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Comment by CalChris | Hacker News Reader

I won't agree about the American medical system but I'd say that our hospice system is pretty much Soylent Green.

The American medical system is an absolute travesty. To be fair to you though, this only really becomes obvious when one experiences functioning medical systems in other countries.

How else would health insurance executives, hospital executives, and doctors afford their third million dollar home? The system is working just fine for them.

Health insurance -> definitely a racket

Hospital execs -> a racket, but hospitals are being bought up by PE firms rn so I'd say you probably want to include portfolio managers

Doctors -> in general probably not. I've met some physicians that have made me feel sour about them in general, but even with FFS they're not benefiting nearly as much as hospital suppliers and insurance companies. Specialists definitely receive a boost, but this is like saying L7+ at FAANG is representative of SWEs as a whole. Factor in med school, residencies, and fellowships required to enter specialties, and there are also a lot of earning years lost. We should really be encouraging more students to go into medicine in spite of this, which would improve care by reducing the number of pts each physician needs to serve[^1].

[^1]: Additional context. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/02/why-does-t...

Except for me; they didn't get any yacht payments from me. When we had a medical disaster, I filed for bankruptcy once the bills came in, and this is with good insurance. It really didn't affect my credit score, and we bought a house and car 18 months afterwards.

Sometimes bad things happen to good people, through no fault of their own.

I mean, rich fat cats get debt forgiveness when things don't work out for them.

I'm guessing your assets were wiped out but you were able to qualify for house and car later due to cash flow. Anything I'm missing? Thanks for sharing btw

Nope. We just told the bank that we had a medical bankruptcy and they said "it happens all the time..." and proceeded with no issues.

I've had the good (bad?) luck to go through a few non-US systems and can say that you have to get pretty far down the OECD development index to hit U.S. medical system level of terribleness.

Try the Chinese Communist healthcare system instead of the American healthcare system, and you will likely chande your views.

I get it is bad but isn't Soylent Green where they turn old non-sick people into food with a nature documentary in color as payment?

I think it was meant differently, the dying are food for the hospice industry.

This sets it in conflict with other approaches like dying at home or euthanasia.

Ye. Soylent Green would work better as an analogy for horrible uneseccesary euthanasia, not bad elderly care.

Hospice is quite literally a place for sick people to die while drugged up on painkillers and receiving zero life extending medical care.

It’s basically euthanasia through negligence, as it’s more culturally acceptable for the elderly to die of dehydration than drugs.

Oh I thought hospice was a fancy word for elderly care, not palliative care.

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