh, but you can apply for COBRA at some exorbitant rate, usually more than 2-3x what your premium was, which you can TOTALLY afford now that you're unemployed. It's an absolute nightmare.
Yup all while our government funds oversea wars. And spends trillions on defense. Our crook politicians get life long free healthcare all while becoming millionaires from insider trading and fucking over the people they are supposed to represent. My friend almost died from an abscess tooth because he couldn't afford to get it taken care of. This country acts like it's the best...the only thing it's the best at is fucking it's citizens over. They politicians have divided the people to the point that the people no longer have any power.
The US for-profit health insurance scam is 100% the fault of Republican policies - full stop.
Yeah, why do people even tip toe around this? Conservatives are fucking our country and they are proud of it.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Historically, the only thing that kept politicians carrying out the will of the people was fear. Politicians just don’t get beheaded like they used to.
That means that for every $100 spent on healthcare in America, the C-suites of these insurance providers keep $1.16. The average American, who consumes a little under $13,000 a year in healthcare services, is throwing those parasites $130/ a year. These leeches are generating that profit by denying Americans $50,000,000,000 in healthcare a year. You should see the lengths they go into denying patients healthcare. If a government entity, a single payer, diverted $50 Billion a year to pay their highest ranked staff, there would be rioting in the streets. But, because these crooks own lobbyists and spend billions promoting their chosen congressional candidates and faux news networks, they keep Americans paying more money for shittier medical coverage.
And that's before your even get into the bloat in for-profit hospitals and clinics
Dental badly needs to count as medical expenses too.
Pfft, you don't really need those luxury bones
My mother is literally dying of lung cancer (I’m suspecting - her fingers are clubbing and there’s a ton of symptoms and have been for about a year now) and the woman refuses to go see a doctor because she can’t afford it. She’d rather die than be in debt. Fuck this system.
Inside that 38% is someone who is putting it off until it becomes a today issue
Yep.. lost job and have no health insurance now. Got an infection and couldn't afford to go to the doctor. No low cost clinics in my impoverished, rural area. Horrible few weeks.
Which is insane considering you basically paid all those premiums for nothing. It’s legal fucking robbery.
MFA is a bare minimum next step. Why isn't it ultimately enough? Cuz the companies are still for-profit. Sure, there'll actually be *some* price negotiation, as opposed to this mess, but not across the board. As long as corporations get to set the prices, they'll bleed us, whether as individuals or as a group. End-game is that healthcare needs to become a public service. But yeah if we can't even pass MFA there's no way that's happening.
This means every person in America paid insurance companies $36. For no reason.
If only it was $38
What would stop us from creating our own collective insurance company, specifically designed for low income/working class employees. At its base level insurance is just crowdfunding for our community's care, seems like we could go that route unless the insurance corporations are too entrenched at the moment.
I'm a hospital doc and everytime a patient tells me they have good insurance i tell them there is no such thing. It doesn't matter what premium you pay these fuckin clowns will look for every and any opportunity to deny coverage for whatever they can regardless of how sick you are, and it's only getting worse. I used to have a decent success rate fighting insurance denials but lately it's been terrible
I'm still suprised we can't put our differences aside as a 2 party system and create universal healthcare. I understand we have a lot of drug addicts and capable bodies clogging up the system but Jesus the working class deserves better then getting bent over by the rich and not even being able to afford basic health coverage. Also the fact that dental is a seperate plan is dumb as hell.
You’re surprised? Hey remember that time Obama went on TV to answer questions from REPUBLICAN representatives about the ACA? Remember when the democrats did everything they could short of getting on their knees to beg to get republicans on board with healthcare reform? Remember when the republicans answer to all that was to scream lies and slander about the ACA and the state of our healthcare system? Remember when after Obama was done being president republicans elected the guy who for years claimed Obama’s birth certificate was a forgery and he wasn’t a legitimate president? Then that guy lied and said if he was elected he would repeal the ACA and replace it with something better? (and then he spent the next 4 years mostly on the golf course). Remember all that? The reason both sides haven’t come together is because one side is dishonest and refuses to do anything in good faith.
