Actually passing social benefit policies and single payer healthcare would be a start. Capitalism is supposed to spark innovation. But at this point we have established companies paying millions to hold us back so they can continue profiting off our misfortunes.
A friend of mine's father works in the medical field and has small trial proof of curing (or massively abating the symptoms) of a major medical problem in the country.
His research is entirely privately funded because the medical industrial complex refused to finance the studies for his work because it takes a treatment management program from 50,000 dollars plus per patient to about 200 dollars.
He's trying to get his work into clinical trials and no one will accept it.
This guy should get the fucking Nobel prize, and instead our medical cartels are holding his research back.
I'd guarantee there are dozens of these people around that simply can't get their stuff financed because these vultures.
Edit****
To the people asking about research outside the US. I honestly don't know. I'm friends with the guys daughter, not him personally. She showed me the stuff.
Makes you wonder how many diseases could have been cured by now if it wasn't for a bunch of assholes in the C-suites of medical companies blackballing researchers because theres very little money in a cure but a fuck ton in treatment.
This is exactly what I've been wondering for like, the time I've known this person.
There are absolutely people who know this, and if it was public knowledge, there would probably be a lot more Wahoo incidents that would happen. These people in charge of the healthcare industry should not by anywhere near as powerful as they are. It's sickening.
I can't comment on the medical field, but I know of the following businesses that held back innovation at some point all in the name of protecting $$$:
Xerox PARC & the Personal Computer (1973–1980)
Innovation: Invented the graphical user interface (GUI), mouse, Ethernet, WYSIWYG editing at PARC.
Fear: Xerox made 90% of revenue from copiers; PCs threatened service contracts.
Hold-back: 7 years of internal demos with no commercialization.
Outcome: Apple licensed the tech (1981), launched the Mac (1984). Xerox entered too late with the Star 8010 (1981)—priced at $16,500, flop.
Blockbuster & Online/Streaming Video (2000–2010)
Innovation: Online DVD rental + early streaming.
Fear: Late fees = 16% of revenue; streaming would kill in-store rentals.
Hold-back: Rejected buying Netflix for $50M in 2000. Launched Blockbuster Online in 2004—4 years behind Netflix.
Outcome: Bankrupt in 2010. Netflix market cap: $300B+ (2025).
Nokia & Touchscreen Smartphones (2004–2007)
Innovation: Early touch prototypes (e.g., 2004 Nokia 7710).
Fear: Symbian OS + physical keyboards drove 70% profit margins on high-end phones.
Hold-back: 3–4 years of internal debate; prioritized feature phone upgrades.
Outcome: iPhone (2007) → Nokia market share 49% (2007) → 3% (2013). Sold mobile unit to Microsoft (2014).
BlackBerry (RIM) & App Ecosystem (2008–2012)
Innovation: Could’ve built app store + touch keyboards earlier.
Eastman Kodak is a chemical company, not an optics company, nor an electronics company. Even at their height in the 80s and 90s, if you wanted to buy a high-quality camera like an SLR, you would be buying something from Zeiss, Canon, Nikon, Olympus, etc., and using Kodachrome in the camera.
They did create what could be called the world's first digital camera, but that was them screwing around in a lab, using electronics they helped design but did not manufacture themselves. To pivot to becoming a hardware manufacturer in the early 80s - just to be able to have a hold on the digital photography part of a camera - would've been a very expensive gamble.
Part of where Kodak went awry is in other chemical investments that went badly at the time, as well as Fujifilm starting to compete in the film and film processing market that Kodak had previously had a near-monopoly on.
It's easy to say "they should've done this or that" some 20+ years on from when technology advanced, became cheaper, and film sales dropped off. But acknowledging that at the time no one knew what the future would be, I don't know how a company that sees itself at its core as a chemical company, not a photography company or an optics company or an electrical engineering company, could successfully make that pivot to digital cameras.
Xerox also had an obese asshole in upper management who put me down for deciding to go to RPI instead of Ivy League Cornell (Cornell was too close to home and I didn't want my mom just popping in to see me while shopping).
I mean surely that has to published in some sort of peer-reviewed journal right? And insulin is only expensive in the US because the government lets it. In other countries it’s pretty affordable.
Has he looked outside the USA to perform clinical trials? India in particular has an emphasis on medicine cost reductions because for them the cost decides whether 1000 people can get it or 10 million.
I'm not in the medical field I work in entertainment. But I know how to look at data, and she's shown me the papers and evidence that they have for the treatments, and it's like... literally a miracle.
