I watched my 90 year old step dad die for four days. He had two massive heart attacks and his ribs were crushed from CPR. He was never coming back, but my mom couldn't come to terms with the responsibility of taking him off intubation.
I'm not angry with her, but I updated my will when I got home. I'm not putting my spouse in her situation. I want to die as quickly as I can.
Am not comparing my wee dog to your dad but when we had to take the wee shitty arse wean to the vet to get the old lethal injection ma dad was glad he took me rather that my wee sister cause she would have tried to keep wee Lexi the Lhasa Apso alive despite the fact she made properly fucked old people look alive. Don't get me wrong it took me 10 mins after it happened for me and ma dad to be able to talk but it was for the best, I fucking miss that wee shitty arse! She loved a bin, and if you remember corned beef in a tin? She loved that too! Ah shit am sad now, she was ma mums dog but mum died in like 2004 and wee Lexi was the last living part of ma mum to us(obviously ave got aunts and uncles and that, bit she was mum's wee dog haha) fucking upset now, am meant to be a gruff Scotsman not a bubbling wean haha !
Lol, that dog made me a big girls blouse! She got lifted by the cops one night cause I was too drunk to answer the door... that wee dog spent a night in the cells and ave never even done that haha poor wee beast she was!
I truly am enjoying your remembrances of your wee Lexi. I'm sorry about her. Sadly, I had a cat I kept alive a little too long. She looked like the Crypt Keeper and creeped out my friends. It's hard to let go of those who you love.
Anyhoosies, I could read your stories all day long. You should make a subreddit of your stories. I will totally be your first subscriber.
A sentence that has stuck with me forever I found reviewing a chart of someone who had been bounced between hospitals and nursing homes for over a year. They had a palliative care meeting and the doctor wrote that the patient may have an increased life expectancy with medical intervention, but that they will likely experience human-induced suffering in the name of care.
A couple years ago I had an end-of-life-care conference with the family of an old man who had had a devastating brain injury due to lack of oxygen during a cardiac arrest. He was not brain dead, but he was in a persistent coma, and we could tell by the CT scan that he was never going to improve.
I asked family if he had expressed any wishes for end-of-life care, and they said “he told us all the time that he wouldn’t want to be kept alive by machines, but I guess we’re just selfish and we want to keep him around, so keep doing everything you’re doing.”
I said “No! He’s my patient, not you. You just told me in your own words that this is not what he wants. I’ll give you some time to say goodbye, but then I’m going to make him comfortable and take the breathing tube out.”
I came back an hour later, transitioned him to comfort care, and he died immediately. None of the family members complained to anyone, and I didn’t get sued.
Good on you for being the "bad guy."
None of the family wanted to be blamed for pulling the plug, even though they all knew it was the right thing to do. You took the hit for them, and made it easier. I'm sure it wasn't easier for you, but you probably kept the family intact in a way because of what you were willing to do.
My mom, an only child, struggled with this when her dad's time came. I explained to her that she's not making the decision to "let him die." Her job was to be the surrogate decision maker. She knew he didn't want a ventilator life because he'd watched his wife live on one for years. Helping her understand that she was just voicing a decision he had already made helped her be more at peace with terminal extubation I think.
Word. Many times ppl just need to understand “You’re not making the decision to end his life or take your loved one off of life support. They already made that choice. You’re showing how much you love them by honoring their wishes.”
I hate this stuff with a burning passion. It's been 4 or 5 years ago now but remember running a call at a nursing home (firefighter/emt) involving a 100 year old woman who was unconscious and nonresponsive. We walk in to her room and could tell she had passed sometime the night before but because she didn't have a DNR, medical.power of attorney, MOST form, etc and her family insisted on treating her as a full code we had to do CPR, including putting the Lucas on her and starting an IO and working the code for the full 30 minutes per protocol. By the time the 30 minutes were up her chest was as flat as a pancake and just mangled for no reason. Completely unethical treatment of this lady who had obviously died (hopefully peacefully) but her arrogant family refused to let her pass. I get not wanting to lose a family member, I get it, it truly truly sucks, but she was 100 years old and from what the hospice director at the nursing home told us her family barely even came to see her in the 2 years she had been there. Made me so mad we had to do that to her.
We healthcare workers don’t *like* watching patients die. But when someone gets to the point where they are never going to get better and have given up themselves, it’s time to change the focus to comfort.
Too many times I’ve seen family members fail to see this.
The way some people can fuck up their children's lives just because they are providing the bare minimum for their physical needs. There's so much abuse parents can get away with as long as their children are clothed and fed. Never mind the permanent emotional scarring they are inflicting.
My mother saw this first hand when she was working for DHS. The homes would be a little cluttered, the kids clothed and fed, but they flinched every time the parent even looked at them.
When they came into the office she said the way they talked to their kids when they thought no one was listening made her shudder. This was years ago, and neglect/abuse did not include a verbal beat down.
I saw a video once of where dude couldn’t get a mortgage for a first time buyer on a house, because when he was 10 years old, his mom used his name when she got an eviction or something to that nature. 10 years old and she screwed up his credit and disqualified him for a mortgage from a bank.
No doubt we are talking apples and oranges, but what seemed to be a young man starting out his own path in life, and his mom did some shit that got him hemmed up later.
That is technically illegal so not quite within the bounds of the OP, but still a terrible thing to do that many shitty parents do to their children. It is frighteningly easy for bad parents to fuck up their childrens credit scores for life.
I found out that my mother lied about being able to afford my college when I went to close an unused savings account with my mother’s name on it and was told I couldn’t because there was a 10k loan attached to it. Because her name was on the account, she didn’t need my signature. Apparently I had been getting letters about it, but she hid them. Especially the letters saying she had missed payments. My credit score is terrible because of her
I was not, unfortunately
ETA two things
The bank technically did nothing wrong. It’s shitty, but they technically did nothing wrong.
There’s no point in getting a lawyer at this point. Without going into too much detail, my mother thought that paying off the loan would make me talk to her again. She was wrong.
Probably a letter from your attorney will cause the bank to do the right thing. You didn't take this loan and the bank is wrong for reporting negative information to the bureaus.
Definitely this. CPS can take your kids if they have visible bruises or broken bones, but you can hurl verbal and emotional abuse at them all day and they have no recourse. It's awful.
Correction: CPS is SUPPOSED to take your kids if they have visible bruises or broken bones. But most of the time… they don’t.
Most of the time they never even hear about it, and then they only intervene on a certain percentage of those they do investigate.
Hell cps came after I finally told independent 3rd party of the abuse at home. They came once.
No follow-up. From them. No fallow up at my school. And there was physical bruises all up and down my body.
Ands guess what. It didn't stop.
I made a DHS report on my ex, when my daughter would come back from visits with broken bones and giant smack marks across her face. DHS said it was “unfounded” and the visits should continue.
Exactly. Verbal/emotional abuse is the underrated life screwer. Parents get off scott free, living out a nice retirement while the son is still single and childless in his 30s because of residual mental health issues that he'll never see any justice for.
My dad was a horrible abuser and severely neglected me and my siblings for around 21 years. He refused to even take us to a doctor and would punish us for being hungry. He bought us clothes once every couple years, so we were always wearing worn-down clothes with holes. CPS would never do anything because he did the absolute bare minimum and didn't leave bruises when he hit us.
Needless to say we're all fucked up and have a lot of mental health issues. I'm the only one getting treated, but it's so expensive since I lost my insurance. Being mentally ill and in poverty is the most expensive and defeating situation someone can be in.
