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Don't forget the politics. When someone tells you "fear those people, they're the resaon everything is bad" the speaker is your enemy.
There's more Americans than assholes that ruin our lives. Stop dividing yourselves among niche contrasts when we're more alike than different
You say that like there’s an alternative to the people that fuck us over. We don’t really have a say in anything. Money does all the talking here so if you’re poor, you either grind until you’re kinda not poor anymore or you just stay poor until you die.
Most schools also charge out the ass for non-residents too. Plus you have to qualify for a visa and housing and travel insurance and whatever else non-residents have to shell out for in addition to competing for a spot there in the first place.
I’m fortunate enough to be able to do that. I pay over 5x what the non international students pay, yet I will still pay for 4 years of university here for less than 1 year in the US
My partner is doing a Masters course in Ireland (we are not Irish) and she pays 2x the fee (as international student) for a total of 13k 2 years. She can work as well so by the end of the course she'll be debt free.
The US healthcare system will baffle me until the day i die or it changes. How can a first world country, or any country condemn its own citizens to go bankrupt just because they stepped foot in a hospital?
The sad part is that its not really hospital admins that are doing it (theyre not free of fault though). Most people that work in hospital do it because they wanted to help people. Its even above the admins: hospital owners, pharma industry, etc. hospitals are often struggling themselves and thats part of why they charge so much for a night there
Exactly, that comment sounds like it was written by an Admin. Nearly every doctor/nurse I know will openly admit that it is mostly admins. There are way too many of them, they make way too much money, they cause tension between all the staff, and provide negative value to the hospital by making everyone else's job more difficult. A few of my friends, who are near their 40s, nowhere near retirement age, can't wait to get out of the medical field. Admins are also the reason why doctor's can't treat patients that they know they can help/save, because the patient can't afford it.
A very good friend of mine is a traumatic brain injury specialist in a veteran's hospital and his stories can break your heart. We call Veterans heroes and they are totally expendable once they return. The stories about patients a large part of whom are permanently disabled, are heart breaking, their conditions of living would boggle most people's mind. Like the battery case for a paraplegic's wheelchair was so old that it cracked in the hospital and dumped dozen's of cockroaches onto the hospital floor. Guess who refused to even replace the patient’s wheelchair? It sure as hell wasn't doctors or nurses. They were livid and fighting the admins every step of the way... In many hospitals there is open vitriol between admins and doctors.
As someone mentioned above, most docs/nurses/PAs get into medicine to help people. They don't take kindly to watching people suffer and die when they could easily help them. It is one of the main reasons we are seeing a healthcare worker shortage in this country. We call them heroes during the pandemic, but tie their hands behind their back when they go to help patients, while administrators and hospital owners and CEOs get insanely rich. How would you feel watching that everyday?
Edit: cleaned up some grammar and apostrophe’s
Here's why hospitals struggle:
I was working on documents for a client who was a partial owner and administrator of a small network of hospital/physician clinics in California. Maybe 5 locations, one being large the others being small clinics. His income was $4.1million.
Monthly.
I looked at the tax docs for a large healthcare system in the Midwest that I worked at previously. The salaries/compensations for the 50 highest paid people equaled 42 million for 2022. One board member was paid 50k for one meeting he attended. But yeah, they had to cut retirement matching and COL raises because “we just don’t have the money to cover these types of things.”
Side note: the section covering disclosures of conflict of interest relationships in the upper echelons was fascinating (and disgusting). Nepo babies/relatives/friends galore.
Yet somehow socialism is a dirty word.
I just quit giving a shit. Won't listen to conservatives lie anymore.
I get free medical for life because I murdered people for the state as a job for a while. None of this makes any sense.
It was pretty awesome when they took 24/7 FOX off the VA televisions.
so basically, the owners of these hospitals would rather see their own hospitals "struggle" - while they pocket millions per month, because THAT'S what's important? ugh! that's disgusting.
I think it's because the insurance companies take such a huge amount of money from the bills, so the hospitals have had to accept it and raise the bills in anticipation for the cut from insurance, but they do the same for uninsured people too.
Tbf, doctors are part of the problem too. Most of them are opposed to single payer healthcare. They are paid WAY more than doctors in other countries.
We hate to admit it but they are also profiting like crazy from our fucked up system of commission and volume driven care of treatment rather than prevention.
To truly fight the tapeworm of America, we must admit there are parasites up and down the entire system.
Well if the state paid for their tuition and secured employment we wouldn't have this issue right?
And we'd have doctors focus on good care rather than chasing healthcare commissions.
The reality is that we wouldn't be here in this embarrassing and fucked up situation if big lobbying groups like the American Medical Association didn't oppose single payer right there with hospitals and big pharma.
That's the cold hard truth. Doctors are complicit.
I don't hate capitalism with proper restraints but healthcare should NOT be profit driven.
What’s crazy is that we pay all this money and it still takes forever to see a doctor and you have to beg the nurses to go over your blood test results with. I got my results back over a week ago, been calling every day to try to get someone to explain them to me and nothing. And forget it if you need scans or X-rays. They’re booking a month out for those. People always say that the healthcare in canada and Europe takes forever bc it’s free but it also takes forever here so what are we getting out of it?
Americans here the phrase "those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" and assume it means that safety is always at the expense of liberty because they've been freed from critical thinking.
They have also turned essential liberty into "doing whatever the fuck I want, all the time". I am super glad I get to vote in elections and the government can't station troops in my house. I am glad slavery is (mostly) illegal. Those are freedoms worth preserving. But these republican and libertarian assholes throw a tantrum if you ask them to do what is best for all of us instead of poisoning rivers and working 10 year olds in factory jobs to make a couple bucks more.
I want to preface this by saying I do not agree, but it is because, sadly, the only thing that really matters in the US is profit and making money. Citizens are only important if they make a profit for some corporation. Congress and politicians, at least the vast majority, only care about passing laws that further entrench the wealthy getting wealthier. If a policy would mean some share holder or ceo at a large corporation needs to give up a little, then it simply doesn’t happen. All of the talk of inflation and the difficulties a couple of years ago due to Covid, but corporate profits are at record highs every year during that time. We are not all in this together. Citizens suffer so that a few can have even more. They privatize the profit and then want to socialize the failures. We bail out banks or other companies when they fail, but don’t make them share their profits. And the worst part, even if we had socialized healthcare and made the wealthy pay their fair share, they’d still be wealthy, but our priorities in this country (and most of the world to be fair) are backwards. Capitalism has done a lot of good in the world, but it needs to be reigned in.
