Feel The Bern!!!!

[quote=Vynertje]While we're at it, I'm wondering what the causes of these exorbitant prices of US healthcare are. I mean, we pay about 100-ish euro per month and another 360€ as 'own risk' policy yearly in if you're actually making costs here in NL (as it isn't incorporated in our tax system and we run private companies) but that covers nearly everything. A weird thing about our system though is that you can also opt to pay 60€ monthly and instead have a 1000€ worth of 'own risk'.[/quote]

[quote=utopus]It's a little ironic, actually. My friend's dad runs a large hospital in south korea. He's studying business and pre-med to take over his dad's position. He says that hospitals don't actually even make money on the patients. Perhaps, more ironically, the cost of a hospital visit is so outrageously high here, because hospitals don't want to risk having their patients fail to pay their bill. Fucked up, isn't it?[/quote]

[quote=Vynertje][quote=utopus]Perhaps, more ironically, the cost of a hospital visit is so outrageously high here, because hospitals don't want to risk having their patients fail to pay their bill. Fucked up, isn't it?[/quote] Yeah, and perhaps even more fucked up when you consider that Obamacare was supposed to combat such practices.[/quote]

[quote=Toshabi][quote=Vynertje][quote=utopus]Perhaps, more ironically, the cost of a hospital visit is so outrageously high here, because hospitals don't want to risk having their patients fail to pay their bill. Fucked up, isn't it?[/quote] Yeah, and perhaps even more fucked up when you consider that Obamacare was supposed to combat such practices.[/quote] To quote Hillary Clinton (As she spoke these words unironically) "Let's pass Obama Care so we can find out what's in it!". The democrats are so fucking clueless it hurts. It's no wonder other countries can't stop laughing at how big of a joke American politics are.[/quote]

[quote=The_Nameless_Bard][quote=Vynertje]Yeah, and perhaps even more fucked up when you consider that Obamacare was supposed to combat such practices.[/quote]Yes, but you have to remember that a whole bunch of compromises had to be made to get it passed and funded in the first place. Or is everyone forgetting that the Republican-led House of Representatives refused to fund anything related to it and spent months trying to delay its passing in the first place while the Democrat-led Senate ignored them and tried to just get the stupid thing passed without any changes, eventually resulting in the govt. being shut down for more than two weeks while they all, including Obama, argued about it? I'd rather it be passed and doing something towards fixing the many problems of our healthcare system than things being the same as they were before with people dying due to treatable chronic illnesses because they couldn't get insurance to help with the cost of the medication they needed to live. I'm pretty sure having all states expand their Medicaid was supposed to cover the people who wouldn't be eligible for insurance in the marketplace based on their low income (like I was), but, because expanding it was made optional, in any state where it didn't get expanded there's still a bunch of low income people who can't get any insurance from any source, which is not helping the problem of healthcare costs.[/quote]

[quote=Vynertje]Yeah I definitely do not think the idea of Obamacare is to blame, I think it's the implementation that is fucked up.[/quote]

[quote=The_Nameless_Bard]I'm just a bit tired of people blaming Obama for that, when, in reality, acting like this is what he originally intended for it to do is pretty unfair. The ACA not working particularly well is more a fault of the parties refusing to compromise with each other than just Obama. It's gonna be hard for anyone to pass a healthcare bill that actually functions if the parties can't compromise on anything.[/quote]

[quote=mastrer1000]This thread is now officially bad enough for memes. [img=https://i.imgur.com/kho6j7v.jpg][/quote]

[quote=Toshabi][quote=The_Nameless_Bard]I'm just a bit tired of people blaming Obama for that, when, in reality, acting like this is what he originally intended for it to do is pretty unfair. The ACA not working particularly well is more a fault of the parties refusing to compromise with each other than just Obama. It's gonna be hard for anyone to pass a healthcare bill that actually functions if the parties can't compromise on anything.[/quote] You hire a contractor to build a bridge to connect the city to the country to speed up traffic. He was in charge of planning it and setting it up and had a large network of people to help him formulate it, set it up and get the plan in action. During development, he doesn't check everything and the people who are building the bridge for him seem clueless on certain parts and are unsure if X and Y are even functional parts for the bridge. He doesn't care and presses for the bridge to get completed anyways. He then talks to his representatives to force this bridges approval through the committee of mega macho bridge builders inc. Which happens. The first wave of traffic crosses the bridge and the bridge collapses, ruining everyone's day (no one dies in this story, they just get very big boo boos). So tell me, why shouldn't we blame the contractor in all of this? I assure you, if Bush passed something like this and it failed this miserably, people would want his head. But since we got a president sporting minority status, fuck no you can't criticize him or say it's his fault because It's Obama! Savior of the United States! He's gonna get us out of this financial pit and make our lives better! No, as someone who lives in grown up mode, I've shed off this delusion that you and everyone else has about him and his magical way to make things better. Because truth be told, this ain't anything different than what we've had in the past. It's almost as if nothing really changed in the US except for this shitheap of a healthcare reform (which is hurting people on the lower income bracket like my household). What's the defense in all of this? Please enlighten us. Why isn't it Obama/the democrats fault? Reason #527 for not voting on party lines. I just don't understand how people are okay with nothing changing period and are willing to say their party's shitty stagnation is better than the others. Or "Dun't make fun of muh candidate". Politics is a joke, and clowns like Trump and Berny/Hillary are going to forever be the punchline of it all, along with your Obama.[/quote]

[quote=Vynertje]You can rewrite the analogy to something like this as well: You hire a contractor to build a bridge to connect the city to the country to speed up traffic. He was in charge of planning it and setting it up and had a large network of people to help him formulate it, set it up and get the plan in action. During development, he tries to build the bridge with strong foundations to match the expected traffic going over over the bridge. However, some green-wing lobbyist party decides that they don't like the bridge and force the contractor to make compromises and reduce the amount of lanes. The day the bridge opens there are immediately traffic jams. Here you could also blame these lobbyists for ruining an otherwise good plan. It's just a matter of rewriting the analogy and shifting your point of view. Also, I'm completely fine with you having different opinions but to say that "people can't/don't criticize him just because he's a minority" is flat out retarded. Sure, there will be people who think that way, but the overwhelming majority doesn't.[/quote]