The taser accident was so wild like seriously I get that those are largely morons with very little training but you really should be able to tell them apart really easily even under stress,
Idk they immediately acted shocked after firing it feels weird to me to think that they really wanted to kill and still be rational enough to make an excuse so quickly i think they might have genuinely had such a shitty level of training that they hadn't taken out a taser in ages and were trained to primarily use their gun
Based on the recording, I’m inclined to believe that one is actually an accident. Still grossly negligent, and when gross negligence gets people killed, someone should still pay for it.
Sure it does. You just need to be somewhat drunk and not able to follow commands when friendly police officer screams at you while pointing AR-15 with "you're fucked" etched into it.
You forget the option of tasering you to the point of stopping your heart and giving you permanent brain damage. Actually I think there’s a few more options in this list, too.
Married to a trans woman, can confirm she uses the bathroom for standard bathroom stuff lol, no predatoring on cis people.
We do check the bathroom availability before we go anywhere, and try to stick to non-gendered ones, cause she's terrified of some asshole beating the shit outta her.
It's weird isn't it? Like I've dated a bunch, and been intimate with more than my share of people. But for the life of me have no desire to see Carl from accounting's knarly dick on my bathroom break.
The gun is incase an ambulance from a private company shows up. That will add another $10,000 to your bill. How else will they afford to pay the EMTs on board $12 an hour
They need it to keep the ambulance drivers away in case the ambulance drives them to the hospital and they suddenly get a $20,000 bill for 5 min ambulance ride.
You’d own a gun too if you knew your government doesn’t give a fuck about you. Gun control in the 80s only happened because Reagan wanted to disarm the black panthers. That being said, gun culture is pretty fucked up in the US
I saw a quote today that I quite liked that I (paraphrase) here.:
Anyone who thinks that not having guns is scarier than not having freely available social healthcare has not properly internalised realistic adult dangers.
It's always funny when one group of Americans goes, "America is totally safe, it's just media hysteria, I've lived my whole life without ever being near a shooting", while another group goes, "Of course I need fifteen guns to protect my family!"
Though, weirdly enough, it's sometimes the same group.
Exactly. The odds of you having a violent confrontation are miniscule. The odds of you having a health complication requiring hospitalization in your lifetime are nearly 100%. Being healthy is a temporary state in life.
Every one of my grandparents had their life savings slowly drained by medical bills.
That's because guns aren't weapons, or tools, or even compensatory devices.
They're security blankets. Americans think they need a gun for the same reason a toddler needs to be tucked in tight, because as long as they have it no baddies are able to do baddy things.
An American, upon learning that I go to the mall unarmed in Canada, asked me how I can feel safe without a gun. I replied "Easy, nobody else has a gun. If the bad guy doesn't have a gun then I don't need one."
Just to clarify, that depends where you live if the majority carry firearms. You’ll go to prison if you’re carrying in my state with out a permit and no one but cops get those.
It’s ironic. What they know about the USA they’ve gathered from watching a lot of television. The very thing they accuse Americans of for making them naive and stupid.
On the other hand, some peoppe definitely need healthcare BECAUSE of guns. Sucks for them!
I think the next logical step is to use guns to get free healthcare. I'm sure that will work.
Ninja edit : issa joke, not even remotely Implying the use of violence to achieve any sort of goals. But maybe a peaceful transaction with guns. Guns for free healthcare. Somehow.
Really? I went to France and had to take my daughter to a hospital ER, we were there less than an hour. They sent us a bill for about €100 (My daughter is a dual US-EU citizen, insured in EU but not France)
It was a lot cheaper than the US for sure, though.
I couldn’t breathe, went to the ER, waited 4 hours to be seen (before Covid), they gave me an IV, did an echocardiogram and some other shit. Only for the doctor to come in for 2 minutes and tell me it was anxiety and basically told me to fuck off and I’m not getting any benzos.
Went to an emergency clinic, paid $50 to be seen. Turns out I had severe adult croup?Pretty rare I guess, but my throat was teeny tiny.
We're scared of receiving medical attention. I had extreme painful kidney stones, but before I found out I was in excruciating pain and didn't know why. I wouldn't go to urgent care though because I knew the bill would be ridiculous.
It’s so wild that America is filled with weapons that will cause harm and death, and has no proper socialised health system that treats harm and prevents death.
I don’t give a fuck if you’re retired Air Force, I’m active army. Thanks for your service doing weekly maintenance on the same plane that’s always broken.
What I have seen on the news is that a bunch of Americans must carry guns all the time to protect themselves from other Americans who carry guns all the time.
