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hypocritical indeed: Miami man who flew to China worried he might have COVID-19. He may owe thousands https://www.miamiherald.com/news/health-care/article240476

hypocritical indeed: Miami man who flew to China worried he might have COVID-19. He may owe thousands https://www.miamiherald.com/news/health-care/article240476806.html https://www.miamiherald.com/news/health-care/article24047680... ~44 million people have no health insurance in the US, and another 38 million have inadequate health insurance. how many of them will skip the doctor and show up for work because they rather not face a surprise bill? I got no doubt at this stage that the US will be hit the hardest from all the developed countries. No amount of testing and prevention mechanism the CDC can come up with, effective mitigation will depend on people seeking treatment and be willing to go to a doctor even without symptoms. I'm pretty convinced that the only reason the US hasn't been hit as hard yet is that they aren't testing on the same scale. In other news on twitter people from Vietnam, Thailand are currently boasting that the number of /their/ infected is tiny compared to South Korea - SK just tests on a massive scale. Not testing and educating people keeps your numbers low but you'll lose in the long run.

gruez 7y ago
>hypocritical indeed: Miami man who flew to China worried he might have COVID-19. He may owe thousands Hypocritical? Sounds like a completely orthogonal problem to me. You can have insanely unaffordable healthcare in authoritarian states and liberal democracies. If anything, the US is an outlier considering that healthcare works well in every other liberal democracy.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  It is hypocritical to say "haha China's unprepared for this" when we're clearly also unprepared, yes.
mcantelon 7y ago
>I got no doubt at this stage that the US will be hit the hardest from all the developed countries. It's the biggest and most diverse so that's wouldn't be surprising, yes.
- netsharc 7y ago
  Ooh "diverse", is it because "homogeneous" countries would have the disease better in control, so like many things, it's a problem attributed to "diversity"? Whenever I read "homogeneous nation" I take a glance at my racism-o-meter...
  - magduf 7y ago
    I think the problem isn't heterogeneity in ethnicity, it's heterogeneity in values. Many western European nations have a good amount of ethnic diversity, but they don't have half the population saying that nationalized healthcare (like in the UK) is "socialist" and they don't want it. The different ethnic groups there seem to be able to all agree on what kind of things are necessary to achieve an advanced, modern nation. We in the US simply cannot.
    - mercer 7y ago
      I thought around 70% of the US wants Medicare for All, and only around 20% outright rejects it?
      - magduf 7y ago
        Where did you get those numbers? It certainly isn't seen in election results. Approximately half the population reliably votes GOP in every election, and they certainly don't want Medicare for All. On the Democrat side, MfA is seen as "extreme"; even in the current Primaries (which is mostly composed of voters who are reasonably strong Democrats), Bernie is only getting about 25% of the vote so far.
        mercer 7y ago
        https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/403248-poll-seventy-percent-of-americans-support-medicare-for-all https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/403248-poll-seventy-pe... I have no idea how reliable these polls are, or how much things have changed since they were conducted, but I've heard the statistic before and I at least got the impression that it wasn't considered a controversial one. From what I understand, there are similar statistics about various other policies that could be considered 'socialist' (but are more European-style social-democratic). While many Americans are strongly opposed to anything with the label socialism, they seem to often actually be in favor of the actual policy that these 'progressives' propose. I haven't taken any kind of deep dive into this though, so for all I know this is more controversial than I assumed.
Jabbles 7y ago
Does the average health insurance cover "pandemics"? Or does the small-print exclude it along with acts of god, war etc?
- gdubs 7y ago
  On top of the 25 million or so uninsured in America, there are a lot of underinsured who have gotten used to avoiding medical care due to the expense of even “covered” costs.

gruez 7y ago

>hypocritical indeed: Miami man who flew to China worried he might have COVID-19. He may owe thousands Hypocritical? Sounds like a completely orthogonal problem to me. You can have insanely unaffordable healthcare in authoritarian states and liberal democracies. If anything, the US is an outlier considering that healthcare works well in every other liberal democracy.

ceejayoz 7y ago
It is hypocritical to say "haha China's unprepared for this" when we're clearly also unprepared, yes.

mcantelon 7y ago

>I got no doubt at this stage that the US will be hit the hardest from all the developed countries. It's the biggest and most diverse so that's wouldn't be surprising, yes.

netsharc 7y ago
Ooh "diverse", is it because "homogeneous" countries would have the disease better in control, so like many things, it's a problem attributed to "diversity"? Whenever I read "homogeneous nation" I take a glance at my racism-o-meter...
- magduf 7y ago
  I think the problem isn't heterogeneity in ethnicity, it's heterogeneity in values. Many western European nations have a good amount of ethnic diversity, but they don't have half the population saying that nationalized healthcare (like in the UK) is "socialist" and they don't want it. The different ethnic groups there seem to be able to all agree on what kind of things are necessary to achieve an advanced, modern nation. We in the US simply cannot.
  - mercer 7y ago
    I thought around 70% of the US wants Medicare for All, and only around 20% outright rejects it?
    - magduf 7y ago
      Where did you get those numbers? It certainly isn't seen in election results. Approximately half the population reliably votes GOP in every election, and they certainly don't want Medicare for All. On the Democrat side, MfA is seen as "extreme"; even in the current Primaries (which is mostly composed of voters who are reasonably strong Democrats), Bernie is only getting about 25% of the vote so far.
      - mercer 7y ago
        https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/403248-poll-seventy-percent-of-americans-support-medicare-for-all https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/403248-poll-seventy-pe... I have no idea how reliable these polls are, or how much things have changed since they were conducted, but I've heard the statistic before and I at least got the impression that it wasn't considered a controversial one. From what I understand, there are similar statistics about various other policies that could be considered 'socialist' (but are more European-style social-democratic). While many Americans are strongly opposed to anything with the label socialism, they seem to often actually be in favor of the actual policy that these 'progressives' propose. I haven't taken any kind of deep dive into this though, so for all I know this is more controversial than I assumed.

Jabbles 7y ago

Does the average health insurance cover "pandemics"? Or does the small-print exclude it along with acts of god, war etc?

gdubs 7y ago
On top of the 25 million or so uninsured in America, there are a lot of underinsured who have gotten used to avoiding medical care due to the expense of even “covered” costs.