It still baffles me how some Americans will fight against universal healthcare, like ??? Do you WANT to be put in debt cuz you had an easily-treatable illness??? I don't get it, honestly
Microblog Memes
A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.
Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.
Rules:
- Please put at least one word relevant to the post in the post title.
- Be nice.
- No advertising, brand promotion or guerilla marketing.
- Posters are encouraged to link to the toot or tweet etc in the description of posts.
Related communities:
My mom had a spinal fusion in the 90s which she got in debt for.
About 15 years ago my lung spontaneously collapsed. Several surgeries later, the bill was $315,000. I was on Obamacare because of the mandate, thank god. I paid $19.
My mom found out and told me I "deserved to go bankrupt" because people like her had struggled for so long with their medical bills.
I don't speak to her anymore
It's a cult.
I rlly don't get ppl like ur mum.... shouldn't she be angry about being forced to pay extortionate amounts of money in the first place ???? Not at the poor person who got lucky ???? Jesus
They are under the impression that what'll happen is that their paycheck will go down by the cost of universal healthcare per person because the costs are taken out via taxes. Then they hear that some people will get it who don't pay taxes and they get indignant that they're paying and someone else is getting. Then they think about the difficulties they have with our current system, and picture putting something like the DMV in front of it, since that's what a lot of people have as their biggest reference for what the government does.
That's all because someone has a vested interest in making sure they understand it wrong, and no one is going to make a lot of money off universal healthcare so there isn't the same degree of motivation to teach people a more accurate understanding.
"Against" has billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs, and "for" has "human decency", "efficiency" and "why are we doing this to ourselves".
People hear that your paycheck gets a bit bigger, you go to the doctor when you feel sick, bills are mainly to keep you from going to the doctor for free aspirin and are lower than your copay, and you just ... don't deal with the billing anymore and think that sounds unrealistic. Entirely missing that other countries have done it, that the government already has a medical billing system, and dealing with paperwork is something the government does even better than "moving stuff from one place to another".
And then there's other countries whose doctors still receive high wages... America just has a very selfish society in general, I've noticed. And, that paycheck argument they make is stupid, because if they have to pay off the debt then their wages will be a lot lower anyways?? Especially for more expensive operations (like transplants).
I honestly don't have a lot to add, all of you replying to my comment have explained it perfectly. America's run by idiots, for idiots www
I'd push back against idiots. It's a little more complicated. It's meticulously cultivated ignorance amongst many people, since that's useful. People with money can help people with power maintain power if they help them make more money. So people with power have an incentive to keep people ignorant about things that threaten the bottom line (often. Some have principles and some see the electorate as a better way to maintain power. Obviously nuance exists)
So it's not that the people who don't support universal healthcare are always unintelligent, or that the leadership is. You're not stupid for not understanding something you've never experienced, and only been told falsehoods about. It's why intelligent people sometimes end up against it, and can jump through pretty significant mental hoops to justify that position: every experience says the belief is correct, and it agrees with what they were taught.
There's a special experience that Americans sometimes get where they'll travel to another country and get sick or injured. Depending on the country, they might be apologetically informed that because they don't pay into the system they'll need to pay full price for the procedure, only to be presented with a bill significantly lower than the fully insured price in the US. Or they just don't get a bill, depending on the country. I've had this happen to two coworkers. One was given a bill for about $200 for a night in the hospital, antivirals, and several units of fluids and electrolytes. The person who presented the bill was adament that there should be a way to bring this down to something more reasonable. In the US that might be a $1000 bill with insurance.
Another had their kid break their arm on vacation, and when they tried to figure out how to pay the doctor just looked confused and asked why he thought they would charge to help a child in medical need. Said it made him realize how backwards our system has made everything, even though he already wanted universal healthcare. Seeing a system that actually put patient care first just felt weird.
I have had arguments on social media with Americans. They are A) deluded, believing that paying a monthly premium and still having a deductible, that can be denied, is awesome because its tge best plan avaipable. B) are I got mine types, who have stated they got private insurance because they don't want to pay for other peoples health care (they clearly don't understand how insurance works) C) don't want their taxes to go up one smidge, even though putting every american into a universal system would save so much money and would barely be blip in their taxes.
Obviously, transsexuals are a bigger concern. They are educated from birth the US has a superior healthcare system (by every measure, it does not). They are told that a lifetime of debt means they are good Americans .Also, most voters just assume one day they will be billionaires and never get sick.
Americans are willing to give up everything they own if it means some hypothetical strawman isn't "mooching" off of their propaganda headcanon.
Success is suffering and hard work and if everyone isn't suffering then life isn't fair. Fuck this entire viewpoint, but it's one of the main American traits ruining socialist ideals.
If you don't own a million dollar yacht that you use as a tender for your billion dollar yacht you are the hypothetical straw man mooching off the tax dollars of those who do.
Propaganda sold to us at an early age.
They should get rid of the single largest socialist government expenditure on the planet (the US military) and then tell everyone they need to get Defence insurance.
Please stop saying the military is socialist. Please understand that socialism is about the relationship to the means of production and not just 'exists because tax'
Americans would rather spend $20k a year on useless health insurance, just to make sure their taxes don't accidentally pay for black and brown peoples healthcare...
American Elites and conservative morons.
Not all Americans. The majority have wanted socialized Healthcare for a long time, but actual political results rarely match the popular opinion here.
What is it with Americans and this fear of socialism? Yes let's have some socialism, what the hell is the problem with that?
