Don't Get Sick in America

https://blogography.com/archives/2026/07/dont-get-sick-in-america.html

21•speckx•1h ago

Comments

nxm•1h ago

Meanwhile the median wait for treatment is approximately 7 months in Canada

racl101•59m ago

Maybe the title should be "Don't be Poor in America" . If you're rich then there's really no issue.

spacedcowboy•40m ago

I was well off, 20 years at Apple, didn’t help me or my wife [1]. I don’t think the NHS is perfect, but I also don’t think they’d intentionally mistreat someone to make more profit. Healthcare in the USA is genuinely fucked, and in some cases, genuinely evil.

1:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44217106

overgard•57m ago

And yet if you ask any canadian, they all prefer their system to ours.

zulux•53m ago

All?

Let's see what the Canadian Medical Association survey says.

https://www.cma.ca/our-focus/public-and-private-health-care/...

PotenRoyal•45m ago

This was commissioned by the Canadian Medical Association and it is certain that the CMA is cherry picking which results to show on their site. The surveyed doctors are only members of the CMA.

Also this survey dates back to 2023, post pandemic, a time when wait times were longer than usual.

overgard•20m ago

Ok, "most". I think it's a hard sell to go to people that have socialized health care and be like "what if instead of a slightly longer wait, instead you had a system where bureaucrats at insurance providers pull rank over doctors on the treatments you're allowed to receive, and your ability to get healthcare is tied to your employment, and if you get sick you're going to go bankrupt"

Also, the wait time in OUR system sucks too. Try to find a psychiatrist that isn't booked like 3 months in advance. (AI isn't helping with the number of people that need psychiatric services..)

cess11•56m ago

Why is this a worthwhile measurement? Some cases can wait without having any negative medical implications, this measurement seems to gloss over this and to me it isn't obvious what the median ought to be. Is it obvious to you?

ryanackley•54m ago

Are you Canadian? I ask because I’ve never met someone from a Western country with free healthcare who wishes they had our healthcare system.

I lived in Australia for five years and when I came home to the USA, I realized that most people here in America are indoctrinated to believe our system (for anything not just healthcare) is better than everyone else’s when it just isn’t true

vunderba•37m ago

This. Whenever I hear somebody defending the US healthcare system (or criticizing another country's healthcare plan), my immediate questions are:

1. Where are you from?

2. Have you actually LIVED in another country and thus have some personal experience with other systems?

For the record, I lived in Taiwan for years and was enrolled in the NHI (National Health Insurance) and received far better care including surgical procedures than I ever did in the states even with a PPO.

armada651•1h ago

> One health problem has me hitting 75% of my full-price, high deductible... and this doesn’t even include my much more intensive second surgery yet.

I'm confused, don't you want to reach your deductible as soon as possible? Isn't that when your insurance actually starts paying out?

overgard•58m ago

Well, if your deductible is like $8000 or something (high deductible), you kind of want to avoid hitting that if possible, because you're out $8000

xboxnolifes•46m ago

If you have hundreds of thousands in medical bills at once, sure. That's good bang for your buck. If you've been paying monthly for medical insurance, get a tear in your eye that needs surgery, and now how to pay fully out of pocket for that surgery because it still isn't expensive enough for insurance to step in, that's a lot of money.

Of course, the post has no numbers, so it's impossible to judge the quality of the insurance plan. And the deductible isn't exactly a surprise, you know it when you get the plan, so paying this much when you have an emergency shouldn't be a surprise either. It still sucks if you can't afford better.

vunderba•43m ago

Sure but its a good news bad news kind of thing. Yay I hit my deductible I only need to shell out the co-pay!

Translation:

1. I spent the absolute maximum amount of money which can be substantial if you're on a high deductible plan

2. I had a very unhealthy year

teeray•30m ago

littlexsparkee•38m ago

Whenever I worry about the cost of groceries, I think about the amount of healthcare spending (and pain) one can avoid if healthy - it helps.

josefritzishere•30m ago

Health insurance in America is criminal. It provides as little service as possible as opaquely as possible via dystopian attrition processes to obstruct you in every way possible. Then its's the most expensive in the world. It's a garbage product. I almost cancel it every year then wonder why I didn't.

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