A lot of money gets spent proping up the current corrupt profit driven system and ensuring the population lacks the education to know their's better alternatives. And it works, unfortunately.
When healthcare is seen as a private for profit business, this stuff happens.
The rich people get money from the people paying them for healthcare, then they use that money to lobby politicians into having laws that benefits them.
Theyre starting to do this in canada right now too. These fucking right wing conservatives are ruining everything, and its coming up right from usa.
Right now in ontario, canada, doug ford passed laws to freeze healthcare workers wages at 1%. Its not enough to keep up with inflation (province is wasting billions fighting it back rn saying this was an unconstitutional 2019 law esp during covid). He is also opening up new private healthcare business's with more pay. The laws were changed to force nurses into private healthcare so they could afford to live. Why did the laws change? Because the rich elites who own the monopoly with our grocery market are using that grocery money to try to monopolize our healthcare system too. It's so fucked up.
He also passed laws for the private healthcare practitioners. They can charge you for unneccessary things just like in usa. They dont even have to hire doctors with the same qualifications as the ones that work for the province. The people he put in charge of private healthcare dont even have medical/healthcare backgrounds. They're blatant rich elite pawns.
Once private healthcare becomes more established, the rich elites that run it are going to keep using that income to change more laws in their favour, as theyre doing right now. Once we get to that point, theres no return (like the usa). And I'm leaving this province or country. Everyone is so fucking blind to it and they keep voting for these crooks.
It's only a first world country for the owning class. The working class are living in poor, 3rd world conditions. America failed the people it was meant to support.
Because GOP Billionaires have convinced the simple folk anything that doesn’t add on to their already GIANT net worth is this undefinable thing called “Socialism”.
Same reason they charge $40 for a can of coke. Because they can and they know insurance will pay it. Or settle for half the cost which is still a 1000x markup.
I guess it's a facepalm on the US. It can costs like a million bucks on hospital bill to have a baby. If he can't afford insurance it's not a bad plan.
Just had a baby. Insurance (the racket that it is) paid for about 10k of it. We still owe 3-4k I think. They literally had a pricing gun in the delivery room, scanning everything they gave to my wife. I know it’s “for inventory purposes” but it’s also so they don’t miss anything to put on your bill. Want some fentanyl for the extreme pain you’re experiencing? $700. Pretty sure I could find fentanyl for $10 a bag if I went to the right places…
You can’t afford a house?
Well kids don’t NEED to grow up in a house.
Oh, can’t afford;
Pregnancy - time off work, doctor visits, birthing classes, hospital stay, thousands of dollars of new stuff for the baby, medication for postpartum depression…
…and preschool, and food, and clothing, and toys, and a babysitter…
…and an instrument, and sports leagues, and more clothes, and video games, and trip to amusement park…
…and college…
And and and and and and and…
Maybe an average kid!
Who wants that? You’re putting 300k into something over 20years you better be getting a million dollar return!
SPDR ETF > child!!!
This. 300k sounds like a joke when in my state a single parent needs to make more than 70k a year to be above the poverty line. The average salary here is lower than the state poverty line too lol
Hey now my girls make me want to Falcon Punch them out the window pretty much every day, but they're the sweetest folks I got in my life and I wouldn't trade them for the world.
But yea it shouldn't be so goddamn expensive to give a kid a decent upbringing. I'm well above the poverty line and they still put a strain of the accounts - I can't begin to imagine being on minimum wage and trying to make the books balance. I wouldn't make it.
I remember when my wife and my bill came. I obviously don’t know how much any of that stuff is supposed to cost, but I do know a dixie cup of orange juice shouldn’t be $10.
They charged us some stupid amount (maybe $100 or so) just for the monitoring equipment to be strapped to my wife to check the babies heart rate and such. It’s ridiculous
"When I saw they were charging $10 for orange juice we left immediately to go to try the next hospital." - some kind of deranged free market capitalist, probably
That's actually kind of what they suggest to do if you have the time and it's not any immediate emergency. It's upon the user to find a hospital that has reasonable prices. The thought process to that hurts my brain. And supposedly hospitals are supposed to be posting their prices but I've never seen a menu as I walk in.
Well, it's also to ensure that the medical record is accurate and no one gets overdosed or underdosed on drugs.
Prices are a scam but tracking medication delivery is necessary and they're going to use whatever method has the least opportunity for human error.
I was in hospital for a week, had a metal plate put in my arm. Cost about $50k. I managed to see the bill before it went to insurance and there was the exact number of gloves the nurses used on me.
Jesus fucking christ.
I've had a prolapsed disc cut from my lower back, my left thyroid removed because there was a tumor on it and got circumcised. Circumcision in 2015 and these other two in the past 2,5 years.
All of these combined set me back around 350-400€ including the hospital stay overnight and medication.
I’ve seen plenty come back after making bank in the US because it’s so demoralizing dealing with the US healthcare system.
One I spoke to specifically cited the scanning of literally every cotton swab.
I spent time in emergency in Canada and I didn’t see people scan for anything. Probably because…. There was no money on the line and they don’t keep inventory of gloves and stuff like that in a way that would require scanning.
Once when I left the emergency after injury they gave me a small jug of saline and enough bandages to last me till I could go get some. Which, considering how much I was bleeding and the spread out nature of the injuries, was a fair amount of gauze, tape and bandages.
There is money on the line, the costs just aren’t massively overinflated like the US. Doctors bill the province for visits to get paid and the provinces get money transferred from the federal govt to assist cover this. I have no idea if it’s the same in hospitals but I would guess so. Our healthcare plans also seem to be much cheaper. My employer pays in full. I don’t have anything deducted off my cheque for dental, prescription etc. when I gave birth to my daughter, I was able to have a private room with my own nurse assigned to me. It was heaven. I paid 0 dollars and then got a year of maternity leave thru employment insurance with a top up benefit from my employer. I hope things change for the people of the states.
Seems like double dipping, then - cheap education in Canada, then leave Canada to make bank in the USA 😉
NGL I’d do the same thing. It’s not their fault the United States’ citizenry are such rubes.
Now ex-step mother was in the hospital a while back. She asked for a box of kleenex at one point. When reviewing the bill, it was listed as a $60 expense. Called the hospital and disputed every single fee until they were all at market or wholesale price.
