My friend got cancer and she lost her job. Luckily her parents pay for her insurance out of pocket. Even the treatments are covered, she still needs to pay for copay and deductibles. This is America. When you are down, we kick you further down. No developed country does that except us
but you’re forgetting that the other countries tax you more when you are doing exceptionally. Policies like that lead to meritocracy and reduce everyone’s chances of getting a yacht.
Everyone’s chances of getting a yacht? You mean a small nu.ber of people?
yes, a chance to get a yacht. Similar to how everyone that buys a lottery ticket has a chance to win.
And yet the same people won’t consider living in a better place for some reason.
You think it’s easy for people who are poor or in debt to uproot their lives and move to another country they have no connection to? People have families and other social ties they don’t want to leave behind as well.
at least faux news took the effort of separating communism and socialism, as they often use those terms as they mean the same
They should get rid of the single largest socialist government expenditure on the planet (the US military) and then tell everyone they need to get Defence insurance.
Please stop saying the military is socialist. Please understand that socialism is about the relationship to the means of production and not just ‘exists because tax’
Americans would rather spend $20k a year on useless health insurance, just to make sure their taxes don’t accidentally pay for black and brown peoples healthcare…
My insurance premiums are closer to $12,000 a year (basically a hop, skip, and a jump from $1,000 a month).
It certainly isn’t the most expensive plan I found, but it was up there. I knew about all the shitty practices by insurance companies, but I tried to do my research to ensure that my prescriptions and doctors were covered, and I hoped that with a plan this expensive, I might be a bit insulated from the worst of it.
Then I had an emergency. Three things that my insurance did not cover really stood out to me.
The ambulance was considered out of network, so I am on the hook for 100% of the cost. You don’t have any choice about which service picks you up.
The doctor was out of network, so I have to pay 100% of his charges. I know he probably approved my treatment or reviewed my test results, whatever, but I never saw him and the only treatment I received came from the nurses.
I was given 2 ibuprofen. They cost me $45. I was given several different and conflicting reasons why, but ultimately, I’m on the hook for that.
I wouldn’t pay it. As of now, medical debt can’t hurt your credit score. When they send it to collectors, just deny the debt is yours. Refuse to give the collectors any info and don’t accept the debt.
What is it with Americans and this fear of socialism? Yes let’s have some socialism, what the hell is the problem with that?
Americans see China and think: “Oh no, very bad because of socialism/communism”
But as someone who was born in mainland China (I’m Chinese-American), PRC is nothing “socialist”/“communist” at all, its a horrible State-Capitalist Authroitarian Regime under the guise of Communist aesthetics. I don’t fear socialism/communism because they never truely existed, in fact, I’d say that Norway or Finland (based on what info I could gather anyways, never personally been to Norway or Finland so I can’t speak from experience) would be more closer to “socialism” than PRC, at least they actually have a social safety net, PRC doesn’t.
As for why Americans fear these terms, I think it’s because, for some people anyways, you can get labeled as an enemy of the state to even uttering “socialism”/“communism”.
(Legal disclaimer to the FBI Agent reading this, just in case I have to make this clear: No, I am not a “communist”, as in, I do not support the CCP or similar authoritarian parties, I just support a more egalitarain and democratic society however you want to call that, and my views are 100% compatible with the US Constitution, now fuck off FBI, stop trying to denaturalize me, maybe actualy investigate the traitor in the white house, for fuck sake)
Am Norwegian. We argue a lot of whether we live under socialism or capitalism, we have a pretty good mix of both I think. Also, I dont think they’re really mutually exclusive, it’s more like some parts of society like healthcare, trains and police make sense to do as socialism and other things like TV channels, grocery stores and construction make sense to do as regulated capitalism.
18-39
As a millennial, I feel great not being called old.
Lucky you. My wife calls me old all the time. And she is older than me!
At 18 a guy in our group started dating a 19 year old. Another guy gave her shit about robbing the cradle to annoy her, which worked. To get him to stop driving the joke into the ground, I said, “Dude stop it. She’s not robbing the cradle.” She relaxed. “He’s robbing the grave.”
I’m Canadian. I highly doubt I pay more than $15k in taxes to get my free healthcare.
