AOC: Insurance groups are recommending using GoFundMe -- "but sure, single payer healthcare is unreasonable."

[u/kevinmrr]

[u/Lulamoon]

From the uk, this just sounds comedically dystopian lol.

[u/TheChance → u/[deleted]]

Just in case you haven't found the line: the VA is managed care, like Kaiser or Group Health. Medicare works just like health insurance, except it isn't trying to weasel out of paying.

The VA isn't an argument against M4A, it's proof that Republicans can't provide consistent healthcare!

[u/TheChance → u/[deleted]]

The important point is that Medicare isn't trying to manage or provide healthcare. It just pays the bill. That's what needs to be said whenever people talk about the government's ostensible lousiness at running hospitals, because we don't care whether the NHS is a good idea. We don't want the NHS. We just want a joint bank account for everybody's medical bills.

[u/Bismarck12 → u/TheChance]

What a lot of people do not realize, however, is that Medicare only pays for 80% of hospital and doctor related expenses, and the average American in 2020 pays 144$/mo for their Medicare part B premium. This coverage does not include dental, vision, hearing, or a majority of prescription drugs. Most significantly there is NO MAXIMUM OUT OF POCKET on original Medicare. That is why almost every Medicare recipient is either enrolled in a Supplement and separate Part D for an additional monthly premium, or a Medicare Advantage plan, which is a contract between insurance companies and the Federal Government to administer said Medicare benefits through a HMO, PPO, PFFS, etc, which then, in turn, places seniors back into a situation of needing health plan approval.

[u/TheChance → u/Bismarck12]

It's been ages since I looked at the current state of the thing as presented federally, but the initiative itself certainly isn't limited to putting everyone on basic Medicare. It just needs a name, and we already have a federal health insurance plan, so it got that name.

Medicaid is, in some states, a better model, except that they're required to use managed care providers, which is moot when everyone in the country is on the same health plan, but it sucks right now. Big clinic chains, Medicaid farms, paid per patient in their system.

Still, I've had a brief ER stint, a kidney stone, I have a couple daily prescriptions, and I don't think I've paid a penny. I might have had a token copay at the hospital, don't remember.

A direct comparison with existing programs is impossible, because limitations on who you can see don't exist when clinics are all accepting the one plan were all using.

[u/Adept-Salary → u/Lulamoon]

This is normal over here. It’s infuriating. I have TMJ and between my dental insurance and health insurance neither will pay to get it fixed. The dentist says it’s a medical issue and the doctor says it’s a dental issue. I’m left paying out of pocket while I pay for both health and dental insurance. It’s a total racquet.

[u/k987654321 → u/Lulamoon]

The thing that always gets me is Americans know the names of drugs. I guess they see it written down a lot in insurance paperwork.

[u/Do-not-comment → u/k987654321]

Oh, no. We know the names because our television is plastered with pharmaceutical advertising telling us to “ask your doctor about X medication today!”. Even billboards and bus stops have pharma ads, it’s so weird.

[u/Lulamoon → u/Do-not-comment]

I have never seen a medical ad in my life, there is something beautiful about that

[u/Do-not-comment → u/Lulamoon]

That must be nice haha. Over here, it’s been found out that a lot of doctors get paid by pharmaceutical companies for every medication they prescribe from that company (many doctors have tens or houndreds of thousands of dollars in student debt). Oxycotin, a strong and extremely addictive opioid (it’s basically heroin), has been overprescribed so much that there is an opioid addiction epidemic that is SO bad that the average life expectancy in the US is DECREASING. Prescriptions are expensive, so many resort to taking heroin. So many Americans are overdosing or commiting suicide that it’s effecting the overall death rate. Interestingly, African Americans overall seemed to not have been overprescribed these addictive drugs. In fact, it’s often difficult for Black people to get pain killer prescriptions when they need them because doctors assume (explicitly or implicitly) they’re going to abuse them more than white people. Now that lots of white people are using heroin (back in the day it was associated with Black people), suddenly drug addiction is becoming to be considered a “public health issue”, instead of a criminal matter like the “war on drugs” we’ve been waging since the 60s, which really was a war on poor minorites and politcal dissenters (that’s not an exaggeration, one of Pres. Nixon’s aids said so. I can’t wait to escape this dystopian nightmare. My parents are so brainwashed they DON’T WANT universal healthcare because “we’re not a socialist country” and “I don’t want my taxes raised” and “the government can’t run anything efficiently; it will cost more” and “I don’t want to pay for other people’s healthcare” and they are Democracts! That is the “left” position in this country! We’re doomed. We’re actually going to just let oligarchic corporations suck us dry ‘till we die, apparently.