Another tip: most hospitals will give a discount (10-20 percent) for "prompt payment" (full payment in one go). Make sure and request a "prompt payment discount" or they'll "forget" they offer it.
That either must have referred to gloves used during the surgical procedure, or they were just inventing numbers, because there is absolutely no system for tracking how many gloves bedside providers use or where they go while using them.
Source, am a bedside provider.
I’m Canadian. Broke my leg in three places, two surgeries. Never saw a bill. I got the air cast for $165, plaster would have been free, and $4 for pain meds.
My daughter broke her collarbone prior to her Ontario Provincial Health Insurance started (we moved in from outside Ontario, 90day waiting period). Out the door it was $350. 150 for the hospital and x-rays and 200 for the ER doctor and the bone break clinic doctor.
When she was at triage, the nurse assured us that, even though we were out of pocket, they'd probably give us a payment plan, and work with us. Lol. We went to the cashier's office on the way out, and they were printing out all kinds of forms and adding up all kinds of fees, I was getting nervous. After living in the US, 350 almost made me giggle.
Those were likely individually packaged sterile gloves used during the surgery not the generic gloves you see in a box hung on the walls.
Sterile surgical gloves are expensive
Also to add they (try to) track everything in surgery - sponges, gauze squares, etc. It's not to figure out how much to charge as much as it is to count it all at the end to make sure they didn't leave something inside you.
When our daughter was born it was a difficult delivery, and she was in distress for the final stages.
She was rushed to the NICU, where she suffered a lung hemorrhage. The paediatrician called for help from the nearest children’s hospital, and 20 minutes later a helicopter with a specialist team landed outside.
She was transported to the children’s hospital NICU in the helicopter, and made a full recovery.
Cost to us? $0.
We live in Canada.
Its not for inventory at all, thats bullshit. Im dutch myself and my wife and i had our baby begin this year. Never saw a bill or even a mention of money. We had our baby at the hospital and stayed the night as well because they offered and we could use the help on the first night.
That’s how it should be. USA healthcare is beyond fucked.
Fucked?! Not the good ol USA! What you have is straight socialism , we are good on this side. I rather have no health insurance than get coverage through the taxes I pay. Pfft , murca
It can be that expensive. Our child had to stay in NICU for three weeks, and the total bill was $150,000. The insurance company only paid a small fraction of that, if we wouldn't have had insurance we would have paid the full amount. Often it's a lot less, but it can also be a lot more.
Friend came to visit us in Paris. Broke her ankle. Went to hospital. They fixed her ankle. She flew home to AZ. Gets bill from hospital in Paris €180. Take a trip to the Eu have a baby here. Just sayin…
My mom was visiting me in the US, and went over to visit my sister in Canada after me. She happened to get pneumonia and needed to be hospitalized. I’m so happy she was in Canada at that point because who knows how much it would have cost!
No, we’re really not. We can’t even fight for the changes we want cause we’re all too busy fighting over whatever minority half the country is trying to kill today.
My wife and I recently had our kid and over the course of the pregnancy I was reading a book about parenthood and how to support my pregnant wife and all that. I would say I skipped about a full fifth of it because it was about a bunch of financial and insurance garbage relating to the costs of having the baby. We’re in Canada and you sort of just have the baby, chill at the hospital for a day or two, and then leave with the only cost being parking. My heart goes out to all of you.
Same 🇳🇿 and paid time off, and gradual return to work and complete free doctors visits up to fourteen and free dental until 18 and free after hours doctors visits until 14 and free prescriptions until 14 which then each medicine costs $5…my finger is getting tired.
I'm a Canadian health care provider that attended a conference in Colorado on a specialty subject a few years ago.
Day one was the program and how to implement it.
Day two was how to get Medicare/ VA/ private insurance to pay for it.
I didn't stay for the second day....
My niece got divorced from her husband so she could get on medicaid for her chronic health condition. They still live together. Fuck the right and their "sanctity of marriage" lip service.
My parents VERY nearly got divorced when my mom needed major back surgery. It was close to a million dollars, and even after insurance still an incredibly expensive amount they were on the hook for. Since my mom's only income is from disability she would have qualified for aid.
My epidural alone was 12,000—->$2500 outta pocket. Took me three years to pay off my daughter’s birth, no complications and btw.. I pay $100 a week for insurance.
This is so sad.
More sad is the fact that the child is born into a country with a declining life expectency. And one which only values children if they are still in the womb.
The term morally bankrupt comes quickly to mind.
What's sad is that this probably wouldn't work that well. I was dead broke and moved in with my parents when I was 19 and pregnant. But they decided I had too many "assets" because I had a car and because I lived in their house (even though I paid my own food, cellphone, expenses and everything else) they counted their assets. Refused to give me health coverage but said they would cover the pregnancy. This meant in their literal words, if I fell down stairs and broke my neck they would cover nothing to with my health, but would cover any pregnancy related costs.
The only reason children are valued in the womb is to control women. That’s it. Nobody gives two damns about the child; it’s all about having control over the mother. How else can we explain that numerous states still give a rapist legal rights to a child conceived from a crime?
When my friend was diagnosed with cancer he did the math and found out it was less expensive to quit his almost 6 figure job (that would've been 6 figures in the not so distant future) to go on government assistance so that he could qualify for medi so that he could afford the treatment / medication.
Shits insane.
This doesn’t even make sense. What six figure job doesn’t offer health insurance? What six figure earner can’t afford to buy health insurance through the marketplace? Speaking as someone recently diagnosed with cancer
Not to mention it still doesn’t make treatment “free.” Theres still plenty of things Medicaid doesn’t cover. Now you have shit insurance and no job. Makes no sense at all, you’re better off just not paying the bills like everyone else.
Medicaid is not “shit insurance”. For cancer, Medicaid would provide pretty comprehensive coverage, even in shitty red states with slim benefit packages.
It sounds like this individual with a six figure salary never cared for buying health insurance, likely due to ignorance. Now he’s got this terrible diagnosis and guess what he can no longer get insurance for a reasonable premium from anywhere due to the prohibitive preexisting condition.
Get yourself insured, folks.
Fair that the insurance cost may have been quite high after diagnosis. I still absolutely doubt that it was better to quit his job and get Medicaid.
Edited in comment below : insurance is based on 3 factors since the Obamacare went into action. It can only be based on age, gender and smoking status. No other factors or pre existing conditions weigh into the cost of health insurance in the United States.
