Rant: American Healthcare

[Toshabi]

 

 

Aka, $200 a month with a 70 dollar copay for visiting Urgent Care. That's how much I have to spend on this. Prescriptions are only covered 40% of the total costs. 

 

Without insurance, urgent care visits are 200 dollars. 

 

 

So, if you don't have insurance and just straight up visit Urgent Care when you need it (Me, maybe once every other year), you end up paying $200 + the cost of the prescriptions. If you ask me, the uninsured route seems like the better option when you can barely cover living expenses. 

 

 

Oh.

 

But Obamacare mandates that all American citizens must have health insurance. But at least its affordable.

 

 

At 

 

Least

 

It's

 

 

Affordable.

 

 

WELP! We found out what was inside of this fucking shitty bill passed by the Obama Administration, and it's literally the most undesired form of anal rape. But at least we got to pass it to find out what was inside of it.

 

This rant spawned by Toshabi being unable to get medical assistance today after finding out the fucked up costs to visit urgent care. After being told his copay would only be $10. (Oh, that payment plan comes with the $300/mo plan. Stupid me!)

 

 

tl;dr- 

 

 

[Zeke]

I feel you on American healthcare. For a visit in my state, it's cheaper with insurance. However, Insurance is too damn expensive, and the copay will kill you.

But without insurance is more expensive. No medicaid either.

So, if you cannot afford it, you are better off dead.

Also:
 

 

[Vallium]

Sometimes I think to myself you know if I get into a life altering accident or health condition that lands me hospitalized I might as well just die instead -\_(owo)_/- 

 

For real though it does suck, 200 a month you might as well just not have health insurance and depend on your own wit and health for survival, since on average you dont really go to doctors and stuff often.

I think I lucked out and have insurance through my job which should be way, way less and cover the essentials

[Fantasma]

You could just be like me and probably die before you get medical help because it is too expensive

[Feelwell]

I mean.... Revolution is always an option.

[AshleyAshes]

'Sup?

[Feelwell]

40 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

'Sup?

Ey, Canadians are supposed to be polite.

Even if our system is better.

(Seriously, super thankful our system works, or at least is good enough to be safe.)

[Saxon]

I really cannot imagine how I would face life if I was unable to afford health insurance and no medical safety net existed, because I have seen so many people that are close to me become chronically ill.

I'm sorry that you don't live in a territory that provides you with any such a safety net and I hope that you come upon enough money in the future to afford a good health insurance plan.

[Strongbob]

The thing that really gets my goat, and anal rapes it, and disembowels it, and makes it into goat haggis, possibly not in that order, is the fact that the US spends almost a TRILLION dollars a year paying for the healthcare for retired seniors and then leaves productive members to the dogs when they get sick.  How does that make any sense at all?

[SirRob]

5 minutes ago, Strongbob said:

The thing that really gets my goat, and anal rapes it, and disembowels it, and makes it into goat haggis, possibly not in that order, is the fact that the US spends almost a TRILLION dollars a year paying for the healthcare for retired seniors and then leaves productive members to the dogs when they get sick.  How does that make any sense at all?

Don't worry they'll have that all fixed and turned around by the time we're all retired seniors

[Saxon]

5 minutes ago, Strongbob said:

The thing that really gets my goat, and anal rapes it, and disembowels it, and makes it into goat haggis, possibly not in that order, is the fact that the US spends almost a TRILLION dollars a year paying for the healthcare for retired seniors and then leaves productive members to the dogs when they get sick.  How does that make any sense at all?

Old people vote.

But to answer slightly less glibly, I think a society which intervenes to help 'useful' people and leaves the old to fend for themselves would be undesirable too, a society which intervenes to help people regardless of their personal circumstance would be the 'best' I guess.

