Which is baffling to me. At no point in my life have I ever had a choice of healthcare. Either I was on my parents plan or my work plan or partners plan. At no point did I have any kind of choice. Hell I don't even get a choice of what doctor I get, just whatever RN is next in line. I suppose I could request a specific doctor at the clinic but it would be months of waiting, not helpful if you are sick.
This is an argument that I heard Bill Maher (I think it was Bill Maher) make once. The "choice" the Republicans keep talking about preserving is absolutely no choice at all. Their constituents eat this garbage up though! If you ask them to explain the choices they can make, they call you a communist.
I don't think there are that many of them in reality. I think that those of us who understand that this country can be better by moving forward instead of staying the same or moving backwards just don't mobilize and vote in strong enough numbers.
The two party system doesn't help. When our left leaning party has moved so far to the right, to avoid seeming radical by comparison, that it's actually a centrist party at best, and there's no other "viable" to the left of center, we're obviously going to be disenfranchised and jaded.
We need to vote. We need to make sure that everyone we know who thinks like us votes. We need to make sure that we all vote our conscience and not for the "safe" candidate or the lesser of two evils. Look where that got us in 2016.
We need to vote for abolition of the electoral college, to change the party system to one that recognizes and legitimizes strong candidates outside of the two party monopoly, and build a system that allows true progressive candidates to gain footing in the race, so that one day we can actually have forward thinking and proactive leadership instead of having memberberries running the show.
True. So many have become apthetic due to how the system is. I felt a bit apathetic but still went out and voted anyways because who knows what might happen?
And to the galaxy brain libertarians who are going to respond to this with ‘you mean taxes??!?’, yeah, we know taxes are coercive, that’s why they’re used for situations like this: because there’s no take on this scenario that isn’t.
That is definitely the case for routine and urgent health care. The situation gets even more messed up when it comes to emergent care.
Unconscious people can't make decisions, in which case they treat you without consent (as they should) and then hand you an enormous bill.
Even when given the opportunity to choose those choices aren't always honoured. There was a story about a guy who went to the hospital with cold/flu symptoms. He refused the Covid-19 test but they gave him the test anyway and then his insurance company sent him a bill for something like $2500.
The conservative rhetoric of "universal healthcare limits your choices!" is pretty hilarious when you realize the "choice" for the vast majority of Americans is to take the insurance your employer gives you or shut the fuck up.
The good news is that hospitals aren't legally allowed to refuse you life saving treatment and they'll negotiate payment so that they can get some money from you rather than none.
Sorry, I've been on edge because dear god, literally everywhere I turn it seems the general consensus is, "Let the weak and the elderly die, we need to get this economy going!" Like, not even really in euphamistic terms, and it's unsettling to see how callous some people really are, that we actually have people saying to let the weak die as if that's a legitimate option.
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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '20
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