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This is a prime example of a feel good story that is papering over systemic problems. We're meant to read this and think this doctor is a good person (and they

This is a prime example of a feel good story that is papering over systemic problems. We're meant to read this and think this doctor is a good person (and they are, at least for this act) rather than, "how is it possible there was this much medical debt for cancer treatment to forgive?" Yes, debt forgiveness is great and something we can all do as mutual aid, but we also need to acknowledge that the deeply flawed idea that healthcare should be a "marketplace" rather than just a baseline good for everyone is the real story here.

unishark 6y ago
It was for 200 people. Works out to about $3k per person on average.
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  Which is a fortune to many (most?) Americans. That's like 5% of the median income. And these people just had cancer, so it's less likely they've been able to hold down steady work.
  - bhupy 6y ago
    That's less than most Americans spend on food per year, without which you die.
a1371 6y ago
It's amazing that their kindness has touched so many lives but yes, the need for it could have been avoided in the first place.
arcticbull 6y ago
Frankly it seems like the doctor got screwed out of his pay by the system too. He should be as mad at US healthcare as his now bankrupt patients. Nothing about this feels good.
unabst 6y ago
Exactly. If that was the debt at the end of his practice, just imagine how much debt he bestowed during the 30 years it ran. I wonder how many patients went bankrupt... seriously, with the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US being medical. But that wouldn't be a story. That's just every clinic in the USA. And who wants to be reminded of that?
efwfwef 6y ago
This ^ It's a depressing story, anyone who thinks this is a positive story is ignoring the whole context.
- matsemann 6y ago
  Yeah, maybe I'm cynical in that regard, but I had to unsubscribe/block r/mademesmile and r/wholesomememes or what they're called on reddit, as I found it more depressing than nice to read these kind of stories.
Chris2048 6y ago
> the deeply flawed idea that healthcare should be a "marketplace" It should be a marketplace. instead, it's a racket.
- hippich 6y ago
  And an insurance should be, well, an insurance. What is referred as "health insurance" is more like "health care plans" (insurers even call it "plans"). Just consider how comprehensive auto insurance is different from health insurance in practice.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    Overall health is not insurable. It’s a misnomer. There is a 100% chance of everyone needing healthcare in the future. US health insurance does a few things: 1) premiums partially serve as a tax to transfer wealth from young and healthy to old an sick 2) insurers healthcare recipient from the big costs (over out of pocket maximum - $7k to $13k per year), subject to in network providers 3) Negotiates pricing and determine appropriate level of healthcare, I.e. acts as informed agent for uninformed buyers The last one is controversial, but it’s funny since people complain about high insurance premiums and then also complain about insurance companies denying what might be frivolous charges by healthcare providers.
    - valenterry 6y ago
      > There is a 100% chance of everyone needing healthcare in the future. 1) that's not true. One can die in an accident and not cause an future healthcare costs. 2) health care costs are of course insurable, why not? Just because everyone will create costs with a high chance does not mean that everyone will always create the same costs. The insurance is there for when you have some illness that causes more costs than you could afford.
      - lotsofpulp 6y ago
        I didn't feel like writing 99.9999% chance at the time, so I rounded up to 100%. It's not insurable in the sense that at some point, the losses are so large and so frequent, that the insurer needs to collect premiums from almost everyone in order to cover the costs. At that point, the premiums start to resemble a tax. I actually do consider the premiums a tax for the following reasons: 1) there is a mandate to purchase health insurance (although now neutered in most states due to removal of federal tax penalty) 2) the maximum premium is set to 3x the lowest premium (means young people subsidize old people) 3) premiums can only vary based on age and tobacco use 4) there is an annual in network out of pocket maximum Another example of an uninsurable risk is insuring homes on the Florida and other Gulf states coastline for flooding. No private insurer would touch this market since the losses are so high, so the government created the National Flood Insurance Program, which is the federal taxpayers taking on the liability for flood damage for those homes.
imgabe 6y ago
It was for 200 people, that's an average of $3250 per person.
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  Posted this above, but that's a lot of money. The median household income in the states is about 60k. And these folks may be less likely to have held stable employment while they battled with cancer.
serial_dev 6y ago
Exactly. I feel the same way about GoFundMe campaigns for medical bills. On one hand, I'm happy that some of them can get outside help, on the other hand why is a GoFundMe campaign necessary to stay afloat?
- pembrook 6y ago
  What’s so ironic about GoFundMe is that it’s basically a diorama of how socialized medical care would work (minus the cost savings), and yet nobody has any political objections to socialized funding when it happens there. I recall debating with a friend who was against socialized healthcare recently, and then seeing them promote a GoFundMe campaign for a mutual friend’s medical bills on Facebook a few days later. The irony was lost on him. I think the key is that Americans love to dream of themselves as wealthy philanthropists (no matter how poor they actually are). If there was a way to make paying taxes feel more like philanthropy, maybe we could solve this. Maybe it’s as simple as giving everybody a certificate with a list of anonymized names and what treatments they helped pay for, so they can brag about it on Facebook. “I helped pay for a child’s chemotherapy” instead of “the government took my money”
  - trynewideas 6y ago
    Taxes in the US are labeled (accurately, but perceived negatively) around what you have — income tax, property tax, sales tax. For the most part, they aren't labeled for what they _do_ (other than Social Security and Medicare taxes, programs to which cuts are political poison). If federal taxes were broken down to, say, defense taxes, infrastructure taxes, health taxes, administrative taxes, and people saw how much of what they pay goes into each fund, it would be much closer to what you describe. For instance, people would be more aware that twice as much of the tax-derived budget goes into defense and international security than to safety net programs. And people might also be more wary of actions that grow the federal debt — both spending and high-income-earning tax cuts — if they saw that more of their tax money goes to paying off its interest than toward funding infrastructure, education, and science and medical research combined. Instead, that information is buried in federal reports and reported with the perception of being policy wonkery. It doesn't have a personal impact. Seeing what you remit to the government broken down by what it's spent on would drive it home much as having Social Security and Medicare as line-items on paystubs does.
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
That's how I felt. Just like stories on how everybody pitched in, or the boss giving an employee that walked to work a car, or the one where a boss allowed (!) an employee that lived in their car to park in their shop's parking lot overnight, or the one where employees "donated" their paid time off days to another because of circumstance (or the apparent fact that paid time and sick days off are such a weird concept in the US).
delecti 6y ago
Agreed. I'm reminded of a tweet I saw: > Every heartwarming human interest story in america is like "he raised $20,000 to keep 200 orphans from being crushed in the orphan-crushing machine" and then never asks why an orphan-crushing machine exists or why you'd need to pay to prevent it from being used. https://twitter.com/pookleblinky/status/1309325764739858432 https://twitter.com/pookleblinky/status/1309325764739858432 These heartwarming stories are like a bandaid on a gunshot wound. Not even making a dent in the problem.