*Being mentally ill and in poverty is the most expensive and defeating situation someone can be in.*
Physically ill, too. I'm going through cancer treatment and recently had a stroke. They stopped my disability benefits at my last assessment. I've got no money, I'm maxxed out on my overdraft, still getting bank changes, can't even afford food. 10 days wait for the food bank. All while being extremely unwell. And on top of this all of course I've developed depression and anxiety from being hungry all the time, worrying about becoming homeless and where my next meal will come from. People say "have you tried this," "have you tried that?" Yes I've tried everything, and I'm exhausted. Nothing gets better. You're right it's absolutely defeating and so expensive (constantly racking up bank charges on the overdraft with no way to pay it.) And knowing that it really isn't going to get any better, all the while hearing positive toxicity like "Just think positively! Things will improve for you!" So exhausting. I think societies need to accept the fact that for some people things won't get better, that we shouldn't have to suffer like this, and assisted suicide should be an option everywhere.
So what's worse than murder? Forcing people to live in a situation like this - society not wanting to pay the living expenses of someone who is too ill/disabled to look after themselves, but not offering them a painless exit either. Just letting them starve slowly and painfully to death as have happened to multiple ill and disabled people in this situation (like Errol Graham and Mark Wood).
I couldn't fucking agree more on any point in the entire reddit universe. It has irreversibly detrimental effects on one's personality.
I witnessed so much domestic violence during my childhood that till today if I see a couple even remotely arguing about something it brings back all the trauma. It truly affected me in insurmountable ways.
Then people tell US adult children who cut off these less than basic parents to "fix" the relationship.
WE didn't fuck it up, THE PARENTS DID. THEY ARE RESPONSIBLE. **ESPECIALLY** WHILE THEIR CHILDREN ARE ACTUAL CHILDREN AND MINORS.
It pisses me off that people blame the children, even *adult* children when it's *parents who were in control and power during formative years*.
My mom just told me to give her another chance lol I said what the first 37 years of my life wasn’t enough chance and she goes I didn’t know that counted. Seriously I gave her like four years worth of warning about one boundary she insisted on crossing it over and over again. After my horrible childhood and young adult years and her still not being able to respect the one boundary I just had it.
Same story. Sometimes I still feel wracked with guilt about going NC. Then I remember why and it makes me feel terrible for other reasons. Yay childhood trauma
I did the same exact thing. My mom’s response was “I’m your mother, there’s no such thing as boundaries with your mother.” Well if that’s how you feel, you aren’t entitled to be a part of my life. Easy.
My one boundary was don’t give me advice about parenting. That’s it. She told me if I didn’t like her advice I could just ignore it. So I do I ignore her.
Agreed. I am in EMDR therapy right now, and before I could open the can of worms that is my ex husband, I had to spend a LOT of time speaking about my parents, how they parented and the religious trauma that they also threw in there. My therapist commented at our last session that we haven’t gotten to any memories of my ex husband yet. I said “Well, yeah I thought I need to lend some context as to how I ended up with the person I did.” He said “I validate that and I think that was very insightful of you.” 🤣
It has probably done the most overall damage in my life becsuse of how it impacted my parents parenting style. Plus, it heavily influenced who I married and why. If I had not been pressured into religion to earn my parents love, my life choices would have been a lot different.
Once I took a good look at my life, I hit a hard reset. Left the church I was raised in, left my husband, left my job of 20 years, and moved 3k miles away to get away from the religious influence. Doing that has brought me a lot more peace than I ever found in religon.
Worse than murder?
Corruption
It makes almost everyone's life worse so a select few can benefit, it's incredibly insidious and gets worse and worse over time, and it's almost impossible to get rid of without massive reform at every level.
Technically illegal in most countries but there's so many loopholes and exceptions that we see legalized corruption every day in the news.
As I understand it, if a judge or whoever accepts a bribe, he risks a sting or a bad deal that could send him to prison. So, you hire a middleman, who transfers the "bags full of money" while taking the risks, doing the dirty work, checking out the clients, etc. If this guy gets busted, he keeps his mouth shut, protecting the judge while knowing he has a friendly judge who will help him out.
You can buy an ETF that mirrors Rep Or Dem stock investments. They are trading symbols KRUZ and NANC. Both are doing very well. The latter is up 35 % in the last year, way above general market returns.
[Giving free baby formula to mothers in developing countries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Nestl%C3%A9_boycott), waiting for mothers' breast milk to dry out, and then jacking up the prices to gouge poor mothers who now have no other source of food for their infants. The result were long term health problems and even some deaths.
They didn’t even have to jack up the prices, baby formula is expensive *everywhere.* And if you buy the powdered formula, which is less expensive per ounce, you also need clean water to mix it into, which isn’t available in those communities. Coincidentally, nestle also sells clean drinking water in bottles… they got those poor families coming and going.
Their secret is to give new mothers a box of useful baby things and two containers of formula.
People that are frugal will say “why don’t I use the free formula since I can’t donate it” not realizing it will result in needing to buy formula.
During TFG’s first year in office, there was a meeting of the World Health Organization, and some small South American country- Ecuador IIRC- introduced a resolution to launch a Breast is Best campaign. It would pay for such advertising, prohibit baby formula from being advertised on TV, things like that. TFG’s US delegation threatened to withdraw military aid from Ecuador(?) unless they withdrew the resolution. They did. Other small countries were afraid to reintroduce the measure, knowing that they’d be threatened with the same.
Fucking *Russia* had to step in and introduce the resolution, which passed. When they did so, they issued a biting statement about how ‘it’s disgraceful when large, powerful countries throw their weight around and bully small countries who are just trying to do the right thing.’
Advertising baby formula is illegal here in the UK. Retailers aren't allowed to run promotions or offer loyalty card points on it either.
Advertising follow-up formula for slightly older kids is fine, though, so that's what they do.
Not to mention not all of these countries have safe water supplies so the babies may get diarrheal illness. I remember reading about this when I was researching breastfeeding my oldest and I swore no nestle ever again. Pure evil.
The medical industry as a whole that makes and lobbies to keep health care so expensive that it's estimated that over 45,000 americans die each year because of lack of health insurance and that's not even counting people who *do* have health insurance but it's so expensive to use they effectively don't have health insurance and die anyway, nor does it count the quality of life problems that aren't lethal which are associated with poor health care -- like waiting until a problem gets so bad that a limb has to be amputated when it could have been saved, or chronic conditions which are treatable but the treatments are too expensive for the person to actually take.
The population of a large town dead each year just to fuel billion dollar profits.
Teeth being classified as cosmetics should be criminal. Bad teeth is some of the worst pain you can experience and a rotten or infected tooth can kill you.
The US Military dental corp existed before the medical corp because dental problems were, by far, the biggest reason that soldiers were unfit for combat.
Yeah, look at where institution put their money where their mouth is.
Lots of military bros don’t believe in climate change. And yet, look at how much money the Navy is spending to ready their bases for raising sea levels.
I went into the Army and was your average kool-aid drinker for a bit. But then I left and returned to my normal self (after some mild alcoholism). My buddy joined the Navy and was a submariner and came back preaching that the earth is flat and that the climate is controlled by Zionists. I don’t know how someone who literally was on a vehicle that dove to depths to travel shorter distances could come back and tell us that the moon is a light in the sky and that NASA is guarding a circular wall of ice surrounding us.