Aint no way a third of gen z has favorable views of communism. Maybe this is just my experience living in a red state but I know like 5 people irl who I would say have a favorable view of communism and I either convinced them of it or made an effort to find them through orgs. This is fox trying to scare republicans more than it is truth. I can’t even mention communism to the average person I know without them vomiting American propaganda and thought terminating cliches
Communism as a concept, or what the world actually got?
Because those are not the same thing.
Well. There are basically 3 times when communism worked pretty well.
They all ended rather violently due to a ___-backed ____. (You know the words that go in the blanks.)
What are those three times?
CIA-backed coup is what I’m assuming the blanks are. Maybe that’ll help you research it.
I got that part but I wanted to hear what they consider the three times communism worked pretty well.
I’m certain this is one. A democratically elected president wanted to redistribute land to the people. The US decides that it’s their business and installs a dictator, who then goes on to commit a genocide, which the US was perfectly happy with.
It still baffles me how some Americans will fight against universal healthcare, like ??? Do you WANT to be put in debt cuz you had an easily-treatable illness??? I don’t get it, honestly
I have had arguments on social media with Americans. They are A) deluded, believing that paying a monthly premium and still having a deductible, that can be denied, is awesome because its tge best plan avaipable. B) are I got mine types, who have stated they got private insurance because they don’t want to pay for other peoples health care (they clearly don’t understand how insurance works) C) don’t want their taxes to go up one smidge, even though putting every american into a universal system would save so much money and would barely be blip in their taxes.
My mom had a spinal fusion in the 90s which she got in debt for.
About 15 years ago my lung spontaneously collapsed. Several surgeries later, the bill was $315,000. I was on Obamacare because of the mandate, thank god. I paid $19.
My mom found out and told me I “deserved to go bankrupt” because people like her had struggled for so long with their medical bills.
I don’t speak to her anymore
Obviously, transsexuals are a bigger concern. They are educated from birth the US has a superior healthcare system (by every measure, it does not). They are told that a lifetime of debt means they are good Americans .Also, most voters just assume one day they will be billionaires and never get sick.
the funniest part is that’s not even what socialism is.
Well, it’s not socialism but universal healthcare is a socialist policy and it has been won by various reformist socialist parties in most western countries.
some western countries usually can have such vast welfare state within capitalism because they are still extracting value from their colonies.
Ireland, Poland, Malta, Denmark, Austria, Finland, Sweden, Andorra, Luxembourg and Norway don’t have colonies. And the first three used to be colonies.
some of those you mention engage in imperialism on their neocolonies.
Of course someone from .ml would repeat the same buzzwords without thought.
Uncalled for.
You must be new to dealing with MLs. Nothing “uncalled for” for calling out MLs that keep harping about social democratic countries having neocolonies, when literally these countries have none and some of these countries even used to be colonies.
I know. I came from a post-colonial/neocolonial country. But to treat all Western countries as monolith is utterly ridiculous. It is ironically being racist to dismiss white former colonies as neocolonialist like Poland, Ireland and Malta just because they arw white, isn’t? Frankly, the MLs patronise the global south as if they have no agency in the same way as neoliberal imperialists do. Ask Filipinos and Indians on what they think of CPP-NPA and Naxalites, respectively. MLs would actually get more respect and taken seriously if they aren’t being hypocritical like the neoliberals. ML is just another form of tyranny with a different mask.
I have some good news for the Gen Zers. America is capitalism with a socialism backbone. Things like social securit, fire departments, national parks, roads, schools, electricity, water, police, jails, courts, unemployment, banking(FDIC), CDC, military, space programs, and so much more are paid by your taxes and redistributed wealth just like socialism.
The problem is when money mixes with politics from things like Citizens United, you start seeing policies shifting away from socialism to capitalism.
This can all be reversed once we remove all money from politics.
Some of those things could be considered socialized, but they do not make our government socialist. Socialized welfare exists under socialism but that’s not what socialism is. Socialism is worker ownership of the means of production. You could even nationalize industries, but without unions, syndicates, or cooperatives collectively making the decisions it’s really only state capitalism.
Yes, absolutely. I’m trying to explain it in layman’s terms without going through what exactly is socialism.
My point is that we need to actually inform people what Citizens United has done to our society. Corporations are NOT people and does not deserve the protections that people get.