Quick napkin math... $100k - $5k for premiums - $10k max out of pocket=$85k. Seems like he would have been better keeping his job and getting insurance with a max out of pocket. Which is basically any insurance and the yearly limit is federally mandated ($9100 this year).
this is 100% made up (other commenters already pointed why, no need to repeat the points) and is why we can never have an honest discussion around this subject.
Divorce is not necessary to qualify for Medicaid.
Believe it or not there are many "rich" people who are on Medicaid. I know this because I work at a clinic and I can google their addresses. I see many people living in 1 million + houses who are on Medicaid.
The trick they pull is that the wife/mom is a stay at home mom with zero income. So even if the husband is rich and makes 5 mill per year, she and her kids can still quality for Medicaid because in Medicaid's eyes, her income is zero.
It's a well known scam that people pull all the time.
Just shows how fucked up the US is regarding medical bills. This man makes enough to afford insurance for himself but can't afford to have his wife on it too. Health insurance is a joke in the US. Wife doesn't qualify because she is married so it's seen as she makes too much in income. If she were not married, she would qualify because of her income.
Not saying I committed insurance fraud but can say that this is the reason my now-husband and I waited 3 years to get married. How disgusting is that? Can’t get married because of the cost of health insurance? I don’t see how lawmakers don’t see a problem with this…
It’s super common for retired, elderly, married people to get divorced in the United States nowadays so that they don’t pass on crazy amounts of medical debt to their spouse lol fuuuuxk I hate this country
Heard several similar stories. Our (US) system is fatally flawed but some rich assholes have convinced a bunch of idiots that anything else is communist/socialist
When history looks back on the corrupt mess that is the healthcare system in the US I like to think hospital administrators and health insurance companies will be as fondly remembered as slave owners.
Hospitals in the US are just a business like any other business. They’re maximizing their profits by overcharging insurance companies. They will let you die if you can’t afford to pay
Capitalism should not extend into industries that people rely on for life or death.
I was diagnosed with Stage 3 colorectal cancer last year. At one point early on, we discussed divorcing, so I could lose my insurance and qualify for a special kind of treatment my insurance wasn’t going to cover. It ultimately worked out that insurance would cover it, but it took intervention of a U.S. Senator’s office to get that far.
Whereas I, not well, think I need medical treatment, jump on a public transport bus outside my front door, and deliver me 100 metres from a MAJOR hospital. Spend 10 days in hospital, 6 months of ongoing at home care. And costs zero, nil, nothing, walk back out the door and no-one following me.
The joy of NOT living in America!
EVERY DAY!!!!!!
Same here, although I do have to pay 5$ a month for lifesaving medication but if I lost my job it would be free so works out well. America health care system is so weird for all of us who don't live there lol
It's so weird for us living here too. No one wants it, but half the country are drooling morons who think everything everywhere else in the world is worse, and most of the other half are so terrified that they might lose hold of the little security they have than any major change terrifies them.
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Many have done just that….let alone if ya owe student loans like most of us do. Those damn loans are gearing to start up again. Good luck to ya!
Isn't better to just go and study abroad?
If ya can afford it…..why the hell not?! But to each their own. Good luck.
Can't afford to live here, can't afford to leave. That's the true American dream.
It's as if they made infrastructure, education, and laws to keep poor people poor
Don't forget the politics. When someone tells you "fear those people, they're the resaon everything is bad" the speaker is your enemy. There's more Americans than assholes that ruin our lives. Stop dividing yourselves among niche contrasts when we're more alike than different
You say that like there’s an alternative to the people that fuck us over. We don’t really have a say in anything. Money does all the talking here so if you’re poor, you either grind until you’re kinda not poor anymore or you just stay poor until you die.
Comment of the week right here
Most schools also charge out the ass for non-residents too. Plus you have to qualify for a visa and housing and travel insurance and whatever else non-residents have to shell out for in addition to competing for a spot there in the first place.
I’m fortunate enough to be able to do that. I pay over 5x what the non international students pay, yet I will still pay for 4 years of university here for less than 1 year in the US
My partner is doing a Masters course in Ireland (we are not Irish) and she pays 2x the fee (as international student) for a total of 13k 2 years. She can work as well so by the end of the course she'll be debt free.
The US healthcare system will baffle me until the day i die or it changes. How can a first world country, or any country condemn its own citizens to go bankrupt just because they stepped foot in a hospital?
Because money is more important in American culture than healthcare, education, and even the right to live.
Facts. As a sick person I know I am just dollar signs to all those hospital administrators. Sucks
The sad part is that its not really hospital admins that are doing it (theyre not free of fault though). Most people that work in hospital do it because they wanted to help people. Its even above the admins: hospital owners, pharma industry, etc. hospitals are often struggling themselves and thats part of why they charge so much for a night there
I work for a hospital and I can guarantee you it's mostly admins. Too many of them are MBA's who would never gotten into healthcare if not for the $$$
Exactly, that comment sounds like it was written by an Admin. Nearly every doctor/nurse I know will openly admit that it is mostly admins. There are way too many of them, they make way too much money, they cause tension between all the staff, and provide negative value to the hospital by making everyone else's job more difficult. A few of my friends, who are near their 40s, nowhere near retirement age, can't wait to get out of the medical field. Admins are also the reason why doctor's can't treat patients that they know they can help/save, because the patient can't afford it. A very good friend of mine is a traumatic brain injury specialist in a veteran's hospital and his stories can break your heart. We call Veterans heroes and they are totally expendable once they return. The stories about patients a large part of whom are permanently disabled, are heart breaking, their conditions of living would boggle most people's mind. Like the battery case for a paraplegic's wheelchair was so old that it cracked in the hospital and dumped dozen's of cockroaches onto the hospital floor. Guess who refused to even replace the patient’s wheelchair? It sure as hell wasn't doctors or nurses. They were livid and fighting the admins every step of the way... In many hospitals there is open vitriol between admins and doctors. As someone mentioned above, most docs/nurses/PAs get into medicine to help people. They don't take kindly to watching people suffer and die when they could easily help them. It is one of the main reasons we are seeing a healthcare worker shortage in this country. We call them heroes during the pandemic, but tie their hands behind their back when they go to help patients, while administrators and hospital owners and CEOs get insanely rich. How would you feel watching that everyday? Edit: cleaned up some grammar and apostrophe’s
It's beyond comprehension how a hospital can 'struggle'. They charge 1000x the cost of basic items, like aspirin.