Side note: the army wouldn’t let me go home on leave after my deployment because I had a cavity. I had to go off base (because the dentists were booked for months) and get my cavity filled, so that I could go home. They don’t fuck around with teeth! If you miss a dental appointment, you can lost rank.
Dental issues directly connect to other bodily issues so it is imperative to not dismiss dental care as "cosmetic".
My dentist office told me that an insurance could actually deny fixing a crown on a tooth that has started getting a decay if they think it is not necessary at that time based on xrays even though the dentist recommends it to avoid issues down the road or having to do a root canal. Isn't that some bs?
Dentist here. This is true. I have had a pre authorization approved, completed the work, then insurance refused to pay as “not large enough decay”.
Patient called insurance company to fight it and they said we billed the wrong code. There is one code to bill for a porcelain crown. Insurance companies commit fraud on a daily basis.
That's pretty common with health insurance too. A specialist with intimate knowledge of your health condition recommends a procedure or medication to improve your quality of life, and some pencil pushing insurance adjuster a thousand miles away is like "Nah. Have you tried just telling them to fuck off?"
Happened to me several times now. Sometimes the Dr will go to bat for you, sometimes they just give up.
I have a BRCA mutation, which means I'm stupid likely to get breast cancer, estimated 76% lifetime risk. The recommended thing is a prophylactic mastectomy. So I did that. I called insurance beforehand to see if it was approved and they said "we don't even require a prior auth for this. Your doc sent one but we just voided it and sent it back. You're all good to go." I just logged in to check my claims yesterday. The claim for the surgery was denied. $86k.
Exactly. Spouse had Stage 3 cancer and underwent Chemo and radiation treatment. In remission. Spouse needs a pet scan every 6 months to see if cancer returns. Doctor ordered 3rd pet scan (1 1/2 year scan), and insurance denied the scan because they said that spouse was not showing any "symptoms of recurrance". So you have to have symptoms to have a pet scan to see if the symptoms are cancer? So no symptoms, no cancer?
I spoke with insurance and repeated what they told me, so that they could absorb the utter stupidity of the response they gave. Submitted an appeal and won. Always, always appeal, no matter what.
People who know nothing, having authority to disallow a procedure should be told every time their insured dies because of their decision. Don't know how they would be able to live with themselves. Makes me sick.
Side note - cancer hasn't returned!
Good to hear!
In the vein of the meat of your post: it’s interesting how, when Universal Healthcare started gaining traction, how so many people talked about “death councils”? People, lead by that devil (/s) Obama, were going to deny people, leading to their deaths.
I always laughed; we already kinda had that. The insurance companies have been doing this for decades. Make things so unaffordable people either have to have endless medical debt, or go without.
I hate insurance and the medical system with a passion. Not the providers, they're generally good folks. But I have a chronic illness and am about 40k in debt that's all either directly medical or overspending to deal with the stuff insurance doesn't cover. I had to switch insurances on the 27th. I have an infusion that I need to have a reasonable quality of life on the 10th. My new insurance still hasn't authorized payment for it even though I've been getting them for 4+ years and without insurance it's $12k that I'll tack on to my medical debt. I'm really hoping insurance will come through but having a chronic illness that requires fancy meds, specialists, and hospital time in the US leaves a lot of us a step or two away from poverty and debtor's prisons (when they come back and given our current SCOTUS I don't expect it'll be too many more years until they make a comeback).
So is jaw procedures, I have TMJ eventually if I don't get it fixed my jaw will need to be wired shut and can make your teeth fall out. Old insurance said it counts as dental, dentists don't do surgery like that, you literally have to go to a surgeon which isn't covered by dental insurance but also not covered by regular insurance because it counts as dental. New insurance would only cover it after trying every other possible treatment like meds, injections, etc which again most places don't do. Getting insurance just for this issue has been hell, especially in a rural area.
As a pharmacy tech, I agreed. The price of medication to the consumer vs our cost is stupid! Don't even get me started on the markups the last few years on Epipens and Insulin. I am told I can lose my job if I search for coupons to help find lower prices for patients. Sorry my patients matter to me and by trying to lower the cost of the drug is patient care. When did that go away from healthcare system for the god Almighty dollar?
My wife just finished the main parts of breast cancer treatment, and she's racked up over $1m in bills in about 8 months. Thankfully my company offers incredible health insurance and we've barely had to pay out of pocket. The American Healthcare system is a joke.
Hope she gets well soon!
I thought it was always such bullshit that your quality or access to quality of care is based on the company you work for. Got into an argument with friends about this once and they said “if someone wants better healthcare they should find a different job.” They could never understand that your job should have nothing to do with it.
At least not in my opinion.
Real, my Aunt racked up such a high bill for her cervical cancer. She was incredibly anxious about it. This many bills while already being on disability was starting to get crushing. Thankfully, my parents helped her figure it out. She went to court and got the majority of that massive unpayable debt forgiven.
My narcolepsy prescription (without insurance) is 16k. Insane that narcolepsy medicine (while definitely a huge QOL improvement) costs that, much less medicine that treats something like leukemia. I hope your brother’s health improves.
Editing in case anyone is curious. The narcolepsy med is called [Xyrem](https://www.xyrem.com) - you can’t get it at a pharmacy and my copay is $35. The pharmaceutical company staffs nurses / pharmacists and is also the distributor of said medication (which is delivered to your door monthly). It’s absolutely insane.
It's not the medical industry. It's the Healthcare insurance industry that controls it. 45% of your premiums go off the top to profit.
Then they make decisions on how much they will cover yiu, cut you off in mid treatment and throw yiu to the curb with unplayable bills.
Fuck those asswipes.
Last year Dr. Glaucomflecken, usually a comedy guy, spent a month making videos about the American healthcare system from the perspective of healthcare professionals.
[It's utterly harrowing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp7u58R41N8&list=PLpMVXO0TkGpdvjujyXuvMBNy6ZgkiNb4W). The entire system, save for the people directly on the front lines, is actively trying to harm or kill you.
I am almost 40 and me and employer have been contributing thousands monthly on my behalf for health insurance for 20 or so years. Never had any issues until recently my knee started acting up. Went to get it checked out. (With health insurance). Ended up with a $500 bill after what insurance paid and a piece of paper with stretching exercises to do and a referral to go do physical therapy three times a week during business hours (which I have no time to do). After contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars to the system I get 5 minutes of a doctors time and a couple pieces of paper I could have gotten online and still had to pay $500. It’s disgusting. I can’t imagine what it’s like for people with real problems.
As a teenager, when I watched Breaking Bad for the first time. I didn't know about the screwed up US healthcare system which is "for profit" so I didn't really understand why Walt refused treatment and why he had to pay for his chemo out of pocket at that clinic or why his medical bills were such a big issue in the beginning of the show. Then I learned later on that "oh, that's just how the US healthcare system works".
This contrast of how healthcare works in the US vs different countries is greatly amplified due to my own experiences with it. I live in Canada and my grandfather (78 at the time) was diagnosed with stomach cancer. He was immediately recommended chemo and medication. In the United States, a person his age with cancer wouldn't even be considered worth saving due to the out of pocket cost most would have to pay for the same treatment and medication. Here in Canada, he received 1 1/2 years of chemo treatment, got all the medication he needed, had 2 ambulance rides, had in-patient care in 2 different hospitals for over 2 months before he eventually passed and we didn't pay a SINGLE thing. The only thing I had to pay for was parking whenever I visited him at the hospital. That's it.
