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Americans surely must understand by now that they're only seen as consumers, statistics, a unit from which money can be extracted. They're not seen and treated as humans.
Americans who lived abroad, what do you think about this?
I haven’t lived abroad but I’m a disabled vet and thus get social healthcare..
And it’s fucking horrifying what my countrymen/women don’t get. I get the European experience (less than, let’s be real.. I was gunna say more or less but it’s less…) and my comrades in arms (and just my comrades?) don’t because of technicalities? My brethren who choose not to support business get screwed? Fuck that we should all benefit.
To be clear, health should be a human right, housing should be a human right, food should be under health as a human right but let’s be serious it should be a separate human right so everyone has to acknowledge it. (thanks America for needing that to be spelled out…)
Somewhere between just 18-25% of veterans get the benefits they're entitled to, and the VA wants to keep it that way.
It's fucking disgusting
Technically I’m not even getting what I’m entitled to, I just recognize I get more than most of my comrades and until they get it I’m not pushing for myself.
Because you are right. It’s horrifying to go to a Va hospital, because the majority of people there are bitching up a storm because they aren’t getting care they should be entitled to. Wildly uncomfortable experience. And I don’t blame them and they deserve it way more than I do.. but technicalities..
Please go after what you're entitled to. I spent nearly a decade getting shortchanged by the system and never once did I begrudge someone else getting their ratings. It's just like back in the service, the only people who want you to not use your benefits are the bean counters.
I am not a veteran but I learned this yesterday when I tried to get a new sling for my broken (but mostly healed) right humerus and found out insurance only pays for a new one every two years and out of pocket a new one at the hospital is $70 whereas a new one from a medical supply store is $20-$25 and what a surprise! The medical supply store doesn’t bill insurance. Fuck this country
Know of any good medical supply stores i can go to?
One brick and mortar chain I found near me is Binson’s but like the other poster mentioned you might get a better deal on Amazon or online elsewhere too
You can buy a sling from Amazon pretty cheaply. Walmart also carries basic slings for around $20
Just wanted to echo what Maggoty said: please don't hesitate to push for the care and resources that you're entitled to. I spent years doing that after I got out—thinking that others deserved it more, and I shouldn't be taking a slot that ought to go to them. I think lots of vets get into that mindset. Everyone has buddies that had worse luck than them. But the people you served with would want you to get the care and benefits that are your due. You deserve it.
To be clear, health should be a human right, housing should be a human right, food should be under health as a human right but let’s be serious it should be a separate human right so everyone has to acknowledge it.
You've just summed up article 25 of the universal declaration of human rights. The US is a signatory to it - but it's not legally binding.
That’s why they signed it. It’s not binding so what does it matter?
I mean the US has taught me that being an ancom is the right path. I wish they had any support for what they actually preach being a good thing but I’m not into it. And I once signed my life away thinking it was right.. mistakes were made man.
(In fairness, I come from a conservative area, so I’m not against people, I just want what’s best for everyone, even if they don’t recognize it as a good thing yet.)
My response to what you wrote in your parentheses: I know exactly how you feel man.
To be clear, health should be a human right, housing should be a human right, food should be under health as a human right but let’s be serious it should be a separate human right so everyone has to acknowledge
Around the world 9million is so die every year from starvation (some 25,000 a day, many of them children) another 9 milion or so from air pollution, driving cars and.m burning fossil fuels. 50 kids a week are backed over in cars in the US alone, that's just backed over. Guns are the #1 killer of children , cars #2 in the US
https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth/air/air-pollution-deaths-per-year
50 US kids killed by Muslim terrorists, spend a trillion and invade, but good 'ol boys in trucks? make the trucks bigger and have at it... but can't spend a trillion to build good public transport and cycle ways so people.don't need to kill kids in cars.?
I think it's not unreasonable to suggest we don't really give a shit about "human rights"... anywhere in the world.
Professor David Boyd expressed it well when he was tasked by the UN to try and raise awareness about some of this with Governments around the world and as he said, he couldn't get a single eyebrow raised anywhere in the world
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/07/un-expert-human-rights-climate-crisis-economy
Outgoing special rapporteur David Boyd says ‘there’s something wrong with our brains that we can’t understand how grave this is’
America went from chattel slavery to chattel citizenry, we are nothing but a resource to be exploited.
I'll never return if America doesn't get healthcare. I don't even like visiting because that's so obvious. I usually don't go out when I go back and just hang out at my parents. Everything is depressing and I can pretend to not see it in their bubble.
The bubble inside America is so crazy.
It's sad. What's the solution?
Basically pass something through government channels to wrest the service from the hands of individualized businesses wearing the skins of hospitals and the business complex of health insurance... Like every other nation who has a social system did at some point in the past.
It's kind of easy to forget but like sanitation, fire service, post, police services, hospitals, secular school systems ... Those were all exclusively the domain of for profit businesses once. Just because something currently lines someone's private pockets doesn't mean that makes it untouchable. It has all been done before. Just wiping out the third party insurance companies alone and socializing the insurance would probably do wonders.
That won't work for the federal government. The people have no mechanism to put forth legislation (or to recall elected officials, which I see being a huge problem pretty soon).
That there is no tried and true fix for. The US is an old Democracy with a massive cultural complex around not changing anything a founding father sneezed on. There's some weird exploits in the 9th and 10th Amendments that could potentially cause a massive melt down if a sitting government decided to ever try and use them but it is just theoretical and anti-originalist so it's unlikely.
I look at the US government being in a death spiral as a separate but related problem. If your air conditioning isn't working and your engine is busted, the air conditioner isn't really your first priority.
You change. Stop asking and start doing?
Isn't your whole thing "by the people, for the people"? The people are an overweight zombie staring into a TV slurping an empty soda. Seeing this from the outside is absolutely crazy. You guys are so, so, SO passive.
You're becoming poorer and poorer, your world is quite literally burning and drying up, quality of life has bottomed in a way no one even a generation ago would even imagine.
And what do you do? I mean...
You've offered no real actual actions though. Change... What? To what? Your world is also quite literally burning and drying up. You could share your clearly superior wisdom instead of just dunking on Americans, which is frankly low hanging fruit anyway.
So what do you do?
Stop asking what to do. What's wrong with you?
Ah so your call to action is... Inaction? Very enlightening, thanks.
Nothing is gonna change if you keep behaving like this.
Continue to support policies (thus Politicians (i.e. Democrats)) that want to give everyone access to healthcare, regardless of economic status. This would mean never voting for Republicans as they are opposed to this.
How has it been 60 years of the same shit and you guys don't pick up on it? What's going on over there?
The last time Democrats controlled the House and Senate for more than a single term was with Jimmy Carter, 1977-1981 [0]. It's hard to make progress when Republicans are willing to shut the government down to prove how bad the government is. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
[0] https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2020/jun/25/control-house-and-senate-1900/
Lol, you think it's the ruling party that's the problem? That's what I mean, how are you just duck in this loop of thinking.
I'm not sure, but it won't be televised.
So horrible.
As an American who lived abroad I agree completely
But enough of us are okay with that as long as those damn immigrants, black, and poor people are treated that way it's fine.