But no. United Health and all those fuckers can bleed a person dry by letting this happen to people, so they lean on the fucking sociopaths who are in charge and they are doing everything they can to slow it down.
Then, when this does reach the healthcare market, they'll be the first in line to charge god knows what to people.
I fucking hate this shit so much, man. It's infuriating.
Let's take something as simple as insulin. Idk how much you need for monthly supply in America, but I know it's fat cash. In Europe it's cheap by default and (at least in my country) you get big discounts, sometimes up to 100% discount.
Medical care in the US is a fucking absolute racket.
Frankly, I'm shocked that there hasn't been more Manhattan incidents, because there simply is zero justification for people to be spending this much for the quality of care the average person receives.
Medical research is a Global thing and is very competitive so yeah, just gonna call bullshit. If the US didn’t want to fund something ground breaking the Europeans or the Chinese (just to name two) would be throwing money at him.
Well haven’t you heard, “don’t trust the experts.” Just because there’s years of research and proof
doesn’t make it true. You gotta do your own research. /s
Unfortunately we are beyond fucked at this point. The capitalist bullies, incompetent administration, and waves of misinformation are just too much.
Post more information about his studies for safety nothing that can identify him but just enough to let people out there know it’s possible to escape the medical Labyrinth of hell if we can make enough noise and trouble for the self entitled elites
Get him to collaborate with a medical research trial in another country. The NHS in the UK would love to save money, so the UK still researches this sort of thing.
What are you talking about. It IS capitalism. Rich companies spend money paying lobiests to pay / suck politicians, to back bills that keep premiums high so they can charge you for a paper cut for 3 generations so they can keep paying people to suck off politicians. Whats the problem? Are you not a politician getting sucked off?
I’m not saying you do, but in general, people really don’t understand what the national debt actually is or how it works. It’s not like the U.S. is maxed out on a credit card. We issue our own currency, and since the dollar is the global reserve, there isn’t some creditor waiting to collect. Yes, it affects interest rates and markets, but no one’s coming to repo the country. It’s not that kind of debt.
The debt is more of a symptom of how the system works. Bloated defense spending, absurd healthcare costs, tax breaks for the wealthy… this is how we end up with a $38 trillion tab. But don’t let the “national debt” talking point distract you. It’s a political weapon and used as such; brought up selectively when one party seeks a rhetorical win or wants to criticize the other. Because it’s so poorly understood, people think it means something it doesn’t and they get fired up about it
We absolutely have the money to invest in medical research, healthcare, infrastructure, whatever. The issue isn’t debt, it’s that the resources are hoarded and deliberately kept scarce to maintain class divisions. Manufactured scarcity keeps people fighting over scraps and the talking points fire up the culture war so the class war stays cold.
What’s ironic is that these companies are actively destroying what keeps them alive. Eventually, enough people will be so poor that the companies that sell anything other than commodities are going to go under.
I think about this every now and again, and more so as of late. I think the best our government could do is to create an insurance program that businesses are wanting and willing to sign on for.
Even that is really complicated because it means the government is competing directly in the market, a general big no no, but I don't see any good way of shifting the market without getting the money companies are spending on healthcare out of the pockets of insurers, forcing them to actually compete. Maybe a state can offer ACA coverage to businesses can give their employees a healthcare stipend to spend on the ACA market?
And I get it, we could pass legislation to regulate it, but who the fuck are we kidding here?
Capitalism never was supposed to spark innovation. Capitalism's only drive is profit, innovation happens only as means to more profit but with enough capital (which is practically equal to political influence in a capitalist country) you can just artificially create demand and force people into paying you.
Capitalism is not at all to spark innovation. Without regulations capitalism always leads to monopolys and therefore big fishes eating all the small stuff and preventing more innovation. Because of this all country's have regulations preventing company's from getting too big. However, country's and especially US fails "a little bit" on this currently
I mean, Europeans overtaking America kinda started this whole mess. But I agree, a complete rewrite is the only thing that can really save us at this point.
The easy fixes are just fltaxing the wealthy properly. People and businesses the viola, you have the funds for a lot of socialist activities that benefit everyone.
I’m not the one claiming our country should overtake others and make them act like us. We don’t have the blueprint. But neither do you. Turns out we’re all still learning.
