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1/ Practical examples of a bankrupt health system # 109838: I got indigestion. Something at dinner upset my digestive system and I feel like a puffer fish.
2/ All I would need to do is go to the pharmacy and get a bottle of bromopride, a completely harmless drug. But, wait! It's prescription only in the USA! Why? Because it's addictive? Potentially dangerous? No!
3/ Just to fuck with you. That way you either feel miserable like a puffer-fish the rest of the evening or you go to the ER, where you pay about $600 to step on the door. Good chances the physician will be confused (bad medical education).
4/ Then you can scream at him/her for not knowing how to do their job and, obviously, you get sent home with the wrong medication (seen it, been there, several MDs don't like Ph.Ds).
5/ Another alternative is to schedule an appointment with your dear family physician, who you took years to find. But, wait! Indigestion will be long gone by then.
6/ The USA has the honor of having the most expensive (and certainly the least effective among developed countries) health care system in the world. But, wait! Politicians are unfamiliar with comparative political analysis and they "have a plan" that they really don't know much
7 / about. "Hey, can I give you some pointers? Start by not calling it "medicare" but "national health system" that is NOT free: it has already been paid for by everybody's taxes. All you require is not to double-bill the user/client.
8/ Move on to explaining the concept of "insurance" to your society. Too bad they missed the fact that statistics was greatly influenced by this "new" industry. So RISKS are part of owning an insurance business.
9/ But - alas... - American insurance companies take advantage of its completely self-centered and uneducated mass. Because "co-pay" and "deductible" are not compatible with the concept of INSURANCE! Yes, it's risky: you profit on bulk.
10/ Also, something called "profit margin" seems to be a bit off: 100% profit margin is bad. But 10K%? Like in the USA? Only in the USA! And with things people really can't avoid, such as crotalic antiserum (you need that fast to survive a rattlesnake bite...
11/ ... so they charge you (insured person!) between US$18K-150K. In Mexico? US$100. In Brazil? Free (lots of rattlesnakes there). Guess how many emails I got in return for trying to explain this to candidates (detail: I did work for the Panamerican Health Organization)?
12/ ZERO. Guess how much feedback I got from the CDC, who, under Trump's orders, is trying to construct American trypanosomiasis (Chagas disease) the "latino plague"? Spoiler alert: it's wrong. I worked with this disease. ZERO.
13/ Pardon me if I'm less than optimistic about, well... EVERYTHING. Because even in the smallest and trivial details of life I experience policy absurdities. It's not just the big ones, like XVIIth century Ala-fucking-bama being typical redneckland. The devil is in the details.
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