[U-235]

I don't know. It doesn't seem there's really any compromise that'd actually pass through American Congress, and with the new house, president, and senate in place, I'm not expecting anything good coming out of it. Personally for me an ideal system would be something that's a hybrid of privatized and government insurance. Such as you get a private plan, but if the rates are excessive the government makes it so you only pay a fixed rate and help pay for the rest. To prevent the insurance companies from taking advantage of this and charging exuberant rates to get money from the government, have them present their reason for the costs in extreme detail to a governmental board every year and if it's found to be unjustified slap a fine on them that way they refund the money they overcharged.

 

I'm still in college on my mom's health plan though. So take my suggestion with a grain of salt.

[Strongbob]

5 minutes ago, Saxon said:

Old people vote.

But to answer slightly less glibly, I think a society which intervenes to help 'useful' people and leaves the old to fend for themselves would be undesirable too, a society which intervenes to help people regardless of their personal circumstance would be the 'best' I guess.

Hopefully in the future instead of turning single people into the animal of their choosing we will just turn all the seniors into animals.  Then we can still enjoying them without letting them vote, or drive, or become president.

[Saxon]

5 minutes ago, U-235 said:

I don't know. It doesn't seem there's really any compromise that'd actually pass through American Congress, and with the new house, president, and senate in place, I'm not expecting anything good coming out of it. Personally for me an ideal system would be something that's a hybrid of privatized and government insurance. Such as you get a private plan, but if the rates are excessive the government makes it so you only pay a fixed rate and help pay for the rest. To prevent the insurance companies from taking advantage of this and charging exuberant rates to get money from the government, have them present their reason for the costs in extreme detail to a governmental board every year and if it's found to be unjustified slap a fine on them that way the refund the money they overcharged.

 

I'm still in college on my mom's health plan though. So take my suggestion with a grain of salt.

Typically, in countries where a national health service exists, private companies also exist and are pretty popular (For example, if I fell ill I would go to a government-funded hospital, but I pay a private dentist to look after my teeth), so even countries perceived as well-fare states are actually hybrid systems.

Some countries achieve stellar health outcomes for a fraction of the relative cost that the American system does, so there is potentially money that could be saved by having a system that encourages improved health of many citizens. Unfortunately I think many Americans cannot separate the notion of government-funded healthcare from Socialism. :\

Hopefully in the future instead of turning single people into the animal of their choosing we will just turn all the seniors into animals.  Then we can still enjoying them without letting them vote, or drive, or become president.

But we'll be those old people.

 

[Strongbob]

4 minutes ago, Saxon said:

 

But we'll be those old people.

 

I'd be ok with that, I mean we probably won't get social security by then either.  Turn me into a fox?  No, please don't! Well, if you must

[Toshabi]

55 minutes ago, Saxon said:

I really cannot imagine how I would face life if I was unable to afford health insurance and no medical safety net existed, because I have seen so many people that are close to me become chronically ill.

I'm sorry that you don't live in a territory that provides you with any such a safety net and I hope that you come upon enough money in the future to afford a good health insurance plan.

I think the thing that really kills me is that my company's healthcare was free prior to Obamacare. I feel like I would be in a much better position financially if that legit was still a thing. Im really feeling the financial burn of being forced to buy insurance. But what really gets me the most is how if we dont buy insurance, the government gets to charge us a tax penalty.

[U-235]

1 minute ago, Saxon said:

Typically, in countries where a national health service exists, private companies also exist and are pretty popular (For example, if I fell ill I would go to a government-funded hospital, but I pay a private dentist to look after my teeth), so even countries perceived as well-fare states are actually hybrid systems.

Some countries achieve stellar health outcomes for a fraction of the relative cost that the American system does, so there is potentially money that could be saved by having a system that encourages improved health of many citizens. Unfortunately I think many Americans cannot separate the notion of government-funded healthcare from Socialism. :\

It's things like this that genuinely piss me off about America sometimes. The inherit and underlying issues is everyone believes that if someone doesn't do absolutely everything themselves then they're beggers demanding handouts. People don't seem to ever believe that's possible for others to fall on hard times, and that if they do it's entirely their own fault and they should dig themselves out of it with no help because "this nation is about hard work".

Absolutely fuck that.