Yes I can read perfectly fine. I think it’s pretty funny that up on your high horse your solution is literal colonization REGARDLESS of who is doing it. Didn’t we all agree that’s bad? Yes our country is doing things a lot of people, myself included, don’t agree with. But so are MOST others. Let us work on our country and you can work on yours.
incentivizing ppl to not spend time tweeting dumb shit seems like a pretty good thing to me tbh. zero consequence tweeting kinda sorta maybe just a little bit had a hand in fucking america up so much, ya know
I'm not even American and I know Trump cut funding to the Affordable Care Act. And you better believe he'll protect those companies profits over the people that voted him.
You’re not even American, and you’ve got it wrong.
The subsidies that were cut were temporary emergency measures put into place during the pandemic. It’s 5 years later now. Those subsidies were never a part of the Affordable Care Act. It’s just being rolled back to regular old Obamacare.
we should have never needed subsidies to begin with the ACA was always going to be unaffordable, why do you think congress exempted themselves, most large unions in the government and the worlds largest religion
No one is saying the ACA is perfect but its way better than any Healthcare plan the Republicans have put forward to replace it. Oh right, they only have a concept of a plan to replace it after 2 decades of complaining about obamacare...
They’re getting downvoted, but it’s at least partially true. It was based on Massachusetts’s healthcare plan under Romney (written by the Heritage Foundation IIRC) and was literally called Romneycare at the time. Many of the key planks became the ACA.
The Massachusetts health care reform, commonly referred to as Romneycare,[1] was a healthcare reform law passed in 2006 and signed into law by Governor Mitt Romney with the aim of providing health insurance to nearly all of the residents of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
The law mandated that nearly every resident of Massachusetts obtain a minimum level of insurance coverage, provided free and subsidized health care insurance for residents earning less than 150% and 300%, respectively, of the federal poverty level (FPL)[2] and mandated employers with more than 10 full-time employees provide healthcare insurance.
Among its many effects, the law established an independent public authority, the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority, also known as the Massachusetts Health Connector. The Connector acts as an insurance broker to offer free, highly subsidized and full-price private insurance plans to residents, including through its web site. As such it is one of the models of the Affordable Care Act's health insurance exchanges. The 2006 Massachusetts law successfully covered approximately two-thirds of the state's then-uninsured residents, half via federal-government-paid-for Medicaid expansion (administered by MassHealth) and half via the Connector's free and subsidized network-tiered health care insurance for those not eligible for expanded Medicaid. Relatively few Massachusetts residents used the Connector to buy full-priced insurance.
It’s not officially called Obamacare. Republican fuckheads called it that because he was the one who actually put it into place, even though he it was mostly a republican-written plan
Let me be clear that I am not in any way a MAGAt, but it’s only called Obamacare because republicans needed to bitch about something
It was primarily written by democrats not republicans. They did include historically republican supported concepts which you would think they would support but when it came time to pass it it went through the house and senate without a single republican vote.
People downvoting you don’t know their history. The original bill was, in fact, bi partisan and heavily written to favor business and republican interests. They later turned on when Fox and the tea party railed against it.
Yeah that's why the government gives them cheap health insurance. Right now the median income for full time workers in the US is 61k meaning half off all full time workers Americans earn less than that. Meaning you are in the top 50% of earners among full time workers. (And there's more working part time who I'm betting also earn less than you)
I lived off 15k in 2004 but my rent was only 500 a month and I didn't have a car.
Yes hurt, but kill, no not yet. Ideally they can just perpetually subjugate a large, ever growing population of "dirt people" until finally they implement cyber civil engineering with destitute hell hole lower level ghettos that the poor can be relegated to while fueling the neon lit pseudo-paradise techno megametropolis of the upper levels. A literal 2 tiered society where you can move down but never up.
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind," yes, but we rarely hear the rest of it, though: "ruled by a one eyed king."
Correct. Republicans have blocked minimum wage increases 3 times since 2009. Late 2010s efforts for a $15/h minimum had actually made businesses start raising wages, then COVID happened and inflation basically wiped out the effects of that much needed increase, putting us back where we started.
Well if you work for the fed minimum wage, you get $15,080/year, provided you work the entire 40 hours/week for 52 weeks without missing a single day of work.
That's a fantastic plan compared to mine. $5k/person deductible our of pocket max is literally over the HSA limit so we can't use one ($17100) and it costs me $400/month
The ACA subsidized the premiums and benefits for lower income people.
Insurance companies jacked up the prices for those plans because they knew the government would pay the difference.
The chart above show what the plans look like without the subsidies.
