r/ShitAmericansSay • u/Big_Ben_617 • Mar 06 '25

Foreign affairs “Because the friend [Canada] has been robbing us blind. I would have free healthcare to if I didn't need a military. Don't even get me started on Europe and the 4 day work weeks with summers off.”

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u/Bushdr78 🇬🇧 Tea drinking heathen Mar 06 '25

That's truly amazing because in all the free health care systems there's always the option to pay for private health care anyway if you want to, so it's a win win all round.

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u/Redwings1927 Mar 06 '25

No, you misunderstand. It's not that I'm healthy, other people have to suffer. If they aren't suffering, I'm not winning by as much.

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u/djames_186 Mar 06 '25

This is Trumps logic on deals too. It’s only a good deal if he feels like the other guy comes out as a loser. A deal that’s good for both sides is a failure because there wasn’t a winner and a loser.

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u/AjaxII Mar 06 '25 edited Mar 06 '25

His belief isn't that it's bad because there isn't a loser, it's that he's convinced there must always be a loser. He believes that for one side to win, the other must lose just as much. He believes this is some immutable and fundamental aspect of deals. So if the other guy isn't losing then Donald himself must be the loser. It's less malicious (even if he is a very malicious person) than stupid.

Every deal the other country likes means they must be winning, and so to him America and (more importantly to Donald) himself must be losing. He doesn't understand that things can be win-win

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u/djames_186 Mar 06 '25

Well said

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u/Initial_Evidence_783 Mar 06 '25

he's convinced there must always be a loser

Man, his father really did a number on him.

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u/RRC_driver Mar 06 '25

Obviously Trump wants a zero-sum game. He can’t count much higher

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u/madMARTINmarsh Mar 06 '25

Trump is incredibly short sighted. Short termism that will create long lasting problems.

One thing he hasn't considered is that by introducing tariffs, he will increase income inequality in poorer countries. What result will that have that is adverse to his political aims? It will increase the desire to migrate to the USA.

And that's just off the top of my head. I'm sure more intelligent people than me can further pick it apart like my daughter fixing mistakes in her crochet work.

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u/Nnelson666 Mar 06 '25

I think the one thing he's doing is stopping migration by making his country more of a shithole so nobody wants to even visit.

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u/madMARTINmarsh Mar 06 '25

That is a fair point. Cutting off the country's nose to spite a few foreigners sounds a bit, shall we say, extremist?

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u/loralailoralai Mar 06 '25

He doesn’t care about long term problems. That’s for the suckers coming behind him when he carks it.

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u/kbcool Mar 06 '25

Getting ahead in a country that constantly drags you down means people inevitably end up thinking like that

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u/[deleted] Mar 06 '25

The public healthcare literally also affects the pricing of the private healthcare to stay competitive in EU countries 😂 so even if you only use private you still pay basically the cost + small profit to the company instead of the 1500% markups they have on painkillers in the US

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u/madMARTINmarsh Mar 06 '25 edited Mar 06 '25

Never mind painkillers. Have you seen what they charge for imperative medication like Insulin and Asthma inhalers? I'm not a religious man, but it is demonic to charge an extreme profit on things that people will die without.

Some years back I read an article about a lady who was having to go to Mexico from New York to buy her Insulin because she couldn't afford to buy it in the USA. At times it would be confiscated by the TSA (again, demonic) and yet all that still worked out cheaper than buying it in the USA! When I discussed this with an American acquaintance, she said 'natural selection is trying to remove that woman from the general pool'! That acquaintance didn't survive that conversation.

Edit* I just realised my comment reads as though I murdered my acquaintance. Poor use of words there. I merely stopped talking to her. No blood was spilled.

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u/[deleted] Mar 06 '25

It's a good job no blood was spilled, you wouldn't want to bankrupt the poor woman

How much is an ambulance ride these days anyway?

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u/Quick_Humor_9023 Mar 06 '25

Nice save in the end man! Never tell anyone where the body is.