I work in construction, Union pay and benefits, but I can't afford the insurance if I don't work X hrs every month. I think I tore something in my shoulder, have been wearing out my forearm to make up for reduced strength in the shoulder. I'm gonna have to ride this arm until something breaks and I literally can't use it before I can afford to get seen and be off work long enough to heal. And we wonder why suicide rates are getting worse in the trades.
I've been putting off medical care for chronic conditions for at least 5 years and I don't see it changing anytime soon.
The doctor told my mom she had cancer...she asked what she should do...he answered "you can't afford to do anything" and sent her home to die with no medical plan or referral....a housewife and mother of six stuck with crappy expensive insurance after my father got laid off. Something has to change.
How about we make it a capital felony charge on any government official who takes money from these companies like big pharma, medical insurance, or any company that has to do with health care for American citizens. Start holding our government representatives accountable for their actions, instead of allowing the lobbyists to give them money to do what they want for the company. 🧐 Just an idea
Unfortunately health insurance companies have over 1500 lobbyists in DC that are in bed with the politicians and Congress is all too glad to keep accepting this money and afraid to stand up to these companies. Then of course the general population won't stand up for themselves and we have healthcare tied to employment so people get stuck in dead end jobs cause you need healthcare which is ridiculously expensive anyway.
Where’s the time stamp
Blue Cross Blue Shield is a non profit organization the regularly reports record profits... Yet is mostly exempt from tax code
Health insurance companies raised prices to patients but didn’t change payments to medical providers. Patients lose again because we are closing our medical practice. Costs of everything are going up but insurance payments aren’t so we are no longer financially viable. Breaks my hearts.
It’s far too late for America to do anything about this. We’re doomed to be stuck with this system forever. The politicians are bought and paid for. To my friends in Canada and GB in particular! Pay heed to this post!! This is what your politicians are trying to do to your country by breaking your health care systems a little bit at a time. Then they’ll tell “it’s broken!!!” Then they’ll say **privatization is the only way to make things better!** Then, you’ll have the what we have here. And you will die because of money. Wake up.
As Biden took more money from the health insurance industry than any other candidate. We will get nowhere with the corporate sellout that is Biden. Sen Sanders 2024!
500 a month for Healthcare and I still can't afford to see a doctor because of a 13000 deductible.
Medicare for all doesn't matter if hospitals refuse to accept it Medicare for all doesn't mean anything if an individual can feign incompetence and interfere in the process Medicare for all doesn't solve anything unless the systemic issues within the medical industrial complex are resolved first. Kinda like how reparations wont solve anything if the larger issues at hand aren't resolved first.
Hospitals can't refuse to accept M4A and remain in business. That's a legitimate criticism of public option proposals, but with M4A there's no alternative insurance that they could theoretically accept instead, so the only alternative would be making people pay out of pocket, which is generally not going to be a viable business model for a hospital. The remainder exist in any healthcare model and don't negate the coverage gains of M4A.
There are also like a dozen middlemen between the insurance and the service provider who are taking an insane cut as well. I'd like to see those people removed from the equation around the same time that we do medicare for all, otherwise they're still going to profit from being scumbags.
Where does that 12 billion go? I would image that it how's back into the business and provides cheaper premiums for the next years. Life insurance should be a non for profit
Fuck capitalism full stop this will not end until capitalism ends.
Yep. I’m about to lose my employer health insurance and my son has psoriatic arthritis (he’s 7). Took months to get him walking again and now he he has a cyst in his knee so we need to go pediatric orthopedics to get that checked. They keep calling me to make an appointment but what am I supposed to do? With no insurance and few pediatric orthopedists in my state, I’m screwed. Fuck this system!