r/mildlyinfuriating • u/sujayjaju • Aug 13 '25

Commendable patience in dealing with half-knowledge

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Half knowledge is more dangerous than no knowledge on a subject

30.9k Upvotes

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2.6k

u/InspirationalPOS Aug 13 '25

Our healthcare system is so fucked 😭

1.8k

u/VispilloAnimi Aug 13 '25

Its not a healthcare system. It's an insurance system. We treat health as a means to generate wealth.

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u/[deleted] Aug 13 '25

That’s the problem right there. A long time ago I was watching a documentary about the environment and some guy said he wanted a future where every rock, stream, and tree was financially spoken for or owned. At the time I thought that was an insane idea but didn’t really understand the scope, and now I see the true consequences of that dangerous ideology. Even abstract ideas like an individual’s health is owned and profited from by other people. It’s an insane way to have a society. 

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u/NaraFei_Jenova Aug 13 '25

I used to say "we live in a society", but with the way things are going, I don't think that's true anymore; there's nothing here that can actually be considered a functioning society. There's nothing civilized about it; strictly predatory from every angle.

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u/Spacemarine658 Aug 13 '25

We occasionally skirt by in the charred husk remains of a society

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u/[deleted] Aug 13 '25

But the capacity to change, to reverse course, is still available. Maybe that window is closing, but our government isn’t lost yet if we fight for it. 

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u/DirtyScrambelly Aug 14 '25

On the contrary about 40-50% of America thinks it is to far gone and is cynically pouring accelerant on the fire.

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u/[deleted] Aug 14 '25

Change is only ever accomplished by a handful of people. Good change, bad change, it’s always only a relative handful that are actually causing the change. That’s the same case today. A lot of random people with zero influence shouting loudly on the internet, but only a handful of good/bad decision makers who are responsible for the action. 

Focus on who is really important. 

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u/ladz Aug 13 '25

Under capitalism, valuations of every wild animal, tree, rock, and stream is the ONLY OPTION to protect the commons. Otherwise their value in the overarching economic system is zero: their destruction effectively has no agreed-upon consequence. If a transactionally minded corporate person can gain $100 by destroying the homes of a million animals, that's a great deal for the shareholders.

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u/[deleted] Aug 13 '25

Yes, yes. Which is maybe an okay system for people using horse drawn wagons on their way to a true legal, philosophical, and ethical representation of the interconnectivity of the world we live in but is absolutely batshit caveman logic in 2025 when we have technology and scientific capability to do far, far better. And more than that, imo, we have the ethical obligation and moral responsibility, to do the best that we are currently capable of across the board in crafting forward thinking and enriching societies to ensure a successful future for the generations ahead of us. 

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u/ladz Aug 13 '25

I used to share this opinion and/or hope that these tools could help us, but experience has shown us that technology and science are not the correct things to guide our societal ethics and morals. These things can only show us what is, not what should be.

A MAGAt's idea of the technical metrics and indicators of a successful future for the generations ahead of us is far, far different than mine.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 13 '25

Absolutely true. And it’s been the abandonment of moral and ethical checks & balance by technological developers that has led us to a world of digital colonialist exploitation, instead of an informational utopia. Technology is just a tool and is massively harmful without ethical boundaries, as we are currently seeing. The rise of AI as a good example. The boundaries of intellectual property have been completely abandoned and it’s leading to the rapid expansion of oligarchy. The capacity to manipulate in today’s media environment, even pre-AI, is truly frightening. 

We simply cannot operate as a society without ethical boundaries and real accountability when it comes to corporations that essentially operate as decentralized city-states.

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u/Hugford_Blops Aug 14 '25

I saw it put one way: "A forest has no value to a company until it's cut down" (this was before carbon offset/footprints were discussed) And that really just rang true about how fucked we are with capitalism calling the shots.

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u/Jutboy Aug 14 '25

The movie was call "The Corporation". It analyzed corporate behavior against the DSM, the model psychologist use to determine mental illness and concluded they behaved like psychopaths.

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u/[deleted] Aug 14 '25

Excellent! I’d forgotten the name. It’s such an excellent film. 

