{"id":72,"date":"2017-03-28T11:20:11","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T08:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/suomenkuvalehti.fi\/kirjeita-trumpille\/?p=72"},"modified":"2017-03-28T15:32:51","modified_gmt":"2017-03-28T12:32:51","slug":"this-is-so-sick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/suomenkuvalehti.fi\/kirjeita-trumpille\/this-is-so-sick\/","title":{"rendered":"This is so sick"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Donald,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You left your tacky Trump Tower penthouse for the White House two months ago, promising<\/a> to mend America\u2019s failing healthcare system. On Friday you and your stupid attempt at replacing Obamacare <\/a>with Trumpcare crashed and burned<\/a>, as it was rejected by every Democrat and a majority of Republicans in the House. It was a huge blow to your ego and the biggest blow to your \u201cpresidency\u201d so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ouch, that\u2019s gotta\u2019 hurt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And to make things worse, both social media and the mainstream media spent most of the weekend twisting the knife and pouring salt in your wounds. Lucky for you, you\u2019re rich, so you can afford to see a doctor about them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most Americans aren\u2019t so lucky, however. Healthcare in the US costs around twice as much as it does in any other developed country. Yet according to the World Health Organization, the quality of the US system pretty much blows<\/a>. See, Donald? I guess money really can\u2019t buy everything – not good hair or good healthcare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I actually know a girl who recently cut her hand and was charged over $4,000 for a few stitches at a New York hospital. I mean, seriously. If you spend $4,000 on stitches, it should be Dr. Karl Lagerfeld doing the sewing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So why is it that virtually every other developed country in the world has somehow managed to provide residents with affordable healthcare, but the US just can\u2019t seem to get it together? Well, the only thing easier than answering that question is explaining how the US Electoral College works<\/a>. Let\u2019s just say that\u2019s why God invented Google.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most people have no idea why access to basic healthcare in the US costs about as much as membership to your stupid Palm Beach golf club, Mar-a-Lago<\/a>. But as it turns out, some of the main causes are pretty obvious. Going through all of them would require both a P.h.D. and as many pages as your average Tolstoy novel, so here are a few of the big ones:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. How can uninsured people afford healthcare? Because we all pay.<\/strong>\nAmerican health care prices are crazy (remember those $4K stitches?). That\u2019s why it\u2019s so important that as many people as possible have insurance. Obamacare extended coverage to millions more Americans. BUT. That made lots of people mad because their insurance costs went up to cover the costs of all the new sick and suddenly insured people. And because America isn\u2019t Finland, people aren\u2019t really into paying for services that benefit other people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But haha, the joke\u2019s on them, because right now they\u2019re already paying the medical bills of uninsured Americans. And that s**t is expensive. If you show up at an emergency room and can\u2019t pay, you still get treated. But someone\u2019s gotta\u2019 pay. So the cost of that person\u2019s care gets passed on to people who do have insurance in the form of higher insurance rates, co-pays and taxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ouch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. See you in court.<\/strong>\nI\u2019ll keep this one short. Doctors are terrified of being sued, so they practice defensive medicine. That means they order tons of tests even when they\u2019re already \u201csure\u201d of your diagnosis. That drives up\u2026 you guessed it\u2026 insurance rates, co-pays and taxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Drug prices are crazy.