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Kailaylia t1_jdg7ki6 wrote

When I was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, and given no chance of a full recovery, just the possibility of extending my life, the cost of treatment was not an issue, as I'm Australian and luckily had good public transport connecting me with a specialist hospital. The cost of medicines cost around $5 - $10 a week and that was my only expense.

But if I was in America - As I have two handicapped adult offspring to care for, and went through years of pretty well my whole carer's allowance going on house payments while buying nothing ever for myself so I could at least leave my kids with a home of their own, I would have forgone cancer treatment and died a few years faster in order to not lose the house.

Surprisingly, the treatment worked better than expected, now having no detectable cancer at all, saving the government the expense of supervising my sons.

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PsychologicalLuck343 t1_jdi92h0 wrote

Bless you for posting this. This is how people should be treated.

I'm so glad you've made it.

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Kailaylia t1_jdii3mc wrote

Thanks. It breaks my heart hearing stories from friends in America who have had to make really hard choices regarding health care.

There was no medicare in Australia when I was a child and one family I knew had a bunch of children die, one after the other, of an operable heart defect. They were a poor, uneducated, inbred sawmilling family in a remote area in the 60's and no-one who could help cared.

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ObtuseTheropod t1_jdiy4ed wrote

Our broken system killed my dad last year. I'm just glad it isn't like this everywhere.

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PsychologicalLuck343 t1_jdj0ult wrote

I'm so sorry. But I believe you so hard.

My mother's terrible doctor gave her a clean bill of health after she lost 40 pounds in a year and felt horrible for 2 years. She died 2 days after that appointment with undetected heart disease.

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notsurewhattosay-- t1_jdj58s1 wrote

I'm American. My now x husband contracted cholera somehow. Racked up 45,000$ in hospital bills. But fortunately this hospital had a program for poor folks like us. The entire bill was covered by them. But there are plenty of horror stories about hospital bills that don't have a happy ending. I really wish American politics wasn't so cruel to the average person. Time again average people vote in these politicians who trick them and vote against their(average American) interests. Let's also give a shout out to the lobbyists who work so hard paying off and smoozing with our Congress to keep the status quo. Our own cancer institute has a website that promotes eating cold cuts!. We allow tons of polluting chemicals in our drinking water. But currently we are too busy fighting against those drag queens!! It's like living in a crazy nightmare here.

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Kailaylia t1_jdl4eg6 wrote

Obviously it doesn't matter how many people are impoverished by this system, suffer and die horribly, so long as they die heterosexual.

Even the "food pyramid", indoctrinated into us as the model of healthy eating, was constructed to appease grain farmers, and is a recipe for disease and diabetes.

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PsychologicalLuck343 t1_jdipsq6 wrote

That's horrible and I'm sure it happens here multiple times a day.

People can be monsters. We really just have to be better than this.

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Akp1072 t1_jdieajh wrote

I’m in America and on the flip side of this story. One of the first pieces of advice I got from a good friend is: “you will go into debt. Accept it, and move on.” He was still paying off the debts from his very young daughters death 5 years later. And I will likely be paying off my husband’s medical bills long after he is gone. We’re focused on living and doing what we can now with the time we have.

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Kailaylia t1_jdih11l wrote

It's a cruel system in which the health insurers treat Americans like dairy cows, just continually siphoning money off them.

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Chaseus_Clay t1_jdj7pmv wrote

And to think only a few Americans had to die to keep y'all safe from the Japanese! For real, it's frustrating as a working class American knowing how much of my earnings go to protecting the rest of the world. People overseas have no idea

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ncktckr t1_jdji853 wrote

You're focused on the wrong boogyman. We spend obscene amounts of money on military power and soft power, yes. It benefits some people outside the US, but it benefits us the most geopolitically. We should spend less, or at least not continually increase the amount, and put money into programs that help people, yes.

Isolationism and xenophobia aren't as nice as they sound to some on paper. They would not improve the condition of our country's people; in fact, they'd likely worsen many of America's ills… see Brexit as an example.

Instead of focusing on what political leaders want you to focus on—arbitrary large numbers you have no influence on or control over—maybe try understanding the world's bigger picture, the benefits and harms of an international economy, what chess pieces are on the board and why. Perhaps most importantly, focus on participating in your local government (city, county, state; not federal) to advocate for issues, or at least vote for like-minded leaders.

There are no quick fixes in such an extremely complex and interdependent system, unfortunately. Not ideal, but it is what it is.

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Chaseus_Clay t1_jdjq002 wrote

You typed a lot but said essentially nothing past "participate at local elections" which doesn't focus on the problems of not having time to research candidates or that only a certain "type" of person gets the chance to run for local office. I really think that you aren't as aware of and educated on the issues you pretend to care about

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Kailaylia t1_jdl3u1i wrote

That's a strangely aggressive and irrelevant reply to someone who feels sorry for Americans for their abominably cruel health-care system.

Your medical insurance companies are ripping you off. They inflate the costs of services, then add on their own charges, and the result is Americans pay exceptionally high costs for substandard health care.

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Chaseus_Clay t1_jdl4idt wrote

Money that could go to our healthcare instead goes to keeping the world and international trade (which in a capitalist system is the world) safe for all. The security provided by the US isn't charity, but it might as well be if you're European or Japanese or Australian etc

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Kailaylia t1_jdl64os wrote

You're not getting it - as in reasonably priced health care.

Your medical system is costing both your government and your people obscene amounts of money.

Free medical care for all does not cost more, it costs less.

You need to free medicine from the greedy leeches, (health insurance companies,) using health-care as a way to siphon money from hospitals and from those needing medical care.

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