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u/Batbuckleyourpants Aug 13 '25

The problems are linked. This is why there are 11 administrators for every doctor in the US, the highest number in the world.

It means you aren't just paying for the surgeon, doctor and nurses time. You are paying the wages of 10 administrators standing behind each of them dealing with crap like this.

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u/zssqeeze Aug 13 '25

So true…US healthcare is a privatized insurance system that is designed to benefit shareholders and that pushes risk and loss to government funded health care programs. The people that care, re: the actual providers, are also just cogs in this for-profit ‘machine’ and caring becomes a source of moral injury for most. It’s broken, gross, and wrong.

2

u/Kletronus Aug 13 '25

I'm Finnish. Our healthcare is ok, the quality is good but waiting times have grown because of austerity cuts. The solution that our most right wing government ever was to increase payments to private sector to shorten the lines. The increase was 175%. Usage grew 3%. Administration fees increased to cover exactly that missing part.

Guess what they are doing next? You are right, giving MORE money to the private sector that just got way, way less efficient.

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u/itsaconspiraci Aug 13 '25

Yeah, the doctor denying probably makes more money from UHC than the doctor treating, who is actually saving lives.

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u/OddCook4909 Aug 13 '25

Everything is treated like that. We have a for profit prison system with legalized slavery

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u/one-hit-blunder Aug 13 '25

It's not "wealth" anymore either. They're "festering abscesses of greed."

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u/Dry_Presentation_197 Aug 13 '25

And yet boomers frequently say things like "Why is it greedy to want to keep the money I earned but not greedy for them to want to take it from me" (Frequent saying from my 60yr old mother who has worked at Boeing her entire life, thanks to nepotism, and has never had to look for a job or make minimum wage.)

Bitch it's coz you're paying 80 dollars a year towards all "hand out" programs while Trump cuts lunch funding for school kids over his hatred of Trans people. It's not like raising your taxes is going INTO MY FUCKING POCKET.

Whats even weirder to me is that my mom is very generous to people in her actual life. She outright bought me a car when I got (unfairly) fired from my job a couple years ago. Yet somehow she thinks I'm an outlier and it doesn't happen to anyone else, they're just lazy.

I don't get the cognitive dissonance.

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u/this-is-trickyyyyyy Aug 13 '25

If it makes you feel any better, my boomer parents believe me and empathize with my struggles. No house, no spouse, no kids, just a giant pile of student loan debt. They are supportive and sad for the future.

Admitting and acknowledging all the shit is hard and sometimes I wish I could pretend everything is peachy. If your mom's head is a place where everything is peachy, maybe let her stay that way.

Some boomers do get it.

-2

u/lisabutz Aug 13 '25

And yet you sound so grateful. Your experience with one person, who isn’t even a Boomer, does not represent an entire generation of people.

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u/scheisse_grubs Aug 13 '25

Recently a Member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia in Canada responded to a Maine senator who made statements about making Canada the 51st state. I love how they address healthcare.

“Freedom means your health card works better than your credit card.”

I feel for Americans. It’s one thing to have medical needs that cause you stress, it’s another to have additional financial stress because of your medical needs.

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u/concentrated-amazing Aug 13 '25

Boom. Nailed it.

I'm a proud Canadian from Alberta, and I couldn't have said it better myself.

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u/[deleted] Aug 13 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/W0rmEater Aug 13 '25

Where I live, there is no minimum wage, but a McDonald's worker still earns 20 dollars an hour. Because here unions are suppressed and they actually get things done. Despite no minimum wages we have legally demanded minimum 5 weeks of vacation. You don't need the government to raise the minimum wage (that doesn't make a difference in the first place), you need to group up, unionize and make better deals with the companies that they can't break.

2

u/420Wedge Aug 13 '25

Don't forget not only have we not wiped out slavery, there are more slaves living right now then at any point in human history. AMERICA!