It wasn't even an insurance thing. We just showed up at the hospital, we showed them his OHIP card (Ontario Health Insurance Plan) card, they gave him the chemo, we waited until it was done and we would just leave.
I remember maybe 20 years ago a high school science project created baby diapers from corn byproduct. The parent company of Pampers or Huggies bought the technology from the students and then buried it. Their plastic diapers were far too valuable to them to allow a natural competitor.
>How corporations are legal entities that can't go to jail.
God bless the USA, where a corporation is legally considered a "person", but if this "person" breaks the law, no one goes to jail.
My mother in law is a wonderful, loving person who has always struggled with money. Never has had credit and we found out she was consistently using payday loans.
When it would be brought up, I’d tease her a bit, and she’d laugh it off. Then when I found out that she was using them twice a month, I really looked at it and broke it down for her how much she was throwing away. Something like $35-$40 to get $150. Plus I explained how predatory the whole business model is.
A couple years later I’m happy to say she hasn’t stepped a single foot in a payday loan joint… because she found some company that gave her a “starter” credit card to build credit. Now she’s $6k in debt, spread across 3-4 cards on a fixed income.
The funny thing is she told us she was doing it. Once again we sat down and said, you don’t need credit in your situation, and this is a very slippery slope. Once we saw we weren’t changing her mind we explained how to build credit without going into debt. A lot of good that did.
It’s so fucking hard too. We sat down with her and told her what we went through, and what it took to get mostly debt free (everything but the house on one more loan we have down to $2k that we are snowballing), and it was like talking with a teenager that thinks they know everything.
“Please listen to us, we did this, we know the whole process. You fill up one, you get another offer in the mail and you take it, I mean it’s only another $30 a month. Then you do that 2 more times. Then when you run out of available funds the magic credit fairy shows up on 2 of those cards and says **hey you know what, you’ve been a great customer. You’ve only been late a handful of times, so we’re rewarding you with a higher limit because we love you**. And damned if you didn’t spend that extra couple grand in about a week.”
In one ear out the other and she did exactly that.
If you can, get her a secured credit card. It works like a normal credit card, but it's essentially a debit card, because you put in a pool of your own money to borrow against. You can't ever go into actual debt that way. If she's just constantly opening new cards, though, it might be for naught.
Either way, credit card debt is bad, but not as bad as payday loan debt, so she's a little better off.
One of the biggest scams these shitbag companies have successfully pushed is that if everyone just did their part (recycled) then we can save the environment when the reality is these same companies have the means to just stop what they are doing. But no, they shifted the responsibility to us somehow.
Big pharma price gouging, insurance companies intentionally taking advantage of uneducated people. Politicians who become millionaires by insider trading and kickbacks
Keeping euthanasia illegal in most countries. When someone is almost completely eaten up by cancer, why can’t people just let him/her go? To me it’s almost murder. I’m glad to live in a country that was one of the first to legalize it.
Death With Dignity laws were gaining traction here in US but seems to have been pushed by the wayside. I watch my brother die of cancer (no insurance as a side note) and I do not want ro live thru that. My wishes are known and hope that when the time comes, my physician will honor my wishes.
I watched my grandfather get ravaged by cancer and medications for 1.5 years. Everyone knew it was terminal, but they held him in pain for weeks before his body gave out in the end. He couldn’t even talk he was that messed up.
We have this where I live and I think it's great that people can choose when and where they will die. The ones I know who choose this, had suffered for years from cancer and/or heart disease. They just had enough.
Some idiot intern tried to heat an unopened can of tuna in the office I worked at one day. The can squirted tuna juice everywhere upon opening and the whole office reeked of plastic and tuna for two whole days. What a fucking idiot he was. Fuck you Bernard!
What’s the opinion of a plain old tuna fish sandwich. First day at my new job I got a tuna wrap from the cafeteria and brought it back to the break room. I was horrified after the fact that it was maybe a faux pas. No one said anything… but I feel like I’m probably “Big Tuna” at this point.
Certainly not legal in the western world but there are african tribes that mutilate the genitals of girls and women. It creates a life of pain for the victims.
Forcing female children (legally minor children) to give birth after they've been raped instead of letting them take a pill to avoid a lifetime of secondary trauma.
I think it was in TX where a prosecutor bragged that he was so good at his job that he even had convicted innocent people. ...I understand mistakes can happen but anyone who KNOWINGLY convicts innocent people makes me hope I am wrong and hell exists.
Corporations polluting the environment legally can lead to long-term health problems for entire communities. It's often overlooked but incredibly harmful.
Making your frail grandmother with osteoporosis a full code and insisting on CPR and intubation when her 99-year-old heart naturally gives out.
I watched my 90 year old step dad die for four days. He had two massive heart attacks and his ribs were crushed from CPR. He was never coming back, but my mom couldn't come to terms with the responsibility of taking him off intubation. I'm not angry with her, but I updated my will when I got home. I'm not putting my spouse in her situation. I want to die as quickly as I can.
Am not comparing my wee dog to your dad but when we had to take the wee shitty arse wean to the vet to get the old lethal injection ma dad was glad he took me rather that my wee sister cause she would have tried to keep wee Lexi the Lhasa Apso alive despite the fact she made properly fucked old people look alive. Don't get me wrong it took me 10 mins after it happened for me and ma dad to be able to talk but it was for the best, I fucking miss that wee shitty arse! She loved a bin, and if you remember corned beef in a tin? She loved that too! Ah shit am sad now, she was ma mums dog but mum died in like 2004 and wee Lexi was the last living part of ma mum to us(obviously ave got aunts and uncles and that, bit she was mum's wee dog haha) fucking upset now, am meant to be a gruff Scotsman not a bubbling wean haha !
>am meant to be a gruff Scotsman ... you don't say...
Lol, that dog made me a big girls blouse! She got lifted by the cops one night cause I was too drunk to answer the door... that wee dog spent a night in the cells and ave never even done that haha poor wee beast she was!
I truly am enjoying your remembrances of your wee Lexi. I'm sorry about her. Sadly, I had a cat I kept alive a little too long. She looked like the Crypt Keeper and creeped out my friends. It's hard to let go of those who you love. Anyhoosies, I could read your stories all day long. You should make a subreddit of your stories. I will totally be your first subscriber.
A sentence that has stuck with me forever I found reviewing a chart of someone who had been bounced between hospitals and nursing homes for over a year. They had a palliative care meeting and the doctor wrote that the patient may have an increased life expectancy with medical intervention, but that they will likely experience human-induced suffering in the name of care.
Well this is why DNR orders exist, but family members can sometimes over-ride them on the spot, which is messed up in its own right
Yep. I think everyone who tries this should have to watch a video of a real code.
A couple years ago I had an end-of-life-care conference with the family of an old man who had had a devastating brain injury due to lack of oxygen during a cardiac arrest. He was not brain dead, but he was in a persistent coma, and we could tell by the CT scan that he was never going to improve. I asked family if he had expressed any wishes for end-of-life care, and they said “he told us all the time that he wouldn’t want to be kept alive by machines, but I guess we’re just selfish and we want to keep him around, so keep doing everything you’re doing.” I said “No! He’s my patient, not you. You just told me in your own words that this is not what he wants. I’ll give you some time to say goodbye, but then I’m going to make him comfortable and take the breathing tube out.” I came back an hour later, transitioned him to comfort care, and he died immediately. None of the family members complained to anyone, and I didn’t get sued.
