It absolutely amazes me that in America u have to pay for medical care. Bloody ridiculous

Its paid for by the citizens of every country. In socialist countries you let the government take a slice first and then they ration your medical care.

@redredred Oh jeez you dumb Republican. I could give a ten page speech in reply to this, and I’m going to have to hold myself back from doing that. Here goes:

Because we’re [i]all[/i] better off when we give a shit about our fellow human beings. You think you would be happy if the government didn’t tax? So everyone could just make an unlimited amount of money? You think people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are billions of times happier than commoners like me? Studies have shown that when it comes to wealth, the law of diminishing returns applies. Yes, people who can meet their [i]basic[/i] needs are much happier than people who can’t. After that, money and things don’t do much for your mid to long term happiness. Money only helps to the extent that it allows you to spend time having fun with friends and family, especially friends and family you don’t see often. So allowing the super rich to continue accumulating more and more wealth isn’t making them any happier, so what good is it doing anybody? Especially given that its people think of it as a first world country, it’s entirely unconscionable that the US is home to people as rich as Bill Gates and also millions of people who can’t afford shelter, healthcare, and three meals a day.

The other major misconception you seem to be so sure to be true is that you are in complete control, presumably by your hard work and your intellect, of how much money you have at any given time. There’s at least one more major factor that you don’t seem to consider: dumb luck. Right now you’re young and strong and healthy and probably relatively lucky, so it’s easy as fuck for you to advocate caring about no one but yourself. But it’s not always going to be that way. Either your luck will hold up and you’ll grow old and feeble and sickly and won’t be able to care for yourself anymore, or it won’t hold up and you’ll die suddenly or your wealth will vanish. I feel pretty safe in assuming none of the following wealth-gobbling catastrophes have happened to you: You got mugged or robbed, you got cancer, you got falsely convicted of a crime and had to go to prison, you were born into a poor family and missed out on a decent education because you went to an underfunded school in a poor neighborhood, your neighborhood got destroyed by a flood or tornado or hurricane or wildfire, someone secretly photographed you nude and posted the pics on the internet making you unemployable to anyone who did a simple Google search for your name. You have little to no control over any of those devastating possibilities. Luck is not fair, so yes, the lucky do have a responsibility to help meet just the most basic of needs of those who are for whatever reason not blessed enough to be able to provide for themselves, because that’s what you would want them to do for you if the situation was reversed.

I could probably go on and on but I’ll make myself stop there.

Ridiculous doesn't begin to describe it. We're the richest country in the world, and everyday people die because they can't afford adequate health care.

No quite. Everyone pays for medical care in whichever country they live. The difference is, that in America the insurance companies and pharma companies work in a mutually (to each other) beneficial environment whereby the patients or as they prefer 'products' pay through the nose for care, medicines, referrals etc because the mantra is that anything else is socialism. Those against a mutually beneficial health service free at the [i]point of need[/i] (That's the difference and a crucial one) would rather be destitute than have that.

Sadly the biggest reason for people losing their homes in America is just that: The inability to pay medical bills. ACA is far from perfect, the NHS in the UK is and never has been or will be either, and that was founded in 1947/48, but it's a hell of a lot better than the situation in the USA. Incidentally, the USA is way down the list of any metric comparing like for like on medical matters with any other industrial country. It's even worse than Cuba in some respects.

once apon a time a free market made prices competitive..

these days CEOs of different companies get together and agree to charge a similar price and share the wealth..

cant help but feel the essentials in life would be dirt cheap if we wernt so god damned greedy..

What's even stranger is the number of people that come to the u.s. for medical treatment that have government provided health care.

Who is supposed to pay?

Completely agree!

😢

It has it's advantages

It's the American way