this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2023
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1 in 8 lives in poverty (<20k for a 2 person household).
1 in 4 has less than 1k in savings.
1 in 2 has less money saved than last year.
1 in 2 is living paycheck to paycheck
But thanks to massive income inequality, the average American makes 59k a year.
Fun fact: America is arguably better if you are rich or with a high income, Europe is better if you have a lower income / are poor
This. If you are fortunate to have great employment (100k+, dual income preferred (so breaking 200+), depending on location), with good healthcare, your options are great, and you'll access a higher level of service than most of the world can get. Great schools, great doctors, great home/car/vacations.
If you don't have that raw income, and therefore don't have that support, america is a much much different place.
I'm fortunate enough to have gone from very low class to a much higher strata and I never get comfortable. I'm constantly surprised by shit that just happens...easily.
An example: by having good insurance, I have a very good dermatologist. I have psoriasis and use a biologic injectable to handle it completely. Once, my specialty pharmacy had some sort of shipping issue and I called my doc to check in. They said come by.
They handed me 6 doses FOR FREE, so 6 months of medication, like it was nothing. Each dose is thousands of dollars cash. I pay 25$ with my insurance. I assume a vendor rep dropped a ton off.
Point being, I know there are millions of folks on very expensive meds, who don't have a high quality doctor relationship, who could never access that perk I did. Literally paywalled customer service.
I recently went back to college and I'm now in my first professional role with real professional benefits and the difference is night and day
I got sick and had to miss a couple of days of work. I literally just had to send a single teams message from my work phone and could ignore everything else for the rest of the day and still be paid. I've had previous jobs where I'd be required to get a doctor's note by the end of the day just to not be disciplined for my absesnd, which meant going to urgent care which costs more because i couldn't make a same day appointment with my primary care doctor. Y'know all for a common cold
I went to go to the office one day (my job is hybrid) and found a 4 inch screw in my tire. I had zero obligation to explain myself for why I didn't come in when I was expected. I had another time I had a different issue with the car for which I didn't get around to mentioning why I didn't come in and I never heard about it. My last job I had a very catastrophic flat and literally had to miss 2 days of work while I waited for shop to get in tires to put on my car
Every holiday is paid. I've had previous jobs where I had to burn literally all of my vacation time to not take a 20% hit to my paycheck for a holiday that I don't even get the choice of working if I wanted to. I've had other jobs where I just had to accept that I'd have to take a hit on a paycheck for a holiday because I didn't get any vacation time
If I have an important personal phonecall, I can just answer the call. I don't have to do some song and dance about burning a timed break or saying out loud to everyone in earshot who sees me getting a call "oh this is an important call, I need to take this" I can just answer the damn phone and get on with it
There's usually some snacks somewhere in the building that i can grab for free. If I don't pack enough food and find myself getting hangry I'm not forced to spend my own money at the vending machine or to go to the store at lunch, I can just go grab a snack and be done with it. I also don't have to wait for a break, I can just get up and go grab my damn snack without having to explain myself
Notice how every one of these benefits is not having to spend time and/or money to appease my employer
LOL, it's because it's not, simple as that.
It is, to the consumer. Obviously I'm not referring to the true manufacturing cost, that would be idiotic. What part of my comment lead you to believe I was referring to anyone who was able to subvert the customer model? Why would you even imply that given the very specific situation, and players I mentioned?
A plane ticket out of the scam country and back is a pathetic fraction of the "thousands dollars cash per dose" you invoked.
Are you questioning the price of drugs like humera or taltz? What are you taking about scam... It's still thousands in Mexico, last I read. Here's an article from a few years ago
https://senatedemocrats.wa.gov/keiser/2020/02/04/latest-allure-for-mexico-caymans-travelers-the-pharmacy/#:~:text=The%20cost%20for%20six%20pens,%245%2C820%20in%20Mexico%2C%20Ojeda%20said.
The point is that quality insurance is a serious privilege, especially in the frame of reference of folks living in America.
You're off topic and moving goalposts
Your above comment was wrong and you should edit it. It's misinformation
Off-topic? Goalposts? Misinformation?
