this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2024
231 points (93.3% liked)
Technology
59340 readers
5120 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Because you emigrated and get this live saving essential service for free?
Just to note, it's not free, it's not magic, it's just better regulated. I've lived in a few countries with socialized healthcare, and we still pay insurance. It's just a lot less since we don't have to cover ever-increasing insurance profits, and there is no such thing as "out of network" as long as you don't leave the country (and the rest of the EU).
My premium is 116 EUR for full coverage per month, with no maximum coverage or any other fees, and every healthcare institution in the EU is going to treat me for that in an emergency, for no additional charge. If I need extended treatment, I will get transported to the institution that's most convenient for me (and thus, the system), and be treated there. Dental, mental healthcare included.
I still pay for some OTC medicine, but prices are kept low.
It's not magic, but there will never be a life saving treatment that ruins you financially here in the EU. And travel insurance is dirt cheap here as well.
Your premium is 116 EUR per month, plus the taxes people pay -- which are much higher in those countries.
You have also traded your freedom.
The UK is currently talking about banning tobacco entirely in the name of reducing health costs despite it being a part of many cultures ceremonies and traditions. New York is still trying to control soda sizes in the name of public health. Canada now offers suicide as an option for people who would have a long (and costly) treatment with low probability of improving health.
Pretty soon you're setting a death age because old people use most of the healthcare. They make a Star Trek TNG episode about this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_a_Life_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation)
Nope, our system is exactly like the US system, except properly regulated. It's still private insurance, I pay a private company for medical insurance and make claims when I need to use the system. We just didn't let the industry grow as a cancer on people.
What freedom did I trade away?
About the taxes, yes, I might pay more of them, but at the same time when I got burned out by my workplace, I could leave, get mental healthcare, rest, and get back into work on my own terms. I had no financial problems from doing any part of this whatsoever. What is that if it's not freedom?
I lead a happy and easy life. I am not rich by any means, I have a middle class existence, but can pay for nice travel holidays, hobbies, whatever. I don't know what exactly the US could give me except a constant anxiety from guns being everywhere, school shootings, a semi-fascistic government sliding further and further into tyrannny, and no public services whatsoever.
The US is "talking about" stopping the whole democracy charade and installing a dictator. The fact that it's being talked about by a few members of the government does not make it inevitable or even likely.
I hope so! I mean, I don't think that anyone should be prevented in going home, making a huge soda and dying of sugar overdose, but it is nobody's interest to be served one litre soda cups just so that they can feel how "generous" McDonald's is while they get addicted to sugar.
While the US just bankrupts them and leaves the suicide part to them. Also, are you bringing up an example of a state not providing adequate care to justify abolishing all socialized healthcare altogether?