American Healthcare is Sick
a comic about the symptoms
The comics originally appeared in The Audacity.
In case you missed it, I had a comic about the gendering of holiday labor over at The Persistent last week! If you’re currently drowning in holiday magic and would like some solidarity, check it out!
And let's not forget the medical system designed to ignore chronic illness (especially of the "invisible" type) because it "costs too much" and is therefore unprofitable for insurance companies to accept as legit codes, creating a Mobius Strip of denial.
Our politicians fear the loss of the healthcare industry money in their super pacs. Every Congressperson who fights Universal healthcare does so based on greed alone. It seems the most successful weapon against UH is labeling it socialized medicine. America voted for trump because the price of eggs is too high but they have no problem with all the money spent on HC? They don't see a problem with children not being able to see a doctor because mom can't afford it? What about the small businesses the GOP is always claiming to champion?
I love that unions gave us overtime pay, vacations, and sickdays as well as other benefits enjoyed by many of us today but tying our HC to our jobs was a mistake. Someone has cancer and they can't work, when they officially have to end their employment, what happens to their healthcare? There's COBRA but it's not cheap and it's temporary. JFK tried to get is UH, Hillary Clinton tried as well. Bernie Sanders has always been vocal of the need in this country for UH. I think he's pushed Medicare for all but after my first year of Medicare, I don't think it compares to what countries like Canada provides.
One last thing to get out of my head, the ACA is not perfect but it was infinitely better before the changes under trump. Standard coverages were removed and basic plans that don't cover squat are now sold so a broken arm can be catastrophic. The bill originally required every American have a policy, subsidies are available for anyone who can afford the premium. I seem to remember something about companies had to spend 80% of money collected from premiums on actual healthcare, not on CEOs or board members. What happened to that? Ok rant over.