I remember this one guy who tried to convince me that unemployment insurance was just from moochers and shouldn't exist. I told him off essentially but my mom lost her job in 2010 after the Economic recession of 08 because law felt the aftermath a bit later than the rest of the industry. She went from making 340,000 a year to literally a few thousand a month. We essentially used whatever we had saved for me and my brothers to attend college, max out all of our credit cards, and nearly lost our house on 4 separate occasions of which we still have a tax lean on. And we couldn't move out either because our mortgage was more than the house was worth so it'd actually cost us 120,000$ to move out of it even if we sold it for max retail value at the time. So for the entire 1 year and 9 months my mom was unemployed she was sending out at least 10 to 15 resumes a week to literally any job possible. She's had 27 years of law experience and is licensed in 5 states and still was having difficulty because the law industry sucked that much. And during this time period my dad divorced my mom and moved to Hawaii so that left us with even less. My mom finally managed to get a job  after a year and nine months with a firm that paid around 90,000 before tax but we still came up short and it's resulted in me having about 46,000 in student loans. She recently got a new position with a larger firm for 140,000 so we're actually making end's meet now, but no money left over. But through the entire thing she worked insanely hard despite everything to ensure that we could keep our home, have food, clothes, and still go to college despite all the shit that happened. Including one of our cars dying so we only had one car to drive for all of our different schedules.

So to anyone who says people who are unemployed are just lazy and aren't looking hard enough. Fuck them! They have no fucking clue how scary it is to not know if you're moving out next month, or if college is still something you can afford, or if your card is going to be declined next time you purchase groceries. And absolutely fuck people who think that people don't deserve help when they fall on hard times. If you're so stuck up that you feel no one but you deserves your money and that if someone falls down they need to, without any assistance, stand back up regardless of condition, then to that person, fuck you! Fuck people who don't feel any obligation to their fellow man and to assisting those in need. Fuck them for assuming a situation and using that as an excuse to use arrogance to ignore it. And fuck them if they feel they're being "robbed of their hard earned cash" because they can't contribute less than a percent of their earnings to those who can't afford the most basic of accommodations. Those people piss me off beyond belief and quite frankly leave me aghast at how much of an asshole they are for it.

 

Okay angry rant over.  

[Jerry]

Access to healthcare is one of those things you don't need often, but good lord you're glad to have it when you do.

Like that night two years ago I went to the bathroom and started pissing blood all of a sudden. 

I was so thankful I could just go to the hospital and pass all the tests needed without having to worry about their costs, especially that I was quite worried it could be bladder cancer. Turns out it's a kidney stone that turned my piss wine red. But I can't even imagine the anxiety I'd still have to bear to this day had I not had a way to rule out any serious condition.

[Toshabi]

28 minutes ago, Jerry said:

Access to healthcare is one of those things you don't need often, but good lord you're glad to have it when you do.

Like that night two years ago I went to the bathroom and started pissing blood all of a sudden. 

I was so thankful I could just go to the hospital and pass all the tests needed without having to worry about their costs, especially that I was quite worried it could be bladder cancer. Turns out it's a kidney stone that turned my piss wine red. But I can't even imagine the anxiety I'd still have to bear to this day had I not had a way to rule out any serious condition.

With what I afford for insurance, only 40% of my visit will be covered if I ever had to go to the hospital. For 200 dollars a month. 

[Fossa]

https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-mozilla-004&hsimp=yhs-004&hspart=mozilla&p=youtube+avalanches+that+boy#id=1&vid=f034c08730a800ce5175baa444efd731&action=click

[kazooie]

10 hours ago, U-235 said:

I don't know. It doesn't seem there's really any compromise that'd actually pass through American Congress

it must've been so goddamn hard to get that bill to pass through. i wonder how much shit-wading, filibusters, riders, and self-sabotaging compromises it took until enough politicians got on board to actually agree to pass it

[Saxon]

15 hours ago, Toshabi said:

I think the thing that really kills me is that my company's healthcare was free prior to Obamacare. I feel like I would be in a much better position financially if that legit was still a thing. Im really feeling the financial burn of being forced to buy insurance. But what really gets me the most is how if we dont buy insurance, the government gets to charge us a tax penalty.