Good on you for being the "bad guy." None of the family wanted to be blamed for pulling the plug, even though they all knew it was the right thing to do. You took the hit for them, and made it easier. I'm sure it wasn't easier for you, but you probably kept the family intact in a way because of what you were willing to do.
My mom, an only child, struggled with this when her dad's time came. I explained to her that she's not making the decision to "let him die." Her job was to be the surrogate decision maker. She knew he didn't want a ventilator life because he'd watched his wife live on one for years. Helping her understand that she was just voicing a decision he had already made helped her be more at peace with terminal extubation I think.
Word. Many times ppl just need to understand “You’re not making the decision to end his life or take your loved one off of life support. They already made that choice. You’re showing how much you love them by honoring their wishes.”
I hate this stuff with a burning passion. It's been 4 or 5 years ago now but remember running a call at a nursing home (firefighter/emt) involving a 100 year old woman who was unconscious and nonresponsive. We walk in to her room and could tell she had passed sometime the night before but because she didn't have a DNR, medical.power of attorney, MOST form, etc and her family insisted on treating her as a full code we had to do CPR, including putting the Lucas on her and starting an IO and working the code for the full 30 minutes per protocol. By the time the 30 minutes were up her chest was as flat as a pancake and just mangled for no reason. Completely unethical treatment of this lady who had obviously died (hopefully peacefully) but her arrogant family refused to let her pass. I get not wanting to lose a family member, I get it, it truly truly sucks, but she was 100 years old and from what the hospice director at the nursing home told us her family barely even came to see her in the 2 years she had been there. Made me so mad we had to do that to her.
Dear God using the Lucas on a 100 year old is brutal 😭😭
We healthcare workers don’t *like* watching patients die. But when someone gets to the point where they are never going to get better and have given up themselves, it’s time to change the focus to comfort. Too many times I’ve seen family members fail to see this.
The way some people can fuck up their children's lives just because they are providing the bare minimum for their physical needs. There's so much abuse parents can get away with as long as their children are clothed and fed. Never mind the permanent emotional scarring they are inflicting.
some people shouldnt have kids
The old saying applies, “every kid deserves a parent, but not every parent deserves a kid”
My mother saw this first hand when she was working for DHS. The homes would be a little cluttered, the kids clothed and fed, but they flinched every time the parent even looked at them. When they came into the office she said the way they talked to their kids when they thought no one was listening made her shudder. This was years ago, and neglect/abuse did not include a verbal beat down.
I saw a video once of where dude couldn’t get a mortgage for a first time buyer on a house, because when he was 10 years old, his mom used his name when she got an eviction or something to that nature. 10 years old and she screwed up his credit and disqualified him for a mortgage from a bank. No doubt we are talking apples and oranges, but what seemed to be a young man starting out his own path in life, and his mom did some shit that got him hemmed up later.
That is technically illegal so not quite within the bounds of the OP, but still a terrible thing to do that many shitty parents do to their children. It is frighteningly easy for bad parents to fuck up their childrens credit scores for life.
It can also be fixed by certain agencies.
While it's illegal in order to clear your history, it requires a police report, which then requires an investigation. So most kids pay it.
I found out that my mother lied about being able to afford my college when I went to close an unused savings account with my mother’s name on it and was told I couldn’t because there was a 10k loan attached to it. Because her name was on the account, she didn’t need my signature. Apparently I had been getting letters about it, but she hid them. Especially the letters saying she had missed payments. My credit score is terrible because of her
Hope you contested and were successful.
I was not, unfortunately ETA two things The bank technically did nothing wrong. It’s shitty, but they technically did nothing wrong. There’s no point in getting a lawyer at this point. Without going into too much detail, my mother thought that paying off the loan would make me talk to her again. She was wrong.
I’d get a lawyer especially if you were not of legal age when this was done
Probably a letter from your attorney will cause the bank to do the right thing. You didn't take this loan and the bank is wrong for reporting negative information to the bureaus.
Definitely this. CPS can take your kids if they have visible bruises or broken bones, but you can hurl verbal and emotional abuse at them all day and they have no recourse. It's awful.
Correction: CPS is SUPPOSED to take your kids if they have visible bruises or broken bones. But most of the time… they don’t. Most of the time they never even hear about it, and then they only intervene on a certain percentage of those they do investigate.
And the small percentage they do take away the kids they focus strongly on reuniting the family even if the parents do little to zero to improve.
Hell cps came after I finally told independent 3rd party of the abuse at home. They came once. No follow-up. From them. No fallow up at my school. And there was physical bruises all up and down my body. Ands guess what. It didn't stop.
I’m so sorry. I feel your pain. I told SO many people over YEARS: doctors, teachers, friends parents... CPS never came.
I made a DHS report on my ex, when my daughter would come back from visits with broken bones and giant smack marks across her face. DHS said it was “unfounded” and the visits should continue.
Exactly. Verbal/emotional abuse is the underrated life screwer. Parents get off scott free, living out a nice retirement while the son is still single and childless in his 30s because of residual mental health issues that he'll never see any justice for.
100% the shit my mother put me through, took me 10 years, in my late 20s, to develop a sense of confidence.
My dad was a horrible abuser and severely neglected me and my siblings for around 21 years. He refused to even take us to a doctor and would punish us for being hungry. He bought us clothes once every couple years, so we were always wearing worn-down clothes with holes. CPS would never do anything because he did the absolute bare minimum and didn't leave bruises when he hit us. Needless to say we're all fucked up and have a lot of mental health issues. I'm the only one getting treated, but it's so expensive since I lost my insurance. Being mentally ill and in poverty is the most expensive and defeating situation someone can be in.
*Being mentally ill and in poverty is the most expensive and defeating situation someone can be in.* Physically ill, too. I'm going through cancer treatment and recently had a stroke. They stopped my disability benefits at my last assessment. I've got no money, I'm maxxed out on my overdraft, still getting bank changes, can't even afford food. 10 days wait for the food bank. All while being extremely unwell. And on top of this all of course I've developed depression and anxiety from being hungry all the time, worrying about becoming homeless and where my next meal will come from. People say "have you tried this," "have you tried that?" Yes I've tried everything, and I'm exhausted. Nothing gets better. You're right it's absolutely defeating and so expensive (constantly racking up bank charges on the overdraft with no way to pay it.) And knowing that it really isn't going to get any better, all the while hearing positive toxicity like "Just think positively! Things will improve for you!" So exhausting. I think societies need to accept the fact that for some people things won't get better, that we shouldn't have to suffer like this, and assisted suicide should be an option everywhere. So what's worse than murder? Forcing people to live in a situation like this - society not wanting to pay the living expenses of someone who is too ill/disabled to look after themselves, but not offering them a painless exit either. Just letting them starve slowly and painfully to death as have happened to multiple ill and disabled people in this situation (like Errol Graham and Mark Wood).
I couldn't fucking agree more on any point in the entire reddit universe. It has irreversibly detrimental effects on one's personality. I witnessed so much domestic violence during my childhood that till today if I see a couple even remotely arguing about something it brings back all the trauma. It truly affected me in insurmountable ways.
Then people tell US adult children who cut off these less than basic parents to "fix" the relationship. WE didn't fuck it up, THE PARENTS DID. THEY ARE RESPONSIBLE. **ESPECIALLY** WHILE THEIR CHILDREN ARE ACTUAL CHILDREN AND MINORS. It pisses me off that people blame the children, even *adult* children when it's *parents who were in control and power during formative years*.
