Sen. Bernie Sanders told CBS News he's "very disappointed" by the bill to end the government shutdown, calling a planned vote on health insurance subsidies "meaningless."
What if all American’s cancel their insurance. Why are we paying these people for a service that they don’t provide!?
Because then that annual physical goes from costing you 20 dollars out of pocket to almost 900 once the bloodwork is added.
If I’m going to be sick and broke because my insurance is too expensive to actually use,
And that is the real crux of it and why we need single payer/m4a. You, like most people, are approaching health insurance as something you need when you are sick.
The reality is that health insurance is something you have so you don’t actually get sick. You engage in preventative care whether that is vaccinations or just getting that lump checked out while it is still “you are either fat or have cancer” rather than “if we don’t cut out a large chunk of your leg, you are going to die” and so forth. Get your teeth cleaned rather than filled with epoxies and so forth.
And… that is also a big chunk of why it is so expensive. Because hospitals are generally staffed by people who give a shit (even if they often aren’t owned by folk that do…) and needing to care for people who don’t have insurance is a thing (at least in emergencies. But it isn’t like we live in a country where there are one or more mass shootings a day…). So the idea is that Mr Wilkerson, who has insurance, will pay out the nose on aspirin so that Mr Carey, who doesn’t, can get a hit of the mediocre stuff.
Which also leads to the complete fuckery of insurance companies being aware of that and more or less insisting on a system where they are billed something truly insane (10k for a tablet of aspirin!) so that they can use the power of collective bargaining to get that down to something “reasonable” (50 dollars per tablet of aspirin!) that they then have a co-pay on. Whereas people who don’t have insurance get that insane bill and need to fight for themselves and/or go bankrupt.
But if you have health insurance, get a primary care doctor. Insurance companies (and even a lot of doctors…) will try to tell you that you don’t need it because it makes the insurance companies more money for you to not receive preventative care and doctors are already overworked.
But having a PCP has three major benefits:
Preventative care. Get things checked out once a year. Ask questions during those appointments. Get blood tests. It is much better to identify a calcium deficiency while you can still self-medicate rather than when you start having complications from it and so forth
These days, many/most doctors are part of a larger practice. And those practices will often charge a lot less (and be a lot easier to schedule) for patients who are already under their care. I was fortunate enough that when I needed stitches removed 15-ish years ago that this was explained to me and it cost a LOT less. And it has been similarly useful for “is it a sprain or a fracture” style checks that would have otherwise been a trip to the urgent care and then a referral to the emergency room.
Because then that annual physical goes from costing you 20 dollars out of pocket to almost 900 once the bloodwork is added.
And that is the real crux of it and why we need single payer/m4a. You, like most people, are approaching health insurance as something you need when you are sick.
The reality is that health insurance is something you have so you don’t actually get sick. You engage in preventative care whether that is vaccinations or just getting that lump checked out while it is still “you are either fat or have cancer” rather than “if we don’t cut out a large chunk of your leg, you are going to die” and so forth. Get your teeth cleaned rather than filled with epoxies and so forth.
And… that is also a big chunk of why it is so expensive. Because hospitals are generally staffed by people who give a shit (even if they often aren’t owned by folk that do…) and needing to care for people who don’t have insurance is a thing (at least in emergencies. But it isn’t like we live in a country where there are one or more mass shootings a day…). So the idea is that Mr Wilkerson, who has insurance, will pay out the nose on aspirin so that Mr Carey, who doesn’t, can get a hit of the mediocre stuff.
Which also leads to the complete fuckery of insurance companies being aware of that and more or less insisting on a system where they are billed something truly insane (10k for a tablet of aspirin!) so that they can use the power of collective bargaining to get that down to something “reasonable” (50 dollars per tablet of aspirin!) that they then have a co-pay on. Whereas people who don’t have insurance get that insane bill and need to fight for themselves and/or go bankrupt.
Who’s out there getting annual physicals?
Its obviously privilege.
But if you have health insurance, get a primary care doctor. Insurance companies (and even a lot of doctors…) will try to tell you that you don’t need it because it makes the insurance companies more money for you to not receive preventative care and doctors are already overworked.
But having a PCP has three major benefits:
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