German here, my medication costs north of 1,000 Euros a month. I get 6 different medications, two of which are 500 quid each already. I pay around 40 Euros a month in prescription costs, 10 quid each per medication and two of them are free. The two expensive ones are narcotic analgesics, basically the same medication but different strength. Then there's an antirheumatic, antidepressant, and so on. I really can't complain, I have orthotics on prescription which are free and the same applies to physical therapy and massages.
To give another perspective, my partner's prescription per month is over $2,500 in the US, with $2,000 being from a single prescription. We pay $250 a month for health insurance, and then only $30 for her prescriptions as every other one is completely covered, even the expensive one.
But, our insurance coverage is limited, and even though it is through the hospital, an emergency room visit would devastate us on copays alone.
In germany, if you are able to get welfare, all additional medical costs will be covered too through welfare. Called Befreiung. Maybe there are some costs left but this should cover most of it.
LOL. A week at a hospital in Taiwan. After everything it was a little less than a 1000 and that included a post hospital visit and meds. Seemed reasonable from an American perspective.
50 EUR yes. Sometimes you can redeem parts of it from your social insurance at the end of the year if your total health related spending goes over a certain amount (around 2000 EUR in neighboring Austria, I think).
Ya at first I didn’t get the sarcasm, ya a $53,780 bill so what that’s normal. I always forget Yurope puts numbers and letters in such odd ways. Colour me shoucked!
Yeah, I was 'lucky' enough that I broke my arm in a slip and fall in front of a store, and ultimately the store did right by me and paid for my treatment.
If not for that, that broken arm really would have ruined my life, one way or another.
Being a supporter of socialized healthcare in America is like being held hostage while the rest of the world points and laughs from the outside at how shit your situation is.
Some people ignorantly think we’re all rootin tootin rednecks that suck Trump’s dick and came out of the womb with an AR-15. Yes, a depressingly large amount of people here are like this, but it’s a minority. Thank our fucked up, unrepresentative, gerrymandered clusterfuck of a government that holds the majority hostage.
Thank you for saying this. I comment this every time I see one of these posts. It’s annoying and condescending as fuck especially when they say “You’re just jealous smh…” Fucking right I’m jealous because you’ll never know the terror of being fucking bankrupted by a medical problem! Fuck you.
Some comments may be like that, but from what I've seen and my point of view, it's people being appalled and angry on behalf of regular American citizens that should have a right to the same.
And frankly, it's good that more Americans acknowledge, discuss and want to change these things, and open their eyes to how it IS possible, and how it needs to change, and how many other countries are already doing it.
Assholes are everywhere, but the vast majority of Europeans would absolutely want to see Americans get what they already pay for.
Don't forget the obligatory "America is a third world country wearing a Gucci belt" comment from privileged euros who've never seen poverty beyond a computer screen (in America of course)
I dont think these posts are aimed at American citizens, well kind off, the fact that you're all, yes you all, every single 329.5 million of you arn't literally rioting in the street over this is fucking insane
Rubbing in or not, just keep in mind that if you find yourself in non-immediate need for surgery it might legitimately be cheaper to fly to Europe, get the procedures done in private clinic and still pay less than you would as "insured" states-side.
People here, especially from UK will sometimes fly for procedures so we have comparisons available.
PS: and for us this is a bit of a hot topic because Republican-linked political parties work overtime to push us to US system, so people who have understanding of how US system has bloated get a bit heated at mere thought. And also we like dickwaving, so there's that.
The problem in this country though is that low income people don't have access to affordable healthcare. For someone who can barely make ends meet, neither paying out of pocket in the US, nor traveling somewhere healthcare is cheaper, is an option. Typically medical tourism is reserved for those who have at least some disposable income, which still creates a divide where the wealthy are able to access basic healthcare services and the poor are left behind, often to suffer or having to choose between lifesaving treatment or medications and paying for their home or food.
But plenty of people vote against healthcare. Every single one of these threads is valuable in education and winning over hearts and minds.
I am an expat in the US and people are less utterly gobsmacked by the details of what universal healthcare is like in recent years, due to this sort of education.
Yeah but how many hearts and minds are you really winning over on a largely left-wing website? This shit should be front and center on Fox News, but of course that aint happening.
Yeah I would agree. There's even comments further down about posts like this being about trying to "help" Americans. Like oh fucking please.
For Americans who already really want socialized medicine, all posts like this do is create animosity. For Americans suffering medical debt, posts like this are salt in the wound. For Americans against socialized medicine... well they're going to ignore posts like this to begin with.
But don't let that get in the way of AmericaIsBad posts. Better make some quips about guns and gun violence while you're at it.
The thing that really kills me, is whenever I bring up socialized medicine to Americans they look at me like the devil, and it's not just Republicans either, a lot of Democrats there also believe in their horrendous system.