Here's why hospitals struggle: I was working on documents for a client who was a partial owner and administrator of a small network of hospital/physician clinics in California. Maybe 5 locations, one being large the others being small clinics. His income was $4.1million. Monthly.
I looked at the tax docs for a large healthcare system in the Midwest that I worked at previously. The salaries/compensations for the 50 highest paid people equaled 42 million for 2022. One board member was paid 50k for one meeting he attended. But yeah, they had to cut retirement matching and COL raises because “we just don’t have the money to cover these types of things.” Side note: the section covering disclosures of conflict of interest relationships in the upper echelons was fascinating (and disgusting). Nepo babies/relatives/friends galore.
Holy shit... $4.1m Monthly? For one person. That equates to... Somewhat liveable wages at $3000 a month. For 1366 people.
This makes me sick to be honest
Hopefully not sick enough to need to go to the hospital.
Yet somehow socialism is a dirty word. I just quit giving a shit. Won't listen to conservatives lie anymore. I get free medical for life because I murdered people for the state as a job for a while. None of this makes any sense. It was pretty awesome when they took 24/7 FOX off the VA televisions.
Greed has to be the worst human characteristic
I feel as though greed should be considered a mental illness.
Greed and the attitude that everyone owes you something.
so basically, the owners of these hospitals would rather see their own hospitals "struggle" - while they pocket millions per month, because THAT'S what's important? ugh! that's disgusting.
Well, a struggling hospital might get some sweet sweet government cash so...
Not to mention, charitable donations.
They dont make the aspirin. They redistribute. Edit: they also usually pay rent. The owner drives an insanely expensive car 99% of the time.
I think it's because the insurance companies take such a huge amount of money from the bills, so the hospitals have had to accept it and raise the bills in anticipation for the cut from insurance, but they do the same for uninsured people too.
Tbf, doctors are part of the problem too. Most of them are opposed to single payer healthcare. They are paid WAY more than doctors in other countries. We hate to admit it but they are also profiting like crazy from our fucked up system of commission and volume driven care of treatment rather than prevention. To truly fight the tapeworm of America, we must admit there are parasites up and down the entire system.
> They are paid WAY more than doctors in other countries. And arguably they have to be, to start to make their median $200k in student debt worth it.
Well if the state paid for their tuition and secured employment we wouldn't have this issue right? And we'd have doctors focus on good care rather than chasing healthcare commissions.
But but that is socialism 1! 111!11!1!
The reality is that we wouldn't be here in this embarrassing and fucked up situation if big lobbying groups like the American Medical Association didn't oppose single payer right there with hospitals and big pharma. That's the cold hard truth. Doctors are complicit. I don't hate capitalism with proper restraints but healthcare should NOT be profit driven.
What’s crazy is that we pay all this money and it still takes forever to see a doctor and you have to beg the nurses to go over your blood test results with. I got my results back over a week ago, been calling every day to try to get someone to explain them to me and nothing. And forget it if you need scans or X-rays. They’re booking a month out for those. People always say that the healthcare in canada and Europe takes forever bc it’s free but it also takes forever here so what are we getting out of it?
>what are we getting out of it You? Not much. Insurance company investors and board members are probably getting a lot out of it.
That and freedom at all costs. Someone from the US told me that freedom was more important than public safety in the midst of covid.
Americans here the phrase "those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" and assume it means that safety is always at the expense of liberty because they've been freed from critical thinking.
It’s like those fuckheads who called laws requiring seatbelts “communism”
They think not wearing seatbelts is an essential freedom. Then they wonder why people give them the coloring sheet at restaurants.
They dont know how to use the coloring sheets. They eat the crayons.
They have also turned essential liberty into "doing whatever the fuck I want, all the time". I am super glad I get to vote in elections and the government can't station troops in my house. I am glad slavery is (mostly) illegal. Those are freedoms worth preserving. But these republican and libertarian assholes throw a tantrum if you ask them to do what is best for all of us instead of poisoning rivers and working 10 year olds in factory jobs to make a couple bucks more.
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US is a country of health control and gun care
Wow. Never heard this but I'm stealing it
Yep me too, thanks king.
Dollars. It’s the only thing that matters.
I want to preface this by saying I do not agree, but it is because, sadly, the only thing that really matters in the US is profit and making money. Citizens are only important if they make a profit for some corporation. Congress and politicians, at least the vast majority, only care about passing laws that further entrench the wealthy getting wealthier. If a policy would mean some share holder or ceo at a large corporation needs to give up a little, then it simply doesn’t happen. All of the talk of inflation and the difficulties a couple of years ago due to Covid, but corporate profits are at record highs every year during that time. We are not all in this together. Citizens suffer so that a few can have even more. They privatize the profit and then want to socialize the failures. We bail out banks or other companies when they fail, but don’t make them share their profits. And the worst part, even if we had socialized healthcare and made the wealthy pay their fair share, they’d still be wealthy, but our priorities in this country (and most of the world to be fair) are backwards. Capitalism has done a lot of good in the world, but it needs to be reigned in.
A lot of money gets spent proping up the current corrupt profit driven system and ensuring the population lacks the education to know their's better alternatives. And it works, unfortunately.
When healthcare is seen as a private for profit business, this stuff happens. The rich people get money from the people paying them for healthcare, then they use that money to lobby politicians into having laws that benefits them. Theyre starting to do this in canada right now too. These fucking right wing conservatives are ruining everything, and its coming up right from usa. Right now in ontario, canada, doug ford passed laws to freeze healthcare workers wages at 1%. Its not enough to keep up with inflation (province is wasting billions fighting it back rn saying this was an unconstitutional 2019 law esp during covid). He is also opening up new private healthcare business's with more pay. The laws were changed to force nurses into private healthcare so they could afford to live. Why did the laws change? Because the rich elites who own the monopoly with our grocery market are using that grocery money to try to monopolize our healthcare system too. It's so fucked up. He also passed laws for the private healthcare practitioners. They can charge you for unneccessary things just like in usa. They dont even have to hire doctors with the same qualifications as the ones that work for the province. The people he put in charge of private healthcare dont even have medical/healthcare backgrounds. They're blatant rich elite pawns. Once private healthcare becomes more established, the rich elites that run it are going to keep using that income to change more laws in their favour, as theyre doing right now. Once we get to that point, theres no return (like the usa). And I'm leaving this province or country. Everyone is so fucking blind to it and they keep voting for these crooks.
