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- CoreyTamas, on 09/22/2008, -4/+103The Onion is great at these stories which, when you first look at them, you don't laugh. Then you realize it's a great joke and you laugh. And then you realize it's only half joking and you don't laugh.
In the end, I laugh. Why? Because I'm Canadian. - AmyVernon, on 09/22/2008, -0/+99Yet another Onion story that sounds all too real.
- Lucas123, on 09/22/2008, -0/+45It wasn't that long ago that health insurance companies refused to pay for bone marrow transplants, claiming that after years of proof that the proceedure offered the best hope for curing certain types of cancer, it was still an "experimental proceedure."
- basye, on 09/22/2008, -0/+40Great title!
- syndustry, on 09/22/2008, -1/+40I used to work in a call center processing claims for a health insurance company. They are worse than you would expect. Imagine the least intelligent, most obnoxious, least empathetic, most adversarial person. Multiply that by several hundred and you have a health insurance company.
- LiteralDan, on 09/22/2008, -0/+29This is so sadly realistic that it makes me nauseous and angry as much as it makes me admire the Onion writers more than ever.
- inactive, on 09/23/2008, -2/+25That gave me a laugh.
The scary part is just how prophetic the Onion can be sometimes.
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28784 - msflower97, on 09/23/2008, -0/+20One of the best Onion articles I've ever read, even though it's far from the funniest. It really is a very sad commentary on the state of healthcare in the US. I wonder how many people have actually committed suicide as an indirect result of stonewalling from their insurance companies (and/or lack of coverage altogether)...never mind the people who have died waiting for treatment that they couldn't get.
- dissipatedfog, on 09/23/2008, -0/+14When I saw this headline I was sad, then I laughed and then laughed while choking up a bit. It's all too real. I've seen family, friends and myself fight long battles with insurance companies - as I'm sure most of us have. I'm still alive, but not everybody I saw wage the war is. Again, The Onion does a better job of hitting a nerve than a "real" newspaper. I particularly loved the line, "health insurance is the nation ’s No. 2 killer."
- Alex2, on 09/23/2008, -2/+12Muahahaha!
Canadian World Domination for the win! - WoollyMittens, on 09/24/2008, -2/+12Why is universal health-care not the answer? Because you are trained like a chimp to drone that out? It bloody well works in Europe. What you see in your propaganda about conditions there are political lies. Michael Moore wasn't ***** you in "Sicko".
I live there. I have never waited for or paid anything. - DestroyFascism, on 09/23/2008, -4/+12America. you are so being ripped off and owned!
Health care in itself should not make profits. Technology of health care should but big pharma and giant health providers in the US lobby for higher prices and higher rates of return. You cannot win against this especially when Human rights and laws are being denied. - praha, on 09/23/2008, -0/+8Damn, I didn't think to check if it were an Onion story until I read your comment - Dugg.
- brownsound00, on 09/24/2008, -0/+7Yep, universal health care works. It's a great system, and it has it's flaws, but it still works better then most other systems.
- elusiveqc, on 09/23/2008, -1/+8I used to live in Canada (N. Van) then I um moved to Quebec (international peace keeping mission,,,,, well no, actually I got tipsy one night and thought 'ooh Montreal sounds like fun'). Average wait to find a family physician in Montreal is two years, finding a specialist is next to impossible, having a Visa to cover private health care - priceless. What good is low cost health care when we can't keep physicians in the country because they earn so much more in the States?
- WoollyMittens, on 09/24/2008, -2/+8Just remember. If the cost of your treatment is estimated to be higher than the projected revenue from your policy, they WILL let you die.
Corporations are without conscience or soul. Some things should never be privatized. - jessweinstein, on 09/23/2008, -1/+7Absolutely brilliant. There were moments when I felt a lump well up in my throat reading this. The Onion really outdid itself this time.
- lofispy, on 09/24/2008, -1/+7Your missing the point to all this dreamache. What good is having health insurance if the insurance company you have is either so greedy, corrupt, or both that they stonewall on every claim you make? I agree that socialized healthcare might not be the magic answer for America in particular, but wanting to see to a basic level of care available for all people shouldn't be a matter of politics, but just one of essential human compassion. And as to your statement about hospitals, that simply isn't true. The ER is the only place where that applies, and only within the scope of immediate emergency care, that's all. And furthermore, because of the same corruption of the insurance companies this is becoming less and less so as ER's become more and more crowded and unable to provide timely or extensive care.
- GeckoSlayer, on 09/23/2008, -0/+6That's really scary, it took me a while to realize it was the Onion..
- CoreyTamas, on 09/23/2008, -0/+6I live in Quebec. He's right about the two-year wait. Clinics are around, as are hospitals and emergency rooms... but two years to wait for a family physician in Quebec is nuts. The whole provincial and municipal infrastructure here is shot.
