Where did America go wrong?

kildare lad · 11-03-2021 7:29pm

What's the story with the health system over there , I was on holidays in Vegas and my ex ended up in hospital . We were there for about 3 hours and all she got was an ultrasound scan . Everything was fine till we got the bill , it was 2,200 dollars . Just aswell we got insurance before we went . Land of the free , my arse.

Possessions make you rich??????? · 11-03-2021 7:36pm

kildare lad wrote: »

What's the story with the health system over there , I was on holidays in Vegas and my ex ended up in hospital . We were there for about 3 hours and all she got was an ultrasound scan . Everything was fine till we got the bill , it was 2,200 dollars . Just aswell we got insurance before we went . Land of the free , my arse.

Thats crazy price. I'd like to know how much health insurance is there? It must be thousands a year?

BattleCorp · 11-03-2021 7:47pm

Possessions make you rich??????? wrote: »

Thats crazy price. I'd like to know how much health insurance is there? It must be thousands a year?

My relations in America pay $2,400 for medical insurance per month over there. Not sure of the details but I think that's for a husband and wife and they are both getting on at this stage. He is 73 and still working.

When I used to work there years ago I saw an auld lad getting down out of a concrete truck. He looked about 100. I asked him what age he was and why he was still working. He told me that he was 83 and if he didn't work, he wouldn't be able to pay his rent. So yeah, America isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Hyperbollix · 11-03-2021 7:50pm

Possessions make you rich??????? wrote: »

Thats crazy price. I'd like to know how much health insurance is there? It must be thousands a year?

Apparently most people with insurance in the US have it through their employer so it's not as onerous but for those outside the system that pay an annual premium to an private insurer, it must be mind boggling premiums.

Early last year when Americans started to flood into hospital with covid, one of the British news channels did a piece on the fees some folk were racking up.
One young woman got covid and ended up in hospital in the short period between leaving one job and taking up another. As she was technically unemployed and uncovered by either her previous or future employer, her short stay and numerous scans came with a final bill of around $32k

Absolutely staggering. When the medical profession is an even bigger parasite than the legal profession, you know something is very wrong.

Possessions make you rich??????? · 11-03-2021 7:56pm

Hyperbollix wrote: »

Apparently most people with insurance in the US have it through their employer so it's not as onerous but for those outside the system that pay an annual premium to an private insurer, it must be mind boggling premiums.

Early last year when Americans started to flood into hospital with covid, one of the British news channels did a piece on the fees some folk were racking up.
One young woman got covid and ended up in hospital in the short period between leaving one job and taking up another. As she was technically unemployed and uncovered by either her previous or future employer, her short stay and numerous scans came with a final bill of around $32k

Absolutely staggering. When the medical profession is an even bigger parasite than the legal profession, you know something is very wrong.

32k for a short stay crazy. Most people me included would be guts of a decade paying that off.

Tony EH · 11-03-2021 9:43pm

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

they have a laissez-faire standard towards welfare, and are of the belief that it's up to the individual to sort out their problems and not the state. They blame the poor for being poor.

Jinglejangle69 wrote: »

Ireland could do well with adopting this attitude to a large cohort in the country.

Britain and Ireland already tried that in the 19th Century. It didn't work out too well.

Tony EH · 11-03-2021 9:49pm

riffmongous wrote: »

And yet Christianity is so important still, f*'d up

Pfft...some of the worst people I have ever met have been "Christians".

Yurt2 · 11-03-2021 9:57pm

Tony EH wrote: »

Britain and Ireland already tried that in the 19th Century. It didn't work out too well.

I've genuinely seen people on boards suggest famine-style workhouses and debtors prisons as rootin' tootin' brilliant solutions to certain social maladies, and they're not even being tongue-in-cheek.

Some people's brains are just made of goo.

ToxicPaddy · 11-03-2021 9:58pm

Possessions make you rich??????? wrote: »

Thats crazy price. I'd like to know how much health insurance is there? It must be thousands a year?

Know someone who chipped a tooth when over there and managed to book a dentist to get it repaired.

Tooth repaired and a bill for $1000 :eek:

FatherTed · 11-03-2021 9:58pm

nicholasIII wrote: »

I just heard that a close friend of mine who lives in New York will be evicted and soon to be homeless. They don't have any close friends at the moment so they are staying in their car thankfully.

How can the "World's Greatest Country" have such a large homeless epidemic? And even have the largest number of its citizens incarcerated? When my dad was growing up in Egypt in the 70s, when you mentioned a "good, wealthy" country, America was the first thing that came to everyone's minds. He heard nothing but good things.

Today, nearly everyone has a negative opinion. Probably got worse since 9/11. And of course 2016-2020 was probably the four worst years America has ever had politically speaking.