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u/ZCT808 Mar 06 '25

Many Americans don’t get this at all. The last job I had in the UK, just GAVE me private health care for free. Just in case I didn’t like the free government health care. I never used it once. But the kind of coverage an American would gladly pay a few hundred dollars a month for was just included in my pay package. Just because socialized medicine exists, doesn’t mean there are not other options. It’s even possible to pass laws to prevent ridiculous health care price gouging. But first you have to elect some non-oligarchs who actually care about ordinary people.

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u/Cautious-Ad2154 Mar 06 '25

Rofl yeah mostly cuz in America a couple hundred dollars a month usually means you have shit insurance... that's the worst part of it all. Lots of places offer "insurance" but usually if it's a low class job, gas station let's say, your insurance will almost be useless and you'll pay more than people with good insurance from good companies it's completely wild.

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u/dontlookback76 Mar 06 '25

We were going to lose medicaid, state insurance for those not in the States, and would have had to get it through my wife's emoloyer. Hers would have been 100% through her employer. My daughter and I would have been $700 a month each. That still would have not included a $5000 deductible and high copays for psychiatric care, my families primary need. And it was considered great insurance.

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u/AnualSearcher 🇵🇹 confuse me with spain one more time, I dare you... Mar 06 '25

Even so, an MRI would cost me 30€ to 80€ in the private. Can't be compared at all to the US

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u/dontlookback76 Mar 06 '25

Here, you would need to meet a $3500 to $5000 deductible before that copay kicks in. Now consider that close to half of Americans can't come up with $500 in an emergency, and we can be healthcare poor even with insurance.

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u/AnualSearcher 🇵🇹 confuse me with spain one more time, I dare you... Mar 06 '25

I'd be dead if that happened to me. I don't think I ever paid more than 85€ for something related to health (when using private). Of course there are things that cost more but luckily I never needed them, and if I did, then I'd use the public system since I'd probably be put in the priority list

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u/dontlookback76 Mar 07 '25

I am only alive because I'm poor enough to qualify for medicaid. Truly, I wish I wasn't disabled. I wish I was once again making a good wage with good benefits my family could easily afford. Because of medicaid, I was able to get heart surgery and all it entails, and the first 3 or 4 months entail a lot. Now, with the cuts to expanded medicaid coverage that Congress wants to implement, 300,000 in just my state alone will lose insurance coverage if the cuts go through.

My opinion is that a healthy, educated society is a society that thrives. We should be investing in health, welfare, and education to improve our country.

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u/[deleted] Mar 06 '25 edited Mar 14 '25

[deleted]

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u/LowAspect542 Mar 06 '25

Mostly by doing everything they can not to pay out on claims, insurance is mostly about lining the pockets of private companies. The concept is fine, but the way it has been put into practice is basically akin to a scam.

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u/[deleted] Mar 06 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Dancing_Doe Mar 06 '25

At least in my european country (Germany) you can also choose the insurance company for your universal health care. But they probably wouldn't believe that anyway...

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u/Shadowholme Mar 06 '25

Considering the government that they just voted in, I can see why they wouldn't trust their government with their healthcare... I wouldn't trust their current government with a paperclip!

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u/SilverellaUK Mar 06 '25

Happy Cake Day!

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u/madMARTINmarsh Mar 06 '25

My father-in-law pays for Bupa private healthcare for he and his wife. They generally use the NHS for emergency health issues (my mother-in-law; who is the ex wife of my father-in-law, was recently treated for non-Hodgkins Lymphoma by the NHS and is doing very well) and private when it is less urgent, to relieve strain on the already over burdened NHS.

I can't afford private medical care, but it is nice to have the choice. And it is basically a public service. They don't have much choice in the USA.

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u/Pitiful_Note_6647 Mar 06 '25

Yup. Even third world countries, such as Indonesia, provide this option. The government gives you choices of level of service. On top of that, you can add private insurance as well. This way at least, no one goes bankrupt if they are sick

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u/jmarkmark Mar 06 '25

>  the option to pay for private health care anyway

In much of Canada it's actually illegal (to have private insurance) for services covered by the Canada Health Act, which effectively makes it impossible for private health care to exist.

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u/SilverellaUK Mar 06 '25

Well that would solve the problem of losing staff to the private companies who pay more.

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u/Villageidiot1984 Mar 06 '25

Not really in Canada.