Coronavirus, Covid 19 Discussion and How It Has Affected Your Daily Life Chat Thread

[HenOnAJuneBug]

Is this a wild guess? This is what the media here wrote: The number of COVID-19 infections in Italy has grown from four to more than two hundred in just four days. How exactly the situation could escalate in a short time is still unclear, for which the Italian authorities are diligently looking for 'patient zero'.

They Never found the person who brought Corona to the North of Italy.

Call it an educated guess. There are something like 300,000 Chinese in Italy, some portion of which are working on the BRI, who are probably traveling back and forth to China on a regular basis. No other country in Europe has that relationship with China. But Iran does, another hot spot. There's a religious school in Qom, where the outbreak started, and 300 Chinese students attend there. Also, Qom is a transportation hub between Iran and China for their BRI projects.

 

[Molpet]

We shop once a month too because I can't stand shopping. Probably the only woman who hates shopping

Nope not alone
I hate shopping and shop monthly
My cousin hates shopping, but her husband goes weekly

 

[Chickenclaude]

When I ran a child care center, we wiped down counters, diaper changing centers with a solution of 1teaspoon bleach to a qt of water. That was from the state health department. I would not use that without a gloved hand for any length of time. Even that is very drying.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

And medicare for all wouldn't exactly be perfect either, because taxes would be raised -- probably quite a bit -- in order to pay for the medicare that's being distributed to everyone. And "everyone" is not necessarily working as hard as you. In short, others would profit from your hard work while they themselves did nothing.

I have bad news for you about regular health insurance.
It already works that way, you just pay to line CEO pockets too.
And emergency care for poor people already comes out of your taxes and is more expensive than paying for them to have preventative care.

 

[Chickenclaude]

Nope not alone
I hate shopping and shop monthly
My cousin hates shopping, but her husband goes weekly

Ahhh...kindred spirits .

 

[FortCluck]

Nope not alone
I hate shopping and shop monthly
My cousin hates shopping, but her husband goes weekly

I now do pick up I can't handle grouchy people. I'll run them over with my cart. Sam's club has bigger carts

 

[blackandtan]

To me, that's the problem with Obamacare. Medicare for all is a much more radical step. I don't know enough about the complexities of our system to understand beyond: medicare for all cuts out the middle man (the health insurance companies). Health insurance companies would still exist, but they'd be for elective procedures. Everyone would have the amount of care required to keep them healthy and alive. It wouldn't be free, we would still have tax dollars pay hospitals and doctors and all that, but there wouldn't be an extra person to pay. Obviously insurance companies have to bring in a lot more money than they give out, in order to exist. That's not a good business model when lives are on the line, and nobody is regulating how much they can charge for things.

From what I understand, the current system is basically money laundering. Insurance companies tell hospitals what to charge for things, for example, $50 for a box of tissue paper, $100 for a bottle of Tylenol. Then they say to the patient, don't worry, we'll cover you... hey look at how much money you saved? But they were the ones who overinflated the price to begin with. And their deductibles make it so the patient is paying more than enough to cover the ACTUAL costs, so their premiums are really just lining the insurance companies pockets. Is that mostly correct? Again, I know just enough about this system to notice it seems corrupt, but I don't know any real details.

I’m very happy to be Canadian! We have universal healthcare and within the next year or two, even if it’s a little longer, we’ll also have pharmacare and dental

 

[Chickenclaude]

I have bad news for you about regular health insurance.
It already works that way, you just pay to line CEO pockets too.
And emergency care for poor people already comes out of your taxes and is more expensive than paying for them to have preventative care.

We have “for profit” healthcare., insurance, hospitals. Right now, your health insurance premiums are high because you are ALREADY paying for the uninsured (at much higher costs), and rural hospitals are closing because they are struggling with the costs of the uninsured. Medicare is THE most cost effective insurer who needs to improve the fees they now pay providers...we went from a group plan monthly cost of just under $900 a month to less than $400 for both of us a month. It COSTS US LESS THAN HALF each month with a $1300 deductible.

 

[Rooapalooza]

I don't want to upset anyone by saying this -- though I probably will -- but even if the government reforms the medical system, I don't think that the cost would be reduced so that everyone can afford it. A medical system where every person can afford everything that they need would be a perfect system -- and there are few, if any, perfect things in this world, because it is a fallen world. And medicare for all wouldn't exactly be perfect either, because taxes would be raised -- probably quite a bit -- in order to pay for the medicare that's being distributed to everyone. And "everyone" is not necessarily working as hard as you. In short, others would profit from your hard work while they themselves did nothing.
The world's systems and its people are flawed. No matter how hard people try, there will always be corruption. Always. All we can do is try to survive as best as we can while helping the people around us. Not everyone will be saved, but we can try our best to improve things for those around us.
Anyway, with that little rant over with, sorry if I offended anyone with my post. Be careful of the coronavirus, everyone.

You definitely aren't offending me ! I think it's really important to talk about stuff like this. Democracy dies in darkness and all that.

I agree that other people might not work as hard as me, they might also be worse than me (there are a lot of types of bad people in the world). Of course, I'm neither the hardest working nor the best person I know. I sometimes struggle with this, but I believe that I still have a right to be alive. I wouldn't look at another person and say, "You aren't adding enough to this world, you shouldn't be able to get healthcare." Our system currently does do that, except it's worse, because having a lot of money is not an indicator of how good a person you are or whether you benefit society.

If we have to start judging people as worthy or unworthy of life and health, I would say my trash man and local cashier are more valuable members of society than the average celebrity or most politicians. Their healthcare and life expectancies do not reflect this.

I don't make that much money now. I still give to charity. I pay my taxes. I would be HAPPY to pay more taxes if they went towards things like healthcare, and not towards things like war and lining rich people's pockets. If I'm not willing to invest in the health and well-being of everyone around me, and everyone that will come after me, then what is the point of life? I don't even care what someone has done. If you are a murderer, I will still happily pay taxes to provide you healthcare. It's about how I believe in treating other people; it's a fact about me, not them.

I can't guess whether or how medicare for all would be corrupted. I KNOW what we have now is corrupt. There's no excuse not to fix it, especially considering that other countries do have national health services, and they are objectively more successful than what we have. Cuba is a third world country, and they have longer life expectancies than us. This should be humiliating to the people in our government, but they have been paid enough to have no shame. America has 5x the rate of maternal death compared to any other developed country, etc, etc.

When I was teaching, I worked in a grocery store in the summers. You would not believe how many of little older ladies working with me were missing teeth. They were good people; one of them was a retired lady who had to work because she was caring for her elderly parents. I'm not going to list all their stories, but trust me, they were very sympathetic. I myself needed a root canal at some point... it would have cost almost a month of my teaching salary. I'm lucky enough that after putting it off (it's extremely painful) for months, I was finally able to drive down to Mexico and get the procedure for about $100.

Our healthcare system is excellent if you are rich. It's worse than a third world country's if you are poor. To me, we already are in disaster mode. How many people will have to become homeless due to medical debt before people start to notice something is wrong?

 

[Rooapalooza]

We need non-profit insurance companies; I think they're called co-ops. There's something like that where members pay into a pool and costs are paid out of that. Can't remember what they're called.

My parents used to use one called the Christian Brotherhood. They liked it until something went wrong. I'll have to ask my mom if she can remember. It was like thirty years ago so who knows.