Shit is fucking bonkers. Richest country in the history of mankind makes its people pay to live and get educated. Fuck. Only developed country that does it. I’m convinced that our government hates our guts and wants us all dead.
Nope. They want us just alive enough to increase “the domestic supply of infants” to fully stock both their workforce and the military.
Keeping you alive “long enough”. Your productive years of making children aren’t the years where you need the most healthcare. It’s designed to get young people to overpay and old people to overpay and still die
I’ve been waiting for more people to realize this. The rich will always make the mistake of underestimating the poor.
By expanding the groups range, you increase their numbers dramatically, eventually they’ll realize they can eat you alive.
And all their bunkers become fancy soup cans, and there’s always a can opener.
And half of them are voting for candidates that openly want to make things worse.
That military budget is literally fucking us sideways. I’d be ok with it if it were used for the good of this world, it’s literally used to kill brown people and children.
There was a joke in the old Duck Tales cartoon about this.
One of Scrooge McDuck’s nephews was chastising his uncle for being needlessly frugal. “Why won’t you pay for this? You’re the richest duck in the world!”
Scrooge replied “And how do you think I got to be the richest?”
Oligarchs convincing We the People to vote for representatives who maintain systems of indifference and cruelty is how we got so damn rich to begin with.
If it makes you feel any better (well aware it will not), I’ve not had a consistent NHS GP for a good 15-20 years, and it’s for the same reason - fewer doctors cost less money, and private for profit companies running our healthcare (in many cases, the very same people, since many of the companies buying up the NHS are American insurers) only care about one thing, and it isn’t healthcare.
Uhh. I haven’t visted a doctor for a check up since I was 18. Which was 14 years ago. I have only used healthcare when I crushed my hand at work. In which my company paid for. I have never gone to a walk in, I have never gotten a prescription despite getting bronchitis and pneumonia every year. Haven’t gotten to the doctor for the 3 times I had food poison or the flu. It is costly, it takes time, I work night and sleep during day, and I still pay health insurance(50$ a week and 50$ a month for dental) in which I have to pay to visit doctors and pay until I hit a deductible
You know you’re in a first world country when the GDP to life expectancy curve goes brrr. Except in the US where capitalism is a death cult. Why increase lifespans when profits can always go higher? Something something trickle down.
I’m 51. I still list my pediatrician who I am fairly certain died thirty years ago. They don’t check.
This happens in Canada too, you just extra fucked in the US because you also have to pay up when you go to a shitty walk-in.
I wish there was an easier way for foreign doctors, nurses, and medical staff to upskill, retrain, or otherwise have their credentials recognized so that they can continue in the medical field.
I’ve spoken to so many people (and their acquaintances) who can’t afford the money or time it would take to start over to become credentialed in engineering, law, and medicine. Agreements like the Sydney Accord help, but they don’t fix the problem.
Why not improve working conditions so we aren’t losing doctors who have trained here? They’re already trained in our system
Mostly because they’re deliberately being made to leave the system so that it can be replaced by an worse American like system. For the reich to profit from.
We can do both, but Canada and the US get a lot of talented immigrants that end up working in low-wage jobs that aren’t taking full advantage of their existing skills. The system is so strained that we need a multi-pronged approach to fill in the gaps.
I’d love for residency programs to be overhauled to allow for changes to the matching system and for working hours to be reduced, if possible. I think demanding 80-hour work weeks from the least paid and least experienced doctors is a recipe for mistakes and burnout.
Not only that, but the way that visa sponsorship and the citizenship process can absolutely fuck you over is absolutely horrifying.
I have a family friend who immigrated for an engineering role at a consulting firm. The job was going really well, and he wanted to stay in the US, so he was getting ready to start the citizenship process once he hit the 5 year mark. About 6 months before the 5 year mark, the company let him go, and he had to scramble within the 60 day grace period to find a new employer who was willing to keep sponsoring his visa, or else he’d have to leave the US.