unishark 6y ago

It was for 200 people. Works out to about $3k per person on average.

Pfhreak 6y ago
Which is a fortune to many (most?) Americans. That's like 5% of the median income. And these people just had cancer, so it's less likely they've been able to hold down steady work.
- bhupy 6y ago
  That's less than most Americans spend on food per year, without which you die.

a1371 6y ago

It's amazing that their kindness has touched so many lives but yes, the need for it could have been avoided in the first place.

arcticbull 6y ago

Frankly it seems like the doctor got screwed out of his pay by the system too. He should be as mad at US healthcare as his now bankrupt patients. Nothing about this feels good.

unabst 6y ago

Exactly. If that was the debt at the end of his practice, just imagine how much debt he bestowed during the 30 years it ran. I wonder how many patients went bankrupt... seriously, with the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US being medical. But that wouldn't be a story. That's just every clinic in the USA. And who wants to be reminded of that?

efwfwef 6y ago

This ^ It's a depressing story, anyone who thinks this is a positive story is ignoring the whole context.

matsemann 6y ago
Yeah, maybe I'm cynical in that regard, but I had to unsubscribe/block r/mademesmile and r/wholesomememes or what they're called on reddit, as I found it more depressing than nice to read these kind of stories.

Chris2048 6y ago

> the deeply flawed idea that healthcare should be a "marketplace" It should be a marketplace. instead, it's a racket.