Would anyone still move there? Assuming they don't come from a developing country?

I live in Connecticut just outside NYC but what you're saying about eviction is untrue. NY currently has a moratorium on evictions due to Covid. Seriously, maybe you need to tell you friend that: Legislation (S.9114/A.11181) Places a Moratorium on COVID-related Residential Evictions and Foreclosure Proceedings The Act places a moratorium on residential evictions until May 1, 2021 for tenants who have endured COVID-related hardship. Tenants must submit a hardship declaration, or a document explaining the source of the hardship, to prevent evictions. Landlords can evict tenants that are creating safety or health hazards for other tenants, and those tenants who do not submit hardship declarations: https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-signs-covid-19-emergency-eviction-and-foreclosure-prevention-act-2020#:~:text=This%20is%20the%20kind%20of,us%20stay%20New%20York%20Tough.%22&text=The%20Act%20places%20a%20moratorium,the%20hardship%2C%20to%20prevent%20evictions.

Yes you are right about 2016-20 being crap. And although Biden isn't perfect at least he's getting the priorities right regarding vaccinations etc.

Also the Rescue Act he signed just today does a lot of things. The most talked about will be the $1400 checks but also other elements will help reduce the amount of poverty: https://www.urban.org/research/publication/2021-poverty-projections-assessing-four-american-rescue-plan-policies

kal7 · 11-03-2021 10:03pm

Newt Gingrich has alot to answer for. The republicans buy into american dream, no safety net.

Oafley Jones · 11-03-2021 10:03pm

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

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There is a great sense of value for the work you do in America.
You get payed well, taxes tend to be lower and you don't have the situation like you have in Ireland were people are not inclined to do extra work because it will kill them in tax.

Sher that’s why some people are working two and three jobs just to get by. Some employers even have such a great sense of your work, that they’ll let the customer pay the bulk of your pay in tips.

Possessions make you rich??????? · 11-03-2021 10:04pm

BattleCorp wrote: »

My relations in America pay $2,400 for medical insurance per month over there. Not sure of the details but I think that's for a husband and wife and they are both getting on at this stage. He is 73 and still working.

When I used to work there years ago I saw an auld lad getting down out of a concrete truck. He looked about 100. I asked him what age he was and why he was still working. He told me that he was 83 and if he didn't work, he wouldn't be able to pay his rent. So yeah, America isn't all it's cracked up to be.

That's insane 2400 a month for Health insurance I'm disgusted and shocked at that to he honest.

You need to be a millionaire over there in my opinion these days to be living the American dream.

phildub · 11-03-2021 10:05pm

BattleCorp wrote: »

My relations in America pay $2,400 for medical insurance per month over there. Not sure of the details but I think that's for a husband and wife and they are both getting on at this stage. He is 73 and still working.

When I used to work there years ago I saw an auld lad getting down out of a concrete truck. He looked about 100. I asked him what age he was and why he was still working. He told me that he was 83 and if he didn't work, he wouldn't be able to pay his rent. So yeah, America isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Max i paid on my own was 350, when Obama care cane in that went down to 180 and when I got it through work it was 40 - all per month. I got to say it was worth it, I received so many treatments scans etc for free. I came back to Ireland and asked to be tested for b12 defencey and was told by my GP that I would need to have chrons disease to be tested for that!!! My gp was also shocked to hear that I have been receiving cervical screening annually, must not be that frequent here but perhaps it should be!

Directing the OP, it is extremely difficult to evict someone in NY, the laws are similar to here and you would be talking about a minimum 3 months before you would get a court hearing. If your friend wasn't paying rent in that time then yes a court would have granted an eviction notice. Unemployment payments in NY right now is about 500-900/week so if he lost his job through covid he should be getting that money.

FatherTed · 11-03-2021 10:09pm

Hyperbollix wrote: »

Apparently most people with insurance in the US have it through their employer so it's not as onerous but for those outside the system that pay an annual premium to an private insurer, it must be mind boggling premiums.

Early last year when Americans started to flood into hospital with covid, one of the British news channels did a piece on the fees some folk were racking up.
One young woman got covid and ended up in hospital in the short period between leaving one job and taking up another. As she was technically unemployed and uncovered by either her previous or future employer, her short stay and numerous scans came with a final bill of around $32k

Absolutely staggering. When the medical profession is an even bigger parasite than the legal profession, you know something is very wrong.

