Same thing with medical insurance. It shouldn’t exist but it pays a lot of people’s salaries.
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AltheaHunter@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 weeks agoI fucking hate that this is a thing. “We can’t stop doing this useless and/or detrimental thing, look at all the work it makes for other people to do!!!” Absolutely bonkers that it’s just a standard political argument.
not_woody_shaw@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
The worst part is if people only worked two or three days a week corporations would still be profitable and everyone would have a job.
smb@lemmy.ml 5 weeks ago
i once heared something like this:
“the idea of having more than those who have nothing is the very only reason shareholders can ever imagine someone would work for at all, thus they also falsely believe they would do something good when enforcing this by removing everything from those who already are vulnerable and thus create a living example of how you would end when you don’t help them rob even more.”
intensely_human@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
what
SSJMarx@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
What’s wild is that if you replaced them with a single payer system or whatever else, you would still have a lot of bureaucratic work that needs to get done by the new system, so most if not all of those jobs would still exist - they would just shift from trying to deny people care to trying to connect people to care.
intensely_human@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
lol you don’t think a government’s single-payer office is going to be tasked with trying to deny people care?
If so, why not? Why wouldn’t those government people’s orders be “Make sure people don’t use too much medical resources”
SSJMarx@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
Well, if the government is accountable to the people, then pressures from below should shape its policies. But in America as-is I suppose you’re right that there would be no reason to think that that would happen, only a proletarian democracy can truly ensure that a government is responsive to the needs and desires of the people.
vonxylofon@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
It shouldn’t exist? I’d like to see you pay for your medical expenses out of pocket.
P. S. No, I am not American.
Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 weeks ago
Here in the states when we say “medical insurance shouldn’t exist” what we mean is “the medical insurance industry shouldn’t exist”
Basically the cluster fuck of insurance companies we have now shouldn’t exist, we should just have a single payer type system where medical expenses are paid for through our tax dollars. In its current state it’s a nightmare to deal with.
intensely_human@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
I do pay for my medical expenses out of pocket, because I can’t keep insurance long enough to ensure consistent cate.
I’ll give an example. Back in 21 I signed up for medicaid because I was poor enough to qualify. I get an email from my psychiatrist’s office “We can no longer treat you at this office because of your new medicaid status. We are not allowed to treat people on medicaid.” I asked, and they’re not even allowed to treat me if I pay out of pocket.
This is a new medicaid rule. Now if you’re on medicaid you can only see medicaid-approved providers.
So I canceled my medicaid. And I continue to pay out of pocket.
I’ve tried using other government-assisted programs before, with disastrous results. I’ve been kicked off the rolls before, at random, and I’ve had to go through the crash involved in stopping my medication, because while these government programs are helpful, they’re also buggy as fuck and can’t be relied upon.
vonxylofon@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
That’s why you want a national health care program funded by taxes (they call it health insurance, but it’s mandatory and based on income, so it’s a tax, really). Private insurance is still allowed, but everyone gets a baseline.
Sure, this system has got its share of problems, and they’re massive, but if you need care, you generally receive it regardless of your financial situation. Again, bureaucracy happens and there are waiting times etc. etc., but the idea that you may lose everything because you got sick is so alien to me I have no words.
JovialMicrobial@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
A lot of private insurance in the US amounts to paying a couple hundred monthly to have the insurance and then they deny payment for basically anything and everything. So you pay them to pay out of pocket anyway.
Just got state insurance which covers everything, but very few offices accept it.
So yeah. Insurance in the US is super fucked up and people go without healthcare, even if they have insurance because they simply can’t afford it.
not_woody_shaw@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Yeah I guess the kind of Single Payer model I prefer can be conceptualised as “insurance.” But it feels more like health care is taxpayer funded. The similarity to insurance is just details for the detail nerds.
BurningRiver@beehaw.org 5 weeks ago
“The government made 25% of my district unemployed, why didn’t I get reelected?”
Ask it from that side and you have your answer.
AltheaHunter@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 weeks ago
I wasn’t asking a question. I understand why politicians do it, I just think it’s a sign of a terrible system.
intensely_human@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
I agree with you 99%, and I’m only saying this incidentally: I think the world makes a lot more sense when we realize that change as such has real, ethically-valid costs associated with it.
We do want change, but change is a source of stress for a nervous system, so it’s always worth remembering that there’s a certain maximum rate of change we can follow while keeping people sane.
This was a key recognition, for instance, in finally succeeding at fixing various addictions of mine. I just slowed down the rate of the change and stopped trying to change overnight. And I’m not referring to dangerous withdrawal here. I’m talking about managing my own anxiety during the change to trigger snap-back.
I agree TSA’s gotta change, and stop doing their super invasive checks at the airports. But I just wanted to point out at a more global level there should be a little respect for such things as “We can’t just drop this all at once because we’ve been doing it for 25 years”.
Maggoty@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
We could always use more traffic enforcement. Just switch them all over.
nehal3m@sh.itjust.works 5 weeks ago
Agreed. I’d rather they be paid that wage NOT to bother me.
ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
so, we pay more (fastpass or whatever it is) for the privilege. 😅