hippich 6y ago
And an insurance should be, well, an insurance. What is referred as "health insurance" is more like "health care plans" (insurers even call it "plans"). Just consider how comprehensive auto insurance is different from health insurance in practice.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  Overall health is not insurable. It’s a misnomer. There is a 100% chance of everyone needing healthcare in the future. US health insurance does a few things: 1) premiums partially serve as a tax to transfer wealth from young and healthy to old an sick 2) insurers healthcare recipient from the big costs (over out of pocket maximum - $7k to $13k per year), subject to in network providers 3) Negotiates pricing and determine appropriate level of healthcare, I.e. acts as informed agent for uninformed buyers The last one is controversial, but it’s funny since people complain about high insurance premiums and then also complain about insurance companies denying what might be frivolous charges by healthcare providers.
  - valenterry 6y ago
    > There is a 100% chance of everyone needing healthcare in the future. 1) that's not true. One can die in an accident and not cause an future healthcare costs. 2) health care costs are of course insurable, why not? Just because everyone will create costs with a high chance does not mean that everyone will always create the same costs. The insurance is there for when you have some illness that causes more costs than you could afford.
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      I didn't feel like writing 99.9999% chance at the time, so I rounded up to 100%. It's not insurable in the sense that at some point, the losses are so large and so frequent, that the insurer needs to collect premiums from almost everyone in order to cover the costs. At that point, the premiums start to resemble a tax. I actually do consider the premiums a tax for the following reasons: 1) there is a mandate to purchase health insurance (although now neutered in most states due to removal of federal tax penalty) 2) the maximum premium is set to 3x the lowest premium (means young people subsidize old people) 3) premiums can only vary based on age and tobacco use 4) there is an annual in network out of pocket maximum Another example of an uninsurable risk is insuring homes on the Florida and other Gulf states coastline for flooding. No private insurer would touch this market since the losses are so high, so the government created the National Flood Insurance Program, which is the federal taxpayers taking on the liability for flood damage for those homes.

imgabe 6y ago

It was for 200 people, that's an average of $3250 per person.

Pfhreak 6y ago
Posted this above, but that's a lot of money. The median household income in the states is about 60k. And these folks may be less likely to have held stable employment while they battled with cancer.

serial_dev 6y ago

Exactly. I feel the same way about GoFundMe campaigns for medical bills. On one hand, I'm happy that some of them can get outside help, on the other hand why is a GoFundMe campaign necessary to stay afloat?

pembrook 6y ago
What’s so ironic about GoFundMe is that it’s basically a diorama of how socialized medical care would work (minus the cost savings), and yet nobody has any political objections to socialized funding when it happens there. I recall debating with a friend who was against socialized healthcare recently, and then seeing them promote a GoFundMe campaign for a mutual friend’s medical bills on Facebook a few days later. The irony was lost on him. I think the key is that Americans love to dream of themselves as wealthy philanthropists (no matter how poor they actually are). If there was a way to make paying taxes feel more like philanthropy, maybe we could solve this. Maybe it’s as simple as giving everybody a certificate with a list of anonymized names and what treatments they helped pay for, so they can brag about it on Facebook. “I helped pay for a child’s chemotherapy” instead of “the government took my money”
- trynewideas 6y ago
  Taxes in the US are labeled (accurately, but perceived negatively) around what you have — income tax, property tax, sales tax. For the most part, they aren't labeled for what they _do_ (other than Social Security and Medicare taxes, programs to which cuts are political poison). If federal taxes were broken down to, say, defense taxes, infrastructure taxes, health taxes, administrative taxes, and people saw how much of what they pay goes into each fund, it would be much closer to what you describe. For instance, people would be more aware that twice as much of the tax-derived budget goes into defense and international security than to safety net programs. And people might also be more wary of actions that grow the federal debt — both spending and high-income-earning tax cuts — if they saw that more of their tax money goes to paying off its interest than toward funding infrastructure, education, and science and medical research combined. Instead, that information is buried in federal reports and reported with the perception of being policy wonkery. It doesn't have a personal impact. Seeing what you remit to the government broken down by what it's spent on would drive it home much as having Social Security and Medicare as line-items on paystubs does.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

That's how I felt. Just like stories on how everybody pitched in, or the boss giving an employee that walked to work a car, or the one where a boss allowed (!) an employee that lived in their car to park in their shop's parking lot overnight, or the one where employees "donated" their paid time off days to another because of circumstance (or the apparent fact that paid time and sick days off are such a weird concept in the US).

delecti 6y ago

Agreed. I'm reminded of a tweet I saw: > Every heartwarming human interest story in america is like "he raised $20,000 to keep 200 orphans from being crushed in the orphan-crushing machine" and then never asks why an orphan-crushing machine exists or why you'd need to pay to prevent it from being used. https://twitter.com/pookleblinky/status/1309325764739858432 https://twitter.com/pookleblinky/status/1309325764739858432 These heartwarming stories are like a bandaid on a gunshot wound. Not even making a dent in the problem.