I wonder whether some companies saw the introduction of Obamacare as an opportunity to cancel their healthplans, because they believed their workers would blame the government instead of their employer.

 

Are you part of a workers' union?

[Toshabi]

1 hour ago, Saxon said:

I wonder whether some companies saw the introduction of Obamacare as an opportunity to cancel their healthplans, because they believed their workers would blame the government instead of their employer.

 

Are you part of a workers' union?

I cant say that, considering health insurance companies tripled their pricing for insurance. A lot of counties that are in places like California got hit the hardest due to their dense population. 

 

And no. I was apart of one a while ago, but they took more from you than they gave back. I was running on 14/hr for a long time under a union where about 100/mo was sent to them for union dues. Being forced to go on strike was the last straw for me when I returned to a nickle pay raise for missing 2 weeks of work. No pay compensation was owed to me. Labor unions in California are cancer. They are more of a problem than a solution, but not all of the unions here are ass. 

[Saxon]

2 minutes ago, Toshabi said:

I cant say that, considering health insurance companies tripled their pricing for insurance. A lot of counties that are in places like California got hit the hardest due to their dense population. 

 

And no. I was apart of one a while ago, but they took more from you than they gave back. I was running on 14/hr for a long time under a union where about 100/mo was sent to them for union dues. Being forced to go on strike was the last straw for me when I returned to a nickle pay raise for missing 2 weeks of work. No pay compensation was owed to me. Labor unions in California are cancer. They are more of a problem than a solution, but not all of the unions here are ass. 

Ah, looks like they rubbed their hands together and saw it as an opportunity to take advantage of a captive audience.

It reminds me of that guy who increased the price of an anti-malarial drug by 500%.

[GarthTheWereWolf]

16 minutes ago, Saxon said:

Ah, looks like they rubbed their hands together and saw it as an opportunity to take advantage of a captive audience.

It reminds me of that guy who increased the price of an anti-malarial drug by 500%.

Can't speak for outside the US.

But here, pretty much all pharmaceutical companies do this. Its why new treatments are always so expensive. When they make a new drug they're given a period of time (generally 5-12 years) where they have market exclusivity and are the only ones allowed to sell that drug. They jack up the prices in order to recoup the cost of developing it. Its only years later when competition is finally able to make generic versions of the drug that prices decrease to something most people can actually afford.

Real healthcare reform would target the pharmaceutical companies as a means of decreasing the cost of getting treatment. Not simply forcing everyone to get health insurance.

[Mikazuki Marazhu]

I feel jealous for less fortunate countries, only having to pay roughly around $10 a month for health insurance

[Red Lion]

16 hours ago, Toshabi said:

With what I afford for insurance, only 40% of my visit will be covered if I ever had to go to the hospital. For 200 dollars a month. 

Imagine you spend 350-450 on rent, 100-200 on groceries and however much you have left on things like gas, car insurance, surprise expenses and internet let's say another 300-450$. At the barest of bare minimums you spend about 800$ on the necessities, your walmart paycheck might just cover enough for you to break even every month, maybe you even have a little bit of pocket change left.Those are roughly the expenses for someone living ON THE POVERTY LINE.  Asking another 200 per month from someone in that position is insane. It's fucking insane to make healthcare mandatory and to penalize you when you don't have it. 

It's like the government is actively punishing you for being poor. 

[Zeke]

26 minutes ago, Red Lion said:

Imagine you spend 350-450 on rent, 100-200 on groceries and however much you have left on things like gas, car insurance, surprise expenses and internet let's say another 300-450$. At the barest of bare minimums you spend about 800$ on the necessities, your walmart paycheck might just cover enough for you to break even every month, maybe you even have a little bit of pocket change left.Those are roughly the expenses for someone living ON THE POVERTY LINE.  Asking another 200 per month from someone in that position is insane. It's fucking insane to make healthcare mandatory and to penalize you when you don't have it. 

