#my cardiologist appointment cost me roughly 3k local and yeah that's still less than American healthcare because it's only *checks notes*

[shiraishi--kanade]

See that's kind of the point of the post. Dr.House show or he as a character don't matter, it's not even a cult classic here or anything. It's just the image of hyper-competent, well-read, charismatic but overconfident doctor with a Passion is a very good speakpiece for state-sponsored (and oligarchy-backed) propaganda of private healthcare vs state-sponsored healthcare (which involves a lot of bureaucracy and waiting and doctors who are going through the motions). Nobody cares as much about the show or the character or the values they represent as how American healthcare presents itself to the outside world and that image is incredibly detached from reality. What is a parody or a satire to an American viewer becomes a honest to god truth to an elderly woman who has been rejected from a state clinic and called an attention seeker and also doesn't speak English because why would they lie? That's probably just how Americans live. Kinda like McDonald's and red solo cups and whatever, right? People don't even understand the (badly translated) conversations about insurance and co-pay and stuff because we don't have these terms here, it's either free or out of pocket, so all they see is an American doctor coming on screen in an American hospital and the patient being magically cured. So that's how America Is in our TV.

And the people in power who push for privatisation of healthcare can't be happier because they can blame all the bad shit that comes with that system on Americans. Or if that doesn't work, then our people are just not ready for the Enlightened and Efficient American System, and that argument shuts most people up because, and it's easy to forget it on Hating America Website, US state propaganda machine works twice as tirelessly on its outside image as it does on the inside. Fuck, I've met people who think groceries in Texas are free. In my immediate surrounding. Because they've read some fake post on Facebook about it. And they believed it because life here is just so bad they're clinging to the idea of America being a heaven on Earth in the hopes that if not themselves, their descendants will immigrate there and live a better life. Which is what US has been doing for centuries and is still doing now.

I understand the need to share the anecdotes but they won't matter because if I showed the above said to anyone, they wouldn't be able to read it. Less than 4% of my country's population can speak English enough to potentially get an office job in America. Less than 4%! The propaganda is so damn effective because people are not able to access actual Americans talking about it. Machine translation doesn't tackle texts with so much specific terminology. I believe your horrendous experiences, I've read enough about it, but it's so starkly contrasted with the fantasy of perfect American healthcare that even when I tell other people how it is they don't believe me. They call me anti-American and right-wing because of how tightly the Americanism and left-wing politics are tied here. It's only when the things I tell people will happen if we transition to private healthcare start to happen they start to believe me.

I told my mother you have to pay for an abundance in USA in... What, 2018? and she told me I'm buying into propaganda because surely not. Now we have paid ambulances. And I fucking told her and she didn't believe me.

And for as long as for-profit healthcare continues to exists in America, ours remains in danger because you can't convince people who wholeheartedly believe America to be heaven on Earth that America may have done something Badly. So fuck yeah, I'm rejoicing the shooting as well because it's just barely enough for some citizens of my country to go "wait, if even their own people are shooting the ceos... Maybe health insurance bad?". Thanks god for the wake-up call.

In case anyone's wondering why am I so pissed off about for-profit healthcare when I'm not American it's 1) I care about other human beings 2) stupid ass backwards politicians in MY country are trying to build for-profit healthcare to replace our free one with it and when people rightfully complain they go "waaa we're learning from our American colleagues!! You know how great American healthcare is!! Right?? Dr.House?? Everyone's seen Dr. House right??" and it fucking works because people here have no idea how the actual American healthcare looks and have seen Dr. House. So there