My mom just told me to give her another chance lol I said what the first 37 years of my life wasn’t enough chance and she goes I didn’t know that counted. Seriously I gave her like four years worth of warning about one boundary she insisted on crossing it over and over again. After my horrible childhood and young adult years and her still not being able to respect the one boundary I just had it.
Same story. Sometimes I still feel wracked with guilt about going NC. Then I remember why and it makes me feel terrible for other reasons. Yay childhood trauma
I did the same exact thing. My mom’s response was “I’m your mother, there’s no such thing as boundaries with your mother.” Well if that’s how you feel, you aren’t entitled to be a part of my life. Easy.
My one boundary was don’t give me advice about parenting. That’s it. She told me if I didn’t like her advice I could just ignore it. So I do I ignore her.
Agreed. I am in EMDR therapy right now, and before I could open the can of worms that is my ex husband, I had to spend a LOT of time speaking about my parents, how they parented and the religious trauma that they also threw in there. My therapist commented at our last session that we haven’t gotten to any memories of my ex husband yet. I said “Well, yeah I thought I need to lend some context as to how I ended up with the person I did.” He said “I validate that and I think that was very insightful of you.” 🤣
Religious trauma is not talked about enough.
It has probably done the most overall damage in my life becsuse of how it impacted my parents parenting style. Plus, it heavily influenced who I married and why. If I had not been pressured into religion to earn my parents love, my life choices would have been a lot different. Once I took a good look at my life, I hit a hard reset. Left the church I was raised in, left my husband, left my job of 20 years, and moved 3k miles away to get away from the religious influence. Doing that has brought me a lot more peace than I ever found in religon.
What country are we talking about. Child marriages, slavery, marital rape are still legal in many countries
And female circumcision is making a comeback in some countries. WTF?
You misspelled mutilation
Worse than murder? Corruption It makes almost everyone's life worse so a select few can benefit, it's incredibly insidious and gets worse and worse over time, and it's almost impossible to get rid of without massive reform at every level. Technically illegal in most countries but there's so many loopholes and exceptions that we see legalized corruption every day in the news.
Where I lived in Maryland in the 80's it was widely known that you could buy any routine trial for $10K. Just had to know the bag man.
Can you define what the bag man is? And you’d contact him back then?
As I understand it, if a judge or whoever accepts a bribe, he risks a sting or a bad deal that could send him to prison. So, you hire a middleman, who transfers the "bags full of money" while taking the risks, doing the dirty work, checking out the clients, etc. If this guy gets busted, he keeps his mouth shut, protecting the judge while knowing he has a friendly judge who will help him out.
It’s the guy that collects illegal monies
Congressional stock trading in the U.S. Social Security should just invest for the rest of us in whatever Nancy Pelosi is buying.
You can buy an ETF that mirrors Rep Or Dem stock investments. They are trading symbols KRUZ and NANC. Both are doing very well. The latter is up 35 % in the last year, way above general market returns.
Corruption being illegal is funny because that's what corruption is, not following the rules and laws and playing dirty.
The fact that teeth aren’t considered a part of your body when it comes to healthcare. Same with eyes.
[Giving free baby formula to mothers in developing countries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Nestl%C3%A9_boycott), waiting for mothers' breast milk to dry out, and then jacking up the prices to gouge poor mothers who now have no other source of food for their infants. The result were long term health problems and even some deaths.
r/FuckNestle
yeah also buying up all the natural resources (water) and bottling it up and selling it. we’ve honestly fucked all the way up allowing that shit
They didn’t even have to jack up the prices, baby formula is expensive *everywhere.* And if you buy the powdered formula, which is less expensive per ounce, you also need clean water to mix it into, which isn’t available in those communities. Coincidentally, nestle also sells clean drinking water in bottles… they got those poor families coming and going.
Their secret is to give new mothers a box of useful baby things and two containers of formula. People that are frugal will say “why don’t I use the free formula since I can’t donate it” not realizing it will result in needing to buy formula.
And they STILL aggressively market baby formula in impoverished areas. Fuck Nestlé entirely.
During TFG’s first year in office, there was a meeting of the World Health Organization, and some small South American country- Ecuador IIRC- introduced a resolution to launch a Breast is Best campaign. It would pay for such advertising, prohibit baby formula from being advertised on TV, things like that. TFG’s US delegation threatened to withdraw military aid from Ecuador(?) unless they withdrew the resolution. They did. Other small countries were afraid to reintroduce the measure, knowing that they’d be threatened with the same. Fucking *Russia* had to step in and introduce the resolution, which passed. When they did so, they issued a biting statement about how ‘it’s disgraceful when large, powerful countries throw their weight around and bully small countries who are just trying to do the right thing.’
Might be the first time I've agreed with Russia in my life. Wtf twilight zone is this.
Yes they are correct hypocrites. Correct none the less.
Advertising baby formula is illegal here in the UK. Retailers aren't allowed to run promotions or offer loyalty card points on it either. Advertising follow-up formula for slightly older kids is fine, though, so that's what they do.
That’s crimes against humanity
Not to mention not all of these countries have safe water supplies so the babies may get diarrheal illness. I remember reading about this when I was researching breastfeeding my oldest and I swore no nestle ever again. Pure evil.
For profit medical insurance.Honestly the end result is often death but with added bonus of bankrupting the entire family.
The medical industry as a whole that makes and lobbies to keep health care so expensive that it's estimated that over 45,000 americans die each year because of lack of health insurance and that's not even counting people who *do* have health insurance but it's so expensive to use they effectively don't have health insurance and die anyway, nor does it count the quality of life problems that aren't lethal which are associated with poor health care -- like waiting until a problem gets so bad that a limb has to be amputated when it could have been saved, or chronic conditions which are treatable but the treatments are too expensive for the person to actually take. The population of a large town dead each year just to fuel billion dollar profits.
Teeth being classified as cosmetics should be criminal. Bad teeth is some of the worst pain you can experience and a rotten or infected tooth can kill you.
The US Military dental corp existed before the medical corp because dental problems were, by far, the biggest reason that soldiers were unfit for combat.
That’s a really interesting observation. The US military has definitely saved A LOT of teeth.
Yeah, look at where institution put their money where their mouth is. Lots of military bros don’t believe in climate change. And yet, look at how much money the Navy is spending to ready their bases for raising sea levels.
I went into the Army and was your average kool-aid drinker for a bit. But then I left and returned to my normal self (after some mild alcoholism). My buddy joined the Navy and was a submariner and came back preaching that the earth is flat and that the climate is controlled by Zionists. I don’t know how someone who literally was on a vehicle that dove to depths to travel shorter distances could come back and tell us that the moon is a light in the sky and that NASA is guarding a circular wall of ice surrounding us. Side note: the army wouldn’t let me go home on leave after my deployment because I had a cavity. I had to go off base (because the dentists were booked for months) and get my cavity filled, so that I could go home. They don’t fuck around with teeth! If you miss a dental appointment, you can lost rank.
Dental issues directly connect to other bodily issues so it is imperative to not dismiss dental care as "cosmetic". My dentist office told me that an insurance could actually deny fixing a crown on a tooth that has started getting a decay if they think it is not necessary at that time based on xrays even though the dentist recommends it to avoid issues down the road or having to do a root canal. Isn't that some bs?
Dentist here. This is true. I have had a pre authorization approved, completed the work, then insurance refused to pay as “not large enough decay”. Patient called insurance company to fight it and they said we billed the wrong code. There is one code to bill for a porcelain crown. Insurance companies commit fraud on a daily basis.