It's like the government is actively punishing you for being poor. 

It's a combination of both the government and private insurance companies squeezing was much as they can. With the ACA opening up doors for people with pre-existing conditions swarming in droves to get some kind of insurance to cover their treatment, companies are going to make the most out of what they can get in order to both cover the costs of people who are already sick and people who need health insurance to make sure they aren't penalized.

With places that haven't expanded on medicare or medicaid, you are royal fucked.

 

[Toshabi]

2 hours ago, Saxon said:

Ah, looks like they rubbed their hands together and saw it as an opportunity to take advantage of a captive audience.

It reminds me of that guy who increased the price of an anti-malarial drug by 500%.

Yessir. It single handedly created a monopoly. Insurance is no longer a "Our rates are affordable!", its "If you don't give us 2.4k a year for ass insurance, you'll owe the government 1k while having 0 insurance". There's no insentive or law preventing insurance companies from exploiting this. If you make over 20k l, this financial sting is gonna beat you down.

 

Just this year, my fathers insurance rates tripled. He had to drop coverage down to the bare minimum. And with me no longer on the plan, he no longer gets a reduced rate for it. In fact... he is paying more for insuring less people with less coverage. 

[Saxon]

4 hours ago, GarthTheWereWolf said:

Can't speak for outside the US.

But here, pretty much all pharmaceutical companies do this. Its why new treatments are always so expensive. When they make a new drug they're given a period of time (generally 5-12 years) where they have market exclusivity and are the only ones allowed to sell that drug. They jack up the prices in order to recoup the cost of developing it. Its only years later when competition is finally able to make generic versions of the drug that prices decrease to something most people can actually afford.

Real healthcare reform would target the pharmaceutical companies as a means of decreasing the cost of getting treatment. Not simply forcing everyone to get health insurance.

I appreciate the necessity for pharmaceutical companies to recover the costs of the research to develop new drugs, and I think they deserve a period of market exclusivity.

There is some threshold though that is crossed when a drug's price is inflated beyond any possible justification to recover research cost; when it is being inflated because of greed.

2 hours ago, Toshabi said:

Yessir. It single handedly created a monopoly. Insurance is no longer a "Our rates are affordable!", its "If you don't give us 2.4k a year for ass insurance, you'll owe the government 1k while having 0 insurance". There's no insentive or law preventing insurance companies from exploiting this. If you make over 20k l, this financial sting is gonna beat you down.

 

Just this year, my fathers insurance rates tripled. He had to drop coverage down to the bare minimum. And with me no longer on the plan, he no longer gets a reduced rate for it. In fact... he is paying more for insuring less people with less coverage. 

I think it would be better if a means-tested 'health insurance tax' was instead paid directly to the government by everyone, to create an investment trust-fund, and the trust-fund was then redistributed to cover Americans' medical costs so that it was free for them at the point of service.

This would probably be perceived as being commie-hippie stuff, though, because people lose a modest amount of money through tax to the government, instead of massive amounts to greedy companies.

[Toshabi]

5 hours ago, Saxon said:

I appreciate the necessity for pharmaceutical companies to recover the costs of the research to develop new drugs, and I think they deserve a period of market exclusivity.

There is some threshold though that is crossed when a drug's price is inflated beyond any possible justification to recover research cost; when it is being inflated because of greed.

I think it would be better if a means-tested 'health insurance tax' was instead paid directly to the government by everyone, to create an investment trust-fund, and the trust-fund was then redistributed to cover Americans' medical costs so that it was free for them at the point of service.

This would probably be perceived as being commie-hippie stuff, though, because people lose a modest amount of money through tax to the government, instead of massive amounts to greedy companies.

Nothing will ever be solved in America, because it's too "Us vs Them" in these politics. I honestly think the day the two party system dies is the day we'll start to see some real progress, but that won't be in my life time. For now, its one step forward and 5 steps back.

