imagine life if the people in power were engineers rather than lawyers
this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2026
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When the US was having actual discussions of single-payer health care (i.e. the "public option" during Obama's first term), one major argument against it was "do you really want the government between you and your doctor?!"
Even though insurance companies are literally already between you and your doctor, and they exist purely to extract money from that interaction.
It's never made sense.
The old arguments were "Look how long they (the socialists) wait to get appointments and get seen!" Yep, we're there now. I have insurance, I still pay a bunch, and seeing specialists is a luxury at this point. If I have an issue, I don't even consider calling specialists, because I know it's weeks til I can get in.
Weeks lol, try months to years round these parts
And then the same party decided to get the government in there too anyways
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I don't trust the government, but I trust them a hell of a lot more than insurance companies of all people
I don't want anyone between me and my doctor. Doctors should be deciding what care I require and billing the govt for it. If the government thinks something fishy is going on, they can audit them after the fact. I need not be involved. As it stands I don't go to the doctor at all because I'm worried they'll do some test or something that wasn't actually approved by my insurance and I'll get slapped with a bill for 1000s of dollars.
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You are the product
You dead or without any money left, or both is the product.
... gatekeeping is what they get paid for.
Look at finance! They don't make anything of actual value, they just bet what's going to happen to the people that do
"You know what the trouble is, Brucey? We used to make shit in this country, build shit. Now we just put our hand in the next guy's pocket."
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You are too weak, cowardly and divided to stop it. That's why. Organize, grow a pair and empower each other. You must fight as a group or you will continue to be oppressed and exploited.
and manipulated to fight against each other, against your own interests
Capitalism is basically about making as much money as possible with as few products/services as possible. Health insurance is one of the best ways to achieve that.
You forgot the most important part of capitalism which is exploiting labor.
The US should adopt the Dutch healthcare system. You could have medical treatment as an average Joe and also not be bankrupt or up to your tits in debt.
I mean if they picked a random country it probably has a good chance to be twice as good as the US system
yeah, but, like the lines are long
/s
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Remember pryimid schemes are illegal. Because they dont sell a product.
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Please don‘t extrapolate from the US healthcare system to insurances in general. Insurances collect money from many so in the case something happens to an individual that individual doesn‘t need take the full financial loss. This makes a lot of sense, because it would very inefficient if everyone would save money in order to pay for a potential cancer treatment. Cancer is rare, but in aggregate it is just small amount each month.
The job of the insurance is to define that monthly amount (which is not trivial to do), collect it, store it and eventually pay it out.
On another note, unless an insurance is mandatory you can usually opt to pay yourself.
That is the job of the government. Everyone needs healthcare to one degree or another. If we're all going to be pooling money anyway it shouldn't be filtered through a for-profit system first.
On another note, unless an insurance is mandatory you can usually opt to pay yourself.
No I can't. Everything is too expensive because insurance being involved has inflated the costs.
The cost of insurance goes down the larger the pool of people. The largest pool in a country is everyone, so like utilities it becomes a natural monopoly.
Natural monopolies should be the purview of the government as they allow for abuse.
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Anything critical to the life of an individual citizen, like health and home insurance, should be publicly run. It just doesn't make sense for a private company to manage that because their profit motive is in direct opposition to the individual (i.e. they must fight claims and inflate premiums to increase revenue).
The state loses money anyway if the person is homeless or destitute so they might as well pay out. Yes there are still agents to manage funds and adjust claims and set rates but they're now operating as impartial public servants instead of antagonists.
You would think that. But most decent sized companies self insure. That means they figure out how much to hold in savings to cover potential costs. They probably pay someone for that number. The premium is just to pay the insurance company to manage billing. It is basically an administrative fee. That puts them in the position that employers will choose the insurance company that cost them the least, mainly by denying claims. It's a system designed to extract as much money as possible from the people and pass it on to the largest shareholders (the board of directors).
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This is unironically Nixon's fault.
It's also unironically Reagan's fault, as well as both Clinton and FDR.
Prior to FDR doctors and healthcare were run completely not for profit, and part of The New Deal included privatizing hospitals. Nixon did insurance. Reagan and Clinton mostly just took the government further out of healthcare by removing regulations.
Can you point me in a direction for a source of the new deal hospital privatization aspect please?
I’m unfamiliar and want to lean more.
Looking into it, it seems to have been Truman, not FDR, though FDR may have helped create the bill. You're looking for the healthcare reform act of 1945. I just remember my nurse grandmother going on multiple tirades about the privatization of healthcare starting around then, and healthcare in general being slowly suffocated by admins ever since. She didn't live long enough to give me her opinions on the ACA.
Thanks. Yeah, I didn’t want to come off as a know it all umm actually guy so I figured I could be wrong and just ask for a source.
I had done my own search too but again, everyone is fallible so better to just ask.
Also I know it means nothing from some rando on the interwebs but good on ya for correcting yourself. In today’s age and all that…hope you’re as well as you can be. Take care! (Goes to look further into Truman’s war criminal ass lol)
Edit: it appears Truman actually tried to make a national health insurance act happen and was defeated by anti-communist sentiments, the American Medical Association, and republicans fear mongering and “they’re gonna raise your taxes!!!!” rhetoric. It would have been a part of the social security expansion but alas, congress is corrupt and Americans are gullible (being generous).
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It’s wild how much this contrasts with Australia’s Medicare, like here you can literally just walk into the ER with any issue, show them your Medicare card and get your entire treatment covered for free unless you need any private healthcare, which even then there are rebates and private healthcare competes with public so it’s also moderately affordable.
There were 2 instances where my dad needed to be in hospital for multiple days at a time, once for a broken wrist after slipping at the boat ramp after a fishing trip, and the other was a stingray attack on his leg at that same boat ramp. Both instances didn’t require a single cent exchanged, we just walked in and described the issue, and boom, after a few days he was treated to the extent he could go home and not really worry at all anymore.
waiting for a medical group to bypass them and collect premiums directly. if only to end insurance paperwork costs. it is a drag on everyone's bottom line. aside from price distortions.
A couple of my doctors did that before I left the US in 2021. They stopped accepting insurance and started charging a monthly "membership fee" that would cover a certain number of visits per year.
My parents are part of a clinic exactly like this. I legit thought it might be a scam at first because "how have insurance companies not shut this down?"
It sorta works for kaiser - they administer the insurance and the hospitals. Very convenient for people who both have the insurance and access to their facilities.
Nowhere near as good as a single payer system of course.
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Here in Argentina that we have free healthcare, insurance is a signal of wealth so you get attended in the private hospital away from the common folk. And even in the private hospital everything is relatively cheap because they have to compete with the free option.
You are the product. When your liability outpaces your premium is when they decide to stop covering you.
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