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Kathryn R Titus's avatar

Everything corporate is a Ponzi scheme. That's because capitalism is a literal euphemism for fascism.

Elaine Comyn 🇮🇪's avatar

It really is unimaginable. Here in Ireland, with have both public and private healthcare. If you have private insurance, for any procedure (that your cover pays for) you just give the hospital your insurer and that's it - the hospital bills the insurer. Done.

For outpatient/GP/wellness items covered by your plan, you submit your receipts and they pay you back within a week.

Kathy's avatar

This is a fantasy in the US

Aamir Razak's avatar

sounds like a reasonable system Ms. Comyn. It's a shame that doesn't seem to be the same sensible system here

G B's avatar

Don't forget about all the corruption and not these small timers like the Trump regime keeps trying to blame but the true crooks like Rick Scott who's company got fined $1.7 billion and still gave Rick Scott a $350 million dollar golden parachute!

TriTorch's avatar

Welcome to America where:

Although the CDC officially denies it they receive millions in funding and gifts from the industry they are supposed to be regulating.

Their members own 50 vaccine related patents, meaning those members likely earn money on most - if not all - of the vaccines that are approved by their partner in crime: the FDA. They've also colluded with their criminal friends in congress to give both themselves and the drug companies practically blanket immunity to lawsuits against vaccination injury.

You could hook the revolving door between the CDC and the corporations they govern up to a turbine and light up the Vegas strip, meanwhile congress invests heavily in these enterprises based on legislation that they are going to pass in the future because they are exempt from insider trading laws.

This collusion between government and their subordinate industry is cartel/cabal/banana-republic levels of criminal. The only way out of this is to dismantle and rebuild the system from scratch because the system is rotten to the core and is woven together by blanket webs of interlocking incestuous corruption. It cannot be untangled or fixed as each corrupted entanglement has a stranglehold on the ones surrounding it - everyone is compromised and has incriminating evidence on everyone else - it can only be dismantled, its guilty members sent to prison, and then its pieces either rebuilt or discarded with the hard-earned wisdom from tough lessons learned.

Aamir Razak's avatar

Remarkable considering how much money is spent on healthcare in the US that life expectancy, quality of care, and overall health status lag so far behind other nations that spend a fraction of that wealth on healthcare.

Really well written as always Kathy, it seems the system works exactly as designed. It is made intentionally confusing and healthcare insurance companies are hugely influential middlemen, denying procedures that could benefit people and making them beg for something which they should be entitled to as citizens, let alone as human beings. It's what happens when human health/lives are seen in terms of profit/revenue and wealth generation, not worthy of inherent dignity and care.

Peggy M's avatar

It is abundantly clear that capitalism without regulation is out of control. The country can’t exist like this but isn’t that the ultimate goal of Project 2025?

Kathryn R Titus's avatar

You don't know the capitalism is a euphemism for fascism? You can forget the notion that anybody's going to regulate fascism.

Nick Douglas's avatar

Regulations must be enforced. There are many regulations, but they are all applied selectively. This is what totally corrupt, evil, dysfunctional, and so called exceptional society looks like. A living experiment of total failure.

Ron Allen's avatar

QUICK FACTS

• HCA paid a record $1.7 billion

• Company subsidiaries pleaded guilty

• Fraud involved federal health programs

• Rick Scott was never personally charged

• The payout was closer to $300 million

The central claim is true. Columbia/HCA, which Rick Scott ran until 1997, later paid about $1.7 billion in criminal fines, civil penalties and settlements involving Medicare, Medicaid and TRICARE fraud.

However, accuracy matters: Scott was never indicted or convicted, so saying he legally "should have gone to prison" is opinion, not a court finding. His severance and stock package was widely estimated near $300 million, not a verified $350 million cash payment.

Calling the entire healthcare system a "Ponzi scheme" is political rhetoric, not a factual description.

EXPANDED SOURCES

[1] U.S. Department of Justice, $1.7 billion HCA recovery

https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2003/June/03_civ_386.htm

[2] U.S. Department of Justice, criminal pleas and $840 million settlement

https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2000/December/696civcrm.htm

[3] PolitiFact, Scott was not indicted

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2010/may/21/bill-mccollum/rick-scott-former-health-care-ceo-barely-escaped-pr/

Martin Camarena's avatar

Viva el Capitalismo, que sólo enriquese a unos pocos. Muera el Comunismo, que le da vivienda, salud y educación de calidad gratuita a la gente. El mundo al revés.