That last line needs to be said time and time and time again until people understand how true it is.
That's pretty common with health insurance too. A specialist with intimate knowledge of your health condition recommends a procedure or medication to improve your quality of life, and some pencil pushing insurance adjuster a thousand miles away is like "Nah. Have you tried just telling them to fuck off?" Happened to me several times now. Sometimes the Dr will go to bat for you, sometimes they just give up.
I have a BRCA mutation, which means I'm stupid likely to get breast cancer, estimated 76% lifetime risk. The recommended thing is a prophylactic mastectomy. So I did that. I called insurance beforehand to see if it was approved and they said "we don't even require a prior auth for this. Your doc sent one but we just voided it and sent it back. You're all good to go." I just logged in to check my claims yesterday. The claim for the surgery was denied. $86k.
Appeal this with the insurance company. Your doctor might also be able to appeal it for you.
Oh yeah, absolutely planning to.
Exactly. Spouse had Stage 3 cancer and underwent Chemo and radiation treatment. In remission. Spouse needs a pet scan every 6 months to see if cancer returns. Doctor ordered 3rd pet scan (1 1/2 year scan), and insurance denied the scan because they said that spouse was not showing any "symptoms of recurrance". So you have to have symptoms to have a pet scan to see if the symptoms are cancer? So no symptoms, no cancer? I spoke with insurance and repeated what they told me, so that they could absorb the utter stupidity of the response they gave. Submitted an appeal and won. Always, always appeal, no matter what. People who know nothing, having authority to disallow a procedure should be told every time their insured dies because of their decision. Don't know how they would be able to live with themselves. Makes me sick. Side note - cancer hasn't returned!
Good to hear! In the vein of the meat of your post: it’s interesting how, when Universal Healthcare started gaining traction, how so many people talked about “death councils”? People, lead by that devil (/s) Obama, were going to deny people, leading to their deaths. I always laughed; we already kinda had that. The insurance companies have been doing this for decades. Make things so unaffordable people either have to have endless medical debt, or go without.
I hate insurance and the medical system with a passion. Not the providers, they're generally good folks. But I have a chronic illness and am about 40k in debt that's all either directly medical or overspending to deal with the stuff insurance doesn't cover. I had to switch insurances on the 27th. I have an infusion that I need to have a reasonable quality of life on the 10th. My new insurance still hasn't authorized payment for it even though I've been getting them for 4+ years and without insurance it's $12k that I'll tack on to my medical debt. I'm really hoping insurance will come through but having a chronic illness that requires fancy meds, specialists, and hospital time in the US leaves a lot of us a step or two away from poverty and debtor's prisons (when they come back and given our current SCOTUS I don't expect it'll be too many more years until they make a comeback).
Funny how our eyes and teeth are somehow separate from our medical health...
So is jaw procedures, I have TMJ eventually if I don't get it fixed my jaw will need to be wired shut and can make your teeth fall out. Old insurance said it counts as dental, dentists don't do surgery like that, you literally have to go to a surgeon which isn't covered by dental insurance but also not covered by regular insurance because it counts as dental. New insurance would only cover it after trying every other possible treatment like meds, injections, etc which again most places don't do. Getting insurance just for this issue has been hell, especially in a rural area.
As a pharmacy tech, I agreed. The price of medication to the consumer vs our cost is stupid! Don't even get me started on the markups the last few years on Epipens and Insulin. I am told I can lose my job if I search for coupons to help find lower prices for patients. Sorry my patients matter to me and by trying to lower the cost of the drug is patient care. When did that go away from healthcare system for the god Almighty dollar?
My wife just finished the main parts of breast cancer treatment, and she's racked up over $1m in bills in about 8 months. Thankfully my company offers incredible health insurance and we've barely had to pay out of pocket. The American Healthcare system is a joke.
Hope she gets well soon! I thought it was always such bullshit that your quality or access to quality of care is based on the company you work for. Got into an argument with friends about this once and they said “if someone wants better healthcare they should find a different job.” They could never understand that your job should have nothing to do with it. At least not in my opinion.
Real, my Aunt racked up such a high bill for her cervical cancer. She was incredibly anxious about it. This many bills while already being on disability was starting to get crushing. Thankfully, my parents helped her figure it out. She went to court and got the majority of that massive unpayable debt forgiven.
My brother has leukemia and his chemo prescription is 15k a pop. It’s rediculous
Yep. $26k a dose for her chemo. Radiation was another $4k a day for 6 weeks. Surgery was about $300k. Good luck to your brother!
My narcolepsy prescription (without insurance) is 16k. Insane that narcolepsy medicine (while definitely a huge QOL improvement) costs that, much less medicine that treats something like leukemia. I hope your brother’s health improves. Editing in case anyone is curious. The narcolepsy med is called [Xyrem](https://www.xyrem.com) - you can’t get it at a pharmacy and my copay is $35. The pharmaceutical company staffs nurses / pharmacists and is also the distributor of said medication (which is delivered to your door monthly). It’s absolutely insane.
It's not the medical industry. It's the Healthcare insurance industry that controls it. 45% of your premiums go off the top to profit. Then they make decisions on how much they will cover yiu, cut you off in mid treatment and throw yiu to the curb with unplayable bills. Fuck those asswipes.
Last year Dr. Glaucomflecken, usually a comedy guy, spent a month making videos about the American healthcare system from the perspective of healthcare professionals. [It's utterly harrowing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp7u58R41N8&list=PLpMVXO0TkGpdvjujyXuvMBNy6ZgkiNb4W). The entire system, save for the people directly on the front lines, is actively trying to harm or kill you.
I am almost 40 and me and employer have been contributing thousands monthly on my behalf for health insurance for 20 or so years. Never had any issues until recently my knee started acting up. Went to get it checked out. (With health insurance). Ended up with a $500 bill after what insurance paid and a piece of paper with stretching exercises to do and a referral to go do physical therapy three times a week during business hours (which I have no time to do). After contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars to the system I get 5 minutes of a doctors time and a couple pieces of paper I could have gotten online and still had to pay $500. It’s disgusting. I can’t imagine what it’s like for people with real problems.
As a teenager, when I watched Breaking Bad for the first time. I didn't know about the screwed up US healthcare system which is "for profit" so I didn't really understand why Walt refused treatment and why he had to pay for his chemo out of pocket at that clinic or why his medical bills were such a big issue in the beginning of the show. Then I learned later on that "oh, that's just how the US healthcare system works". This contrast of how healthcare works in the US vs different countries is greatly amplified due to my own experiences with it. I live in Canada and my grandfather (78 at the time) was diagnosed with stomach cancer. He was immediately recommended chemo and medication. In the United States, a person his age with cancer wouldn't even be considered worth saving due to the out of pocket cost most would have to pay for the same treatment and medication. Here in Canada, he received 1 1/2 years of chemo treatment, got all the medication he needed, had 2 ambulance rides, had in-patient care in 2 different hospitals for over 2 months before he eventually passed and we didn't pay a SINGLE thing. The only thing I had to pay for was parking whenever I visited him at the hospital. That's it. It wasn't even an insurance thing. We just showed up at the hospital, we showed them his OHIP card (Ontario Health Insurance Plan) card, they gave him the chemo, we waited until it was done and we would just leave.
But think of the poor shareholders! How are they supposed to maintain their lifestyle if they aren’t exploiting the American people? /s
Burying scientific advancements due to greed.