By law, companies in the US have to provide "Cobra" insurance for laid off employees for a certain period of time so she should have been covered by that. If not she should have been covered by Medicaid/ACA.

buried · 11-03-2021 10:15pm

Was going wrong for a long time but the ultimate catalyst for pop eating itself was Mr. Edward Bernays

bnt · 11-03-2021 11:09pm

Blame the Protestant Work Ethic for some of the USA's problems: part of the American Dream is that success will come to you if you work hard, and so if success doesn't come, you didn't work hard enough i.e. it's your own fault. (Just don't ask how Slavery factored in to this equation.)

This was baked in to the system from day one: the Mayflower Pilgrims of 1620 were hardline Calvinist, so hardline that they literally could not co-exist with the Church of England. They had already left England for Holland, but that wasn't far enough away, so they undertook a perilous ocean voyage to secure their rights to be holier-than-thou and persecute anyone who wasn't as strict as they were.

So now you have Social Darwinists who would happily see "the weak" people die ... except that they don't, of course. People keep on struggling to survive, even after they have "failed" in capitalistic terms. I don't for a minute believe that all crime is a symptom of such failure, but it is a factor.

KungPao · 11-03-2021 11:09pm

I am tekashi 6ix9ine wrote: »

Tell us more about this story fascinating stuff.

Not much more to add, pal. Except he beat the cancer and became the first man to walk on the Sun. So, fair dues, in all fairness.

Jim2007 · 11-03-2021 11:55pm

It begins in kindergarten and by the time they get through high school the attitude is fully developed - the emphasis on Self. This is not an accident it is a deliberate strategy, just like the European strategy concentrates on the group, the class and the community at large.

Now take these self centered people and under educated them, don’t even try to teach the average kid who is likely spent their time in shop style classes anything about geography, history, languages etc..

Do this and become very easy to explain to people that the homeless just made bad life choices and you have no responsibility to them. Even charity is all about Self, you do charity to get recognition in your church, your community and to get brownie points for college, job applications.

Tony EH · 12-03-2021 12:43am

Yurt! wrote: »

I've genuinely seen people on boards suggest famine-style workhouses and debtors prisons as rootin' tootin' brilliant solutions to certain social maladies, and they're not even being tongue-in-cheek.

Some people's brains are just made of goo.

Just nasty minded types, unreasonably obsessed and completely unaware that all the nonsense they think about was already a part of what made the 19th Century a hellhole for many people. Such a hellhole that people made efforts to move away from it because it was a detriment not only to the poor, but also the better off as the problems of the poor of society spill over into the other brackets.

There's a reason why things like the NHS (universal healthcare) were created.

FatherTed · 12-03-2021 12:50am

Jim2007 wrote: »

It begins in kindergarten and by the time they get through high school the attitude is fully developed - the emphasis on Self. This is not an accident it is a deliberate strategy, just like the European strategy concentrates on the group, the class and the community at large.

Now take these self centered people and under educated them, don’t even try to teach the average kid who is likely spent their time in shop style classes anything about geography, history, languages etc..

Do this and become very easy to explain to people that the homeless just made bad life choices and you have no responsibility to them. Even charity is all about Self, you do charity to get recognition in your church, your community and to get brownie points for college, job applications.

As a parent of 3 American kids now in college I have to disagree with you. Like anything it’s what you make of it. Two of my kids studied Japanese in high school and spent 6 weeks going to school in Japan as part of an exchange program, my other learned spanish and also traveled to Mexico with one of his school friends who has family there the summer before last. They work hard and so do a lot of kids in school here, the opportunities are plentiful, you just have to seek them out.

Strumms · 12-03-2021 2:31am

kal7 wrote: »

Newt Gingrich has alot to answer for. The republicans buy into american dream, no safety net.

The republicans are the ones with the money so they figure on not needing it.

poisonated · 12-03-2021 2:37am

Fritzbox wrote: »

I can understand it if the would-be emigrants had a profession or qualification which is in big demand in the US and where it is possible to really make it big if you were good at what you do, actor, film maker or something in the Hi-Tech industries.
If you earned your living as a barman or bricklayer, what attractions does the US hold?

Bar tenders in America earn a lot more than bar tenders here. If you work in a decent bar in a big city over there, you could easily earn six figures if you include tips. That’s what someone told me. It may be absolute BS though haha

NeuralNetwork · 12-03-2021 2:49am

It’s hard to just make a sweeping statement about America, as different states can be as different from each other as countries, both in terms of wealth and also attitudes towards social and economic policies.

There’s a huge divide between those who have and those who haven’t with relatively far less of a safety net if you do fall through the cracks. It’s also quite a shock if you just look at the headline tax rates and ignore health insurance, which can be astronomically expensive and effectively is tax, just to a private company as you can’t go without it and then education costs are third level could leave you with the equivalent of a mortgage.

