3 ms·

My wife and I have experienced three layoffs between us, two of them after the 2008 financial crash. We used to lean left but were not at all politically invol

My wife and I have experienced three layoffs between us, two of them after the 2008 financial crash. We used to lean left but were not at all politically involved. We had comfortable positions with cushy benefits. After getting laid off the positions we found paid less and did not include benefits. This experience really opened our eyes to what life is like for average working people in this country. We both have personal connections to Asian countries that have socialized medicine, but here in the supposedly advanced U.S. we were only able to get insurance because of Obamacare, and that insurance is so expensive and has such a high deductable that we may as well have been pouring our money down a toilet. Things are better now but the feeling doesn't go away. These experiences radicalized us. They made us really cynical about our capitalist system and receptive to the voices of progressives like Bernie Sanders and movements like Occupy. It's made us really have sympathy with the concerns of poor and marginalized and working people.

edoo 7y ago
I find it very interesting that I can digest the same information and come to the exact opposite conclusion. Our medicine system has been socialized. If you can't afford to pay, the cost is pushed onto the rest of the population that can. The free market had health care costs 10x lower than they are now, so low that the entirety of an average person's health fees with only catastrophic insurance would now be lower than their monthly premium. Our economic system has socialized, more communized. It is impossible to save capital because the purchasing power of your capital is devalued at an exponential rate, taken and redistributed to those at the tippy top. To call off the nonsense would be to move right.
- jefurii 7y ago
  In sane countries like Japan and Taiwan, the entire working population pays into social insurance, from the time they start working until they retire, no exceptions. Even foreigners pay into the system if they work there. The government negotiates as a single payer, which keeps the cost of medications and other supplies down. Doctors' offices and hospitals are private entities but they get to work with a single insurance provider instead of the craziness of our system (my mom was a medical provider so I've heard her horror stories of dealing with insurance companies). The system spends less per capita than we do and they have better medical outcomes as a society. I call that a win.

edoo 7y ago

I find it very interesting that I can digest the same information and come to the exact opposite conclusion. Our medicine system has been socialized. If you can't afford to pay, the cost is pushed onto the rest of the population that can. The free market had health care costs 10x lower than they are now, so low that the entirety of an average person's health fees with only catastrophic insurance would now be lower than their monthly premium. Our economic system has socialized, more communized. It is impossible to save capital because the purchasing power of your capital is devalued at an exponential rate, taken and redistributed to those at the tippy top. To call off the nonsense would be to move right.

jefurii 7y ago
In sane countries like Japan and Taiwan, the entire working population pays into social insurance, from the time they start working until they retire, no exceptions. Even foreigners pay into the system if they work there. The government negotiates as a single payer, which keeps the cost of medications and other supplies down. Doctors' offices and hospitals are private entities but they get to work with a single insurance provider instead of the craziness of our system (my mom was a medical provider so I've heard her horror stories of dealing with insurance companies). The system spends less per capita than we do and they have better medical outcomes as a society. I call that a win.