this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2024

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I'm a US citizen, people in other countries, what do you think when you read stories like these about the US health care system? (www.vox.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

277 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I'd like to know other non-US citizen's opinions on your health care system are when you read a story like this. I know there are worse places in the world to receive health care, and better. What runs through your heads when you have a medical emergency?

A little background on my question:

My son was having trouble breathing after having a cold for a couple of days and we needed to stop and take the time to see if our insurance would be accepted at the closest emergency room so we didn't end up with a huge bill (like 2000$-5000$). This was a pretty involved ~10 minute process of logging into our insurance carrier, and unsuccessfully finding the answer there. Then calling the hospital and having them tell us to look it up by scrolling through some links using the local search tool on their website. This gave me some serious pause, what if it was a real emergency, like the kind where you have no time to call and see if the closest hospital takes your insurance.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

In Australia, it's not too uncommon to hear people have conversations about how fucked the US system is. That's partly a symptom of how intertwined my life is with the topic of medicine and healthcare systems though, I'm sure most people have far fewer discussions about those topics than I do.

Having said that, I have certainly said "Thank God I'm not in the US" and received emphatic agreement in conversations.

I've also had a doctor say "well at least you're not in the US" to me during an appointment, after I expressed some displeasure at how much something was going to cost me - because i wasn't considered a valid demographic for that specific drug to receive the subsidy.

Socialised medicine doesn't mean free medicine, sadly. And our system has been run down by the ruling class attempting to emulate the US version's money-churning machine.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (10 children)

I’m sure they laugh at us, then feel a bit of pity, because most of us aren’t terrible people, but most of us can’t afford good healthcare because we vote for corrupt politicians in 2-party system of basically the same options, except one loves Russia and uses abortions to seduce the religious

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Honestly I just feel really sorry for you. What's even the point in living in the world's wealthiest country if it treats so many of you like shit at your most vulnerable.

What runs through your heads when you have a medical emergency?

whatever first aid I was taught that's relevant to do immediately e.g stop the bleeding
do we need to wait for an ambulance for this or shall we just drive straight to Accident and Emergency
go go go

That's about it followed by some of the usual "oh please let this person be okay". Emergencies are horrific. I can't even imagine having to factor being bankrupted into it.

I'm in New Zealand so the doctor costs money and prescriptions in some places cost $5 each. So there is still a lot of weighing up that the poor do around that kind of care. But as soon as a hospital is involved everything is free. None of that stuff is a factor any more.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

In the US there are videos of people losing limbs in train accidents begging to not have the ambulance called because it's too expensive - and that's before you even get to the hospital. Better hope they take you to one your insurance covers or they might not cover the ER visit

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

@Uranium3006 that's so tragic and awful. I read that the US has a weirdly high death in childbirth rate for a developed country, probably because some of people who really should be giving birth in a hospital can't afford to.

I can't even imagine.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (21 children)

Honestly? I think Americans are by and large bad people for not doing anything about it.

Americans seem to be huge on politics, they talk about all these things. But they do nothing, just just come up with excuses.

Change your voting system, change your laws. The power is in the hands of the voters.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

It's not

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

NGL, I was offended at first but I'm not sure you're wrong.

There's honestly this constant apathy that the vast majority of people take towards politics. Then some of those people are simultaneously apathetic and regular voters. It's kind of like a fan of Ferrari that doesn't really pay attention to Ferrari or its competition; they're just sure their car is the best.

Then there are those that are completely crazy.

Then there are those that actually pay attention.

It's gotten worse the past few years because instead of getting more people that paid attention we've gotten more apathetic but yet somehow passionate Ferrari lovers.

That plus people don't seem to understand Congress is where stuff actually gets done. There's so much hoopla about the president but Congress is where the focus should be. Way too many people have no idea what their reps are doing.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Yea I didn't write it in the politest way but I was going more for directness than anything.

I think knowing the problem is an important starting point.

People got shot at and died for things like the 5 day work week. But now people just think universial healthcare is beyond their abilities. I haven't heard 1 story from America about a universial healthcare protest. Maybe they exist but not to the level of other things.

If it really mattered to the people I think they should do something.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

People have been convinced that their votes don't matter, protests don't matter, etc etc etc

"They're both the same" (in reference to parties) is the extent of most people's political sense.

It's also one of those things where there are enough safety nets and things that for most people it's never really that bad. I don't know anyone personally that's actually lost everything from medical debt. I know it's a possibility and that's scary... I even know some people that are on every aid program out there basically but those programs are paying out the thousands of dollars in monthly medical bills (i.e. in the instances I know the system actually "works" on some level albeit uncomfortably and with a lot of stress).

To put things into context for someone who doesn't live here ... car crashes, cancer, heart attacks, and other rare "inescapable" things like that are all much much more prevalent than crazy medical debt, getting shot, or going homeless.

It's not a dystopia ... most people are living at least decent lives. That's kind of the problem, it's not bad enough for an overwhelming majority of people to actually care.

That leaves some number of people who actually care for the sake of others and some number of people that care for their own sakes to deal with the problems and the propaganda that influences the (mostly) apathetic faction. The people at the bottom of the whole thing are also in the worst possible position to do anything about it because their time and credibility is ultimately judged and scarce when it comes to doing things like going out and convincing people to vote in their favor.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Canada here: Unbelievable. It's so foreign to me to pay for medical care.

And I always post this:

Frame Canada

Wendell Potter spent decades scaring Americans. About Canada. He worked for the health insurance industry, and he knew that if Americans understood Canadian-style health care, they might.... like it. So he helped deploy an industry playbook for protecting the health insurance agency.

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/19/925354134/frame-canada

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