Ocasio-Cortez: State of US health care is ‘barbarism’

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/4659499-ocasio-cortez-state-of-us-health-care-is-barbarism/

29 comments

  1. Almost every country in the world (including the ones that Republicans consider ‘shitholes’) have universal healthcare but we don’t. Greatest country in the world! America rocks!

  3. Actually healthcare is pretty damn good for most people in the US. We need some more incremental patches and action to build upon the ACA, definitely. But we should be proud of what we have, even as we acknowledge that we can make it even better.

  4. This has been one of my major disappointments of this administration granted Biden was clear he did not support Medicare for all but supposedly he was on board for at least a Public Option but since getting elected nothing. The Democratic party as a whole has largely abandoned universal healthcare. Its not being talked about on the campaign trail by the majority.

  5. Remember when we couldn’t all have healthcare because Joe Lieberman said no.

  6. >“The fact that people are choosing between medicine and rent is barbarism, the fact that people are worried about whether they will be on the street every four weeks, is barbarism. The fact that every time a person has an ache or a pain in their body, and they’re scared that it could either be just a sore joint or cancer, but they can’t find out because they can’t afford the doctor. This is barbarism. And if we do not demand, and not only demand but win unions healthcare, wages, ending endless war, then we will condemn ourselves to barbarism and I refuse to give up, I refuse to submit myself to that future. That’s not a life. And so, to live, we have to fight for each other.”

    I would add, here, because it’s important to remind people: Democrats are the only party working to expand public healthcare, they’re the only party that has regulated Wall Street or the big banks in the past quarter century, they’re the only party that has reformed or forgiven student loan debt in the past quarter of a century, they’re the only party working for the benefit of unions, they’re the only party working to raise wages, there’s a reason AOC caucuses with the Democrats, it’s because they’re the anti-barbarism party.

    This is an election season and cynicism is in bloom, nothing benefits Republicans like hopelessness, nothing benefits Republicans more than concerned liberal, and progressive, and leftist voters sitting out an election and submitting to the will of the Republicans who bother to show up.

    Voting is the fastest, cheapest, easiest way most of us have to push back against injustice, abdicating your responsibility to vote for the things you believe in is the same as submitting to the status quo. If you agree with AOC, vote like it.

  7. They want you sick and indebted to them for life. They want you eating shitty foods with high cholesterol so they can prescribe you cholesterol drugs you can’t afford. Then when you take too much time off work and lose your job and health insurance you have a heart attack from the stress. They get your house. It’s unfair and it’s rotten to the core.

  8. veteran friend received a note, from veterans admin, with a prescription that said: Now that you are passed 60yrs please fill this prescription…health based on statistics … bad bad

  9. Felt. Can’t get an MRI approved to check for a pinched nerve causing excruciating pain because “the pain is only in my neck and shoulder and doesn’t radiate down my arm”. Glad I pay my premium /s

  10. No question.

    I am sick and injured and stuck. I’ve slipped through the cracks and, under the current conditions, will never be able to climb out. This is it until the system improves, or I die.

    And I’m just one of millions.

  11. Healthcare insurance providers are taking in billions and providing nothing, they would rather watch the entire system burn than give up that cash cow.

  13. We have the worst healthcare system in the world. If you’re wealthy, it’s great…for everyone else, it is fvcking awful. fortunately, it’s worse for Republicans than Democrats.

  14. •Medicare-For-All-For-Life•Traditional Chinese Medicine•Eye Hearing Dental•Pain Care •Acupuncture•Massage• Destress Vacations•Ayurveda•TTM•TJM

  15. We can’t fix the health system without first addressing the utter price gouging from medical facilities. The fact that the hospital can bill something so astronomically expensive when it costs very little is one of the major problems! The model isn’t to help or cure anyone, that’s not the goal. Universal health care should be the goal, but we can’t get to that goal when medical facilities charge anywhere from $7-$15 for a single Tylenol, something that costs $5-$7 for an entire bottle depending where you buy it from and that’s just OTC meds.

  16. As the health care system deteriorates more doctors and nurses will leave and fewer people will train for those professions. The next public health crisis is going to be a catastrophe.

  17. Health care has bought the government. Pharmaceutical industry has bought the government. We need to get money out of the government, get rid of citizens united. Put forward universal health care.

  19. If you’re sick and can’t afford healthcare, and your only prospect is to suffer and die, then you have nothing to lose by *forcefully* changing the system.

  21. its completely unsustainable and i don’t know what itll take to give

  23. [Over 30 units of BMI, each one-unit BMI increase was associated with an additional cost of $253 (95% CI $167-$347) per person. Among adults, obesity was associated with $1,861 (95% CI $1,656-$2,053) excess annual medical costs per person, accounting for $172.74 billion (95% CI $153.70-$190.61) of annual expenditures.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7990296/)

  25. My wife runs a small, part time women’s health practice. 3-days a week and cash pay; no insurance is ever billed. When she started this I thought it would be never work. I thought patients would take a pass and go somewhere that accepts insurance. Some do but many do not. Why? I asked. She said the level of care she provides is almost never matched by a provider that accepts insurance. Her appointments are either 30 minutes or 1-hour in length. No doc accepting insurance will give you that much time. She has found and treated conditions that most doctors accepting insurance never diagnosed. She literally has a sustainable health care practice because of our fuvked up healthcare system. I’m proud of what she does but also realize it shouldn’t have to be this way. She doesn’t make a ton of money, but that’s not the reason she got into healthcare to begin with.

  26. What’s really shitty is that there are degrees of insurance. It’s not like you cross some threshold and “bam” you are fully covered. I work in the service industry and am covered on my wife’s insurance because the copayments are lower and the coverage is higher. Forget vision and dental if you are a waiter

  27. What’s really shitty is that there are degrees of insurance. It’s not like you cross some threshold and “bam” you are fully covered. I work in the service industry and am covered on my wife’s insurance because the copayments are lower and the coverage is higher. Forget vision and dental if you are a waiter

  28. When should I expect college kids to protest over this issue?

  29. Am I missing something? Who has to choose between medicine and rent? Health care is free for anyone under 150% of the poverty line, either through Medicaid or the ACA. I thought this problem was fixed. 

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