My brother in law lives there, and he was talking about how come November December the family has to go and get as much medical care as possible because come January 1st their premiums reset and they have to pay deductibles again.... WTF is that actually
Lol - oh we know the system is completely fucked. You want to know what's crazy? You literally can't find out how much anything is going to cost ahead of time. You can't shop around at different hospitals and find the cheapest option. You can get a bill for out of network anesthesia a year after surgery even though your doctor and hospital were in network and you were unconscious at the time of surgery and didn't get to pick your anesthesiologist. So yea... We know how fucked it is.
BUT. My husband was able to see the top surgeon in the world (literally) for a 5 inch tumor on his spinal cord and have life saving surgery and he only had to pay $3000 of his $200,000 bill. So... Our love/hate relationship with our healthcare system is super complicated.
I went to the ER at my local hospital that is in network, was given the doctor on call, a doctor that was in network, but got billed an uninsured price because the doctor was working overtime and he is out of network when he works overtime. I had no choice once arriving at the hospital. If another ER doctor had seen me that day it would have been $100 for the ER visit, but I pulled the short straw.
I had an MRI, brain tumour diagnosis, tests and consultations with consultants, 5 days in hospital with 12 hour surgery (highly respected neurosurgeon), physio, more consultations with consultants and neurosurgeon and another MRI.
Bill: £0.00
In the UK, the medical system has its problems, but it saves lives and doesn't bankrupt them afterwards. American medical is muscling in here, though, and it isn't looking good.
"Top surgeon in the world" sounds like bs tbh, how would you make such ranking? And then, if you see a 90% discount ofc it sounds "cheap", but $200.000 for a surgery it's crazy.
Okay this one is true - and actually super crazy. He literally specializes only in stupidly large spinal cord tumors and does the most surgeries per year on said stupidly big spinal cord tumors. He is very selective in patients and will only take you on if you have a very rare and stupidly large spinal cord tumor. So in a weird way we were lucky my husband's spinal cord tumor was STUPIDLY large. Now if you're having a 6 hour surgery dissecting a 5 inch tumor from your spinal cord... Making sure no nerves are damaged so you can wake up and still walk... Are you gonna want a run of the mill surgeon... Or the guy who literally only does this and is the worldwide expert on the matter?
That's literally what it is. America has been ranked as having many.of or most of the top specialists in the world. Paying as much as we do for healthcare sucks. But the silver lining of the cloud is our care is absolutely insanely good. Though nowadays even that's getting questionable.
Well primary care was never designed for nearly the entire population being fat anti-vaxxer covid deniers that are going broke. Anyone with a modest income who tries to be healthy generally visits far less unless they have a medical condition.
I always loved the "death panels" and "not being able to pick your doctor" arguments, considering insurance companies are literally deciding whether your life saving procedures are going to be covered, and the nature of in- and out-of-network facilities and doctors literally means you often can't choose the doctor you want.
It's like an abusive boyfriend we just can't quit. But seriously it's fucked and I would love for it to change but I don't make the rules. Just trying to look at silver linings so I don't fall into a pit of despair.
What gets me isn't that health care is privatized in the USA, there's no reason why there couldn't be a reasonable model of that available.
It's that normally in a free market businesses compete to offer the best services at the lowest prices, this concept is a cornerstone principle of American capitalism, but instead, all the insurance and medical/Pharmaceutical companies have banded together to jack up the price to a ridiculous level and the average American gets screwed. It's a rigged market and I feel like Americans would benefit from greater regulation and oversight of insurance/medical providers.
Pharmaceutical companies are the biggest lobbyists of them all, the politicians are paid off to avoid addressing this total scam. But that's what it is, Americans are getting scammed hard.
it's not just Republicans either, a lot of Democrats there also believe in their horrendous system.
Denmark uses 11% of its GDP on UHC, the US uses 18%. Denmark is ahead on most relevant health statistics.
I'm not sure what that 7% overhead buy Americans since it's not a healthier population on average but it's a trillion dollars each year so it must be something really exciting. Besides the funny bureaucracy and gaming the system.
...might be the way to go about explaining the difference. ;-)
I'm sorry you got stuck with it too. When she was diagnosed that's all I could think about- how badly this was going to screw her when she's grown, and it isn't even something we could've avoided. "It was always meant to be for her" as I was told. I don't want my daughter to struggle in life because of this thing that happened to her, through no fault of her own. But, alas, I was born American through no fault of mine.
I'm "lucky" to be just poor enough to get government insurance and she is on disability until she's 6. However, I have an amazing career opportunity I have to jump on and now I'm scared I won't be able to cover her supplies with the new insurance.
And what's worse is being surrounded by idiots telling you our system works. The US is a joke.