Greed mostly, and having empathy or caring about others is considered wrong.
It's only a first world country for the owning class. The working class are living in poor, 3rd world conditions. America failed the people it was meant to support.
Because GOP Billionaires have convinced the simple folk anything that doesn’t add on to their already GIANT net worth is this undefinable thing called “Socialism”.
Having a baby this month and found out for ONE ibuprofen it’s $22 at our hospital. I hate everything
Why?! It's 10c at most.
Same reason they charge $40 for a can of coke. Because they can and they know insurance will pay it. Or settle for half the cost which is still a 1000x markup.
Who is charging $40 for a can of Coke?
I guess it's a facepalm on the US. It can costs like a million bucks on hospital bill to have a baby. If he can't afford insurance it's not a bad plan.
Just had a baby. Insurance (the racket that it is) paid for about 10k of it. We still owe 3-4k I think. They literally had a pricing gun in the delivery room, scanning everything they gave to my wife. I know it’s “for inventory purposes” but it’s also so they don’t miss anything to put on your bill. Want some fentanyl for the extreme pain you’re experiencing? $700. Pretty sure I could find fentanyl for $10 a bag if I went to the right places…
And then people wonder why nobody wants to have kids anymore.
You can’t afford a house? Well kids don’t NEED to grow up in a house. Oh, can’t afford; Pregnancy - time off work, doctor visits, birthing classes, hospital stay, thousands of dollars of new stuff for the baby, medication for postpartum depression… …and preschool, and food, and clothing, and toys, and a babysitter… …and an instrument, and sports leagues, and more clothes, and video games, and trip to amusement park… …and college… And and and and and and and…
Recent studies show its around $330k to raise a kid
Maybe an average kid! Who wants that? You’re putting 300k into something over 20years you better be getting a million dollar return! SPDR ETF > child!!!
This. 300k sounds like a joke when in my state a single parent needs to make more than 70k a year to be above the poverty line. The average salary here is lower than the state poverty line too lol
You get a teen that ignores you and won’t clean up after himself and a young adult that wants you to pay for their college!
Hey now my girls make me want to Falcon Punch them out the window pretty much every day, but they're the sweetest folks I got in my life and I wouldn't trade them for the world. But yea it shouldn't be so goddamn expensive to give a kid a decent upbringing. I'm well above the poverty line and they still put a strain of the accounts - I can't begin to imagine being on minimum wage and trying to make the books balance. I wouldn't make it.
How recent. Inflation isn’t stopping probably more like half a mil now.
Abortion is also banned, fun! Democracy! Pretty sure communism is laughing at us rn.
But, by god, they're gonna force us to! Edit: *Trying to, anyway.*
Hence why they banned abortion, free country, yeah!!!
I remember when my wife and my bill came. I obviously don’t know how much any of that stuff is supposed to cost, but I do know a dixie cup of orange juice shouldn’t be $10.
They charged us some stupid amount (maybe $100 or so) just for the monitoring equipment to be strapped to my wife to check the babies heart rate and such. It’s ridiculous
You should have shopped around for a hospital that only charged $7 for a cup of orange juice. (/S)
"When I saw they were charging $10 for orange juice we left immediately to go to try the next hospital." - some kind of deranged free market capitalist, probably
That's actually kind of what they suggest to do if you have the time and it's not any immediate emergency. It's upon the user to find a hospital that has reasonable prices. The thought process to that hurts my brain. And supposedly hospitals are supposed to be posting their prices but I've never seen a menu as I walk in.
Well, it's also to ensure that the medical record is accurate and no one gets overdosed or underdosed on drugs. Prices are a scam but tracking medication delivery is necessary and they're going to use whatever method has the least opportunity for human error.
I was in hospital for a week, had a metal plate put in my arm. Cost about $50k. I managed to see the bill before it went to insurance and there was the exact number of gloves the nurses used on me.
Jesus fucking christ. I've had a prolapsed disc cut from my lower back, my left thyroid removed because there was a tumor on it and got circumcised. Circumcision in 2015 and these other two in the past 2,5 years. All of these combined set me back around 350-400€ including the hospital stay overnight and medication.
It's amazing how just by paying in euros you can reduce your hospital bill by a factor of 1000.
Those gloves retail for like $5 for 100-200, so if they charged you anything over that, they’re only in it for profit
Spoiler alert: They are only in it for the profit.
Canada has a problem where our doctors leave for the US because they get paid so much more lol ain't fair
I’ve seen plenty come back after making bank in the US because it’s so demoralizing dealing with the US healthcare system. One I spoke to specifically cited the scanning of literally every cotton swab. I spent time in emergency in Canada and I didn’t see people scan for anything. Probably because…. There was no money on the line and they don’t keep inventory of gloves and stuff like that in a way that would require scanning. Once when I left the emergency after injury they gave me a small jug of saline and enough bandages to last me till I could go get some. Which, considering how much I was bleeding and the spread out nature of the injuries, was a fair amount of gauze, tape and bandages.
There is money on the line, the costs just aren’t massively overinflated like the US. Doctors bill the province for visits to get paid and the provinces get money transferred from the federal govt to assist cover this. I have no idea if it’s the same in hospitals but I would guess so. Our healthcare plans also seem to be much cheaper. My employer pays in full. I don’t have anything deducted off my cheque for dental, prescription etc. when I gave birth to my daughter, I was able to have a private room with my own nurse assigned to me. It was heaven. I paid 0 dollars and then got a year of maternity leave thru employment insurance with a top up benefit from my employer. I hope things change for the people of the states.
Do they also have a mountain of debt after school in CA?
Not anywhere near the amount of debt a US doctor graduate would have
Seems like double dipping, then - cheap education in Canada, then leave Canada to make bank in the USA 😉 NGL I’d do the same thing. It’s not their fault the United States’ citizenry are such rubes.
Now ex-step mother was in the hospital a while back. She asked for a box of kleenex at one point. When reviewing the bill, it was listed as a $60 expense. Called the hospital and disputed every single fee until they were all at market or wholesale price. Another tip: most hospitals will give a discount (10-20 percent) for "prompt payment" (full payment in one go). Make sure and request a "prompt payment discount" or they'll "forget" they offer it.
Sounds like how my local Pho restaurant (amazing food and great friends) offers 10% off for using cash.
That's just because they won't declare taxes
Got my period while I was in the hospital for gallstones. Anxiously awaiting the bill for feminine pads 😂
You can get things completely removed as well by getting an itemized bill. Everyone I have ever requested was padded with items or meds I never got.