Now that you've named specific drugs, it's awfully easy to show how US is just a scam: https://www.statista.com/statistics/312014/average-price-of-humira-by-country
The difference between US and the runner-up is worth not just two plane tickets, but a lavish vacation. Just accept it, you're being had and it never crossed your mind to do the reasonable thing.
You're assuming everyone has the time, passport, and flexibility to do this. You're also inventing a scenario not described in my original scenario. An average worker doesn't have the up front cash to take such a trip, cheap as you think it may be.
You're preparing a privileged solution, clearly outside the scope of my original scenario.
My source aligns with yours, there's no question it's cheaper elsewhere. But just assuming someone can fly to Europe for a drug that cost 1500 in Germany , monthly, for a drug that needs to be refrigerated is the goalpost move.
Lastly, the whole point is how in the US quality insurance IS a privilege, due to the fucked up system, but you were too primed to just call the US a scam to get it.
The point is us citizens, especially those without thousands in cash ready to book trips overseas, or those with quality insurance are at a disadvantage.
US citizens have the most powerful passport in the world and a cost of living that makes overseas travel profitable. There's no goalposts moving here. Paying a shitton of extortion money for a privilege of not paying the overblown price might be a decision to make might be a dexision they consciously make, but that's not my point. My point is, this medicine does not cost nearly as much, and the only reason >$1000 numbers are thrown around is that nobody in their sound mind pays them. If you're willing to embark on side-discussions, I'm willing to entertain you, just stop bringing up your movable goalposts.
Having rights of a US citizen is a privilege. Living in US while having rights of a US citizen is a privilege on top of a privilege. But one doesn't have to. That's absolutely a choice. Repeat after me. An Afghan person with nearly no rights and a cost of ticket to US exceeding their life-long salary doesn't move to US because it's a privilege. But for a US hobo, whose monthly expenses far exceeding a ticket to a sane country they're "magically" already allowed to enter anytime they want, staying in US is a choice. Don't even try to twist that into a privilege. Time and flexibility, my ass. US citizens spawn with a golden ticket and a knob to dial life difficulty to "easy". If they stay in US past their healthy young prime, that's on them.
Privileged bullshit. Not everyone has a passport, not everyone has vacation days to spare, or several thousand in cash to pull off the operation. Many in the US can hardly do anything but work
You are ignorant, and assume much. I'm done with you.
Whatever, you weren't listening anyway.
You brought other shit to the story I was explaining, so make your own thread with your own shit. I'm not obligated to start going on your wavelength, on a dead thread, after I've made a different point
While this may be true today, note that European countries (well, the rich ones anyways) might just be behind the curve here. We're certainly on our way towards a U.S.-style disaster.
It's very hard to generalise this though as cultures here are very heterogenous here. You'd never in 100 years expect the Dutch to fall for the car industry's strategy of getting everyone dependant on cars to anywhere near the same degree as the U.S. has while you absolutely couldn't say the same about Germany; we love sucking on those exhaust pipes (especially our politicians).
Americans absolutely need cars due to the size of the country. We like our space. We're not being duped into buying cars for no good reason.
Cope.
It is absolutely possible to build infrastructure that is not car centric. Of course, they are always going to be people who need a car to get around but that doesnβt mean that we canβt design cities that donβt require cars.
The dumbest excuse for bad cities - Not Just Bikes
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The dumbest excuse for bad cities - Not Just Bikes
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This is a common misbelief.
There's a small subset of U.S. citizens who do live in the middle of bumfuck nowhere and actually do need a personal vehicle to get around. The vast majority does not.
Not true. So much of the US, including many cities is uninhabitable or at least extremely inconvenient without a car due to a lack of planning that supports a car free lifestyle.
Also, while the majority of Americans live in urban areas, the rural population is not so small as to be insignificant.
The long term solution is to improve infrastructure and zoning laws to reduce the car centrism of the majority of the USA, this is already being done in many cities, but for the time being most Americans need a car.
That's just false. There are vast rural areas and communities in every state. If you think it's only in a select few states in the middle of the country, then I have a bridge to sell you.
My argument does not hinge on any arbitrary state borders. Read again.