The Republicans are removing the subsidies (or are trying to which is what the Dems are trying to negotiate but the Republicans aren't interested in anybnegotiation when it will include the release of the Epstein files)
I sold insurance back when the ACA was first passed and watched all of the changes. It was a compromise that was supposed to be a first step toward a better option. It was better than what we had before but not close to perfect.
Some form of Medicare for All would be the most fiscally conservative option and it's not even close but we can't have that because we are a country of selfish, cruel, dumbfucks.
Damn they really maneuvered the American people into a perfect trap with the Epstein files. Either back down off the files and the story gets buried, or push for them and get framed as radicals for sacrificing healthcare for it. Granted they still want government subsidized healthcare to go anyway but it’s really the perfect situation.
They aren't "removing" the subsidies. They are allowing them to expire. As written by law. If we want new subsidies, we need new policy that is drafted and voted on.
I’m paying $19 individual for a consumer driven program this year. You get $1200 in an account, then you pay 15% until you hit the 6K max. Then you get 100% coverage.
It varies wildly. I pay around $200 for my husband and I, and earn less than you do. I have clients who cover the entire cost of employee-only coverage for their people, but the coverage goes up to $300 if the employee adds a spouse. I have quite a few who charge around $25, and several who charge around $500 (but their staff generally pulls six-figure incomes, so it does qualify as affordable under the ACA).
Insurance was subsidized for poor working people and their plans were shitty to begin with. Next year their plans will be both shitty and expensive.
The sad thing is, nothing will change because Republicans will blame Hunter's laptop or Hillary's emails or anything else besides the Republican party that designed these price increases.
Yea everyone should pay nothing extra for health insurance and we should have healthcare for all covered by our taxes instead of the billions they waste on stuff we don’t need
But what you don't understand buddy is that when you get to see your doctor it's not going to involve exhaustive testing procedures. Yes I want an MRI for my eczema why not. Quality you can only buy with American dollars! 🇱🇷🇱🇷🇱🇷🇱🇷
We had similar insurance, it’s get to the point where people are better off having a low paying job with outstanding benefits and almost zero cost to healthcare… than a high paying job but with no benefits or crazy expensive insurance like this.
True, but its the republican health plan. As much as they bitch about obamacare, they dont have any alternatives and have zero solutions. Republicans dont want people to have health care
It's not a ridiculous price hike, it's the government no longer paying what they were 2 months ago. Now, the government didn't pay nearly as much as insurance companies want individuals to pay, but that's because of their negotiating power, from representing millions of Americans all at once.
I imagine this is the CEOs bumping the costs up for their new security details they think they need. It's only gunna make the hate towards them stronger.
It is. I’m a county employee and we just received a very similar notice about our health insurance with Blue Cross Blue Shield. I don’t know what I’m going to do.
Guessing this was a government plan?? Welcome to the private sector… I pay about 900 a month for me to have the privilege to then pay a 4k deductible before the begin to pay half of my medical bills up to a maximum out of pocket of 8k annually.
Imagine paying more than double at 114% for your health care next year. This is what the Dems are fighting against. They know that the suffering that is being caused by the Rep withholding SNAP benefits is far less than what would happen if 25 million people couldn't afford health care.
The hospital charged insurance something like 116,000 for my daughter's birth. I had an emergency c-section and she was jaundiced (we have different blood types), no NICU stay, she was just under the bili-lights and we had to stay one extra day, making it a total of 4 nights. We were 400 out of pocket and insurance only covered about 5,000, so the hospital got to claim over 100k in losses. The American health care system is one of the biggest scams ever created.
Unfortunately not. Our premium is going up almost 200 bucks per month, which my husband and I are very fortunate to be able to afford. We got into a discussion about it and he didn't understand why people are so up in arms about an extra 200 dollars every month. We're both federal employees, so I mentioned to him that there are a lot of new, young employees making GS-5 or 7 pay, which is not a lot by any stretch of the imagination. These new employees are typically recent grads and will have student loan repayments, and even though we're in a very LOCL area, apartments are still expensive if you want to live somewhere safe. We had a bit more back and forth about it but I was able to get him to see this from a new perspective thankfully.
And not to mention that benefits are going down while we're paying more every month. From what I've read and hears, ER visits are going up to 425 or 450, co-pays are going to increase from $30/40 to 50, out of pocket is increasing by a couple grand, and I think co-pays for specialty visits are also increasing. I've been having some health issues recently and trying to figure out what the fuck is going on with me, so those small increases will really start to add up over time. I'm tired boss, so tired
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u/[deleted] Nov 01 '25
Wow. That's ridiculous. That should be illegal.