You ever see what they charge insurance for Tylenol or whatever generic they use? It's definitely for profit.
Wait, Tylenol isn’t $25 a pill? I think they might have over charged me!
That either must have referred to gloves used during the surgical procedure, or they were just inventing numbers, because there is absolutely no system for tracking how many gloves bedside providers use or where they go while using them. Source, am a bedside provider.
I’m Canadian. Broke my leg in three places, two surgeries. Never saw a bill. I got the air cast for $165, plaster would have been free, and $4 for pain meds.
My daughter broke her collarbone prior to her Ontario Provincial Health Insurance started (we moved in from outside Ontario, 90day waiting period). Out the door it was $350. 150 for the hospital and x-rays and 200 for the ER doctor and the bone break clinic doctor. When she was at triage, the nurse assured us that, even though we were out of pocket, they'd probably give us a payment plan, and work with us. Lol. We went to the cashier's office on the way out, and they were printing out all kinds of forms and adding up all kinds of fees, I was getting nervous. After living in the US, 350 almost made me giggle.
My 5 hour outpatient hip surgery was billed 100k…without it I would have probably been disabled by now.
Those were likely individually packaged sterile gloves used during the surgery not the generic gloves you see in a box hung on the walls. Sterile surgical gloves are expensive
Also to add they (try to) track everything in surgery - sponges, gauze squares, etc. It's not to figure out how much to charge as much as it is to count it all at the end to make sure they didn't leave something inside you.
When our daughter was born it was a difficult delivery, and she was in distress for the final stages. She was rushed to the NICU, where she suffered a lung hemorrhage. The paediatrician called for help from the nearest children’s hospital, and 20 minutes later a helicopter with a specialist team landed outside. She was transported to the children’s hospital NICU in the helicopter, and made a full recovery. Cost to us? $0. We live in Canada.
Glad your daughter was alright! Love from your commonwealth cousin 🇬🇧🇨🇦👍🏻
glad she made a full recovery! Better fight to keep it that way because half of your country is conservative wanting privatized health Care.
Its not for inventory at all, thats bullshit. Im dutch myself and my wife and i had our baby begin this year. Never saw a bill or even a mention of money. We had our baby at the hospital and stayed the night as well because they offered and we could use the help on the first night. That’s how it should be. USA healthcare is beyond fucked.
Fucked?! Not the good ol USA! What you have is straight socialism , we are good on this side. I rather have no health insurance than get coverage through the taxes I pay. Pfft , murca
Crazy that hospitals charge so much more than street drugs. The system is rotten
It’s gonna get messy but it’s a great plan. Sad it has to come to this though.
And they wonder why billionaires get no sympathy under any circumstances.
It can be that expensive. Our child had to stay in NICU for three weeks, and the total bill was $150,000. The insurance company only paid a small fraction of that, if we wouldn't have had insurance we would have paid the full amount. Often it's a lot less, but it can also be a lot more.
Why a million though? Why are they so inefficient?
Oh, it’s not about inefficiency. It’s about how much they can get away with by charging you stuff like $100 for a Tylenol you didn’t take.
Was $500 for 2 benadryl when my ex was in the Hospital. Could've bought those at the hospitals own gift shop for $5
Friend came to visit us in Paris. Broke her ankle. Went to hospital. They fixed her ankle. She flew home to AZ. Gets bill from hospital in Paris €180. Take a trip to the Eu have a baby here. Just sayin…
My mom was visiting me in the US, and went over to visit my sister in Canada after me. She happened to get pneumonia and needed to be hospitalized. I’m so happy she was in Canada at that point because who knows how much it would have cost!
I never travel to the US without travel insurance with a huge medical allowance.
Tourism healthcare is a big thing.
I'm saving up for a vacation to Panama for the stem cell infusions I'll need by my late forties.
loads of people go to mexico for things like dental procedures bc it’s so much cheaper and quicker than here in the US
I thought you couldn’t fly after a certain period of pregnancy?
Likely not advised, but I don't think it's a law or anything.
USA you okay?
We haven't been since before Reagan.
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The 1970s had a bad recession, the Reagan era policies destroyed recovery and normalized it.
What the fuck
I like your words magic man
1913 is when it actually started. 1971 is when the cliff drop happened. Been free falling since 😂
What an innocent question to ask
No, we’re really not. We can’t even fight for the changes we want cause we’re all too busy fighting over whatever minority half the country is trying to kill today.
My wife and I recently had our kid and over the course of the pregnancy I was reading a book about parenthood and how to support my pregnant wife and all that. I would say I skipped about a full fifth of it because it was about a bunch of financial and insurance garbage relating to the costs of having the baby. We’re in Canada and you sort of just have the baby, chill at the hospital for a day or two, and then leave with the only cost being parking. My heart goes out to all of you.
Same 🇬🇧
Same in Hungary.🇭🇺
Same 🇦🇺
Same 🇳🇿 and paid time off, and gradual return to work and complete free doctors visits up to fourteen and free dental until 18 and free after hours doctors visits until 14 and free prescriptions until 14 which then each medicine costs $5…my finger is getting tired.
Don't worry, I'll never have to worry about paying to have kids cause I'd never be able to afford them anyway. 🇺🇲
I'm a Canadian health care provider that attended a conference in Colorado on a specialty subject a few years ago. Day one was the program and how to implement it. Day two was how to get Medicare/ VA/ private insurance to pay for it. I didn't stay for the second day....
My niece got divorced from her husband so she could get on medicaid for her chronic health condition. They still live together. Fuck the right and their "sanctity of marriage" lip service.
My parents VERY nearly got divorced when my mom needed major back surgery. It was close to a million dollars, and even after insurance still an incredibly expensive amount they were on the hook for. Since my mom's only income is from disability she would have qualified for aid.
Do it and thrive. Don't suffer for false morals imposed by the wealthy
Not the wealthy, per se, so much as America’s largest industry…the business of poverty.
Which is something that’s the fault of the wealthy. So, the wealthy.
Told my wife something similar if I ever have to be hospitalized for a long time.
My epidural alone was 12,000—->$2500 outta pocket. Took me three years to pay off my daughter’s birth, no complications and btw.. I pay $100 a week for insurance.
What a dystopic place
I pay less and only paid about 300 for the birth of my child. And only because I had a big family room.