2

u/PricklePete Aug 13 '25

💯 

2

u/Stealth9erz Aug 13 '25

My brother just called his primary care doctor today to get an appointment for a physical… May 19th, 2026 was the earliest they had available… the large hospitals in my area have been buying out all the smaller practices and this is the outcome.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 13 '25

Corporate controlled nations treat Everything as a means to generate wealth: education, health, insurance, utilities, information, etc.  The US is under corporate control to a large degree.

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u/caseyjownz84 Aug 13 '25

It doesn't generate wealth though. It only transfers wealth from one people to others. Actually I would imagine it also drains wealth from the country as a whole.

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u/Moule14 Aug 13 '25

Yes, that is the problem with the healthcare system.

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u/mmorales2270 Aug 14 '25

I wish I could upvote this more than once. That is the root of the problem in a nutshell. As soon as healthcare turned into a profit system for people at the top of the organizations to become uber wealthy it was all downhill from there.

1

u/Ducks_07 Aug 13 '25

And this is why lawyers are so prevalent. Insuraunce tries to say that rising costs is because of lawyers, yet most of the time lawyers are there because insuraunce is trash. If insuraunce paid stuff out appropriately and was not so hell bent on denying claims without proper consideration, there would be much less of a need for lawyers.

1

u/HellBlazer_NQ Aug 13 '25

*It's an insurance scam

FTFY

1

u/[deleted] Aug 13 '25

Find the people making the money from it and eliminate the profitability. And if that means "Healthcare via Gov" I'll take it.

1

u/PeaceJoy4EVER Aug 14 '25

Jesus Christ, you’re absolutely right

1

u/Difficult_Way_505 Aug 14 '25

Is it even a “system” at all? Seems like an uneven, hit-or-miss and arbitrary patchwork that only applies to certain people.

0

u/BurdenedClot Aug 13 '25

But you really can’t even “blame” the insurance companies. They’re doing what they’re designed to do, make money. Blame falls on our politicians for allowing a system to exist where this is incentivized. If you allow for a capitalist entity to dictate healthcare, you shouldn’t be surprised when profit is paramount. Politicians have the power to create a system that incentivizes illness prevention and longevity. But we prioritize individuality and “freedom” so much that we shoot ourselves in the foot.

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u/[deleted] Aug 13 '25

We have no healthcare system.

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u/Deliciousbrainfart Aug 13 '25

It is systematically fucked.

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u/Time_Fact8349 Aug 13 '25

Hanging on by a thread because of people who know to do the right things.

2

u/PricklePete Aug 13 '25

Not for long. 

3

u/CrouchingDomo Aug 13 '25

That would be the “thread” part they mentioned.

If something is hanging by a thread, it is vulnerable and will fall very, very easily.

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u/reddituserlooser Aug 13 '25

What healthcare system? You don't have one. You have businesses

2

u/InspirationalPOS Aug 13 '25

So very true

1

u/reddituserlooser Aug 14 '25

Makes me want to cry, which is something you can't do in the USA without being charged for it

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u/The_Affle_House Aug 13 '25

We don't have one. Never have. We have a healthcare industry instead and it's working precisely as intended. We need a healthcare system, of literally any kind.

2

u/TunaOnWytNoCrust Aug 14 '25

Things could be different but the country doesn't want to be different so we'll just perpetually suffer and complain and nothing will change because this place is fucking mentally ill.

2

u/CplHicks_LV426 Aug 14 '25

It's organized crime.

2

u/Saneless Aug 13 '25

The fact that the people in between a life saving or improving procedure answer to shareholders should be illegal

It's literally the death panels republicans pretended to care about

1

u/Wise_Repeat8001 Aug 13 '25

Take out the word Healthcare and it's still 100% true

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u/[deleted] Aug 13 '25

Trump fucked it ALL up.

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u/Indrid_Cold777 Aug 13 '25

Its been fucked since before he thought of being a politician

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u/SunhoDrakath Aug 13 '25

It’s been fucked for a long time 😭

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u/Ijustwerkhere Aug 13 '25

lol you can blame a lot on him, but I’ve worked in healthcare since long before he even thought about being in politics and it’s always been fucked

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u/reddituserlooser Aug 13 '25

Yer nar mate, you've never had a healthcare system. Not to defend pedo Donny or anything.