 

Every party honestly percieves the other side as wanting the destruction of the world. 

[kazooie]

4 hours ago, Toshabi said:

Nothing will ever be solved in America, because it's too "Us vs Them" in these politics. I honestly think the day the two party system dies is the day we'll start to see some real progress, but that won't be in my life time. For now, its one step forward and 5 steps back.

 

Every party honestly percieves the other side as wanting the destruction of the world. 

well, its not just the politicians. its also the state of the media in the US; the major US media mills are all owned by major corporations and have degraded to pretty much garbage as a result. it's pretty astounding, comparing the headlines and articles of US media to that of other countries new organizations (such as the BBC or CBC)

 

also a bunch of those media mills figured out that you can pretty much just post whatever you want on the internet and people will believe it, so now the internet also has a bunch of junk news mills and weird echo chambers.

[Fantasma]

To be honest I am hoping trump and his administration is so horrible it forces the two parties to get their heads out of their asses, embrace reform based on scientific fact instead of rhetoric, and actually make this country great for the first time ever. Cause the US sucks, albiet less than alot of the world.

However I don't really see much in that way, sadly, because the idiot has a group of people reigning him in to try and make a second term.

[WileyWarWeasel]

1 minute ago, Johanna Waya said:

and actually make this country great for the first time ever.

USA was "great" at one point: when it had plenty of indigenous cheap resources to exploit, far less pollution locally & globally, its socioeconomic system was smaller and less complex, population was smaller and the biosphere within its borders and globally was not as depleted.

 

Now you want to make America great again with the above (and many other factors) being almost the opposite of what they were 50 years ago?

[Fantasma]

1 minute ago, WileyWarWeasel said:

USA was "great" at one point: when it had plenty of indigenous cheap resources to exploit, far less pollution locally & globally, its socioeconomic system was smaller and less complex, population was smaller and the biosphere within its borders and globally was not as depleted.

 

Now you want to make America great again with the above (and many other factors) being almost the opposite of what they were 50 years ago?

No they still pretty much sucked ass, just ask anyone who wasn't a white straight christian at that point.

I would like to have a goverment that has less ties with industry, a congress that does things, and universal hate crime laws. That would be great.

 

But ofc it's just getting worse by the day, because some broke ass factory workers cant realize when they aren't needed anymore.

[WileyWarWeasel]

6 minutes ago, Johanna Waya said:

No they still pretty much sucked ass, just ask anyone who wasn't a white straight christian at that point.

Well cheap resources can only do so much ^^

8 minutes ago, Johanna Waya said:

I would like to have a goverment that has less ties with industry,

That won't happen, industry is too important to modern society to be ignored (especially when they ask for subsidies and special treatment).

9 minutes ago, Johanna Waya said:

a congress that does things,

They do things, just not for the common man most of the time.

12 minutes ago, Johanna Waya said:

universal hate crime laws. That would be great.

That's nibbling at the boundaries rather than addressing any root problems.

13 minutes ago, Johanna Waya said:

But ofc it's just getting worse by the day, because some broke ass factory workers cant realize when they aren't needed anymore.

What you've pointed out is merely a symptom of greater economic problems.

[Fantasma]

5 minutes ago, WileyWarWeasel said:

Well cheap resources can only do so much ^^

That won't happen, industry is too important to modern society to be ignored (especially when they ask for subsidies and special treatment).

They do things, just not for the common man most of the time.

That's nibbling at the boundaries rather than addressing any root problems.

What you've pointed out is merely a symptom of greater economic problems.

Industry should not run the country though, as they will always fuck over whomever they need to for money. That's pretty much who we are getting as the executive administration.

Exactly, they do things for their own parties and people throwing money at them, not people that exist outside of their bubble.

Very true, but part of addressing those problems is by making it clear that that behavior is not tolerated as part of american culture, and the first steps are taking action against it.

Look at Germany, they didn't become one of the best countries in terms of culture after WW2 by playing nice with bigots in terms of laws.