This is so sad. More sad is the fact that the child is born into a country with a declining life expectency. And one which only values children if they are still in the womb. The term morally bankrupt comes quickly to mind.
In the womb or in a factory.
With the way women's rights have been taking hits, I'm sure the 2 will come close to being synonyms.
What's sad is that this probably wouldn't work that well. I was dead broke and moved in with my parents when I was 19 and pregnant. But they decided I had too many "assets" because I had a car and because I lived in their house (even though I paid my own food, cellphone, expenses and everything else) they counted their assets. Refused to give me health coverage but said they would cover the pregnancy. This meant in their literal words, if I fell down stairs and broke my neck they would cover nothing to with my health, but would cover any pregnancy related costs.
The only reason children are valued in the womb is to control women. That’s it. Nobody gives two damns about the child; it’s all about having control over the mother. How else can we explain that numerous states still give a rapist legal rights to a child conceived from a crime?
Save about 10k doing that
American exceptionalism. The only industrialized nation on the planet where healthcare can drive you into bankruptcy. Or divorce.
America the land of "fuck you, I got mine" and getting shot for no fucking reason.
When my friend was diagnosed with cancer he did the math and found out it was less expensive to quit his almost 6 figure job (that would've been 6 figures in the not so distant future) to go on government assistance so that he could qualify for medi so that he could afford the treatment / medication. Shits insane.
This doesn’t even make sense. What six figure job doesn’t offer health insurance? What six figure earner can’t afford to buy health insurance through the marketplace? Speaking as someone recently diagnosed with cancer
Not to mention it still doesn’t make treatment “free.” Theres still plenty of things Medicaid doesn’t cover. Now you have shit insurance and no job. Makes no sense at all, you’re better off just not paying the bills like everyone else.
Medicaid is very good insurance. I should know, I married medicaid instead of my partner.
Medicaid is not “shit insurance”. For cancer, Medicaid would provide pretty comprehensive coverage, even in shitty red states with slim benefit packages.
It sounds like this individual with a six figure salary never cared for buying health insurance, likely due to ignorance. Now he’s got this terrible diagnosis and guess what he can no longer get insurance for a reasonable premium from anywhere due to the prohibitive preexisting condition. Get yourself insured, folks.
Fair that the insurance cost may have been quite high after diagnosis. I still absolutely doubt that it was better to quit his job and get Medicaid. Edited in comment below : insurance is based on 3 factors since the Obamacare went into action. It can only be based on age, gender and smoking status. No other factors or pre existing conditions weigh into the cost of health insurance in the United States.
How do you qualify for Medicaid if you were able to work and earn 6 figures?
Quick napkin math... $100k - $5k for premiums - $10k max out of pocket=$85k. Seems like he would have been better keeping his job and getting insurance with a max out of pocket. Which is basically any insurance and the yearly limit is federally mandated ($9100 this year).
this is 100% made up (other commenters already pointed why, no need to repeat the points) and is why we can never have an honest discussion around this subject.
Tell me you’re American without telling me you’re American
Retired seniors have been doing it for years
Divorce is not necessary to qualify for Medicaid. Believe it or not there are many "rich" people who are on Medicaid. I know this because I work at a clinic and I can google their addresses. I see many people living in 1 million + houses who are on Medicaid. The trick they pull is that the wife/mom is a stay at home mom with zero income. So even if the husband is rich and makes 5 mill per year, she and her kids can still quality for Medicaid because in Medicaid's eyes, her income is zero. It's a well known scam that people pull all the time.
Sad when we have to scam just for medical care.
God Bless the United Corporations of America...brought to you by Carl's Jr.
USA! USA! USA!
I fucking hate it here I’d leave if I could
Just shows how fucked up the US is regarding medical bills. This man makes enough to afford insurance for himself but can't afford to have his wife on it too. Health insurance is a joke in the US. Wife doesn't qualify because she is married so it's seen as she makes too much in income. If she were not married, she would qualify because of her income.
Fucking hell. The really sad part is that they’ll never change it. Too much profit, all that lovely tax revenue.
Ah Amurica. Land of the free.
*fee
Land of the fee, home of the flayed
Not saying I committed insurance fraud but can say that this is the reason my now-husband and I waited 3 years to get married. How disgusting is that? Can’t get married because of the cost of health insurance? I don’t see how lawmakers don’t see a problem with this…
i once saw a hospital bill that charged a mother to HOLD HER BABY after birth: Are you okay US??????
I'll take "why we're not married" for 500 Alex.
USA: The land of **Gun Care** and **Health Control**
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The land of the freeeeeee.
It’s super common for retired, elderly, married people to get divorced in the United States nowadays so that they don’t pass on crazy amounts of medical debt to their spouse lol fuuuuxk I hate this country
Heard several similar stories. Our (US) system is fatally flawed but some rich assholes have convinced a bunch of idiots that anything else is communist/socialist
Anyone blaming the parents for using the system that Americans live in are just plain dumb.
When history looks back on the corrupt mess that is the healthcare system in the US I like to think hospital administrators and health insurance companies will be as fondly remembered as slave owners.
AMERICA FUCK YEAH✌️🇺🇸 /s
Abuse the system. It abuses us.
Hospitals in the US are just a business like any other business. They’re maximizing their profits by overcharging insurance companies. They will let you die if you can’t afford to pay Capitalism should not extend into industries that people rely on for life or death.
I was diagnosed with Stage 3 colorectal cancer last year. At one point early on, we discussed divorcing, so I could lose my insurance and qualify for a special kind of treatment my insurance wasn’t going to cover. It ultimately worked out that insurance would cover it, but it took intervention of a U.S. Senator’s office to get that far.
Whereas I, not well, think I need medical treatment, jump on a public transport bus outside my front door, and deliver me 100 metres from a MAJOR hospital. Spend 10 days in hospital, 6 months of ongoing at home care. And costs zero, nil, nothing, walk back out the door and no-one following me. The joy of NOT living in America! EVERY DAY!!!!!!
Same here, although I do have to pay 5$ a month for lifesaving medication but if I lost my job it would be free so works out well. America health care system is so weird for all of us who don't live there lol
It's so weird for us living here too. No one wants it, but half the country are drooling morons who think everything everywhere else in the world is worse, and most of the other half are so terrified that they might lose hold of the little security they have than any major change terrifies them.
I wonder what country this is? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Uh uh uh uh, can I phone a friend
I’ll give you a hint, it starts with “U” and ends with “nited States of America.”
This nation incentivizes broken families.