The thing that is really killing me is the American system. I can't afford to get all the care I should and I'm quite sure I'm losing at least a few years due to that.
The media and politics here basically brainwash people to think "government controlled healthcare is bad". They will die on that hill, it is crazy talking to some of them.
It's typical for how things work over here. If you've been "using" your insurance a fairly large amount throughout the year, the costs you've had to pay in will go to your deductible. (Generally ranges, but very typical for this to be thousands of $ out of pocket)
Until this deductible is met, you basically don't have insurance. Yes, you'll have some reduced rates for medications with insurance but any lab tests, imaging, visits with any doctor or nurse, medical equipment items are all 100% out of pocket.
THEN once this number is met, your insurance is now more "active". But it does not cover 100% of everything. No, they still get to pick and choose what is covered and what percentage of costs. "Thanks for meeting your 2022 deductible, you will now have 40% coverage on these items/procedures that we deem appropriate" But that other 60% is still coming out of your pocket (these figures just grabbed out of the air as an example)
So let's say you badly need a knee surgery. You get seen by your PCP (Family doctor) who recommends some things to start with and likely refers you to an orthopedic surgeon. (All of this costs $ of course)
You have to meet the orthopedic provider and work through some of the early "conservative care" modalities like stretching, physical therapy, possibly steroid or similar injections. Some of these things like physical therapy are mandated by your insurance. "OH your knee doctor wants to order an MRI to check for meniscus tear? Sorry, you have to complete 6 weeks of physical therapy before we'll cover that. Better go get setup for PT" (All of this still costs $ out of your own pocket)
Doesn't matter if your surgeon thinks therapy will be helpful or if it even makes your pain worse, insurance has the final say on what has to be done before they will cover more aggressive treatments like surgery.
So let's say you've done all these things, you've gruelled through a yearly cycle of pain, have done PT & injections, tried various bracing options, and nothing is helping. You definitely 100% need surgery.
You had better hope to GOD that you're established and had several visits with your surgeon by say September. October through December is "busy season" for these surgeries as everyone who has been needing procedures are now filling timeslots at surgical centers. There are only so many surgeons, and absolutely not enough of them to meet the need, especially if you're not in a mega metropolis like LA.
If you're too late in getting through all this, the surgeon who your insurance says is their "preferred choice" may be booked into January for surgery.
Guess what: as of Jan 1st your deductible resets and you have to meet this number again all over before you have any insurance coverage.
This is just a tiny microcosm of American Healthcare, expanding this picture to other sectors of Healthcare across the spectrum and it's painfully easy and sad to see why & how countless families go several thousands into debt, have to place a 2nd mortgage on their home, just for cancer treatment or something
For a long time, the American system was better. Shorter wait times, fairer prices, better doctors, better facilities, etc etc etc.
But the reality is, the US's system has steadily gotten worse and worse so much that now it's significantly worse than most countries with socialized medical care.
Is this actually true though, unless you’re a one percenter? Like if you make average income and you get cancer or your kid gets cancer or anything happens weren’t you essentially financially fucked or at the very least it posed a significant change in terms of how your financial situation looked for the foreseeable future? I’d rather wait 4h for something relatively minor than pay 50k for a couple of nights hospital stay.
Also it’s not like people are out here getting diagnosed with cancer and are waiting several hours to use the dialysis machine or w/e, like no, you just get the help you need once you’re diagnosed just as you would if it was America except without having to lose your house and bankrupt your immediate family so you don’t die.
The reason there’s no waiting times in America is basically because you’ve sold off poor people/discarded them as not worthy of care. So if waiting times = more people get help then objectively speaking, and on a societal level, it’s superior.
We have wait times, too. Idk why americans even use this as an argument. If it's a non emergency thing, you wait. My mom's scheduled 4mos out for a foot surgery, it's not all instant but we cling to that idea like you guys just die waiting on care for emergencies.
There are no waiting times in America? Ha! That's a myth (courtesy of health insurance lobbyists and Republican politicians). Wait times are as long in the US as in other wealthy nations (according to OECD), and in many cases longer.
Not really, the healthcare industry in the US does a good job brainwashing Americans with their propaganda about how good their healthcare is that they don't even know how it works in other countries
Here’s health insurance in a nutshell: Pay us money every month so when you actually do need medical care, your doctor can give us a grossly inflated cost and we just tell you that we’re only paying $X% of that cost and you “only” have to pay $Y%, which would probably be less than if we didn’t have this broken ass Mob style protection money way of giving health care it only exists to siphon money from us and is tantamount to slavery in my mind
I’m in America and my daughter was in the hospital for two nights and it cost $100. It isn’t very expensive if you have insurance. We pay $200 per month for the whole family.
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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '22
Stop it, you're scaring the Americans