It is a symptom of greater problems, but to be honest, as you may have guessed, the american problem is one of culture.

Too much burden on the healthcare from a fat and meat glorifying culture.

Poor economic outlook due to lack of knowledge on money, and trying to live in small towns where yes, you are going to be poor because you have like five fucking jobs there.

Poor social situation, because the american culture respects and gives credit to bigoted ideas and just plain dipshits.

 

Essentially america can blame it's own people, the way they raise children, the way they seek to live, how they treat their bodies, and their own willful ignorance for all of it's problems which has been given an orange pubic hair tupee'd body to be it's voice.

 

 

 

Maybe if people didn't treat their bodies like shit we could sctually get decent healthcare? Just an idea.

[WileyWarWeasel]

2 minutes ago, Johanna Waya said:

Industry should not run the country though, as they will always fuck over whomever they need to for money. That's pretty much who we are getting as the executive administration.

Exactly, they do things for their own parties and people throwing money at them, not people that exist outside of their bubble.

Unfortunately various industries (and banks, in particular the central bank) running the country is being done not just out of greed but out of technical necessity. In order for the modern system to function, control over critical components is inevitably handed over to various leaders & few highly trained workers and analysts specializing in various fields. This becomes inevitable because over time the system becomes larger and more complex, which forces specialization of all sorts and delegates leadership to those that are sufficiently specialized simply because they need to keep up with all the existing and new information required to function and guide their various components forward.

Simply put, there is too much specialized information required for industries of all sorts for critical decisions to be entrusted to the general populace who at best has a passing knowledge on matters outside of whatever field they specialize in. Obviously there are some people who study & even participate in multiple fields in depth but such people are few and far between.

An unfortunate side effect of such concentration of decision-making ability is that the decision makers become more self-interested over time.

16 minutes ago, Johanna Waya said:

Very true, but part of addressing those problems is by making it clear that that behavior is not tolerated as part of american culture, and the first steps are taking action against it.

Look at Germany, they didn't become one of the best countries in terms of culture after WW2 by playing nice with bigots in terms of laws.

True, though Germany had much more going for them than just culture.

17 minutes ago, Johanna Waya said:

It is a symptom of greater problems, but to be honest, as you may have guessed, the american problem is one of culture.

USA, like any other country in the world is facing multiple problems. Some problems can be fixed, some can only be temporarily pushed into the future. Some solutions for problems (eg increasing specialization & complexity due to the system increasing in size and diminishing returns) create additional problems.

19 minutes ago, Johanna Waya said:

Too much burden on the healthcare from a fat and meat glorifying culture.

I would add fast food in general, but yes this is at least a cultural problem that could be fixed. One would wonder where workers involved in various parts of the food industry would go to though.

23 minutes ago, Johanna Waya said:

Poor economic outlook due to lack of knowledge on money, and trying to live in small towns where yes, you are going to be poor because you have like five fucking jobs there.

These are some of the issues causing the poor economic outlook, but there are much greater issues at play here (ie diminishing returns from extraction of raw materials & energy, increasing systemic costs due to pollution/debt/complexity/etc, diminishing arable land per person, diminishing naturally available fresh water per person, diminishing biomass & in particular phytomass levels both overall & per person).

26 minutes ago, Johanna Waya said:

Poor social situation, because the american culture respects and gives credit to bigoted ideas and just plain dipshits.

The social problems USA faces are also multifaceted. While USA does have some unique social issues of its own various other issues are shared with other countries such as overpopulation and social trends necessitated by a changing technological society. Please see the following links for more info on those issues including a population experiment (done on mice but some of their behaviors are being observed in humans today):

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1644264/

http://wildism.org/docs/tk-isaif.html#_introduction

31 minutes ago, Johanna Waya said:

Essentially america can blame it's own people, the way they raise children, the way they seek to live, how they treat their bodies, and their own willful ignorance for all of it's problems which has been given an orange pubic hair tupee'd body to be it's voice.