Americans see China and think: "Oh no, very bad because of socialism/communism"
But as someone who was born in mainland China (I'm Chinese-American), PRC is nothing "socialist"/"communist" at all, its a horrible State-Capitalist Authroitarian Regime under the guise of Communist aesthetics. I don't fear socialism/communism because they never truely existed, in fact, I'd say that Norway or Finland (based on what info I could gather anyways, never personally been to Norway or Finland so I can't speak from experience) would be more closer to "socialism" than PRC, at least they actually have a social safety net, PRC doesn't.
As for why Americans fear these terms, I think it's because, for some people anyways, you can get labeled as an enemy of the state to even uttering "socialism"/"communism".
(Legal disclaimer to the FBI Agent reading this, just in case I have to make this clear: No, I am not a "communist", as in, I do not support the CCP or similar authoritarian parties, I just support a more egalitarain and democratic society however you want to call that, and my views are 100% compatible with the US Constitution, now fuck off FBI, stop trying to denaturalize me, maybe actualy investigate the traitor in the white house, for fuck sake)
Am Norwegian. We argue a lot of whether we live under socialism or capitalism, we have a pretty good mix of both I think. Also, I dont think they're really mutually exclusive, it's more like some parts of society like healthcare, trains and police make sense to do as socialism and other things like TV channels, grocery stores and construction make sense to do as regulated capitalism.
McCarthyism is probably the most succinct answer. The Cold War directly aligned us against the Soviet Union, and a key means of villainizing the USSR and its citizenry was to paint their core governing beliefs as heretical to the American way.
There is also no doubt in my mind that Socialism's strong connection to Union activity in the US also incentivized Corporate Barons to lobby against Social Politics hard. I have not seen any specifics about that myself, though. Modern lobbying efforts are well-known, though.
I'm Canadian. I highly doubt I pay more than $15k in taxes to get my free healthcare.
I bet you get tons of free bonuses too: roads, public education, pensions... Damn, seems like this whole government thing is quite efficient, with the no shareholders taking profits and stuff.
European healthcare is something like 6k€ per year and person, the USA is around 14k€ (because leechers and parasites in the system).
Source: some graph on the internet.
We also obviously do mutualise the efforts so even the bum living under the bridge gets the same treatments. We all put in an effort according to what we can, as we are living in a society. What a way to control the masses in the USA. Horrifying.
My friend got cancer and she lost her job. Luckily her parents pay for her insurance out of pocket. Even the treatments are covered, she still needs to pay for copay and deductibles. This is America. When you are down, we kick you further down. No developed country does that except us
My insurance premiums are closer to $12,000 a year (basically a hop, skip, and a jump from $1,000 a month).
It certainly isn't the most expensive plan I found, but it was up there. I knew about all the shitty practices by insurance companies, but I tried to do my research to ensure that my prescriptions and doctors were covered, and I hoped that with a plan this expensive, I might be a bit insulated from the worst of it.
Then I had an emergency. Three things that my insurance did not cover really stood out to me.
The ambulance was considered out of network, so I am on the hook for 100% of the cost. You don't have any choice about which service picks you up.
The doctor was out of network, so I have to pay 100% of his charges. I know he probably approved my treatment or reviewed my test results, whatever, but I never saw him and the only treatment I received came from the nurses.
I was given 2 ibuprofen. They cost me $45. I was given several different and conflicting reasons why, but ultimately, I'm on the hook for that.
at least faux news took the effort of separating communism and socialism, as they often use those terms as they mean the same
Uh, yes, but... Socialism!!!
the funniest part is that's not even what socialism is.
"Socialism is when government does stuff like laws and currency."
"Socialism is when they take some gold from the dragon"
Well, it's not socialism but universal healthcare is a socialist policy and it has been won by various reformist socialist parties in most western countries.
The US healthcare system is proof that more Mario brothers are required.
Currently waiting to begin taking a medication my doctor prescribed because the pharmacy wouldn’t fill it without prior authorization from the insurance company, but to do that, they had to go back to the doctor to request the doctor fill out paperwork to send to the insurer.
During the appointment with the doctor, we already discussed that my insurer likely will not cover the medication, but looked up the retail price, which is not beyond my means or out of scale with the benefit I expect it to bring me. I’m okay paying out of pocket, but my pharmacy is locked into this process that has stretched out over a holiday weekend, so it’s likely I’ll get the medicine a week later than I otherwise would have.
This is more mental health related, and I’m okay physically, but if the blood tests and years of failed approaches from other methods are any indication, then this could show immediate and significant impact.
But I have to wait for the wheels of capitalism to grind on, so they can ensure maximum value extraction from a very expensive insurance policy.
Your pharmacy lied. There is no legal requirement to try to bill insurance first they presumably stand in many cases to bill them more especially if you cash paid only after coupons or patient assistance programs which are essentially coupons.
Thus they choose to follow this process and lie to you.
This is why I want america to be screwed up completely. So Americans wake up and realize what theyve been enforcing on global south for decades.
Capitalism is the best marketing socialism has ever had.
Also, the graphic clearly shows 18 - 29 but Mr. Sauer says "18 - 39." Let's socialize the education up in here.
Aint no way a third of gen z has favorable views of communism. Maybe this is just my experience living in a red state but I know like 5 people irl who I would say have a favorable view of communism and I either convinced them of it or made an effort to find them through orgs. This is fox trying to scare republicans more than it is truth. I can't even mention communism to the average person I know without them vomiting American propaganda and thought terminating cliches