Today, my feed showed friends making the point that more people died from gun violence in New Orleans in one day than died in all of Japan in a year.
THIS IS THE ONLY 1ST WORLD COUNTRY IN WHICH SHIT LIKE THIS HAPPENS.
We are also the only country that is going to make it hard for those who survive the shootings to survive the bills afterwards.
At any given mass shooting, there will be some insured people and some uninsured ones.
Under my current insurance, for example, I am paying a couple hundred dollars a month in premium costs (under single payer, I would be paying much less each month in taxes). Some of my tax dollars also go to provide healthcare for the poor, the elderly, the military, the politicians, etc.
On top of that, a victim under a plan like mine would have to pay just under $1000 for the ambulance, $200 to enter the ER, and copays for tests, treatments, and doctors.
And I have good insurance.
Some victims with insurance will have to fight with insurance company. They will have their insurance company telling them they’re paying the whole bill because they didn’t go to the right ER, that they should have somehow gotten a pre-authorization. They will be denied medications, treatments, and care that insurance deems “unnecessary.” A panel of nonexperts will override the doctor, making more money for the insurance company.
Some victims won’t have insurance, because they’re contractors or because they’re between jobs or because they work for a small company or because they work for a giant company that only gives them 34 work hours a week just so the giant company doesn’t have to help pay for healthcare.
Those victims will be charged just a few thousand, if they’re lucky. Others will be charged tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars to stay alive after someone shot them.
Problems with medical bills will affect victims’ credit. Many will go bankrupt.
(A few years ago, I got sent to a collections agency because I refused to pay for the same ambulance ride twice. It took a year and many infuriating phone calls to straighten it all out.)
Some people won’t be able to return to work without intensive physical therapy; if they’re lucky enough to still have insurance, they’ll be paying a copay at every visit. Some won’t be able to return at all.
A few will have disability insurance, though it will take months to see any money from that, months in which the landlord still needs that rent check.
Some will lose their jobs because they become disabled. They’ll have a year or more of paperwork to certify that are unable to work.
If they’re in Southern/Republican states, they will have to wait two more years after being certified disabled to have access to nonER healthcare.
Some people will be lucky enough to be able to work part time, but if they want insurance, they’ll have to look for a full time job. In our country, even when you work several part time jobs, equaling more than 40 hours/week, you’re still not eligible.
If the person who was shot was the primary breadwinner (and thus the person whose insurance policy covered the household), the whole family may lose their insurance in addition to their income.
If another family member has to quit a job to help a mass shooting victim in the struggle to stay alive, that person loses coverage.
THIS IS THE ONLY 1ST WORLD COUNTRY IN WHICH SHIT LIKE THIS HAPPENS.