As shown above, USA's problems go far beyond a few social issues and ignorance.

That being said, the orange ball is certainly an interesting sign of the times.

32 minutes ago, Johanna Waya said:

Maybe if people didn't treat their bodies like shit we could sctually get decent healthcare? Just an idea.

That would be a good start towards reducing unnecessary health care costs ;D

[Saxon]

I think there is a problem with @WileyWarWeasel rationalisation.

When people say they want politicians without vested business interests and connections they don't mean to argue that uninformed people should make all the decisions.
They are arguing for impartial politicians, who listen to the advice of technical experts and different companies that are all competing with one another.

There are advisory boards full of experts that have been drawn together specifically so that they can inform politicians. The trouble is that some politicians will ignore those advisory boards in order to protect their existing business connections, for example politicians who ignore recommendations of drugs advisory boards at the behest of private prison companies, politicians who disband climate and environment advisory boards because the politicians have vested interests in the success of fossil fuels companies and politicians who ignore the advice of health advisory boards because they are in the pocket of tobacco companies.

Given that the Exec' of Exon Mobile, which is a company with an unfortunate reputation for public misinformation campaigns, has now been hand-picked as secretary of state, it seems that endemic vested interest and corruption is, if anything, being celebrated now, instead of criticised.

 

[WileyWarWeasel]

@Saxon I'll admit I hadn't thought of it that way. It would be nice if things operated the way you stated; I suppose that they are still technically listening to various experts, just not always from the rosiest of industries (eg experts from the tobacco industry). Also remember that even some people on supposedly impartial advisory boards would have their own interests or be acting on behalf of other interests.

As the system has become larger and more convoluted it can also be hard to untangle who is influencing who because many people (experts, advisors, lawmakers, etc) could be acting under the influence of others without realizing it. For example, an expert on a health advisory board could make a recommendation on a new treatment based on some papers they read without realizing that the papers may have been sponsored by one or more companies trying to promote the treatment. As far as the expert knows they are acting in the best interests of the country's health.

[Saxon]

20 minutes ago, WileyWarWeasel said:

@Saxon I'll admit I hadn't thought of it that way. It would be nice if things operated the way you stated; I suppose that they are still technically listening to various experts, just not always from the rosiest of industries (eg experts from the tobacco industry). Also remember that even some people on supposedly impartial advisory boards would have their own interests or be acting on behalf of other interests.

As the system has become larger and more convoluted it can also be hard to untangle who is influencing who because many people (experts, advisors, lawmakers, etc) could be acting under the influence of others without realizing it. For example, an expert on a health advisory board could make a recommendation on a new treatment based on some papers they read without realizing that the papers may have been sponsored by one or more companies trying to promote the treatment. As far as the expert knows they are acting in the best interests of the country's health.

Of course. I think it helps though because if several different competing companies are represented then it's not as bad as just one well connected company pulling strings to suit themselves.

And fortunately some advisory boards are composed of scientists, and the scientific community is pretty good at exposing and destroying corporate shills they discover in their midst.

 

...none of it guarantees that anybody will listen to the advisors though. Drugs advisory boards in the USA and UK have been recommending the legalisation of cannabis for decades, for example.

[WileyWarWeasel]

45 minutes ago, Saxon said:

Of course. I think it helps though because if several different competing companies are represented then it's not as bad as just one well connected company pulling strings to suit themselves.

It would require massive reform but it would be something. Your comment also exposes one of the problems with unfettered "free-markets": given enough time, some competing companies merge and acquire each other, forming larger businesses that dominate the market not because they're better but because they managed to mangle multiple companies into one and/or consume others.

 

49 minutes ago, Saxon said:

And fortunately some advisory boards are composed of scientists, and the scientific community is pretty good at exposing and destroying corporate shills they discover in their midst.

 

...none of it guarantees that anybody will listen to the advisors though. Drugs advisory boards in the USA and UK have been recommending the legalisation of cannabis for decades, for example.

Didn't know about the legalization recommendations, you learn something new every day ;D