<\/strong>\nRemember when that douchebag Martin Shkreli hiked the price of a drug used by Aids patients from $13.50 to $750 a pill and then bought the only copy of that Wu-Tang Clan album<\/a> for $2 million, which he then leaked to celebrate your election? Well, that sentence alone shows why he\u2019s a douchebag. But he\u2019s not the only douchebag jacking up drug prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both patients and hospitals have been facing out-of-control drug prices for years. When doctors decide which drug you need, it\u2019s the insurance companies that decide whether you\u2019ll actually get it. Sucks for you if you happen need that expensive drug to, you know, live and stuff. Again, I personally know someone who needed cancer treatments that his insurance company refused to pay for because he \u201cdidn\u2019t really need them\u201d. Sadly, he did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So why are drug prices in the US so high that you\u2019d think El Chapo was running the show? Well, because the big pharma companies are basically eliminating the competition by buying the competition. A recent survey<\/a> looked at 3,000 brand-name prescription drugs and found that prices have more than doubled for 60 of them and at least quadrupled for another 20. It comes down to this: Once a company has a monopoly on a drug, they can charge whatever the hell they want for it. And they do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hey, that Wu-Tang album was tight though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Hospitals are run like businesses, because they are businesses.<\/strong>\nLong story short, everything at a US hospital costs way more<\/a> than it should. One time I was in New York with my 4-year-old daughter. She had the stomach flu. After five days, it got bad. It was Easter and I couldn\u2019t find a private pediatrician who would see her. I had no choice but to take her to the emergency room. We were there for a few hours. They gave her a cherry-flavored painkiller and took her temperature. KA-CHING, goodby $1,500! And a friend of mine who had her daughter by c-section in New York around the time I had mine by c-section in Helsinki paid over $27,000, even WITH insurance. My bill from Naistenklinikka was just over \u20ac100.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are a couple of reasons why hospital prices are so high<\/a>. Just like with the drug companies, one reason is consolidation. Hospitals in the US are businesses, so as they grow and acquire each other, prices tend to go up. Wait, shouldn\u2019t they go down though? No, because they now have a monopoly, so they they can charge whatever they want – suckers like you and your puking kid are still going to come. It makes perfect sense if you don\u2019t think about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other reason is who the hell knows. The cost of supplies and procedures are totally random. You might pay $200 for a blanket at one hospital and $50 for the exact same blanket in a hospital across town. It\u2019s a total mystery. Kind of like the Electoral College.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is one thing you can count on at all American hospitals though – no matter what\u2019s wrong with you, the bill is going to be more than you paid for your first home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, I know you\u2019re bummed about Trumpcare failing, but really, Donald, it\u2019s for the best. If you open up your calendar you\u2019ll see that on your agenda today is f***ing up the environment<\/a>. If that goes how you’re hoping, soon we\u2019re going to need those expensive doctors, drugs and tests more than ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feel better,\nLissu<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald, you left your tacky Trump Tower penthouse for the White House two months ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":147,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"asauth_required_access_level":3,"asauth_cansharepaid":"true","om_header_attributes":[],"footnotes":"","om_featured_image_focal_point":[],"om_primary_tag":0,"om_contributors":[],"om_co_authors":[],"beyondwords_generate_audio":"","beyondwords_project_id":"","beyondwords_content_id":"","beyondwords_preview_token":"","beyondwords_player_content":"","beyondwords_player_style":"","beyondwords_language_code":"","beyondwords_language_id":"","beyondwords_title_voice_id":"","beyondwords_body_voice_id":"","beyondwords_summary_voice_id":"","beyondwords_error_message":"","beyondwords_disabled":"","beyondwords_delete_content":"","beyondwords_podcast_id":"","beyondwords_hash":"","publish_post_to_speechkit":"","speechkit_hash":"","speechkit_generate_audio":"","speechkit_project_id":"","speechkit_podcast_id":"","speechkit_error_message":"","speechkit_disabled":"","speechkit_access_key":"","speechkit_error":"","speechkit_info":"","speechkit_response":"","speechkit_retries":"","speechkit_status":"","speechkit_updated_at":"","_speechkit_link":"","_speechkit_text":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[39,38,36,40,35,37,34],"class_list":["post-72","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kirjeita-trumpille","tag-drugs","tag-el-chapo","tag-healthcare","tag-martin-shkreli","tag-obamacare","tag-phrama","tag-trumpcare"],"om_views":null,"acf":{"tuuma_off":false,"tuuma_kysymys":"","tuuma_vastaus":""},"asauth":{"required_access_level":1,"share_token":"","is_paid":false},"yoast_head":"\nThis is so sick - 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