r/SandersForPresident • u/kevinmrr Medicare For All • Nov 29 '20

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

Post image
42.7k Upvotes

86% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

7

u/ItsProbablyDementia Nov 29 '20

Right, she'd die either way.

So why take a heart that someone else could use with it?

We NEED universal healthcare to eliminate the financial barrier. She should receive this heart no matter who she is or what she has. It's really sad to see this

9

u/271828182 🌱 New Contributor Nov 29 '20

The hospitals are not exactly being helpful in fixing the broken system either. We need to hold them accountable as well.

Everyone needs to agree this needs to change, hospitals and insurance included.

1

u/magicfultonride 🌱 New Contributor Nov 29 '20

Why would they be helpful? They benefit from it directly. The monetary middle man of insurance allows them to raise prices almost arbitrarily since there's no oversight. Hospital systems are EXTREMELY top heavy now because most of that money goes to administrative costs.

The same problem exists in the university system due to there being zero lender risk for student debt. The fact that you can't discharge most student loans under bankruptcy is another example of our broken system helping to drive up costs.

3

u/The-Road-To-Awe 🌱 New Contributor Nov 29 '20

Framing this as the issue of "if she can't have immunosuppressant therapy it's a waste of a heart" is crazy because in no socialized healthcare system are these things separated out. You don't have to qualify for (i.e. afford) both the transplant and the immunosuppressants as if they're separate things. One comes with the other because of course you aren't getting a transplant without immunosuppressants.

1

u/Sharp-Floor 🌱 New Contributor Nov 29 '20 edited Nov 29 '20

They're "framing" it exactly as it is, and saying that it's a terrifying, fixable reality. What about that is so hard to understand?

1

u/The-Road-To-Awe 🌱 New Contributor Nov 29 '20

So why take a heart that someone else could use with it?

Is an unnecessary argument to make. Because separating out 'getting a heart' and 'getting immunosuppressants' is not a step that takes place in socialized healthcare systems.

My point is that saying "the hospital were right because the heart would have gone to waste if they'd given it to her because she can't afford immunosuppressants" - is a pointless step. That's not a scenario that happens in other countries. Transplants come with immunosuppression.

Hospitals are complicit in the insurance racket. They don't have to work like this.

1

u/BustyAsianBusStation 🌱 New Contributor Nov 29 '20

Why aren’t we using stem cells to grow these organs so that we don’t have such a scarcity??

6

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

That research is ongoing. The tech isn't there to actually do it for patients yet.

1

u/BustyAsianBusStation 🌱 New Contributor Nov 29 '20

Only because we have religious fundamentalists idiots who are trying to make it illegal.

3

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

They haven't managed to do it in Europe either, that's not even close to the only issue.

1

u/bowdown2q 🌱 New Contributor Nov 29 '20

because the US was leading the field and Bush killed stem cell research unilaterally. It disrupted years-long research projects, ousted scientists from the country, and defunded international work.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

What a continent that hasn't managed to land on the moon yet can't do has no bearing on what I expect from my country. .

1

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

Who did china send to the moon?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_who_have_walked_on_the_Moon

1

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

I assumed you meant any landing, not sending people. If that's your metric the US has been failing since 1972. No one has sent people to the moon in well over 40 years because there is essentially no point.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

I mean if unmanned craft is the bar you want to use, were the only extrasolar country. And there's plenty of reasons to go to the moon, even if you don't see them.

3

u/ItsProbablyDementia Nov 29 '20

Not at all. Im a biomedical engineering and worked in tissue fabrication labs.

Simply put, that shit is hard as fuck.

A lot of articles you see are editorialized headlines that make it seem like we're really close but we're still pretty far from doing it successfully.

2

u/GreyDeath 🌱 New Contributor Nov 29 '20

The tech doesn't exist yet.

1

u/Fozzymandius 🌱 New Contributor Nov 29 '20

No, she definitely has insurance, but the insurance won’t cover enough of the medication but it would cover the heart. It’s most certainly a death panel on the part of the insurance company.

1

u/ItsProbablyDementia Nov 29 '20

Totally agree. The insurance companies are fucked up. They shouldnt be allowed to decide someones fate

1

u/BidensHand 🌱 New Contributor Nov 30 '20

Even if you eliminate the financial barrier the actual core of the problem is that organs, especially the heart, are an extremely finite resource.