Reply to post: Re: Not office hours? No contact

This always-on culture we're in is awful. How do we stop it? Oh, sorry, hold on – just had another notification

MachDiamond Silver badge

Re: Not office hours? No contact

"Not so bothered about tax, it is what it is. But healthcare."

The US government has never taken up discussions about the cost of healthcare. What they do is talk about health insurance. Related but not equal. Obamacare was and still sort of is a requirement that you have health insurance. What happened is what always happens when the government gets stuck in and that's loads of waste and fraud. Insurance policies that used to be considered "catastrophic" coverage become the norm except the rates are at the level for what would have been average insurance. Lots of money in monthly payments with a very high deductible. You might have to need tens of thousands of medical bills before you pull even with what it costs. This is all ok because the government will pay anybody's insurance premiums if they can't afford them. If your entry into the country was rather informal, no worries, some program will pay for your medical needs, especially in California. Not just in an emergency. Prenatal counseling and services are offered even if birth control products are not.

What hasn't been addressed in the US is the problems with lawyers, lawsuits and the insurance costs to protect the healthcare providers. Juries are happy to award millions in compensation for a 90 year old dying in hospital without being told the person smoked two packs a day, drank at least half a liter of hard alcohol and subsisted on bacon sandwiches. A woman can bring suit for "undue and unjust pain" during childbirth and get a judgement worth millions. They'd be better off asking for much less so it's not worth an appeal, but juries do what they like. The two aspirin you get in hospital costs as much as two bottles at the chemist due to the process in dispensing said aspirin and the insurance to dispense it.

I see the issue in the US as politicians worrying about the symptoms rather than root causes.

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