7mo ago

'I can't go on like this': US asks what's next for healthcare

Summary

Rising frustrations with the U.S. healthcare system have been amplified by increasing insurance claim denials and mounting costs.

Patients report prolonged battles to access doctor-recommended care, with surveys showing one in five privately insured Americans faced denial in 2022.

Anger has intensified following the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, spotlighting issues like AI-based claim reviews and profit-driven practices.

While Trump’s upcoming administration proposes deregulation and privatization, critics warn this could worsen access.

Public distrust persists, but significant reforms appear unlikely as partisan debates stall progress in Washington.

63 comments

What the fuck do they mean privatization, it's already fucking private! Did we suddenly get a socialized healthcare system when I wasn't looking?
Could have saved a lot of time by just saying Trump plans to make one of the worlds worst healthcare systems even worse in whatever way he can. We're well on track for a healthcare system collapse in the US if Trump actually implements the things he's said he will. It will make a matched set with the economic collapse he's also working on.
- The US already spends more per person on socialized healthcare than most countries that have universal socialized medicine. Our current system just inserts grifty billionaires into the money stream before the money gets to actual healthcare.
- Yes, we’ve had socialized healthcare for ages. You just aren’t allowed to have it unless you’re old, very poor, disabled, or a vet. So they mean privatizing Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA
  
  Also active military get universal healthcare, too. Damn communist service members...
  
  Isn’t that just…Cobra insurance?
- Just imagine if we brought the efficiency of the insurance that tries to keep you from getting healthcare to the systems that want to give you healthcare but are grossly underfunded, like medicare or the VA! Why, we could ensure that almost no one gets a covered doctor's visit while doubling prices.
  The only part they won't gut is the part that mandates that everyone must have insurance.
  Nothing better than being legally required to pay for a service that exists to fight to provide no value to you whatsoever in return for the money.
  
  The only part they won’t gut is the part that mandates that everyone must have insurance.
  Uh, that's the part that already got axed during Trump's last term, in 2019.
- Privatization means getting rid of Obamacare/ACA. Trump and GOP see that as socialised health care and have "concepts" to replace them.
- Even more expensive, even more denials.
Sounds like a problem for a green plumber.
- When your sink is trouble, you call them on the double! They’re faster than the others, you’ll be hooked on the plumbers!
  
  Can you imagine the timeline where Luigi gets off through jury nullification, and then he does it again? That would be something to see.
"If you take government bureaucrats out of the healthcare equation and you have doctor-patient relationships, it's better for everybody," House Speaker Mike Johnson said in a video obtained by NBC News last month. "More efficient, more effective," he said. "That's the free market. Trump's going to be for the free market."
The myopathy here is mind boggling.
I bet things would change if Mike Johnson ever had a claim denied.
"Whether the murder will strengthen appetite for reform remains to be seen."
Yes, this is actually a sentence in a current article about the American health insurance industry.
- these free thinking line toeing dickheads don't seem to realize that america has paper pushing dickheads AND death panels standing in the way of us ever getting the treatment we need. their arguments against soviet style healthcare are the problem with hypercapitalist healthcare. all we want, the left, is healthcare without linking it to power. we should recieve treatment because we are worthy of it because we have dignity as people and as beings who are loved. that we do not is an indictment that this system that kills us is a sham
  
  That's your problem. You didn't work hard enough to earn your allotment of love.
The answer to the tagline is: no. The CEO, Andrew Witty, of UHC Group (owner of UHC) wrote an article saying the healthcare system is broken and needs to be fixed. It was all PR garbage. No identification of WHAT people are frustrated with or how they will work to fix it. He also said that no employee should have to live in fear but the examples he gave of employees were RNs and call center employees. Last I checked, people were not angry enough at those groups to kill them in the street.
It boggles my mind that any American can look at their healthcare system and look at the rest of the world and think more privatization and deregulation is the way to go.
If ANTHYING absolutely must be regulated it’s healthcare.
there are 40 countries that fit the developed criteria, you may look at any of them for references
They're only talking about this because of Luigi, they're scared, and billionaires only think about sharing when they're scared, Sadly they're only THINKING about it
Deregulation and privatization? For something that's already a racket that can kill to save money? Might as well start pulling a Canada and pass around the Vault-Tec Plan D's
- Well, we got a group of Trumpers that are so hell bent on making sure other people's lives are worse. So they are taking us all down with them. These guys have managed to put a professional anti-vaxxer in our federal healthcare system. Then they wonder why their healthcare is shit, costs much money, and don't work good.
  