It’s had some shocking poverty throughout the modern era. It’s just we’re seeing more of the gritty side of the US on social media now and less of a view of it through Dallas and Dynasty and Hollywood glitz.

It has big advantages, particularly the fact that it’s a single market that speaks the same language. You can more easily create a pan-US business, although in Europe that is becoming much easier since the mid 1990s and you can up and move, without any need to consider language barrier or anything like that.

It’s a place with a lot of positives, if you’re wealthy and healthy and a lot of negatives if you’re not.

Jim2007 · 12-03-2021 3:33am

FatherTed wrote: »

As a parent of 3 American kids now in college I have to disagree with you. Like anything it’s what you make of it. Two of my kids studied Japanese in high school and spent 6 weeks going to school in Japan as part of an exchange program, my other learned spanish and also traveled to Mexico with one of his school friends who has family there the summer before last. They work hard and so do a lot of kids in school here, the opportunities are plentiful, you just have to seek them out.

And you have just illustrated the point. me, I, my.... the reality is that that is the exception not the norm.

Jim2007 · 12-03-2021 3:47am

NeuralNetwork wrote: »

It’s a place with a lot of positives, if you’re wealthy and healthy and a lot of negatives if you’re not.

But it can all change in a flash, even if you are relatively well off. A few senior exec types I used to work with are now retired back in the states and they are all afraid to spend on trips etc.. in case of medical bankruptcy. So while the rest of us are enjoying retirement without a second thought for health cover etc, they are concerned and being careful about even one holiday a year abroad.

whisky_galore · 12-03-2021 7:09am

Fritzbox wrote: »

A lot of Irish people still want to move to America - going through the misery of applying for visas and all that...

Its Anglophone, streets paved with gold and great uncle Johnnie lives there and we feel entitled to live there because we built it or some such. We are closer to Boston than Berlin.

ShatterAlan · 12-03-2021 9:57am

Deleted User wrote: »

If I didn't have a child who is settled here and going to school, I would love to move to America.

America is so vast and outside of **** holes like California there are some beautiful states. Saying America is **** because of new York's problem is like saying don't go to Ireland because there are junkies on Talbot Street.

Says the guy who paints the whole state of California as a shithole :rolleyes:

ShatterAlan · 12-03-2021 2:47pm

The Nal wrote: »

Yes it does. The parts where people live anyway.

Suburb, strip mall, highway. Drive to the next town. Repeat.

No it does NOT.

I've lived there for 7 years and been all over the country. That picture you posted is a snapshot of a white middle class suburb, a demographic that has been shrinking for decades.

Yes there are neighbourhoods that look like that all over the US in every state but that's like saying that all of Ireland or even Dublin looks like Rathmines. Does it fcuk!

Those wonderyears neighbourhoods are usually flanked by decepit areas with vacant factories or derelict shpping malls. Visit any rust belt state and you'll see for yourself. Go to Maine or Vermont or New Hampshire and hidden away from the nice areas are countless people living in abject poverty in trailers or crappy houses. Old people subsisting on macaroni and cheese or meatloaf on social security payday.

And you can rest assured that the ones who are living in the areas like in the pic you posted are up to their eyeballs in debt and won't be getting out of it any time soon.

nicholasIII · 12-03-2021 2:51pm

ShatterAlan wrote: »

No it does NOT.

I've lived there for 7 years and been all over the country. That picture you posted is a snapshot of a white middle class suburb, a demographic that has been shrinking for decades.

Yes there are neighbourhoods that look like that all over the US in every state but that's like saying that all of Ireland or even Dublin looks like Rathmines. Does it fcuk!

Those wonderyears neighbourhoods are usually flanked by decepit areas with vacant factories or derelict shpping malls. Visit any rust belt state and you'll see for yourself. Go to Maine or Vermont or New Hampshire and hidden away from the nice areas are countless people living in abject poverty in trailers or crappy houses. Old people subsisting on macaroni and cheese or meatloaf on social security payday.

And you can rest assured that the ones who are living in the areas like in the pic you posted are up to their eyeballs in debt and won't be getting out of it any time soon.

I have to agree. I was in Los Angeles back in Aug 2017. My relatives live in Anaheim (Orange County). It's a very beautiful city. When we saw Beverly Hills it made even the best parts of Dublin look like a kip.

But when we were coming back and went through the ****ty parts of L.A.....oh my God. If I was given a choice, I'd rather live in Ballymun than any poor part of America. Holy **** the place we passed by (Skid Row) looked like a third world hellhole. It reminded me of some slums in South Africa.

America really is the land of extremes. The best parts are magnitudes better than the best parts of Ireland. But the worst parts would make you think you're in a third world nation.

Where did America go wrong?

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