I remember maybe 20 years ago a high school science project created baby diapers from corn byproduct. The parent company of Pampers or Huggies bought the technology from the students and then buried it. Their plastic diapers were far too valuable to them to allow a natural competitor.
I think medical science is amazing, but I'm worried how many diseases with treatments will ever get cures.
I had a client who would only email in bright blue comic sans
This should be on top
It could have been worse. It could have been bright yellow.
Exploiting workers in sweatshops, making them work in terrible conditions for little pay, is inhumane. It's legal in some places but utterly cruel.
How corporations are legal entities that can't go to jail.
>How corporations are legal entities that can't go to jail. God bless the USA, where a corporation is legally considered a "person", but if this "person" breaks the law, no one goes to jail.
Payday loans can drive people into a lifetime of perpetual debt and misery. A bullet to the head seems more humane.
My mother in law is a wonderful, loving person who has always struggled with money. Never has had credit and we found out she was consistently using payday loans. When it would be brought up, I’d tease her a bit, and she’d laugh it off. Then when I found out that she was using them twice a month, I really looked at it and broke it down for her how much she was throwing away. Something like $35-$40 to get $150. Plus I explained how predatory the whole business model is. A couple years later I’m happy to say she hasn’t stepped a single foot in a payday loan joint… because she found some company that gave her a “starter” credit card to build credit. Now she’s $6k in debt, spread across 3-4 cards on a fixed income. The funny thing is she told us she was doing it. Once again we sat down and said, you don’t need credit in your situation, and this is a very slippery slope. Once we saw we weren’t changing her mind we explained how to build credit without going into debt. A lot of good that did.
Predatory is too kind. Payday loans and credit cards' entre business model is dependent on bad decisions.
It’s so fucking hard too. We sat down with her and told her what we went through, and what it took to get mostly debt free (everything but the house on one more loan we have down to $2k that we are snowballing), and it was like talking with a teenager that thinks they know everything. “Please listen to us, we did this, we know the whole process. You fill up one, you get another offer in the mail and you take it, I mean it’s only another $30 a month. Then you do that 2 more times. Then when you run out of available funds the magic credit fairy shows up on 2 of those cards and says **hey you know what, you’ve been a great customer. You’ve only been late a handful of times, so we’re rewarding you with a higher limit because we love you**. And damned if you didn’t spend that extra couple grand in about a week.” In one ear out the other and she did exactly that.
If you can, get her a secured credit card. It works like a normal credit card, but it's essentially a debit card, because you put in a pool of your own money to borrow against. You can't ever go into actual debt that way. If she's just constantly opening new cards, though, it might be for naught. Either way, credit card debt is bad, but not as bad as payday loan debt, so she's a little better off.
Corporations destroying the environment for profit.
This is actually slow murder. We can stop it before it's too late, but corporations would like to frame it like it's *your* issue not them.
One of the biggest scams these shitbag companies have successfully pushed is that if everyone just did their part (recycled) then we can save the environment when the reality is these same companies have the means to just stop what they are doing. But no, they shifted the responsibility to us somehow.
Keeping family members alive in a vegetative state
Financially scamming elderly people out of their life savings is despicable. It leaves them vulnerable and can destroy their sense of security.
I'd love to visit one of their call centers in Bangladesh or India. Then just release like, I dunno, 5000 hornets.
OP said completely legal
Big pharma price gouging, insurance companies intentionally taking advantage of uneducated people. Politicians who become millionaires by insider trading and kickbacks
Keeping euthanasia illegal in most countries. When someone is almost completely eaten up by cancer, why can’t people just let him/her go? To me it’s almost murder. I’m glad to live in a country that was one of the first to legalize it.
Death With Dignity laws were gaining traction here in US but seems to have been pushed by the wayside. I watch my brother die of cancer (no insurance as a side note) and I do not want ro live thru that. My wishes are known and hope that when the time comes, my physician will honor my wishes.
I watched my grandfather get ravaged by cancer and medications for 1.5 years. Everyone knew it was terminal, but they held him in pain for weeks before his body gave out in the end. He couldn’t even talk he was that messed up.
We have this where I live and I think it's great that people can choose when and where they will die. The ones I know who choose this, had suffered for years from cancer and/or heart disease. They just had enough.
Being able to accept “donations” to your campaign to swing your vote. Our government is run by corporations. Not elected officials.
Charging obscene prices for basic necessities.
Rapists being given custody or visitation with their victims babies, and the victims having to pay child support.
Neglecting an elderly parent in a nursing home can be heartbreaking. They rely on you for care, and the neglect can lead to a lot of suffering.
Child marriage.
Completely legal? shrinkflation and they are on a roll now!
Dannon and Yoplait were 8oz just 20 years ago. been slowly shrinking every year
Having more kids than you can support, and having them perpetuate your shitty choices.
This - this is why I support access to healthcare, contraceptives, and access to abortion. To avoid exactly this.
Reheating leftover fish in the office microwave.
Some idiot intern tried to heat an unopened can of tuna in the office I worked at one day. The can squirted tuna juice everywhere upon opening and the whole office reeked of plastic and tuna for two whole days. What a fucking idiot he was. Fuck you Bernard!
I, too, wish to say "Fuck you" to Bernard.
What’s the opinion of a plain old tuna fish sandwich. First day at my new job I got a tuna wrap from the cafeteria and brought it back to the break room. I was horrified after the fact that it was maybe a faux pas. No one said anything… but I feel like I’m probably “Big Tuna” at this point.
Certainly not legal in the western world but there are african tribes that mutilate the genitals of girls and women. It creates a life of pain for the victims.
Not just pain, but unable to have an orgasm. They do it so the women won't run away with another man. Sickening.
Far from being only "African tribes".
Forcing a woman to be an incubator for a fetus that’s dying or already dead.
Similarly, forcing a woman to stay pregnant until they get sick enough to almost die before allowing a needed abortion.
Forcing female children (legally minor children) to give birth after they've been raped instead of letting them take a pill to avoid a lifetime of secondary trauma.
That's disgusting even if the mother is not a minor
Baby Jesus wants you to go into septic shock, the Bible says so! (/s just in case it isn't obvious)
Or send women to jail because of a miscarriage.
Fostering children for the income
Seen it up close. Pretty cold blooded business.
Allowing unchecked corporate greed.
Denying education to vulnerable populations.
Political lobbying
Monopolizing grocery stores then jacking up the food prizes to make record profits while everyone else struggles to get a meal...
No term limits for Congress & Supreme Court.
letting poor ppl die on the streets freezing to death in the winter bc they are poor
Betraying someone's trust and ruining their life can feel worse than murder. The emotional scars can last forever.
For profit prisons
The exploitation of indigenous lands for resource extraction without consent or adequate compensation.
Allowing unsafe consumer products on the market.
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“These walls are funny. First you hate 'em, then you get used to 'em. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them. That's institutionalized."
"get busy living, or get busy dying"
I think it was in TX where a prosecutor bragged that he was so good at his job that he even had convicted innocent people. ...I understand mistakes can happen but anyone who KNOWINGLY convicts innocent people makes me hope I am wrong and hell exists.
Corporations polluting the environment legally can lead to long-term health problems for entire communities. It's often overlooked but incredibly harmful.
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Allowing child exploitation in entertainment.
The sale of ineffective or dangerous alternative m
Continuously bribing the Federal government to prevent a single payer healthcare system.