<story><title>Amazon destroys $1.5m of sellers inventory – now homeless</title><url>https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/ruined-my-life-after-going-all-in-on-amazon-a-merchant-says-he-lost-everything-20201028-p5697l.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tomp</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t understand why people like you keep ranting about &amp;quot;universal healthcare&amp;quot; when obviously about 50% of your country so strongly opposes it that I think it&amp;#x27;s sooner that hell freezes than US getting social healthcare.&lt;p&gt;Instead, why don&amp;#x27;t you propose alternative solutions? E.g. in Switzerland, it&amp;#x27;s illegal for your healthcare to be paid by the company, and also it&amp;#x27;s obligatory to have healthcare insurance (probably the country pays for it if you&amp;#x27;re poor). That way, you establish a thriving and competitive health insurance market, forcefully eliminate all the benefits corporations get that are unavailable to individuals, and also align interests (because individuals will be in the middle of money flow, they&amp;#x27;ll have a vested interest in getting fairly- and transparently-priced health services). This would solve most of the problems US healthcare system has, while not triggering any anti-big-government sentiments.</text></item><item><author>DoreenMichele</author><text>Yeah, you know, when people keep saying &amp;quot;You aren&amp;#x27;t as far from being homeless as you imagine you are&amp;quot; this is what they mean. Just because &lt;i&gt;your&lt;/i&gt; life has not come unraveled overnight doesn&amp;#x27;t mean it can&amp;#x27;t for reasons beyond your control having nothing to do with personal virtues or lack thereof.&lt;p&gt;We really need to get universal health care in the US, among other things, to limit how far people can fall when something crazy happens. We are making it far too easy to fall and far too hard to come back from it and this is why we also see headlines about how society is coming unraveled and the like.&lt;p&gt;Please don&amp;#x27;t see this as some bizarre statistical outlier. Many homeless people were solidly middle class at one time and then things came apart and we are terrible about actively making it unnecessarily harder than it should be to get back on their feet.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>thedufer</author><text>&amp;gt; I don&amp;#x27;t understand why people like you keep ranting about &amp;quot;universal healthcare&amp;quot; when obviously about 50% of your country so strongly opposes it that I think it&amp;#x27;s sooner that hell freezes than US getting social healthcare.&lt;p&gt;Maybe you mean something different than what I think of when I hear &amp;quot;universal healthcare&amp;quot; - could you share some data on that?  The proposed Medicare For All policy, for example, is supported by around 70% of the US, including a (admittedly thin) majority of Republicans[1].  The problem isn&amp;#x27;t popular support, it&amp;#x27;s getting politicians to do what their constituents want.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reuters.com&amp;#x2F;investigates&amp;#x2F;special-report&amp;#x2F;usa-election-progressives&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reuters.com&amp;#x2F;investigates&amp;#x2F;special-report&amp;#x2F;usa-elec...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Amazon destroys $1.5m of sellers inventory – now homeless</title><url>https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/ruined-my-life-after-going-all-in-on-amazon-a-merchant-says-he-lost-everything-20201028-p5697l.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tomp</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t understand why people like you keep ranting about &amp;quot;universal healthcare&amp;quot; when obviously about 50% of your country so strongly opposes it that I think it&amp;#x27;s sooner that hell freezes than US getting social healthcare.&lt;p&gt;Instead, why don&amp;#x27;t you propose alternative solutions? E.g. in Switzerland, it&amp;#x27;s illegal for your healthcare to be paid by the company, and also it&amp;#x27;s obligatory to have healthcare insurance (probably the country pays for it if you&amp;#x27;re poor). That way, you establish a thriving and competitive health insurance market, forcefully eliminate all the benefits corporations get that are unavailable to individuals, and also align interests (because individuals will be in the middle of money flow, they&amp;#x27;ll have a vested interest in getting fairly- and transparently-priced health services). This would solve most of the problems US healthcare system has, while not triggering any anti-big-government sentiments.</text></item><item><author>DoreenMichele</author><text>Yeah, you know, when people keep saying &amp;quot;You aren&amp;#x27;t as far from being homeless as you imagine you are&amp;quot; this is what they mean. Just because &lt;i&gt;your&lt;/i&gt; life has not come unraveled overnight doesn&amp;#x27;t mean it can&amp;#x27;t for reasons beyond your control having nothing to do with personal virtues or lack thereof.&lt;p&gt;We really need to get universal health care in the US, among other things, to limit how far people can fall when something crazy happens. We are making it far too easy to fall and far too hard to come back from it and this is why we also see headlines about how society is coming unraveled and the like.&lt;p&gt;Please don&amp;#x27;t see this as some bizarre statistical outlier. Many homeless people were solidly middle class at one time and then things came apart and we are terrible about actively making it unnecessarily harder than it should be to get back on their feet.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wil421</author><text>You are looking at the healthcare coverage problem and you think it’s the only issue. Coverage is a big problem for some but not the biggest problem.&lt;p&gt;The biggest issue is arguably billing and pricing. You have no idea how much something will cost until it’s done. Medicade is paying over 80% more for prescription drugs than the EU.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; In 2016 the U.S. spent 18% of its GDP on healthcare, whereas the next highest country (Switzerland) devoted 12% of its GDP to healthcare. The average amount spent on healthcare per person in comparable countries ($5,198) is half that of the U.S. ($10,348).&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; The average price per coronary bypass surgery in the U.S is 129% more than Switzerland’s next-highest average.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; In 2014, the U.S. performed more MRI exams than most similarly wealthy countries at an average price of $1,119 per MRI. This was 42% more than the average price in the United Kingdom, 122% more than the average price in Switzerland, and 420% more than the average price in Australia.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; While fewer appendectomies are performed on average in the United Kingdom compared to the U.S., the price per surgery in the U.S. is $15,930 – nearly double the price in the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, in Australia and Switzerland, where far more appendectomies are performed on average than in comparable countries, the price of each surgery is even less, at only $3,814 in Australia and $6,040 in Switzerland.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.healthsystemtracker.org&amp;#x2F;chart-collection&amp;#x2F;how-do-healthcare-prices-and-use-in-the-u-s-compare-to-other-countries&amp;#x2F;#item-the-average-price-of-an-angioplasty-or-bypass-in-the-u-s-is-higher-than-in-comparable-countries&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.healthsystemtracker.org&amp;#x2F;chart-collection&amp;#x2F;how-do-...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>