Healthcare is is what will bring down this country.

It is the far rights free-market fetishization, demonizing socialized medicine, and fixation with absurd "bootstrap" mythology that is creating this healthcare crisis. No other wealthy developed western country is having these insane and thoroughly fixable problems.

We have more bankruptcy's due to healthcare costs than any other country. And the overwhelming majority of those bankruptcies are people WITH health insurance.

It's not a matter of if a crisis will effect your family but when. And, no, income will not protect you unless you're a mid to high six figure earner.

Right wingers are delusional magical thinkers just wishing it won't effect them. Especially since most of these morons are dead broke.

Look. I earn six figures. We have excellent insurance. But one random diagnosis and we faced $400K in bills in just five months. Luckily we could sell a property, but that hurt and effected retirement and savings significantly. And there are no guarantees it won't happen again.

I'm also paying nearly $9K a month to take care of my elderly parents and in-laws (in they 80's) - all insured with high retirements savings but need 24hr care in dementia care facilities. The nest step is spending down their estates and get on medicare in cut rate shit hole facilitates not fit for a dog. This is not a worry 100 miles away in Canada. But I guess our border projects some kind of voodoo that prevents socialized healthcare from working here.

So. Anyway. I'm rich. On paper I'm the ideal republican business owner with money, property, savings and sound investments.

And it's not enough when it comes to healthcare costs.

Unless you're really rich your savings will not protect you. When you get old you will get sick and you will lose everything to an insane market system that is only getting worse.

This is the insanity. That even high earners think the same market approach will magically future work. It won't.

That's your future, Rightwingers. Die in poverty and sickness. But god forbid you pay a pittance more in taxes so that children won't die of cancer.

@1: your niggardly opinion of your fellow countrymen is noted.

@3 Max Solomon: Thank you.
@3 Dr Zaius: Thank you for pointing out that an overwhelming majority of Republican right wingers and corporations---i.e.: business owners who refuse to pay their share of taxes, let alone pay their employees what they're worth and then have the audacity to make them work when they're sick--and parents who refuse to vaccinate their kids "for religious reasons" brought so much of this current needless flu epidemic on.

@3 Max Solomon: Thank you.

@6: Check out @3 instead.

You'd think the conservative fear of uncleanness and the conservative love of being personally served would combine to mean a fear of contagious service, but apparently the logical step is not made.

@3 I think you mean his Fascist contempt for his fellow American is noted.
@1 Yes, most problems in America can be blamed on the wealthy, and the politicians they have bought and paid for. Especially where healthcare is concerned, the answer is, as with so many things, Socialism.

As someone presently working despite hacking up foulness every morning and evening, thank you for having some empathy and sanity on this topic when so many on the right side of the aisle refuse to, Dr.Zaius.

I would stay home because I don't want to get my colleagues sick, but when taking any time off has a substantial hit to my paycheck, it's not really an option. Nor is going to see a doctor, who will charge me hundreds of dollars in an office visit to prescribe me an antibiotic that costs $10. And when all of my time off each year is already reserved for the holiday furlough and what few holidays I feel I can't just take off without pay, I can't afford to take time off from work in any way.

I don't even remember what it's like to take a vacation anymore; I'm not rich enough - in terms of money, health, or time - to take one.

It really is sort of crazy how stupid people are. I was at a restaurant this afternoon and some idiot customer was coughing and sneezing up a storm, no tissue, no covering her mouth, nothing. I just turned tail and left.

Fortunately, the flu only kills three groups: the weak, the stupid and the unlucky. The rest of us are safe.

Yeah, it’s all the governments fault that the general public gets the flu. Let’s face it, humans are disgusting filthy animals that don’t wash their hands, deficate, spit and blow wherever they stand, don’t clean up after themselves, go to work and out into the public sick, and don’t get recommended flu shots for themselves and their kids, let people live on the streets, and then gripe that it’s someone else’s fault. 4,000 in a week? Really-seems kind of like a nice round number doesn’t it? The 1918 Spanish Flu killed millions including almost a million in the US alone so comparatively speaking, we are doing pretty good - for now. I think the thing to remember is that no man, no government or agency can fully overcome nature when the population just doesn’t care until they need hooked up onto a respirator and the media come ups with a nice round number that is questionable at best. I think The Stranger provided a great example of why communicable diseases spread so quickly.

https://www.facebook.com/strangerseattle…

The numbers might be skewed a bit as well. An ED nurse friend of mine told me that if someone dies after admittance to a hospital with flu symptoms, whatever the reason, the flu is included in cause of death. So heart attack, stroke, trauma...you name it. It’s all added to the flu death tally by the CDC.

Also, is the flu really a partisan issue? Please. Show some restraint.

@16 " is the flu really a partisan issue?"

Healthcare is not a partisan issue? time to pull your head of your rectum, Muppet.

@16:

And of course we're expected to just take it on-faith that you: A.) know an ED nurse; B.) were actually told what you say you were told, and; C.) that this is in fact what happens. So, just blind acceptance without a shred of empirical, factual evidence, because, "somebody I know said so".

Seriously, this isn't even a very good use of the "Argument from Authority" logical fallacy. Please try to do better next time.

Contagious Service! It's now a thing. Spread it. To the rich. (<3 @8)

@17. Who said the 4000 a week don’t have health insurance?

@18. He’s actually my best friend, an ex army medic, and I believe him implicitly if he tells me a piece of information that has to do with his charting.

I really don’t care if you believe me, you’re a fucking imbecile. If you care that much, do the research yourself. I’ll take my friends info in good faith.

So does anyone have any reliable stats on how many people in Seattle are dying of the flu each week? That's immediately relevant to me and most of us here.

Do we need to start wearing medical face masks in public? HOW BAD IS IT??

(@21 - Confidential to muffy, Comte is definitely not an imbecile.)