saxitoxin wrote:
You didn't qualify that your horror stories of "$200,000 of debt" and being turned away for treatment applied to 7% of the U.S. population - you implied that was the norm. I'm talking about norms - what most Canadians experience. You're talking about anomalies - what a tiny fraction of Americans experience.
Only 7% of Americans have a frame of reference with your stories about "$200,000 of debt" or being turned away because - pre 2011 - 93% of Americans had health insurance. However 99.9% of Canadians have experienced breadlines for third-world quality health care in filthy factory hospitals.
It's a choice of giving almost everyone a brand new Cadillac (U.S.) or everyone a used Pontiac with two flat tires and a cracked windshield (Canada). Remember that the next time one of your politicians crosses the border for treatment in one of our medical palaces because he doesn't want to risk his life in the Bulgarian-style paupers clinics 99.9% of Canadians are forced to use.
Paying for health insurance is just as bad.
Health insurance should be illegal. If you break your hip, you don't pay the market value for hip fixery. Instead the insurance company pays whatever the doctor charges, knowing the insurance companies have deep pockets and that insurance is basically a license to print money; they can just raise the premiums. This is why all kinds from private to public should be illegal. Same with car insurance. If you can't afford the "million dollar premium" yourself, stay off the road. Of course the million dollar premium isn't because that's the value of the damages, it's because that's the value the insurance is willing to pay. It's like mortgages too. They should also be illegal. They say my house is worth 300k. That isn't actually what it's worth, that's only what someone with a 25-year mortgage is willing to pay. If mortgages were illegal, the real value of my house would be 20-50k. Our entire economy is based on bullshit principles like this, illusory numbers that keep going up and up but the entire bedrock is a joke. People work at jobs making products and services that other people would actually be better off without. This is why total economic collapse is the only reasonable goal left. Barring that, victory at the regional water polo championships.