  Indeed.
  I've heard MAGA explained to me as a "Reverse Cargo Cult" of sorts.
  If you're not familiar with Cargo Cults, there are isolated places all over the world with no real contact with the outside world. I understand "Isolated" and "No real contact" are saying the same thing, but I wanna drive the point home that these are places that have had no interaction with anyone but themselves.
  Sometimes that's for a damn good reason as quite a few of them are outright hostile to visitors.
  Anyway, a phenomenon has happened where people in these areas will see planes in the sky and believe them to be Gods. Sometimes for one reason or another these planes crash or drop their cargo. The people in these areas will then examine these and try to recreate or restore radios they find, believing they can fly or contact the Gods, if only they build these devices correctly and pray to them enough. This never happens of course because they're trying to build complicated machinery out of sticks and stones, but you get the idea.
  There's actually one that believes the King of England is a God simply because they found photos of him, and actively worship them.
  They don't know why their version of technology doesn't work and the ones they find from above do, but they believe that if they keep trying and praying surely it will happen one day.
  Well MAGA is a Reverse Cargo Cult; They know they're taking us down with them.
  Essentially, MAGA looks at the planes in the sky and says. "When we built our own it didn't work, so the ones in the air don't work either. It's some kind of illusion and we should punish them for lying to us!"
  It's why they rejected Biden and Kamala for saying they've been fixing the economy, even though it's obvious from prior behavior that Trump will outright wreck it. They've given up on anything getting better, and just want to use Trump as the brick they wanna throw at the man behind the curtain pretending that planes can fly.
  I don't know if I believe this explanation, but I figured I'd voice it in the hopes of creating a discourse.
- You honestly think they would approve a paying customer's claim for euthanasia?
  
  I mean, they're already chosing to let people die.
Well we just voted in probably the worst person to "fix" our healthcare and who only has a "concept of a plan" regarding it. Sooo what can really happen?
- If you were hoping to vote on healthcare reform, neither candidate supported a real change. Biden campaigned in 2020 on wanting to lower medicare to 60... mostly everyone supported healthcare for all from 2016-20', and they all stepped back from that quickly.
  
  Yeah but trump is unarguably worse on healthcare than anyone else on the ballot. We're turbo fucked.
Pay or Die. That's our options.
- It's really an ingenious plan from the upper echelons. How do you absorb the rest of the money people have in retirement savings or possible inheritance? Make medical so fucking expensive that you spend every last dime on it so no one else can get it. Their children go further into debt trying to help out, nothing is passed down as even properties become collateral.
  I would bet money that they will make medical debt a "nondischargeable debt" with bankruptcy before we get any type of real healthcare for all.
rising frustrations
How long do these frustrations have to rise? I remember reading about this shit over two decades ago.
When is it enough, exactly?
- As long as rich people give enough food and basic necessities to the poor you all will never be uncomfortable enough to fight back. That is the whole point.
- Literally expressed in a kid's movie 20 years ago
- That's the problem, there's no such thing as "enough" to the people who already have all the power
Anger has intensified following the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, spotlighting issues like AI-based claim reviews and profit-driven practices.
Really? Americans are surprised that a for profit healthcare system, has profit driven practices?
They can't be THAT supid?
But some Americans refuse to accept a socialized healthcare system that is not profit driven, and could cost about half what they pay now, if implemented at the average efficiency of other countries that have it.
Americans voted for Trump, and he will probably give them the deregulation the ignorant asked for, and the healthcare hellhole they are living in will get even worse. Deregulation will make it even easier for insurance companies to legally cheat their customers, and increase their profits.
Hurray for deregulation. /s
Become a Luigi. That's really what needs to happen. A Luigi every week until this shit is fixed
Don't they mean "who's" next?
Americans have got to learn how to vote for their own interests.
When one candidate as actively campaigning on the basis of ripping apart a healthcare system put in place by the previous one (Trump with Affordable Care Act) and then wins, twice, it's hard to understand why they're surprised that they're in this situation.
- No American presidential candidate ever represents Americans' best interests. It is not possible to vote in your best interests here.
  
  Really? None. I suspect one or two of the literally 100s of non partisan candidates were actually there to do good? I think the point being made (and this goes for all democratic systems), is that 99% of the population could not name more than 5 names on the ballot. Let alone consider voting for them.
  People vote for parties and ALL of the parties are funded by someone. Ultimately, we do it to ourselves.
  
  Actually, I think you have a point. The candidacy selection is rigged. The whole fundraising and insane costs of electioneering is absolutely crazy - most other countries have laws specifically to limit campaigning funds, explicitly to stop rich people buying the top position.
  What chance does an independent have to be president? Is the American Dream of a poor person being able to reach presidency still possible? Zero unless they get very rich, or have super rich friends.
  It's not hard to see why America is accused of being an Oligarchy - that's exactly how it's upper tier of politics is designed to operate.
  
  That’s BS. We believe too much of the muck-taking they do to each other, but most importantly residents do a lot of good. Even Trump did some good for people …. I think. Can’t name it but certainly there are a lot of people who believe he did
- Maybe if people weren't still going bankrupt because of medical bills despite the ACA they wouldn't be so excited to blow up the entire system.
Monthly fees will go up, because the security details for the CEO's won't be paid out of their own pockets. That would be ludicrous, those poor CEO's having to cut into their profits to keep themselves safe from those barbaric peasants.
You know what can fight a bad guy with a CEO position? No! Not a good guy with a CEO position. That only works in other situations.
Anyway, I hope more CEOs visit troubled schools next year. You know, to help and such. What? What were you thinking?

63 comments