- pagit, on 09/24/2008, -0/+6well done! that was written in Jan 2001 - 8 mos before 911
- brownsound00, on 09/24/2008, -1/+7CANADA! ***** YEA!!!
- GorfTron, on 09/24/2008, -3/+8Someone should make a movie about how horrible healthcare is. He should be a fat socialist, too.
- AriaStar, on 09/24/2008, -0/+5We've been dealing with our insurance company trying to deny our coverage. Even though this article is an Onion article, it's not too far from the truth.
- cambrown99, on 09/24/2008, -0/+5When did The Onion start doing real news?
- Wakkyweed, on 09/24/2008, -0/+5The idea that you will get treated by a hospital regardless of your health coverage is a lie. Hospitals are required to do emergency care for anyone who shows up at their doorstep, but they have no obligation to take care of chronic conditions or conditions that are slowly killing you.
Ever hear of patient dumping? That's when some poor indigent gets treated at a hospital until they are stabilized, then they are shipped off to some charity hospital and left at their doorstep. The charity hospitals try to take care of these folks, but often they have to send them home on their own recognizance.
Americans are some of the most religious people in the world, and yet when it comes to Christ's teachings about healing the sick and helping the poor we are complete hypocrites. - Ajajadude, on 09/24/2008, -0/+5You worked for the devil, huh? I work in retail and I know people go home and bitch about me every now and then, but I can't even imagine what working for the insurance companies feels like.
- inactive, on 09/24/2008, -0/+4Ahahaha! Gotta love the Onion! Classic line!
Wait... oh. - ayeeminh, on 09/24/2008, -0/+4man america is ***** up. richest country in the world, and cant afford to give free healthcare, wat kind of bs is that?
- EuroMarkus, on 09/24/2008, -0/+4What's really sad about all this recent bad news, is that I was halfway through the article before I realized it was The Onion!!
Why couldn't the $700 bailout have been a bad Onion article as well. - PhoenixTril, on 09/24/2008, -1/+4The Onion scores again.
- travis6690, on 09/23/2008, -1/+4What the fu- oh.. yeah, it's the Onion.
- Rabbethan, on 09/24/2008, -0/+3I also watched John Grisham's "The Rainmaker".
- yragrelluf, on 09/24/2008, -0/+3i like cooked onions
- Jezon, on 09/24/2008, -1/+4Argh First Onion Article on Digg I was fooled into thinking it was real until halfway into reading it.
Well done. - lilhelper, on 09/24/2008, -0/+3Although this article is fake, there is a lot of truth here.
- greeniemeani, on 09/24/2008, -11/+14I'm laughing for the same reason you are - because you're Canadian.
- brownsound00, on 09/24/2008, -0/+3holy *****! that is prophetic about SO many things... really makes you wonder how he was voted in in the first place.
- MrTea, on 09/24/2008, -0/+3cause the gubment ain't got no right knowin' mah health
- mrgoodstuff, on 09/24/2008, -0/+3I just bought health insurance. It's like buying a mattress: nothing to compare it to, no consistancy in the market, and totally marked up!
- brownsound00, on 09/24/2008, -0/+3It's partly because of the docs moving to the states... but it's even worse when it comes to med schools. You have so many smart people coming out of undergrad, and there are so little seats for med schools students, that many end up going to the States or overseas... and never really come back.
- reeds1999, on 09/24/2008, -0/+3Under our system Health Insurance Companies, like all companies, first priority is to make money for themselves. They do not accomplish this by paying claims! The only answer to cleaning up the US health care mess is to socialize medicine and take the delivery of health care out of the hands of those who profit by it.. That includes the medical "profession", Insurance companies and Big Pharma!
- zeitgueist, on 09/24/2008, -0/+3@dreamache
However, they pay a smaller portion of their taxes to fund healthcare than we do. Funny how that works. - Alex2, on 09/23/2008, -0/+2Funny because it's true.
- DestroyFascism, on 09/24/2008, -0/+2Doctors in most countries make a decent wage, it is a truly respected profession, unlike lawyers who make more...
- DestroyFascism, on 09/24/2008, -0/+2That is only partly true if ignore the fact that big pharma spends 2 times more on lobbying the government than it does in research. You are paying for that, we aren't.
Down here government grants are given for research and the rest is tax deductible donations which is what we do and it works. - 12340987, on 09/24/2008, -0/+2is it funny if it's true?
- theutopian, on 09/24/2008, -0/+2Most countries with socialized healthcare provide a free medical education and most doctors still make excellent money.
- theutopian, on 09/24/2008, -0/+2@dreamache
That's not a bad thing.
Last time I checked Europeans were just as wealthy as we are, despite their 'higher taxes.' - Raisedshoulder, on 09/24/2008, -0/+2Also you have to keep in mind that a lot of pharmacies and medical technology companies operate inside the US because they can make big profits. If our healthcare was nationalized those companies may not want to work harder to create better medicines or equipment. Because we pay for those companies the whole world is benefitting from us.
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